Coming Home To Roost

After years of anti-everything activists putting the kibosh on every project that would provide more energy here in New England, the fruits of those efforts are finally making themselves known and not in a good way.

A much needed natural gas pipeline – the Kinder Morgan pipeline from Pennsylvania – was blocked, meaning readily available and less expensive natural gas will not be coming into New England. That means it is dependent upon natural gas coming from overseas, with much of it coming from countries hostile to the US, specifically Yemen and Russia. Can the activists who killed the pipeline explain to us how natural gas from halfway around the world from unreliable sources is somehow better than natural gas from Pennsylvania? I remember one such anti-pipeline activist complaining about the proposed pipeline, dismayed that “the only reason they want to build the pipeline is to make money”. Excuse me?

Why does any business do anything? It isn’t to go bankrupt. It has to make money in order to stay in business. If they have stockholders, then it has to make money, make a profit in order to meet the expectations of stockholders: generate income for those same stockholders.

What some of those same anti-pipeline activists didn’t realize (or chose to ignore) is that natural gas is used to generate electricity, not just heat homes and businesses.

Then there’s two different but related power line projects that would have brought thousands of megawatts of green electricity into New England from Quebec that have been blocked. Or should I say one has been blocked and another is on the brink of being blocked.

The Northern Pass Project would have brought a power line from Hydro Quebec through New Hampshire and into central Massachusetts. From there it would be directed wherever it was needed in New England by ISO New England. But opposition to the power line, even after changes were made to place them underground in some locations in deference to those who were dismayed about the new power line cutting across the more scenic areas of the northern part of New Hampshire, was fierce. In the end, the opponents won and the project was dead and those thousands of megawatts of electrical power were not going to come to New England.

The Central Main Power Project in Maine was the second attempt to get those thousands of megawatts of power into New England. Again, the power line would run into central Massachusetts and the power would be distributed/controlled by ISO New England. But again opposition to the project has been working to block it. A ballot initiative to make the project illegal ex post facto passed in November and its status is up in the air even though a lot of work had already been done as part of the construction progress.

The permanent shutdown of some existing powerplants and new electrical sources being being blocked even as the demand for electricity has been growing has put New England in an energy bind. In fact, ISO New England has warned that rolling blackouts could become necessary over the winter if the wrong conditions occur.

New England power grid operators are warning of the small but potentially disastrous possibility of rolling winter blackouts for New England under certain circumstances.

Such a move would depend on the weather and an energy supply chain being described as "fragile."

"We can keep the lights on in the wintertime with the current resource base, as long as something bad doesn't happen,” Gordon Van Welie, CEO of ISO New England, said in 2016.

For years now, Van Welie has issued the same warning. He says the regional power grid is vulnerable to a winter one-two punch of an extended cold snap combined with an interruption in supply or power generation. The result would be rolling blackouts in frigid temperatures.

--snip--

Today, Van Welie says the danger is even more significant.

"Because we have some 2,000 megawatts fewer firm resources on the system,” Van Welie said.

Considering it can get well below zero here in New England, such blackouts can be potentially dangerous even if they occur for only an hour or two. If the natural gas pipeline had been built or the Northern Pass project had been completed, that ‘missing’ 2000 megawatts would already have been replaced.

What I have found ironic is that a number of folks I know who were against the projects have also been complaining about their their electricity bills and how much they’ve gone up. (Some folks are seeing a 50% increase in their rates for the winter. Not that they were all that low before then.)

What’s even more ironic (or maybe moronic) is that many of those same folks seem to think renewables like wind and solar can make up that deficit easily. (Note: We don’t have anywhere near that capacity here in New England.) However, they apparently didn’t see what happened in Texas last winter (most of the wind turbines were offline because of the cold temps and ice buildup on the turbine blades so they couldn’t provide power to make up for some of the natural gas plants being offline due to frozen valves and pumps) or similar problems seen in Europe.

I wonder if the anti-everything activists will ever make the connection between their ‘wins’ and that they’re sitting in the dark on a cold winter night?

Probably not.

Thoughts On A Sunday

I don’t know about any of you, but I have almost finished my Christmas shopping. I have only one gift left to buy, that one being for the WP Mom. I always save that one for last because she’s not easy to buy for. Then again, I have a feeling a lot of people have the same problem buying Christmas gifts for their moms. What do you get someone who already has everything?

I certainly saw more than a few folks hitting the various shops in beautiful downtown Wolfeboro yesterday. I had decided not to hit the ‘traditional’ stores for Christmas shopping, choosing to patronize some of our local shops instead. It was certainly more interesting as I saw a lot of potential gifts I wouldn’t have found elsewhere. It made shopping for Katy a little easier. A little.

==+==

I attended a meeting at our local ski resort to see a presentation about their plans to expand. From reading some of the stories in our local newspaper about a clash between the county delegation-appointed commission responsible for the ski resort and the county delegation about the proposal, I expected a hostile crowd.

It was anything but.

After the commission presented the plans for the proposed expansion, everyone was enthusiastic. Our ski area has had some pretty good seasons over the past five winters, even with less than perfect weather. (We had one winter that was warmer than usual which meant rain rather than snow part of the time. Another winter was much colder than normal which meant there were some days when the slopes were closed due to the extremely dangerous wind chills.) We saw record numbers last winter despite Covid. But with other ski areas doing upgrades to their lifts, adding slopes and more snowmaking, improving customer amenities and other improvements, maintaining the status quo at ours isn’t an option.

It will be interesting to see how it turns out.

==+==

It is no surprise the Ninth Circus Court has decided to ignore Heller vs District of Columbia and uphold a ban on “high capacity” magazines (which in most states are standard capacity magazines).

I have no doubt that this case - Duncan v. Bonta - will end up in front of the US Supreme Court to have it overturn the Ninth Circuit Court, the most overturned court in the US. (That right there should tell us something.)

==+==

It is obvious to anyone paying even the smallest amount if attention that the DNC-MSM propaganda machine is cranking up the fear-mongering about the latest Covid variant, Omicron. To hear them tell it this variant worst variant yet, spreading a lot faster than Delta.

It doesn’t matter that the reality as seen in the South African reports that it is a much milder variant than the previous variants. (Delta was milder than the previous variants even though it spread easier, something seen with most viruses.) There were no reported hospitalizations due to Omicron in South Africa. (I believe Omicron was also discovered in Europe, in Belgium I think, and the same observations were made – it is a much milder variant than Delta.)

But the media is playing this as if people are in danger of dropping dead in the streets unless we double down on the same measures that we already know don’t work and surrender even more of our rights to our ‘betters’.

It never ends.

==+==

It’s all Fred Flintstone’s fault.

It appears a Stone Age civilization collapsed due to climate change.

A Stone Age Chinese civilization known as Liangzhu collapsed as a result of climate change, according to new research published last Wednesday in the peer-reviewed journal Science Advances.

The researchers, led by geologists Haiwei Zhang and Hai Cheng of the Institute of Global Environmental Change at Xi’an Jiaotong University, determined from geological records from Shennong and Jiulong caves as well as archeological data that the primary cause of the collapse of the Liangzhu culture was probably climate change-induced flooding and inundation.

