Kelley Blue Book, which is about as reliable a source as you can have for tracking vehicle pricing, says September was a watershed moment for new-vehicle pricing. It claims that, for the first time, the median price of a new car in the United States is over $50,000. And yes, the higher cost of EVs and the rapid uptick in EV purchases are to blame.
This finding isn’t sudden, though. EV sales have been on the rise for months, and the average cost of an EV hasn’t risen dramatically. The average EV selling price ($58,124) was up 3.5 percent in September when compared to August, but it’s considered a “normal” inflation rate. Year over year, EV pricing is essentially flat, Kelley Blue Book says. The average price for a new vehicle is $50,800.
That more EVs selling does drive up the average selling price of cars doesn’t automatically equate to all car prices having gone up. For instance, looking online I found the price for a new 2025 Honda Civic Sedan is $24,250 (MSRP), less than half the price of the average EV ($58,124).
I was curious to see what it would cost me to replace my 2014 RAM 1500 Express with it’s present day equivalent and I found the MSRP is $77,550, more than three times what I paid for my present pickup in 2017 ($24,150). In 2017 the MSRP for a new one was somewhere around $27,500. The price has more than doubled in 8 years. I know my pay hasn’t gone up anywhere near that over the same period of time. However, the present day price isn’t nearly as high as what I saw almost 2 years ago when I saw some listed for over $90,000! I had a local dealer here in New Hampshire offer me what I paid for my 2014 RAM when the market for used vehicles was hot. At the time it had less than 100,000 miles on it and was (and still is) in good shape.
As such, I will be doing my utmost to keep the trusty RAM 1500 in good shape as it will cost me far less to do so than to buy a new one. In fact, it will be going into the body shop early next month to have the last of the rust taken care of (both front fenders) before it gets undercoated prior to winter. I aim to make it last at least another nine years.
I understand that tariffs are having an effect on some new vehicle prices, so rising prices of some vehicles make sense. (The Honda Civic Sedan I mentioned above is manufactured in the US as are most of the parts used to make it.)
It will be interesting to see how the new and used car markets will be like going forward. I expect new car sales might flatten though used car sales may rise, much as happened a few years ago.
I can’t believe it’s Columbus Day Weekend already. The leaf peepers are out and about, particularly around here as we are supposedly approaching peak color. I’ve been seeing a lot of out-of-state license plates, a wider array than we see during the summer. I’ve also been seeing a lot more of those same vehicles wandering around, apparently lost. But I’m not seeing as many leaf peepers as usual for this season. The lack of rain which started in early June certainly hasn’t helped as the colors have been kind of muted this year.
I still see a lot of green here with only a few trees having turned and a few more just transitioning now, so the forecast that we’ll see peak color sometime this week seems to be wishful thinking. We’ll see.
==+++++==
I’ve been hearing contradictory information about China, particularly its economy. The ‘official’ line from China’s government says everything is just fine, just some minor economic fluctuations that aren’t anything to worry about. Then you see something like the following from the China Observer YouTube channel that paints an entirely different picture:
Is this something that happened in one area of China or is it more widespread? If it’s widespread, just how bad is China’s economy? Is it just deep into a recession or is the economy on the edge of collapse? If it does collapse, what does that mean for both China and the rest of the world? It will certainly mean both economic and political problems for China, both internally and externally. Will China be unable to ‘help’ Russia in it’s three-year long “Special Military Operation” in Ukraine even if it gets Russian crude oils as payment?
My employer uses parts from China, more specifically optical and opto-electronic components used in fiber optic systems. We have been looking for alternate sources for some, finding them in Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and pleasingly surprising, in the US. I have no doubt that our competitors are doing likewise as a “Just in case” move, just like we are.
China is also a large supplier of lithium-ion batteries, needed for phones, tablets, laptops, power tools, medical equipment and many other types of portable equipment as well as e-bikes and EV’s. However, there are a number other countries where lithium-ion batteries are manufactured.
All of this contradictory news and information brings to mind an old Chinese curse: “May you live in interesting times.”
I have a feeling China is experiencing those “interesting times” writ large.
==+++++==
New York Attorney General Letitia James isn’t getting anywhere near the abuse she deserves. Look up the word “hypocrite” in the dictionary and you’ll see her picture there.
She ran for office promising that she would “Get Trump” if she were elected. She did just that, using creative interpretation of banking laws to ‘prove’ that standard financial practices for obtaining loans was somehow fraudulent, found Trump liable, and got a $300+ million fine levied upon him. An appeals court found the fine was unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment by an appeals court for being so over-the-top.