So because Fred, Barney, and everyone in Bedrock were driving those foot-powered SUVs, another civilization on the other side of the globe was wiped out?

Right. Got it.

(H/T Pirate’s Cove)

==+==

How desperate is the Left to spin bad news about Biden as something good as a means of salvaging the reputation of WRBA?

This desperate. (This is a paywalled link.)

I don’t blame the Biden administration for trying to put a positive spin on the state of the country. That’s basically their job … accentuate the positive, give people hope that things are getting better, all that stuff.

But, boy, are they bad at it.

And I mean, really, really bad.

Over the summer, the White House shared a graphic bragging that the cost of the average Independence Day barbecue was down 16 cents over the previous year.

Now, let’s ignore that the graphic was inaccurate and just focus on the fact that the White House was so desperate to find something to brag about that they landed on the alleged savings of 16 cents.

Oh, yeah, I was just overjoyed that I spent 16 cents less for our Fourth of July cookout!

Yeah. Right.

It gets even worse, with skewed graphs showing that gas prices have fallen...2 cents compared to a month ago, but making it look as if it were a huge drop. I’m sorry, but $3.399/gallon versus $3.419/gallon is nothing to crow about considering that a year ago regular gas was $1.939 at the same gas station. (My trusty RAM 1500 uses mid-grade gas which runs $3.579/gallon unless I am towing in which case I use premium as I do get better fuel economy, which costs $3.839/gallon. Thank good ness I am not towing anything this time of year.)

Then, they try to spin the idea that inflation is good for us and the economy. Maybe in the Bizarro Earth where they live in their mind, but to the rest of us it is not. It means that our dollars don’t go nearly as far as they did before. How is that good for anyone?

==+==

I mentioned yesterday that I am seeing ice covering a couple of ponds as well as seeing ice on the southern end of Alton Bay.

This morning I was driving by Weirs Beach and I saw a thin skin of ice around the public docks. To make sure it wasn’t just an illusion, I actually stopped at the docks and walked down to the edge of the water and found that there was indeed that skin of ice on the water that extended about 10 feet past the end of the docks.

As I mentioned yesterday I don’t recall seeing this much ice quite this early in December.

==+==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where winter is increasingly making its presence known, Christmas is creeping ever closer, and Monday has once again returned all too soon.

Signs Of Winter Are Here...Early

If I need an indication that winter is here and may be colder than normal, one of the local ponds near our airport is all frozen over a lot earlier than normal. I also saw some ice on the southern end of Alton Bay on Lake Winnipesaukee while on my way to and from the town of Wolfeboro to do some Christmas shopping for Katy. While we’ve had a little snow, I don’t see this as the sole harbinger of winter. For me, it’s the ice.

We’ve had winters where the big lake never froze over, where only coves and portions of the bays had ice, but the main part of the lake was ice free.

That the pond in question was frozen over on December 1st, the earliest I recall it being frozen over in 20 years of living here at Lake Winnipesaukee, is telling.

We do have snow on the way this coming week, so let’s see how this winter is going to shape up.

Some Folks Just Don't Get It

The level of ignorance/stupidity/virtue-signaling that has bombarded us regarding Covid never ceases to amaze me. This one makes me wonder which of the three applies here. Maybe all three?

Is the mask really necessary here?

(Shamelessly stolen from Knuckledraggin’)

Thoughts On A Sunday

I had the good fortune to see the Trans-Siberian Orchestra this past Friday. It was the 25^th anniversary of the release of their first album, Christmas Eve And Other Stories, and they performed the music from the entire album to celebrate, as well as some of their other songs.

The concert was amazing. I can guarantee the photo below doesn’t come close to doing it justice.

==+==

After the concert my friends and I walked out of the venue to find it was snowing. It was our first snowfall of the season. It made the first part of the trip an adventure considering the heavy snowfall and poor visibility encountered. It was necessary to engage 4WD for that part of the trip. But as I headed farther north and back to Lake Winnipesaukee, the snow tapered off and most of what was falling was rain. The slush covered roads were replaced by wet roads and by the time I got home, the precipitation had pretty much stopped.

It was a twofer on Friday night – a great concert and our first taste of winter weather.

==+==

Canada has had to dip into its maple syrup strategic reserve due to a massive shortage.

Canada has strategic reserves...of maple syrup?

Hmm. Makes sense….

==+==

A discussion with the Left-leaning daughter of a friend of mine gave me a glimmer of hope that the younger generation isn’t doomed. One of our topics of discussion was about the whole ‘woke’ movement.

At one point, I made a point that the woke appear to me to be people desperate for a cause, people who will latch on to any cause like a drowning man will latch on to a floating bit of debris to save oneself. So many have taken up causes on behalf of people who they believe should be offended about some small thing. That they aren’t offended about that small thing offends the woke, so they become offended on behalf of those people who aren’t offended, in many cases offending the very people on whose behalf they are being offended.

I also made a point that the woke also will seek trivial or non-existent causes, amplify them all out of proportion, and then be offended when anyone has the audacity to question their new cause, accusing the questioner of being a ‘whateverist’ because they don’t support the cause du jour.

She was about to reply, then her eyes opened wide when she realized what it is I had just said.

My thought was “Ah, light dawns over Marblehead!”

I could see she was thinking things over and she finally said something along the lines of “You know, I hadn’t thought about it that way before.”

After a few moments of cogitation, the course of our discussion changed paths a number of times as we we continued devouring our evening repast.

It will be interesting to pick that particular thread of discussion again sometime in the future.

==+==

The newest variant of Covid – the ‘not-Xi but Omicron variant’ – is already being touted as the next ‘deadly variant everyone needs to be afraid of’ even though reports from its place of origin – South Africa – state “it presents ‘unusual but mild’ symptoms.”

I expect the DNC-MSM will be playing up this latest variant for all it’s worth, as will WRBA, the CDC, and that font of public health wisdom, Dr. Fauci. No doubt they will be offering their usual precautions that everyone knows don’t work. It will be hyped to no end.

Dr. Angelique Coetzee, the South African doctor responsible for alerting health officials about the omicron variant of COVID-19 says it presents “unusual but mild” symptoms.

Coetzee first observed patients with unusual symptoms who were otherwise healthy in mid-November.

“Their symptoms were so different and so mild from those I had treated before,” Coetzee told The Telegraph. Coetzee has been a General Practitioner for 33 years, has her own practice, and chairs the South African Medical Association.

--snip--

While symptoms in younger patients appear to be very mild, Coetzee is still concerned about how the new variant will affect the elderly, who have typically been the most at-risk group from COVID.

Concerns about how the new variant will affect the elderly and those with comorbidities are not unfounded. Covid and the annual flu virus affect both groups more than rest of the population, so the concerns are justified. But if the Omicron variant is indeed a much milder version of the previous variants, then the over-the-top and ineffective precautions taken will be an even tougher sell.

==+==

And speaking of Covid, who has the better scorecard when it comes to handling Covid, Biden or Trump?

Joe Biden has ordered a ban on travel from eight African countries due to the emergence of the latest coronavirus variant. The countries from which Biden is cutting off travel are South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Lesotho, Eswatini, Mozambique and Malawi.

When Donald Trump banned travel from China in the early days of the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak, Biden called the move xenophobic. I suppose that makes Biden’s travel ban racist by similar reckoning.

Speaking of Trump, Biden, and Covid, the Wall Street Journal points out that deaths in the U.S. from that virus since Biden was inaugurated exceed the number of deaths that had occurred when, during a 2020 campaign debate, Biden proclaimed: “Anyone who is responsible for that many deaths should not remain as President of the United States of America.” At the time Biden proposed this disqualifier from holding the presidency, the U.S. had recorded 220,000 Covid deaths, according to the Journal. Since inauguration day, it has recorded 350,000. And counting.

The Narrative must be preserved. Therefore, Biden’s crappy Covid numbers must be ignored even though they are far worse the Trump’s. Biden’s words about Trump’s Covid numbers must be ignored because they would be seen as hypocritical.

==+==

How can they have gotten this so wrong?

Back in 1995, the New York Times stated that most East Coast beaches would be gone by 2020.

Here it is, 2021, and the beaches are still here. Some are even bigger than they were 25 years ago. Yet the rising sea levels are supposed to submerge much of the coastal low lands? Call it yet another prediction of doom that has turned out to be overblown and has, in fact, showed just the opposite of what was predicted.

==+==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where winter temperatures are visiting, leaves still need cleaning up around The Gulch, and where we’ve avoided as much in the way the Black Friday craziness as we could.

Drivers Are Driving Me Crazy

I hope this isn’t going to make me sound like the stereotypical grumpy old man, but it seems to me that people are driving stupider...or maybe they are more oblivious.

Over the past week I have witnessed drivers driving well below the posted speed limit. On three separate occasions on the same day I witnessed drivers going 30 or 35mph in a 55mph zone. It was day time, sunny, and little traffic beyond what was normal. One on of those occasions I saw the vehicle between me and the slowpoke try to pass the slowpoke and as soon as they pulled around and sped up to make the pass, the slowpoke sped up and tried to prevent the pass. He didn’t succeed as the passer had more horsepower and out-accelerated the slowpoke. As soon as the pass was completed the slowpoke was right back down to 35mph. I had to follow another mile before I turned off as the opportunity to pass didn’t present itself.

I have witnessed drivers wandering back and forth across the travel lane, sometimes crossing over into the next lane, or worse, into the oncoming traffic lane.

In the past I would have wondered of the driver was drunk. These days I tend to think the driver is distracted, maybe texting or otherwise using their smart phone, or operating the touchscreen on their dash. On one occasion I saw a vehicle almost miss a curve on an otherwise straight road. Just before the vehicle contacted the Armco the driver realized what was happening and swerved away from the guardrail. I have to think this was due to being distracted by their smartphone because I didn’t see this happen again with that vehicle.

I have seen a number of others come to a stop at a green light, check traffic in cross directions, and then cross the intersection just as the traffic light changes from green to yellow. What the heck is up with that? There’s also the variation, sitting at the traffic light after it has turned green and not moving until the light changes to yellow, or worse, to red. This scenario I have seen far more often than I care to admit, but it is a very common occurrence these days.

I could go on ad nauseum, but I think you get the idea.

So, am I just being a crotchety old curmudgeon, or is anyone else seeing this as well?

Have They Forgotten?

It was 58 years ago today in Dallas, Texas that Lee Harvey Oswald murdered President John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

I have not seen a single mention of this somber anniversary in the news or on the 'Net. Not. One.

How sad.

Thoughts On A Sunday

It’s the weekend before Thanksgiving and I am on vacation, sort of.

Last year I left two weeks of vacation on the books due solely to Covid. Everyone in my engineering department was working from home most of the time. (Some of us did have to go into our labs from time to time to build and test prototypes of new products and evaluate parts or assemblies that would be used in other products.) Vacation was not on anyone’s mind as there was no place to go since everything was shut down. Work gave us something to do since there was nothing else going on and no place to go.

This year I have used much more of my vacation time, being on vacation this week and being on vacation again the week before Christmas and the week before New Year’s. I’ll still be leaving a couple days on the books because, quite frankly, I can’t squeeze them in before the end of the year and still be able to stay on schedule with the projects I’m working on.

At least this year I have plenty of things to do and places to go. This week I am working around The Gulch getting the last of the summer gear cleaned and stored away, removing some items from rental storage and bringing them to The Gulch. There is also Thanksgiving dinner at one of the WP Sisters’ homes on Thursday, being the first gathering of a good portion the WP Clan in a year.

I am hoping to be able to spend some time with Katy around the Christmas holiday weeks, too, as we aren’t able to spend nearly as much time together as we’d like.

And so it goes.

==+==

My phone rang at a little past midnight early this morning. My first thought was ‘Uh-oh. No one calls this late unless there’s trouble.’ When I saw who was calling I got a bit of a chill, wondering if something had happened to a family member.

It was my ex.

Her first words had me both relieved and puzzled at the same time.

“I’m in Portland. I got on the wrong damned bus!”

My ex had been away, visiting Texas. She left Dallas yesterday afternoon and arrived in Boston last night. She then caught a bus that was supposed to take her to Concord, New Hampshire. But she got on the wrong bus (which was apparently parked just in front of the bus she was supposed to be taking) and ended up in Portland, Maine. Hence the phone call.

Yes, I got up, got dressed, and drove the 2 hours from Lake Winnipesaukee to downtown Portland, picked her up, drove the 2 hours from Portland to Concord so she could get her car, and then the 45 minutes home. I rolled in back at The Gulch at just past 5 this morning.

Am I tired? Yes, of course.

Would I do something like this for just anybody? Hmm. I don’t know. However, I will admit I’d be willing to drive 4 hours...or more...for Katy. (But don’t tell her that!)

==+==

In my previous post I mentioned some of the intentional misportrayal of what happened during the Kenosha riots, and specifically what happened to Kyle Rittenhouse. The media certainly did their best to push the narrative that Rittenhouse was a cold-blooded killer who turned Kenosha into a hunting ground to support white supremacy.

Now that the trial is over, verdict rendered, and the true story has been exposed, some of the media still gets it wrong. In this case, they can’t even get the race of the miscreants who assaulted Rittenhouse correct.

==+==

Matt Margolis asks “Are Liberals Even Human?”

Yes, I understand that they are (technically) part of the human race, but have you noticed how they seem driven by issues that defy human nature?

I certainly have. Recent weeks have made it clear that the left doesn’t possess two basic human instincts: self-preservation and protecting our young. And two key events have demonstrated this clearer than ever before.

The first is the Virginia gubernatorial election.

As much as I was thrilled about Youngkin’s victory over Terry McAuliffe, it was hard not to be disturbed by how that election exposed the alarming number of liberals in the state who don’t believe in parental rights.

“I’m not going to let parents come into schools and actually take books out and make their own decision,” McAuliffe said during a debate with Youngkin in September. “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”

--snip--

And then there’s the Kyle Rittenhouse trial.

I understand that people have strong opinions about Kyle Rittenhouse. Still, anyone who took the time to watch the trial or review some of the evidence presented would have concluded quite easily that Rittenhouse was acting in self-defense.