But when she commits bank fraud while obtaining mortgages in Virginia by claiming her legal residence is in Virginia, that’s okay? Oh, and then there’s the issue of claiming her legal residence is in Virginia. That would automatically make her ineligible to be New York’s Attorney General because that office requires the Attorney General to be a legal resident of New York. Seems she’s found herself in the middle of a legal pickle, particularly now that she’s been indicted for decades of mortgage fraud.
After four years of relentless lawfare against President Trump, with Democrats shouting that “no one is above the law,” they’ve made one thing perfectly clear: in their world, Democrats are above the law. The evidence that New York Attorney General Letitia James engaged in mortgage fraud is extensive and damning, yet Democrats react with outrage, accusing Trump of “targeting his enemies,” with zero self-awareness or irony.
Make no mistake—unlike James’s baseless case against Trump, the proof that James herself broke the law is overwhelming. Conservative filmmaker and journalist Joel Gilbert laid out a detailed and troubling case, showing that her alleged pattern of mortgage fraud spans decades, and is far more serious than her defenders admit.
Speaking on Real America’s Voice, Gilbert made a detailed James’s extensive history of mortgage fraud.
“Letitia James probably should not have been charging Donald Trump with trumped-up charges of mortgage fraud in New York, given the fact that New York is a public record state and that all of her mortgages for 43 years were online for myself or anybody else to pull up,” Gilbert said. He then outlined a pattern of alleged mortgage fraud dating back to 1983, when James was just 24 years old. “She purchased her first home with her father, claiming that her father was her husband,” he said. “They purchased it as husband and wife in order to help Letitia qualify for a mortgage that she was not entitled to.”
The double standard of too many Democrats in power showed itself far too often during the Biden Administration. Now that the law applies to them again, they’re finding out their arrogance is coming back to bite them. James is going down and so is Senator Adam Schiff as it looks like he may have pulled similar mortgage fraud as well.
Vance doesn’t suffer fools gladly and he told Stephanopoulos truths he didn’t want to here.
Trump’s Press Secretary, Karoline Leavitt, is much the same way as she doesn’t let the press get away with their usual shenanigans and calls them out on it all the time.
Refreshing, isn’t it?
==+++++==
I’ve always liked reading about the Darwin Awards. The way people accidentally do themselves in never ceases to amaze me. One of my favorite types usually has something to do with stupid people trying to steal electrical cabling from inside buildings, telephone poles, electrical substations, and so on. More often then not they fry themselves when they try to cut a cable carrying thousands of volts using bolt cutters. It became so common that the Darwin Awards website no longer accepts such stories of self-elimination.
Sometimes it is the Runner Up stories that are entertaining, like this one:
People have died on Black Bear Pass, well, falling off the pass.
--snip--
It isn't exactly clear how he came to drive off the trail, since there seems to be plenty of room. (As these things go.) One of the commenters guessed that he was busy "looking at the scenery" instead of looking at the trail and paying attention to driving.
There are a couple of lessons.
• Not all 4X4s are created equal
• Not all roads are like they are where you live
• If a local gives you advice about local hazards, you should consider taking the advice.
There are probably more lessons, but that is enough to be going on with.
While I haven’t seen anything quite that severe here in New Hampshire, we have seen people who made the mistake of mindlessly following their GPS which can, during certain times of the year, lead people down roads that aren’t maintained during the winter and they end up getting stuck in the snow. Signs have been put up on some of those roads stating “Your GPS Is Lying To You. Turn Around Now.” or some such language. Other seasonal roads have had gates installed which are closed once winter weather rolls in. They also have signs stating the roads aren’t maintained or accessible during the winter. That still doesn’t stop some people from trying to take those roads.
Some folks just don’t get it.
==+++++==
And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the weather is cooler, the leaves are turning (slowly), and where I don’t have to worry about Monday this week because I have the day off.
I saw this on Facebook this morning and I nodded as I read it, recognizing everything as something that was true, something I had experienced myself and knew to be true.
********************
My name’s Richard. I’m 74.
And I’ve come to realize something about my generation: we are the bridge.
We were born in one world… and grew up in another.
A world where summers meant open windows, the hum of a box fan, and the smell of fresh-cut grass.
Where neighbors waved from their porches, and if your bike chain broke, you didn’t Google it — you knocked on a door and someone came out with a wrench.