Yet, the trial revealed the shocking truth that the left also doesn’t appear to believe people have the right to defend themselves.

Or maybe only white people, who knows? What we do know is that people on the left in the media, Hollywood, and our own neighborhoods took the side of rioters, looters, and even a child molester, because they fell for the idea that Rittenhouse was a white supremacist (thanks, Joe Biden) and that he was in Kenosha looking for trouble. Nothing, not even the evidence, was going to change that.

I have always thought that liberals, in the modern definition of the term (socialists), had no understanding of human nature. It certainly explains why they keep trying the same experiment over and over again even though the results are always the same: abject failure because they ignore human nature. It also explains why they cannot seem to grasp the two important aspects of human nature mentioned by Matt above: self-preservation and protecting our young. Without those two things society will not survive.

Does this mean that liberals aren’t human? No, not in the least. But it does point to them being mentally ill.

==+==

I keep seeing ads about how awful it is that New Hampshire’s Governor Sununu signed legislation that banned late term abortions. The ban was part of the the state’s budget bill, signed this past June.

To hear the ads, one would think the bill banned all abortions, more restrictive then even Texas’s abortion bill and how awful it is and that women in New Hampshire would be relegated to having to have back alley abortions.

But the bill bans late-term abortions, something that even has the support of many pro-choice advocates. Governor Sununu, a Republican, is pro-choice. Yet he had no problem with supporting this ban.

At a time when other states are legalizing abortion up to birth, the Granite State has boldly gone in the opposite direction and rejected its longstanding commitment to pro-abortion absolutism. In fact, New Hampshire has just become the first state in the country to go from allowing abortion up to birth to passing a late-term abortion ban.

I have never liked the idea of abortion, specifically as a means of birth control. Late-term abortion seems absolutely barbaric to me when used as a means of birth control. We should be better than that.

Stated NH House Democrat Leader Renny Cushing, the ban was “forcing right-wing ideology on the people of New Hampshire.” So forcing left-wing ideology on the people of New Hampshire is perfectly fine?

Yet another double standard being imposed on the people of New Hampshire.

==+==

And the hits keep coming.

It is necessary to heap even more well deserved abuse on the Left.

One of our local state reps felt she had to add her woefully (willfully?) uninformed opinion to the myriad of others out on the Intertubes regarding the Rittenhouse verdict. Her understanding of the trial, the evidence, and the testimony of eyewitnesses is apparently as close to zero as one can get without being zero.

Then again, she is nothing a but a drone, incapable of having her own thoughts. She only thinks and says what she’s told to think or say.

How pathetic.

==+==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the temperatures have gotten colder, preparations for winter continue, and where I won’t have to go back to work for another week.

Some Thoughts On The Rittenhouse Trial And Verdict

It would have been easy to do an immediate “Me too!” post on the outcome of the Kyle Rittenhouse trial. However, I wanted to think about what we had seen, as well as to peruse the responses of the “usual suspects” on the Left.

I admit to having paid attention to the trial as it was taking place. I also have to admit my growing dismay (and later anger) as it became clear the case never should have seen the light of day. Between prosecutorial misconduct – suborning perjury, failure to disclose exculpatory evidence - and bringing up the defendant’s silence in reference to exercising his Fifth Amendment rights (something the judge had ruled the prosecution could not use as part of its case), it became quite evident that DA Binger was doing his best to ‘Nifong’ Kyle Rittenhouse. (To those not understanding the reference, Mike Nifong, the prosecuting DA in the Duke University Lacrosse Team rape trial, was found to have committed numerous acts of misconduct as he tried to railroad three members of the lacrosse team for the alleged rape of a stripper – Crystal Mangum - hired to entertain at a party. He interfered in the police investigation of the alleged crime. Witnesses were intimidated. Exculpatory evidence was withheld or hidden. Nifong was disbarred for his actions. He also served jail time for contempt of court.)

The prosecution’s case was weak to begin with and it tanked when its own witness, the one surviving miscreant, testified about both what he saw – the attack on Kyle Rittenhouse – and his own action, in this case pointing his own pistol at Rittenhouse as Rittenhouse was lying on the ground after having been attacked. He testified Rittenhouse didn’t fire at him until he pointed his pistol directly at Rittenhouse. Video withheld from the defense showed plainly what had happened, showed the attacks on Rittenhouse. That same video wasn’t presented at trial until the end by the prosecution as a ‘Hail Mary’ ploy, trying to show that Rittenhouse was the provocateur. The video did just the opposite.

It was clearly self-defense right from the get-go.

The jury saw it that way and acquitted Rittenhouse on all charges.

As interesting as the trial and its outcome was, it is the reactions to the verdict that I found even more interesting...but not unexpected.

To paraphrase the original Star Wars movie, “The Narrative is strong in this one.”

Seeing the over the top responses from the Left indicate to me that the facts, the evidence, the testimonies didn’t matter because they didn’t fit the narrative the Left was selling. They needed Kyle Rittenhouse to be guilty, to be a white supremacist, a cold-blooded killer who came to Kenosha for the sole purpose of killing people of color. That he was there to protect the property of small business owners, to protect members of his family (who lived in Kenosha), to prevent those who wanted to Burn, Loot, and Murder from doing so was immaterial. That the people he did shoot, people who assaulted him and were trying to kill him were white didn’t matter. The Narrative had to be served.

As a result the Left lost it and tried to preserve the Narrative even though every bit of evidence proved the Narrative as nothing more than wishful thinking. Much of the DNC-MSM also piled on, seeing the verdict as a miscarriage of justice because the verdict didn’t support the Narrative. It was also evident to me they were hoping for public unrest due to the verdict, but that unrest never materialized. Yes, there were protests, but they were sedate as compared to what happened in Kenosha that started this whole thing.

I have to ask whether the reason those incidents of public unrest were rather sedate was because the manufactured outrage wasn’t cranked up to ‘11’. Or perhaps those decrying the verdict aren’t really all that outraged, understanding the Rittenhouse case for what it truly was and putting forth the obligatory protest video and sound bites in order to show their ‘wokeness’.

To me, those protesting the verdict the loudest seem to like the idea of conviction by accusation, law by decree, legislation by courts, modern Inquisitions, and guilty until proven innocent and even then still guilty. Seeing their reactions (and some of their previous opinions), I have come to think that to them Rittenhouse was a symbol of everything they dislike and therefore he needed to be destroyed as an example “to the others”, meaning the rest of us. They wanted to send a message that they control those of us who are not “them”. (Of course they also control those who are. We’ve seen them turn on their own more than once.)

Are they bucking for a three-tiered justice system where outcomes are based upon which group someone belongs?

The top tier – them – can do little or no wrong.

The middle tier – the enlightened disadvantaged minorities, except Asians – can do wrong, but only because of white supremacy/privilege.

The bottom tier – anyone they see as white, including the aforementioned Asians and certain Hispanics like George Zimmerman – are always guilty. They are also always racists, sexists, and whatever other ‘-ists’ with which they can be labeled. The bottom tier can also be safely ignored since they are now the designated untermenschen. All they need to do now is disarm, disfranchise, and silence them. Kyle Rittenhouse was meant to be one of the bottom tier, condemned because he was white, armed, and dared to defend himself.

Of course, this is all BS. It is but one more insurgent attack on America, its laws, its traditions, its culture, and all of its citizens. The outcome of this trial may be yet another step in our efforts to take our nation back from those who seek to destroy it and replace it with a modern dystopian feudal state.

A Sign Of The Times

An interesting juxtaposition, but accurate nonetheless. After all, who else can claim they did away with our energy independence and caused oil prices to skyrocket with the stroke of a pen?

I find it interesting that SloJo thinks the only reason gas prices are so high is because the oil companies are price-gouging. But his Executive Orders canceling a much needed pipeline and banning any more oil and gas leases on federal lands, threats to cancel existing leases and ban fracking had absolutely nothing to do with it?

Yeah. Right.

Quote Of The Month

“There’s always a shortage of people who do useful things. But never a shortage of people who spew useless bullshit.” - Glenn Reynolds

Truer words were never spoken...er...written.

Thoughts On A Sunday

It was a beautiful day yesterday, though it did throw me off a bit as I described in yesterday’s post. This morning dawned with mostly clear skies and chilly temps. It was cold enough for there to be frost on the windshield of the trusty RAM 1500, but not on the ground cover.

One of the WP Sisters was up to visit yesterday, staying overnight and returning home after church and our Sunday brunch at one of our local diners.

Basically it was a typical mid-November weekend for us here at The Gulch.

==+==

The labor shortage is extending to just about every level. One area being affected that I would never have thought about: Snow plow drivers.

Living up here in New England, snow plows are ubiquitous during the winter months. That some towns are having problem finding plow drivers is surprising, particularly contract drivers.

Paul Cohen is the town manager of Chelmsford, Massachusetts, where last year they spent nearly $1 million on snow removal. This year, that price tag is about to get even higher because of a shortage of snowplow drivers.

"It's a hard job. It’s a lot of stress and it’s harder for people to take that on willingly," he said.

There are signs up around the city pleading for employees. But so far, Chelmsford is short about dozen plow drivers. They have the equipment; they just don’t have the people.

--snip--

To help address the shortage many cities and states are offering massive incentives in an effort to get drivers on the road this winter. Colorado's Department of Transportation is offering drivers a $2,000 performance bonus. Michigan has upped their hourly plow driver rate to $30 plus overtime, and some state drivers in Massachusetts could be making as much as $310 an hour this winter.

We are fortunate here in my small town that we are not suffering from such a shortage, at least regarding plow drivers to clear our town roads. I can’t speak to any of the other towns or cities in the rest of New Hampshire or how the state Department of Transportation is faring in this regard though in the past few years it hasn’t been an issue. But today, who knows?

==+==

Are the Covid-19 vaccines causing an alarming increase in athletes dropping dead from cardiac issues? This seems to be a real problem in Europe.

The first few I looked at made no mention of their status as vaccinated for COVID but there are a lot of athletes in all levels of competition dropping dead with heart-related ailments if this list is accurate.

It also means there are more and we should make some effort to source those incidents and report them. If they are vaccine-related people deserve to know the risk.

If this is indeed an issue it does need to be addressed. If it is a problem then I have to ask if we’re seeing such an issue here, but it’s being devoutly ignored or covered up because the Progressive Powers That Be don’t want the proles questioning the Jab, its efficacy, or its safety.

==+==

I have seen a number of those commenting on sites using Disqus complaining that site moderators are removing their comments because they want to silence dissent.

I have had some comments I’ve made here and there removed for reasons I couldn’t fathom until I realized it was a Disqus filtering algorithm removing those comments, not a site moderator. It appears the filter algorithm has a list of words that will trigger removal of a comment. The apparent problem is that the algorithm can’t parse context, so a word or term that might be problematic in one use is innocuous in another, yet the algorithm will still remove the comment containing the innocuous use of the word/term.

Certain nominally obscene words will also trigger the algorithm. One fellow complained that his use of the name Soros triggered removal of his comment. Another commenter tested that by posting a test comment using the name Soros...and nothing happened. The comment remained. But if I had to guess, maybe the fellow complaining had prefaced ‘Soros’ with the more obscene version of ‘effin’ and Disqus kicked his comment.

==+==

It appears at least one part of the military isn’t going to bow down to SloJo’s vaccination mandate.

As Mike Hendrix tells us, the Oklahoma National Guard is refusing to bow down to the illegal mandate.

The Pentagon Sees Its First National Guard Unit Mutiny Over the Federal Vaccine Mandate. The first state National Guard unit has made itself clear to the Department of Defense it has no intention of enforcing its Covid-19 vaccine mandate.

“The Oklahoma National Guard has rejected the Defense Department’s requirement for all service members to receive the coronavirus vaccine and will allow personnel to sidestep the policy with no repercussions, a potential blueprint for Republican governors who have challenged Biden administration mandates,” the Washington Post reported.

“Brig. Gen. Thomas Mancino, appointed this week by Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) as adjutant of the state’s 10,000 National Guard soldiers and airmen, on Thursday notified those under his command that they are not required to receive the vaccine and won’t be punished if they decline it,” the report added.

I wish our Republican Governor, Chris Sununu, would be ballsy enough to do something similar. I would also like to see him follow the footsteps of Tennessee Governor Bill Lee and ban vaccine mandates and vaccine ‘passports’.

==+==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the last of the leaves are now on the ground, thoughts of the coming winter are moving to the forefront, and where we’re nervously watching to cost of heating oil and propane.

I Hate Standard Time

I have had enough of changing our clocks twice a year.

It’s a pain for me and a lot of other people. That Standard Time only lasts 4 months while Daylihjy Savings Time lasts 8 months has me wondering why we still call it Standard Time. Frankly, I really have no use for Standard Time. Considering New England is at the extreme eastern side of the Eastern Time Zone which is quite wide compared to the other time zones in North America, it makes for late sunrises and early sunsets during the 4 months of Standard Time. For me it means going into work in the dark and driving home in the dark. At least if we remained in Daylight Savings Time I would have some daylight at the end of the day.

It became real for me today when I was running errands just before noon. It didn’t feel like noon at all.

I could have sworn it was closer to 3 in the afternoon, the way it felt.

It’s only going to get worse over the next six weeks.

It’s time for this twice annual event to stop, at least in the easternmost sides of the time zones, and particularly at the northern part of those time zones. It is far more disruptive than just leaving the clocks set to DST year round.

It’s time to end the time change madness. It serves no useful purpose other than to cause disruption, confusion, and problems.

COVID Death Tolls Overblown

We keep hearing more panic porn about Covid-19, the vaccine mandate fallout, and rising cases despite vaccinations and draconian precautions. (Vermont has one of the highest vaccination rates in the US and has also been seeing a high number of new cases.)

With all of that in mind, I have to wonder about the number of deaths attributed to Covid in the US - approximately 750,000 at this point – and whether that number is anywhere near accurate. (Here’s a hint: It’s not.)