We lived in a world built on patience.
We waited for letters to arrive.
We waited for the library to open.
We waited for our favorite song to play again on the radio — and when it finally did, it felt like magic.
Then, almost overnight, everything changed.
Phones shrank. Music became invisible.
News arrived before the coffee finished brewing.
We learned to type, to swipe, to tap.
We learned to talk to machines — and to have them talk back.
We’ve seen milk delivered to the door in glass bottles…
and we’ve scanned groceries without speaking to a single cashier.
We’ve dropped coins into payphones…
and we’ve made video calls to loved ones across oceans.
We’ve known the deep quiet of a world without notifications —
and the noise of one that never stops buzzing.
And sometimes, the younger ones look at us like we’re behind.
But what they don’t see is this:
We know both worlds.
We can plant tomatoes and write an email.
We can tell a story without Google — and then fact-check it with Google.
We know the weight of a handwritten letter and the reach of a message sent in seconds.
We’ve lived long enough to understand that you can change without losing yourself.
That you can honor where you came from while still learning where the world is headed.
We’ve buried friends and welcomed grandchildren.
We’ve seen diseases disappear and new ones arrive.
We’ve unfolded paper maps — and followed glowing blue lines on GPS.
We’ve sent postcards with stamps — and emojis with a single tap.
And maybe that’s our greatest gift:
the memory of a slower, gentler time,
and the courage to adapt to a world that never sits still.
We can teach the young that not everything needs to happen instantly.
And we can remind our peers that it’s never too late to try something new.
Because that’s what we are —
the bridge between what was and what will be.
And as long as we keep standing strong,
the world will always have something solid to cross on its way forward.
Because every generation builds the road a little further —
and ours? Ours remembers both the dirt path and the highway.
After a few days of cooler weather up here at the lake, summer-like temperatures have returned. It was 80ºF here yesterday, will reach about 83ºF here today, and will be in the 80’s through Wednesday. You certainly won’t here me complaining about it. Any day I don’t have to turn on the heat is a good day as far as I am concerned. We’ll be into heating season soon enough as it is. At least one thing I can say about The Gulch is that it is pretty efficient when it comes to heating so it isn’t nearly as expensive as it otherwise might be. During the winter the oil tank will be filled every other month and even then it will take less than 180 gallons of #2 heating oil to do so.
Speaking of warm temperatures this weekend, the WP Mom and I indulged ourselves and went to Dairy Queen to get a couple of Blizzards. It was a good thing we did because this is the last weekend DQ will be open before it closes for the season. Our other go-to ice cream place – Sawyer’s – closed two weeks ago. Most of the seasonal food stands and attractions are closed until next spring. Not that it means that we aren’t still seeing tourists around here because we are now in the middle of Fall Foliage season. It hasn’t reached peak color here at the lake but it has north of the lake up in the White Mountains and along the Connecticut River Valley in the western part of New Hampshire. I expect we’ll see peak color here sometime over the week or so. We’ll be seeing a lot of folks ‘from away’ visiting, including quite a few from overseas.
Once the leaf peepers have departed we’ll have about two months of peace and quiet before the winter tourist season starts. Folks will be up for skiing, snow tubing, snowshoeing, snowmobiling starting just before Christmas. Thinks like ice fishing will have to wait until January in order to make sure the ice on the lakes is thick enough.
Pharmacy chain Rite Aid closed all of its locations after filing for bankruptcy twice in less than two years.
The retailer posted a brief announcement on its website.
"All Rite Aid stores have now closed," the site states. "We thank our loyal customers for their many years of support."
The website offers former customers their pharmacy and immunization history, as well as assistance with finding pharmacies that their prescriptions were transferred to.
The Rite Aid near The Gulch closed about a year ago. So did a couple of other Rite Aid locations elsewhere in New Hampshire that I knew from the past.
It goes to show that even the biggest companies can make mistakes that will bring them down, sometimes to extinction.
Hollywood, on the other hand, is having a conniption fit. If flesh and blood actors and actresses can be replaced by code and CGI and used to make movies and TV series, what are ‘real’ actors and actresses, their agents, their stunt doubles, film crews, extras, and so on going to do?
Frankly, I don’t care. I’ll bet a lot of other people feel the same way.
At least if it does happen we’re less likely to have to listen to the bullsh*t from the Hollywood ‘wokerati’ because there won’t be any.