Back in August of 2020, the CDC admitted that of all the Covid-19 deaths, only 6% of those deaths were caused solely by Covid. If that 6% holds true, that means that only 45,000 deaths over the past 2 years can be directly attributed to Covid. Most of the rest can be attributed to one or more comorbidities. In other words, most of those patients died with Covid, not from Covid. If one also keeps in mind the statistical analysis performed by Dr. Genevieve Briand of Johns Hopkins University, showing there were no excess deaths recorded. The causes of death were different, meaning Covid rather than cancer, heart disease, liver disease, COPD, pneumonia, flu, and so on. Most of that can be attributed to the crappy reporting protocols used to report cause of death during the pandemic.

So what does this mean?

The actual number of deaths in the US over the past 2 years caused by Covid-19 may be as low as 45,000. That’s at the high end of what we would see over two particularly bad flu seasons.

It must also be remembered the US isn’t the only nation that incorrectly classified Covid deaths.

Italy’s disclosure that only 3% of deaths classified as Covid deaths were actually caused by Covid, bringing their death toll down from 130,000 to about 4,000. Just like the US, most of the rest had one or more comorbidities, meaning they died with Covid, but not from Covid.

However, we won’t hear any of that from the White House, OSHA, certain governors or other federal or state officials, or the DNC-MSM. They have to keep the fear of Covid in the forefront as it gives them all power that goes well outside the Constitution. The have to keep everyone under control by using the least deadly ‘deadly’ disease we know if (it has an approximate 99.9% survival rate, pretty good for a disease supposedly deadlier than the Spanish Flu and the Black Plague combined).

Now, about those ineffective preventative measures the government keeps foisting upon us….

Thoughts On A Sunday

We’ve finally had a hard frost this past week, a little later than usual. Not record setting, but pretty close to the latest date first frost has occurred.

The boat was pulled from the lake this past week and I am still cleaning and stowing gear we removed from the boat. We strip all of the gear, including cushions, from the boat before it is winterized and shrink-wrapped for winter storage. This lets us clean and repair or replace the gear over the winter. Mold and mildew can be a problem throughout the year, more so when the boat is in the water, but it can also be a problem when the boat is stored.

All of the clean gear has been put in Sterilite containers and stored here at The Gulch. There are still cushions to scrub to remove the aforementioned mold and mildew before they are also stored away. All in all I have at least another few days of work before everything is cleaned and stowed away.

But it’s worth every minute as long as we can continue to spend time out on the lake.

==+==

When the whole Covid kerfuffle started and lockdowns were declared– basically quarantining otherwise healthy people – a number of physicians and public health experts warned that doing so would actually cause more problems than this and other measures would prevent. Those problems?

Increased issues with both mental health and chronic diseases.

Those warnings were ignored.

Sadly, there may be more than one issue going on here. Dozens of public health experts, including Dr. Scott Atlas and Dr. Jay Bhattacharya from Stanford University, predicted the impact of lockdowns on mental health and chronic disease. They were censored and ignored. As Bhattacharya and his colleague Dr. Martin Kulldorff, an epidemiologist from Harvard, have noted, public health is about more than one viral illness:

A fundamental public health principle is that health is multidimensional; the control of a single infectious disease is not synonymous with health. As an immunologist, Dr. Fauci failed to properly consider and weigh the disastrous effects lockdowns would have on cancer detection and treatment, cardiovascular disease outcomes, diabetes care, childhood vaccination rates, mental health and opioid overdoses, to name a few. Americans will live with—and die from—this collateral damage for many years to come.

Two California doctors, Dr. Dan Erickson and Dr. Artin Massihi, who own seven urgent care facilities, warned of the potential for lockdown-related illnesses in April of 2020. At the time, their press conference got censored for correctly explaining the impact on the immune system and pleading for lockdowns to end...

Could the death toll caused by delaying diagnosing and treating these diseases far exceed the actual death toll from Covid-19? (By ‘actual death toll’ I mean deaths caused by Covid, not deaths of people with Covid, something the Italians have recently divulged, dropping their Covid death toll by 97% to approximately 4,000.)

I am making guess that we’ll find more people will end up dying from the delayed diagnoses and treatments due to lockdowns and the resulting shuttered hospitals, clinics, and doctor’s offices than even our inflated Covid death totals.

==+==

Knowing more than a few people from San Francisco and having friends and relatives who have recently visited, I have to agree with them that it is rapidly decaying into the West Coast version of Detroit.

That may be a harsh thing to say because it seems Detroit isn’t nearly as bad as San Francisco. Yes, Detroit has only a third of the population it did at its peak, has over 80,000 abandoned and decaying buildings, and mile after mile after mile of empty streets and the crumbling infrastructure that goes along with them, yet I would rather spend time in Detroit than San Francisco. Detroit has rightfully received all kinds of abuse seeing as how those running it destroyed it step by step. Now San Francisco is going down that same road and the devastation will be worse.

...This is a city that needs CVS, Walgreens, and Target.

And those stores are under siege, falling one by one, closing up shop.

The ORCs are here.

First it was the razor blades and the cologne. Those were the first things in the all-night pharmacies and convenience stores to go behind locked cabinet doors. But at this CVS in San Francisco’s financial district, it’s damned near everything: booze, of course, though not all the booze, pistachios, mixed nuts, dental floss, toothpaste, lotion, deodorant, hair-care products, pain medicine, multivitamins — mostly not things that the vagrant and semi-vagrant members of the sandwich-philanthropy-receiving population are looking to scoop up for their own use, though a few hours before I got there one free spirit did apparently walk out with a bottle of white wine, the weather being fine and life being one long picnic.

At it’s worst Detroit was nothing like that. This indicates to me that when San Francisco falls it will fall a lot harder than Detroit.

==+==

It is only now that the disastrous Infrastructure Bill has passed that we are finding out what’s in it, a Pelosi specialty. One thing included in that gawdawful bill that I think is both incredibly stupid and incredibly intrusive: mandatory breathalyzers in all new cars.

This isn’t going to end well.

==+==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where it’s been a might frosty, the leaves are falling in increasing numbers, and where preparations for winter have started.

It's Finally Over

As I mentioned last Sunday, the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout was due to be pulled from the water during this past week.

On Thursday, BeezleBub and I finally hauled the boat trailer down to our town docks. I walked to the the slip where the boat has been berthed all season, fired it up one last time for the season, cast off, and motored out of the cove and over to the town docks.

About 20 minutes later the boat was safely ensconced and secured on the trailer. A few minutes after that BeezleBub towed the boat to the boat yard where it would be winterized and stored for the winter.

Our 2021 boating season was finally over.

This was the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout just after it was pulled out of the water. (You can see the ‘algae’ line on the hull of the boat, showing it was in the water all season – from early/mid-May to early November. The hull was pristine when we launched the boat last May.)

While this is not the latest we’ve pulled our boat from the water, that date being November 15^th some number of years ago, it was still a few days later than when we usually do that. It is always a sad day.

It’s time to start planning for next year’s boating season.

A Refresher Course

The following was shamelessly stolen appropriated from the comments in yesterday’s DayByDay cartoon. It bears repeating as many times as necessary.

FIREARMS REFRESHER COURSE

“Those who hammer their guns into plows will plow for those who do not.” ~ Thomas Jefferson


1. An armed man is a citizen. An unarmed man is a subject.

2. A gun in the hand is better than a cop on the phone.

3. Colt: The original point and click interface.

4. Gun control is not about guns; it’s about control.

5. If guns are outlawed, can we use swords?

6. If guns cause crime, then pencils cause misspelled words.

7. Free men do not ask permission to bear arms.

8. If you don’t know your rights, you don’t have any.

9. Those who trade liberty for security have neither.

10. The United States Constitution (c)1791. All Rights Reserved.

11. What part of “shall not be infringed” do you not understand?

12. The Second Amendment is in place in case the politicians ignore the others.

13. 64,999,987 firearms owners killed no one yesterday.

14. Guns only have two enemies; rust and politicians.

15. Know guns, know peace, know safety. No guns, no peace, no safety.

16. You don’t shoot to kill; you shoot to stay alive.

17. 911: Government sponsored Dial-a-Prayer.

18. Assault is a behavior, not a device.

19. Criminals love gun control; it makes their jobs safer.

20. If guns cause crime, then matches cause arson.

21. Only a government that is afraid of its citizens tries to control them.

22. You have only the rights you are willing to fight for.

23. Enforce the gun control laws we ALREADY have; don’t make more.

24. When you remove the people’s right to bear arms, you create slaves.

25. The American Revolution would never have happened with gun control.

Like some others in the comments, I have some disagreement with #23. I do agree that we don’t need more gun control laws. However, I think we have too many on the books that disarm law-abiding citizens for no other reason than those who don’t like guns don’t want anyone to have them...except for criminals and the police.

Thoughts On A Sunday

The first half of the weekend up here at the lake has been quite wet, with rain all day and heavy rain overnight. I did have to go down to check out the condition of the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout, pumping out the bilge and checking its general condition. Between the Nor’easter that hit this area earlier last week (which damaged some boats here in our town) and the heavy rains yesterday, checking the boat seemed prudent.

The boat will be coming out of the water this week, not quite the latest I’ve pulled it out, but not the earliest by any means. It will be the official end of my boating season, something that is always a little sad. But all good things come to an end and preparations for the upcoming winter must made, so the boat comes out of the water, gets winterized, shrink wrapped, and put in storage until next spring.

Surprisingly, I will be pulling out the ex’s snow tires from my storage unit when I put the boating equipment away for the winter. She’ll be having them mounted before she heads out of state for a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving. I have also made an appointment to have the trusty RAM 1500 undercoated during the week of Thanksgiving, getting it ready for winter as well.

So much time and effort will be expended over this coming month getting ready for a winter a number of forecasters have said will be colder and snowier than average.

==+==

One thing I also managed to do this past weekend is attend a housewarming party held by friends I have mentioned before, they having escaped from San Francisco and relocating to New Hampshire last year. They lived in Portsmouth for a year and finally found a house they liked outside of Portsmouth this summer.

The finally moved in a few weeks ago and invited me and my ex to their housewarming. They found a great place, a Victorian farmhouse with a barn. The house needs a little work, mostly paint and varnish, but it is otherwise in great shape.

The barn needs a coat of paint so I figure there will be a painting party come next spring.

I can hardly wait!

==+==

For those of you using Disqus for commenting, you may have noticed that the filtering algorithm keeps getting tighter, removing comments that it deems has used bad language. I know I’ve seen some of my comments removed for reasons I couldn’t always fathom, and others because of a word that could be offensive in some contexts (but none that I used). One example: I had a comment removed because of the word ‘Coon’. In this case I had posted a comment about Maine Coon Cats, a recognized and popular cat breed. In fact we used to have two Maine Coon Cats in our feline contingent. Yet Disqus found the word offensive and removed my comment(s).

Disqus has also been deplatforming websites on a Hate Group list provided by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a list that is known to be inaccurate, partisan , and widely discredited.

It is cancel culture taken to another level, used to silence speech they disagree with, and Freedom of Speech be damned.

==+==

Here’s yet another example of the Law of Unintended Consequences coming into play against vaccine mandates, this time in New York City.

It seems Hizzoner’s vaccine mandate for city employees is having the unintended effect of forcing firehouses to close because firefighters are refusing to be vaccinated.

The FDNY shuttered 26 fire companies citywide on Saturday due to staff shortages caused by the COVID-19 vaccination mandate, according to furious elected officials, who ripped the move as “unconscionable” — and warned it could have catastrophic consequences.

The shutdown came amid a pitched battle between City Hall, which on Monday will start enforcing a mandate that all city workers have at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, and jab-resisting firefighters, many reportedly saying they were already sick with the coronavirus and therefore have “natural immunity.”

Nicole Malliotakis (R-SI, Brooklyn) said 26 companies shuttered — five in her district — and laid the blame on Mayor de Blasio.

“If someone dies due to a slower emergency response, it’s on Bill de Blasio and his overreaching mandates. I hope this fool fixes it ASAP!” she tweeted. Some residents rallied outside of the Ladder Company 149 in Dyker Heights to support the firefighters.

‘They’ just don’t want to understand that people have had enough of the Covid fauxdemic. The Powers That Be are using it to justify all kinds of actions that under usual circumstances would be illegal, unconstitutional, unethical, immoral, and fattening.

==+==

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

PETA wants Major League Baseball to change the name of the “bullpen” because they don’t like the fact that it once referred to a holding pen in slaughterhouses. I don’t know about you, but that is the last thing I think about when I hear that term, and I’m a farm kid. PETA are the only ones thinking of that because they are nuts. Considering their over the top campaigns, I learned to ignore and pity them, but never give them any credence. Never accede to their demands. Don’t feed their delusions.

==+==

I had to include this, verbatim:

THE HORROR…THE HORROR: Trump Does ‘Tomahawk Chop’ At World Series and The Left Flips Out.

Good. I hope they got good and ‘flipped out’. The list of stuff that ‘offends’ them keeps growing longer by the day. Maybe we should keep them offended so that’s all they have time for and they won’t have the time to turn this country into a totalitarian Progressive hell.

==+==

And that’s the abbreviated news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the rains finally stopped and the sun has come out, the air is warm, and the leaves have been falling in increasing numbers.

Supply Chain Problems Self-Inflicted

I have mentioned this before, but it bears repeating:

Our supply chain problems have been inflicted on us not by purely by happenstance but by deliberate action taken by the idiots in California. Between an environmental directive that is forcing otherwise serviceable trucks off the roads in California and AB5, the so-called “Anti-Gig Economy” law, have seriously and negatively affected the number of trucks and drivers available to haul containers offloaded from ships in Long Beach and Los Angeles.

There is limited space to place off-loaded containers. Once they run out of space, off-loading stops. With an artificially limited number of trucks and/or drivers, space will not be made available any time soon and the problems won’t be corrected any time soon.

Is it any wonder Florida, Louisiana, and Texas have been drumming up business for their container ports? Even with the longer trip to the Gulf and East Coast ports through the Panama Canal, it’s cheaper than having container ships sitting at anchor for weeks on end.

If California really doesn’t want the port business, let’s oblige them and get that traffic to the Florida, Louisiana, and Texas ports. Let California suffer the consequences of their ignorant, ideologically-driven, and irrational actions. Lay the blame for these supply chain problems where they belong: Sacramento.