==+++++==
From VDH comes this new, quite appropriate phrase to define the leftists mayors and governors doing their best to make sure federal government operations are blocked in their cities and/or states:
This is going to be a somewhat shorter TOAS than usual as I have been very busy all day and had little time to do nearly as much as I wanted. I got started a lot later than usual and would like to start getting ready to sleep.
==+++++==
And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where there are still a lot of folks till boating and hitting the beach and swimming, and where Monday is coming around again all too soon.
The Internet and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.
This is an extreme statement, but I’m in an extreme mood.
If I had the energy, I suppose I could fill a hundred pages trying to prove it. I could write about what online reading has done to concentration spans, what smartphone use has done to social mores, how the brains of young children have been rewired by tablets and screens. I could write about social credit systems or facial scans or vaccine passports or online porn or cyber-bullying or cobalt mines or the decline of journalism or the death of the high street. So much content is on offer - and it’s all free!
Still, what would be the point? Whole books have been written already, and by now you either agree or you don’t. And nothing I can say here would be anything like as extreme as the impact that the digital revolution has had on our cultures, minds and souls in just a few short years. Everything has changed, and yet the real changes are only just beginning. By the time they are finished, unless we pay attention, we may barely be human at all.
“I have always thought of it as a paradox - both a blessing and a curse. The social media 'side' of the Internet has certainly been a disaster and I think it has divided us more than just about any other phenomenon.”
Of the plusses:
I can find information quickly that wasn’t as easy to find during pre-Internet days. I can also verify or debunk that information quickly as well. I can search for and purchase items more easily than back in the “Sears catalog” or ‘mail order’ days. I can pull information about my town, my county, and my state from their individual websites rather than having to travel to the individual offices to find that info. These are all a plus of the Internet. But as I mentioned in my comment quoted above, the social media side can be disaster.
Of the minuses:
I have found that social media is far too often not social at all. It is antisocial far too often. We have all seen it used to bully, particularly to cyberbully kids – pre-teens and teens. People use it to paint a picture of their lives that are outright fabrications, giving false impressions about how wonderful their lives are when in fact they aren’t any better than anyone else’s, and in some cases worse than anyone else’s. It can give people unrealistic expectations of what their lives should be like, and can generate disappointment, envy, and even hatred when their lives don’t even come close to those being portrayed on social media.
I am a peripheral social media user. This blog is but one of the two social media outlets I use. Facebook is the other, but I use it mostly to keep in touch with family and some close friends. The blog I use to post opinion about all kinds of things. In the years I’ve been on Facebook I have mostly reacted to or commented on other people’s posts. I think I have posted actual original content all of five times over the years. I don’t have X. I don’t have Instagram or SnapChat or any of the other social media apps and I don’t want them. Most of my social interaction is basically face-to-face, e-mail, or video calls (mostly for work). I have better things to do with my time than allowing my phone/laptop/desktop screen to become my major focus when it comes to social interaction.
The Internet is not my end-all and be-all. It is primarily a tool, one I use for work, be it at my job or performing my duties for my town. Oh, and I do use it for entertainment, mostly streaming movies or TV shows, and then on an occasional basis.
The fall colors are starting to pop here in the Lakes Region, helped along by over an inch-and-a-half of rain this past week. The colors are running a little ahead of schedule this year, due primarily to the lack of rain since June. This has led to the lake level being much lower than usual, something I’ve mentioned over the past couple weeks.
While I did mention pulling my boat out of the water this weekend, I put it off for another week as there were a couple of things I needed to do before I could proceed, one of them making sure the boat trailer was pulled out of storage and the registration sticker for this year placed upon the license plate, something I will be attending to on Monday. All of this is due to the lake level being so low. A couple of the boats that dock along the same pier as I will have problems getting out as the water level is so low that they are now sitting on the lake bed. It’s going to take some work to get them out!
I will be taking one last cruise around the lake today unless I am able to sneak one in sometime later this week before pulling the boat out of the water.
Americans are more likely to watch newly released movies from the comfort of their own homes instead of heading out to a theater, according to a new poll.
About three-quarters of U.S. adults said they watched a new movie on streaming instead of in the theater at least once in the past year, according to the survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, including about 3 in 10 who watched new movies on streaming at least once a month.
Meanwhile, about two-thirds of Americans said that they’ve watched a recently released movie in a theater in the past year, and only 16% said they went at least once a month.
The results suggest that, on the whole, American moviegoers are more likely to stream a film than see it in the theaters, a shifting tide that was only accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath. Convenience and cost are both factors for many people who can’t find the time to go to a theater or pay the increasingly high price for a ticket.
I understand it as the cost of a night out at the movies keeps climbing. Almost everyone has an HDTV and more than a few have a 4K UHD TV. I watch far more newer movies at home than at a theater. The last movies I saw in a theater were Downton Abbey, Yesterday, and Bohemian Rhapsody some years ago. Otherwise I watch them one of my 52” Sharp Aquos HDTVs. I have not yet upgraded to a larger 4K UHD TV and am unlikely to do so unless one of the Sharp’s die.
I can watch at my convenience, pause if I need to hit the head or get some more snacks, or even stop watching and pick up again the next day if it comes to that. I don’t have worry about parking, rude patrons, and expensive concession stand refreshments.
Considering how many of the movies coming out of Hollywood these days are dreadful, I am not inclined to waste my time and money at a movie theater to watch any of them.
I've had at least two people in my life, one a family member, one a coworker, die by liver failure in part due to overdoses of Tylenol.
But oh I guess I'm just "too right wing" or whatever for warning you of the consequences.
It has been known for a long time that overdoses of acetaminophen is toxic to the liver. Yet liberal know-nothings who hate Trump with a passion are downing huge doses of Tylenol just to prove that what he, RFK Jr. and Harvard have warned about is false. Some of them taking doses appear to be pregnant women. All I can do is pray that none of them seen in the linked videos are taking large doses.
I hope that isn’t the case because these women won’t have to worry about their children having autism. They have to worry about them surviving such a stupid stunt.
Two filthy hag Democrat sisters in their 20s are accused of vandalizing a Charlie Kirk memorial in Bentonville, Arkansas. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes, as they hags found out after they were caught on video vandalizing a Charlie Kirk memorial. They both got fired from their jobs, and are now begging for money online using GoFundMe.
The two sisters have also been complaining that they’ve been harassed for their vandalism. One of them, the older of the two, has also been evicted from her home.
This may sound a bit heartless, but they haven’t received a fraction of the embarrassment and verbal abuse they deserve.
And the hits keep on coming…
==+++++==
As a closing, I want to mention that yesterday the WP Mom and I met the younger WP Sister and WP Niece in Manchester for lunch. It was a bittersweet get-together as my niece is heading overseas – northern Europe – for two years, working at her employer’s HQ to upgrade her skills and knowledge about her employer’s products and services. She departs on Tuesday.
I know she’s a little nervous about this, but I reminded her that she’s broadening her horizons and will gain a different perspective about all kinds of things.
While she does plan to return home for Christmas, her visits home will be few and far between.
==+++++==
And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where it’s still nice and warm, there’s no rain in the immediate forecast, and where Monday is returning again to “harsh our mellow”.
When I first heard about it before it was built, I thought it might be better way of generating electricity using solar energy because it used ‘old’ technology to generate power, that being steam driven generators, along with new technology – computer controlled mirrors to generate the steam – as it didn’t require exotic materials and used proven technology in a new way.
However, after $2.2 billion was spent to build and operate the plant, it’s being shut down because it “Never lived up to its promises.”
Construction began in 2010 and was completed in 2014. Now it’s set to close in 2026 after failing to efficiently generate solar energy.
In 2011, the US Department of Energy under President Barack Obama issued $1.6 billion in three federal loan guarantees for the project and the secretary of energy, Ernest Moniz, hailed it as “an example of how America is becoming a world leader in solar energy.”
But ultimately, it’s been more emblematic of profligate government spending and unwise bets on poorly conceived, quickly outdated technologies.
“Ivanpah stands as a testament to the waste and inefficiency of government subsidized energy schemes,”Jason Isaac, CEO of the American Energy Institute, an American energy advocacy group, told Fox News via statement this past February. It “never lived up to its promises”, producing less electricity than expected, while relying on natural gas to stay operational.”
The last part surprised me as I wondered why as solar electric power plant would need large amounts of natural gas. It was a paradox...until I found out they used the natural gas in order to keep the molten salt hot when the sun was down. The molten salt was the working fluid that carried the heat from the ‘target’ at the top of each tower to the heat exchanger which generated the steam used to turn the turbines used to actually generate the electricity. That really didn’t make sense to me as I thought the idea was to reduce or eliminate the need for fossil fuels to generate electricity.