Thoughts On A Sunday

It’s been a busy week this past week, between work and town duties. There was also for preparing for Katy’s arrival, she traveling up from the Nutmeg State for a weekend visit. It hasn’t left much time to post, so while I will drop a post or two during the week and on Saturdays, it didn’t happen this past week.

Katy and I spent quite a bit of time traveling around the Big Lake, doing some end-of-the-season shopping here and there. What motivated the trip around the lake was the need to pick up some pewter I’d ordered from a pewtersmith on the north side of the lake that was ready for pickup. It made it easy to roll in some more shopping in one of the resort towns as many of the shops there had goods on clearance. Katy found quite a few items for Christmas gifts and I picked up a new jacket. We must have hit about a dozen shops along the main street, picking up a few more odds and ends along the way. A late lunch at a tavern ‘just up the road’ and a couple of more stops for shopping – including at our local farm stand – closed out our trip around the lake.

We had hoped to make it out on the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout after our trip, but we got back quite late and it wasn’t in the cards. It was quite chilly this morning (36ºF) and Katy was not inclined to venture out on the lake. Neither was I.

As it always seems to happen, all too soon it was time for Katy to depart and make her way back home, something we dread. But it is necessary and I always lament her departure.

==+==

Speaking of the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout, I had hoped to get one more trip out onto the lake before pulling it out of the water for the season, but it looks like that may be off the table considering the weather will not be the greatest this coming week.

I will be talking with BeezleBub about making arrangements to pull the boat out of the water and getting it prepped for winter storage.

It’s been a good season for the most part. (July wasn’t all that conducive to a lot of boating due to the 10 inches of rain and cool temps we experienced then.) Neither BeezleBub or I missed many opportunities to get out on the lake. But it’s always a little sad when the boating season finally comes to an end. It will be this time, too.

==+==

It seems the University of Connecticut is still having problems with the endlessly aggrieved spoiled children attending that formerly fine institution of higher learning. The number of bias complaints by students show they will complain about darned near everything.

This is the same university where black students demanded segregated housing (shades of Jim Crow) and the Univesrity suspended a couple of students who expressed opinions that disagreed with the perpetually aggrieved while off campus.

These crybabies need to grow the eff up.

==+==

As much as SloJo wants the California ports to speed up, getting the ships riding at anchor into port and unloaded, he his hamstrung by his not understanding why those ports are so jammed up.

The major cause?

The inability of California truckers to move those containers. There are two reasons for that.

First, it isn’t that they don’t want to load those containers onto their trailers and haul them where they need to go. It’s that the State of California won’t let them due to incredibly short-sighted and nonsensical banning of perfectly capable trucks because they are deemed too old and don’t meet present day California emissions standards. There just aren’t enough compliant trucks available to do so.

Second, California’s execrable AB5 prevented Owner-Operators, truckers who own and operate their own rig, can no longer haul within California because independent, i.e. “gig work” was outlawed as a sop to the labor unions. That eliminated a lot of trucking assets the ports desperately need to move cargo. There aren’t enough ‘union’ assets available to move a fraction of that freight.

There was a great analogy used to describe how container freight is being handled in California:

If I started dropping golf balls into your living room, one every two seconds continuously without stopping for weeks, could you keep up with them?

OK, now what happens if we keep dropping them every two seconds, but now make a rule that you can only pick them up with a spoon and then must carry them outside to drop them in a bucket? Can you still keep up?

How long before your living room is full of golf balls?

That’s the metaphor.

The spoon is the California emissions rule.

For anyone paying attention, this was an inevitable outcome. To the clueless legislators who thought this was a good idea, it was yet another example of the Law of Unintended Consequences coming into play.

If nothing else, this may be incentive for shippers to use Gulf and East Coast ports because the containers can be unloaded from the ships and onto trucks in a timely fashion. Yes, it means a lot more traffic through the Panama Canal and higher transportation costs, but at least the freight will move and be delivered. How much does it cost for containers to sit on a ship at anchor for weeks on end or piled up in a freight yard with no means of moving them because there aren’t nearly enough trucks to move them?

==+==

Legal Insurrection asks “Do you think these Democrats would be retiring if they were excited about what’s going happen over the next few years, or if Biden was wildly popular?” regarding an increasing number of House Democrats retiring rather than running for re-election in the 2022 mid-terms.

Did I expect something like this, seeing just how unpopular President * is with the American people? Not really. I do expect a GOP sweep of the House and the Senate reverting to a GOP majority (as long as Republican voters and those leaning Republican actually show up to vote). With these retirements it certainly weakens the Democrats in the upcoming mid-terms.

One thing I’ve been seeing that I think signals the DNC’s fear that incumbent Democrats will be booted from office: Campaign ads for sitting Democrats that started running months ago. I have certainly seen that here in New Hampshire, with ads running every single day on TV and the Internet for Senator Maggie Hassan and Representative Chris Pappas (NH CD-1). The state primaries are 10 months away and the mid-term elections are over a year away, yet the ads run every day.

I haven’t seen or heard of any ads for our CD-2 Representative, Annie Kuster, a long time Democrat (and a nasty piece of work), but that could be because they are only showing up in NH CD-2 on the Net. However I haven’t seen any on our local TV station, so it’s quite possible she’s decided to sit this one out. The other possibility is that the Democrats figure her seat is relatively safe so aren’t dumping any ad money into NH CD-2 at this time.

In any case, the 2022 mid-terms are going to be interesting.

==+==

We need more of this.

It turns out that 2020 and 2021 have been a nightmare for the gun-grabbers.

Among conservative white gun owners in the South and Midwest, I found there is often reflexive support for the idea that northern and urban gun-control laws should be overturned. This was true even for many interview subjects who had never been to the cities in question—and particularly so when I explained that the case centers around gun laws in New York. “New York—well that says it all right there,” a Tennessee Uber driver in his fifties told me. “Hell yes I would want to carry my guns in New York [should I ever go there],” said a Michigan real estate agent in her forties. For these and other conservative interviewees, gun laws in cities like New York represented symbolic northern affront to their notion of uninfringed liberties (“It’s my constitutional right to carry anywhere I want”)—and in places where they imagine they would need to defend themselves against threats from racial others (“I might get carjacked!”).

But I also found a surprising current of pro-gun sentiment among a not insignificant minority of people who identified as liberal and who lived in the very cities in question—especially among people under forty. “Criminals have guns, so why shouldn’t we?” a thirty-seven-year-old white woman art dealer in Brooklyn told me. “Why should police have all the guns?” asked a twenty-six-year-old Black male programmer from Manhattan. A thirty-three-year-old white woman realtor from Boston explained that “hopefully this will make it easier for my friends and me to take shooting classes.”

The usual targets for anti-gun organizations to recruit support are changing their minds, seeing the plus side of the Second Amendment, that being able to protect themselves from miscreants and not depending upon others for that is a good thing. They have learned the truth of “When seconds count, the police are minutes away.” They have also seen how some of their leaders have no intention of protecting them or their property and will have to do it themselves.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the colors are fantastic, the weather has turned cooler, and the boating season is almost to its end.