It also depended on a lot of taxpayer money to keep operating, just the opposite of what was promised. It was supposed to be able to pay for itself but it never even came close to doing so. It was a money loser. Steven Milloy, senior fellow at the Energy & Environmental Legal Institute and former Trump EPA transition team member commented, “No green project relying on taxpayer subsidies has ever made any economic or environmental sense,” he said. “It’s important that President Trump stop the taxpayer bleeding by ending what he accurately calls the Green New Scam.”
There are plenty of other “green energy” projects out there that eat up a lot of taxpayer money, don’t produce the amount of power promised, aren’t reliable, and aren’t appropriate for some areas.
Call me an energy snob, but the money would be better spent on new late Generation III and Generation IV nuclear power plants.
The weather here at the lake has taken a decided cooler turn with the past two nights seeing temperatures in the lower 50’s to lower 40’s. While it will be in the 70’s today and over the next few days, I think it’s safe to say the summer weather is pretty much done for the year.
I can say that we are starting to see some of the leaves changing color, with the swamp maples usually being the first to change from their usual green to bright red. I have also seen a few others changing here and there, but some of that could be due to the stress of the dry conditions we’re experiencing. I any case we usually see peak foliage colors during the first half of October here at the lake. It’s one reason I keep the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout in the water until mid or late Oc tober as it allows us to see the brilliant colors from the lake. But it looks like that won’t be happening this year because of the lack of rain over the past three months.
As I mentioned in last week’s TOAS, Lake Winnipesaukee’s water level is about a foot-and-a-half below normal level for this time of year. One of the downsides to the water level being so low is that it might make some boat ramps unusable, something that has me concerned. After checking with BeezleBub and the folks who will be winterizing and storing the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout, it looks like it will be coming out of the water next weekend, about three-plus weeks earlier than usual. However, rather than going directly to the boatyard it will be going to BeezleBub’s so I can take care of some repairs and cleanup I’d like done before it goes into storage.
==+++++==
The following is ironic considering my post of yesterday looking at left wing violence.
So far authorities haven’t been able to establish any connection between Nadeau and his victim DeCesare.
Was this a politically motivated killing, the actions of a mentally ill man...or a combination of both? For the moment I am leaning towards the third option, particularly in light of so many of the Left are also mentally ill.
He wanted to “fundamentally” transform America…. He even started cancel culture for those who didn’t agree with his communist policies, and had people fire[d], debanked, censored, or banned on social media if you dared to say how you disagreed with anything he said or did. Now that it coming back to bite him and the rest of the communists in the ass after Jimmy Kimmel get indefinitely suspended. After over 30 ABC affiliated stations dropped Kimmel’s lame unfunny show, ABC had no choice but to do something, and Disney pulled the plug. Their goal is back to making money. It used to be sucking up to Democrats and DEI sh*t, but that ship has sailed. Now Obama is whining about the same cancel culture he created.
That seems to be a particular failing of Democrats in positions in power, taking actions that at some point will come back to be used against them somewhere down the road. We saw that when Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) who was the Senate Majority Leader at the time, exercised the so-called “nuclear option” by changing the Senate rules which removed the filibuster from confirmation of Supreme Court Justices as a means of getting one of Obama’s nominees conformed by the Senate. That came back to haunt the Democrats during the first Trump administration when the Democrats were unable to block any of Trump’s nominees.
Now it’s cancel culture that is hammering Progressives/Leftists/Democrats after many of them posted hateful tweets and videos celebrating Charlie Kirk’s murder and praising his murderer.
Too bad.
==+++++==
There was a fatal traffic accident just down the road from The Gulch yesterday, with a Ford Bronco crossing the centerline on the road and striking two motorcycles head-on, killing two of the three motorcyclists.
Gilford police said Anthony Summers, 32, of Goffstown, is charged with two counts of negligent homicide and one count of falsifying physical evidence.
The crash happened Saturday on Route 11, police said. Two motorcycles, one with two people on it and another with one person on it were heading eastbound when a newer model Bronco crossed over the center line and collided with the two motorcycles, police said.
A man and woman on one motorcycle were killed and a man on the other motorcycle was taken to Concord Hospital for serious, life-threatening injuries.
No mention has been made whether or not the Bronco driver was under the influence, but I think that would have been included in the report if that was the case. That makes me wonder if it was distracted driving as that particular stretch of road does have some small, gentle curves that could have led a distracted driver to cross over into the oncoming lane. I know I’ve seen that happen more than a couple of times along that road.
==+++++==
And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the nights are chilly, the days are warm, and where the leaves are already starting to change color.
"Left-wing violence doesn't happen, most violence is right-wing!"
Far-left violence since 2016:
2016: BLM Riots
2016: Police shooting in Dallas
2016: Police shooting in Baton Rouge
2016: NYPD Officers shot as "revenge" for Eric Gardner
2017: Trump inauguration riots
2017: Berkeley Riots
2017: Congressional GOP Baseball Practice Shooting
2019: ICE facilities firebombed (This was listed as a 2018 event, but it took place in 2019 – ed.)
2019: Dayton Shooting
2020: BLM Riots (countless damage/fatalities)
2020: Fatal CHAZ shootings
2020: Shooting of Aaron Danielson
2021: Unjustified Ashli Babbitt Shooting
2021: Waukesha Massacre (Looking over the info about this attack, it looks more like an attack by a mentally ill man as there doesn’t seem to be any political motivation for the perpetrator’s actions. - ed.)
2022: Far-left assassination plot on Dem mayoral candidate (I couldn’t confirm that the assailant in this case was associated with the Left. - ed.)
2022: Lee Zeldin stabbing attempt (Another incident where I couldn’t confirm the assailant’s motive or political leanings. - ed.)
2023: Tennessee Christian School (Looking over the info about this attack, this also looks more like an attack by a mentally ill man as there doesn’t seem to be any political motivation for the perpetrator’s actions. - ed.)
2023: Evergreen, CO school shooting (There was no school shooting in Evergreen, Colorado in 2023. However, there was a shooting there earlier this month. The only fatality was the shooter who died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. - ed.)
2024: Butler (First Trump assassination attempt)
2024: Second assassination attempt on Trump
2024: Abundant Life Christian school shooting (femcel) (This appears to be another shooting committed by someone suffering from mental illness, in this case a 15-year old girl. Looking through numerous stories and reports I couldn’t find anything regarding a political motive. - ed.)
2024: United HealthCare CEO Murder
2025: Teslas lit on fire
2025: Murder at the Israeli embassy
2025: Josh Shapiro firebombing attempt by Hamas sympathizer (perpetrator may have voted for Trump, but only for accelerationist purposes)
2025: LA ICE Riots, and attacks on ICE officers
2025: ICE Facilities ambushed, officer shot
2025: Minnesota Lawmaker Shooting (disputed--perpetrator allegedly mildly supported Trump, but worked for several Dem governors and claimed he was contracted to kill by Tim Walz, probably just a schizo)
2025: Minneapolis Christian School
2025: Anti-white NC Stabbing
2025: Various attacks on GOP offices
2025: Attempted Utah news station firebombing
2025: Charlie Kirk assassination in Utah
2025: Bomb planted on Fox News Truck near Utah shooter's house.
Some of the list above appears to be wishful thinking on someone’s part, while other items on the list are legitimate. I didn’t add links on some parts of the list either because there were eleventy-eleven articles, posts, and references I didn’t have the time to parse, or they are more recent (or big) that just about everyone has heard about them and the motivations behind them.
That tells us a lot right there. If the Left says they want you dead, believe them and prepare accordingly. But don’t attribute all of the incidents of attacks and killings on the Left. Some have been committed by mentally ill persons...but that doesn’t mean they weren’t supporters of the Left.
It’s been nice weather up here at the lake. Perhaps too nice.
We’ve had very little rain since June and it has caused the water level on the lake to drop about a foot-and-a-half which has led to problems for some boaters. Sand bars are now poking above the water level. The same with rocks and ledge in some places. One of my favorite places to anchor for swimming can only be reached from one direction as the channel that leads to it from the west is too shallow on its eastern end. The rock formations known as The Witches on the lake are fully exposed, something we usually don’t see until the lake is drawn down for the winter.
Normally, I pull the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout out of the water some time after Columbus Day Weekend. However, seeing the low water levels has me thinking about pulling it out at the end of September. One thing I had to do last weekend was lower the fenders at my boats slip to keep my boat from rubbing up against the dock. But in order to do that I had to replace the existing lines on the fenders with longer ones because the exiting ones were too short to get them down to where they needed to be. I’ve never had to do that in the 20-some years I’ve had that boat. So my boating season my be ending three weeks earlier than usual.
In May, President Donald Trump signed four executive orders to facilitate the construction of nuclear reactors and the development of nuclear energy technology; the orders aim to cut red tape, ease approval processes, and reshape the role of the main regulatory agency, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, or NRC. These moves, the administration said, were part of an effort to achieve American independence from foreign power providers by way of a “nuclear energy renaissance.”
Self-reliance isn’t the only factor motivating nuclear power proponents outside of the administration: Following a decades-long trend away from nuclear energy, in part due to safety concerns and high costs, the technology has emerged as a potential option to try to mitigate climate change. Through nuclear fission, in which atoms are split to release energy, reactors don’t emit any greenhouse gases.
The Trump administration wants to quadruple the nuclear sector’s domestic energy production, with the goal of producing 400 gigawatts by 2050. To help achieve that goal, scientific institutions like the Idaho National Laboratory, a leading research institute in nuclear energy, are pushing forward innovations such as more efficient types of fuel. Companies are also investing millions of dollars to develop their own nuclear reactor designs, a move from industry that was previously unheard of in the nuclear sector. For example, Westinghouse, a Pennsylvania-based nuclear power company, plans to build 10 new large reactors to help achieve the 2050 goal.
Despite claims of the climate change cultists, renewables aren’t the answer. They don’t have the energy density, don’t have the efficiency, don’t have the reliability, and aren’t dispatchable. They are also nowhere near as cost effective or as cheap as the renewable proponents claim.
That there are a number of individual companies developing new Generation III and IV reactors that do not have the issues seen with Generation II nuclear reactors, the biggest one being the lengthy and costly construction timelines. Most of the Gen III and IV reactor designs are modular, meaning they can be built in a factory, then transported and installed at the construction site. Build times will drop from 10+ years (figuring in all of the lawsuits and court orders) to less than 2 years. They may not be huge 1000MW reactors like a good number of the Gen II reactors have been, but they don’t need to be. It will be cheaper to put three smaller 300MW small modular reactors (SMR’s) at a single site than a single 1000MW reactor built the “old fashioned” way.
My state’s governor, Kelly Ayotte, made a nuclear power renaissance part of her campaign platform as she sees nuclear as the way to ensure a reliable supply of electrical power.
I agree.
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This news doesn’t surprise me. What surprises me is that it was NBC News that reported it.
Food and Drug Administration officials plan to present data they claim links the Covid vaccine to 25 deaths in children at what’s expected to be a closely watched vaccine advisory committee next week, a source confirmed to NBC News.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, is scheduled to meet Thursday and Friday to review and make recommendations on several vaccines, including this fall’s updated Covid shots.
What I have to wonder if the number of children who died due to the Covid vaccine is much higher than the 25 they mentioned. Then there’s the the question of the vaccine’s effect on pregnant women as it has been suggested that an unknown number of pregnant women who received the vaccine being adversely affected, including miscarriages. There’s also the question the increase in the number of cardiac arrests in otherwise healthy young adults who received the vaccine.
I attended and reported on some Tea Party rallies in upstate NY.
Our archives dating back to 2010 document the vicious smear campaigns not only from leftist groups like the now-defunct Think Progress, but also establishment Republicans. In a hint of what was to come against Trump, the IRS was weaponized against the Tea Party.
The Tea Party was at heart a movement of people who just wanted to be left alone in the face of accelerating governmental mandates and intrusion – epitomized by the Obamacare mandate which forced you to buy private health insurance policies. It didn’t matter how much you tried to insulate yourself, you had to buy the policy.
The Obamacare mandate eventually was saved by John Roberts in the 2012 Supreme Court decision holding the mandate fell within Congress’s taxing power.
The Tea Party eventually fell by the wayside unable to withstand the pressure and from internal divisions.
Which brings me to a tweet by Prof. Randy Barnett about how suppression of the Tea Party gave way to MAGA.
This @politico analysis of Charlie Kirk’s role in the conservative-MAGA movement is informative. But it doesn’t get what happened to “Tea Party libertarianism.” The Dems demonized and suppressed the Tea Party constitutionalists with everything they had. MAGA was the response.
Now, the Left seems to be bent on killing us, at least the loudmouth ‘woke’ a**hats who prefer feelz to facts and call anyone who disagrees with them fascists and Nazis. What’s ironic is that so many of those same folks have turned out to be the actual fascists who want to go “full Nazi” on those who dare oppose them. They think the murder of Charlie Kirk was “a good start”.
Some of them are likely to find out just what FAFO means…
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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where we’re still boating despite the low water level, schools are now back into full swing, and where Monday is returning...again.
