Thoughts On A Sunday

It was firewood stacking time at The Manse yesterday.

Deb and I moved a pile of of our first cord of seasoned fire wood from next to the garage, stacking it inside the garage and out of the weather. We have three more cords to be delivered and then stacked before winter finally closes in.

There is one change I made inside the garage in order to make for a more orderly stack of cords wood. Rather than ending the stack with what is called a 'cobb house' (wood stacked crosswise in a 'tower' to act as a support at the end of a stack). This year I put together three floor-to-roof 2X6's crossbraced with a few 2X4's to act as a support for the end of the wood stack. This made it easier to stack the fire wood and allowed us to stack it higher than we otherwise would be able to using a cobb house. With this new end brace we can to stack two rows of fire wood up to the roof joists, allowing us to put almost all 4 cords of wood inside. That means we won't have to go outside to get wood for the Official Weekend Pundit Woodstove during the heating season.

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More and more it seems there's less and less to the Herman Cain sexual harassment allegations. This is particularly so if one takes a close look at the accusers and their mentor, David Axelrod. Another suspicious thing – all of the accusers are from Chicago.

This looks to be just another chapter from the Axelrod Book of Dirty Tricks – The Chicago Edition.

Herman Cain has spent his life living and working all over the country — Indiana, Georgia, Minnesota, Nebraska, Kansas, Washington, D.C. — but never in Chicago.

So it's curious that all the sexual harassment allegations against Cain emanate from Chicago: home of the Daley machine and Obama consigliere David Axelrod.

Suspicions had already fallen on Sheila O'Grady, who is close with Axelrod and went straight from being former Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley's chief of staff to president of the Illinois Restaurant Association (IRA), as being the person who dug up Cain's personnel records from the National Restaurant Association (NRA).

--snip--

And now, after a week of conservative eye-rolling over unspecified, anonymous accusations against Cain, we've suddenly got very specific sexual assault allegations from an all-new accuser out of ... Chicago.

Herman Cain has never lived in Chicago. But you know who has? David Axelrod! And guess who lived in Axelrod's very building? Right again: Cain's latest accuser, Sharon Bialek.

Curiouser and curiouser...

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It appears the Atomic Nerds blog has been hacked. I wasn't able to reach it yesterday and it wasn't until I visited Scary Yankee Chick that I found out why.

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The more I read this guy's blog, the more I like him. Stop by and say hello to Wirecutter at the Knuckledraggin' blog. He's going directly to both New Finds and Regular Reads.

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I took a tumble this morning stepping out of the shower, spraining my wrist when I landed.

The cause of this mishap?

A poorly designed bathroom mat.

Generally a mat with non-skid properties has a textured rubber-like backing to prevent the mat from slipping even if there is water on the floor. But this one has a flat untextured backing. If/when water gets underneath it it acts like a lubricant, making the mat act more like a stereotypical banana peel in cartoon. It was this mat that dumped me on my butt when I stepped out of the shower.

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Have you ever wondered why McDonald's McRib sandwich appears and disappears at random intervals? Well wonder no more as Willy Staley has the answer: arbitrage.

Looking further back into pork price history, we can see some interesting trends that corroborate with some McRib history. When McDonald’s first introduced the product, they kept it nationwide until 1985, citing poor sales numbers as the reason for removing it from the menu. Between 1982 and 1985 pork prices were significantly lower than prices in 1981 and 1986, when pork would reach highs of $17 per pound; during the product’s first run, pork prices were fluctuating between roughly $9 and $13 per pound—until they spiked around when McDonald’s got rid of it. Take a look at 30 years of pork prices here and see for yourself. Also note that sharp dip in 1994—McDonald’s reintroduced the sandwich that year, too. Though notably, they didn’t do so in 1998.

So when pork prices fall by a certain percentage, McDonalds brings back the McRib.

Makes sense to me.

(H/T Maggie's Farm)

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Also by way of Maggie's Farm comes this post by Martin Luther King's niece, decrying the Left's smear campaign against Herman Cain. As she writes:

There are two reasons the liberal media can’t get enough of the Herman Cain smear campaign:

-They would rather report unsubstantiated allegations and gossip than report the real issues, because talking about the real issues would not be in the best interest of the president.

-The establishment is threatened by a strong conservative with such a large platform.

For many years, the Democrats have had a 90% stranglehold on the black vote. This is because many blacks feel that Republicans are racist and only care about the rich, while Democrats love them, give Blacks welfare, etc. When a strong, charismatic, BLACK conservative goes head to head with Obama, many blacks who have not yet done so will actually listen to both sides of the political argument.

Indeed. And that scares the bejeezus out of the Democrats and the White House.

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Will online public/private schools be the answer to the ever decreasing quality and increasing expense seen in public brick-and-mortar schools?

Like any educational institution, it depends upon those running it and the support given by parents. I can certainly see such online schools supporting the efforts of parents home-schooling their children.

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Glenn Reynolds and a number of others don't like the idea of regionalized federal income tax rates, primarily because it ends up subsidizing states with high cost of living to the detriment of low cost of living states. It might be germane that many of the high cost of living states are blue states and low cost of living states are red states.

Could it be envy, the mainstay of leftist ideology? After all, the blue states are running out of other people's money to finance their socialist agenda and now want to take money away from those living in states that have kept their fiscal houses in order.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where we're in that in-between period where there are no tourists, political campaigns are heating up, and where Thanksgiving is less than two weeks away.

A Small Town Gala Event

Yes, I know there was no post last night, but I have a good excuse.

I was attending one of the rare gala events in our small town: the opening of our new supermarket.

Well, it's not really new so much as it's in a new location, with more retail space, more selections, a new sushi bar (must be for the tourists as most of us up here at Lake Winnipesaukee prefer our fish cooked), fancy new coolers (the lights turn on in the coolers only when there's someone actually in front of them). There was all kinds of food at the gala, with everything from cheese and crackers to prime rib, lobster bisque, scallops, and clam chowder. Drinks ranged from ice cold cider, locally bottled soft drinks, and coffee. Of course there was also a large selection of desserts. (I hit the dessert table before partaking of the other delightful foods as I live by the credo “Eat dessert first. You never know when something will come up and take you away from the dinner table!”)

The gala was attended by all kinds of important folks, like two of our three selectmen (the third selectman and his wife work for a rival supermarket chain so his decision not to attend was unsurprising), members of the planning board (that's why I was there), various business leaders (Farmer Andy and his missus were in attendance, just to name a couple), and civic organization representatives.

The old location closed at 8PM last night and the new one opened at 7 this morning.

I think it will be quite popular, ayuh.

My missus showed me this video, stating quite accurately that it depicts exactly what we go through every morning with Cole, with one exception: Cole can't wield a bat...yet. I figure it's only a matter of time.




For more cat cartoons, videos, and pictures, head on over to Simon's Cat.

Refusing To Learn The Lessons Of Other's Failures

It is said the truly smart will learn from the harsh lessons of others' failures. I can say that one member of the WP clan is that smart, that being the youngest of the WP sisters. (As she says, she made her own mistakes while growing up that our parents never found out about.)

It would be great if the political class presently ruling the US was as smart as my youngest sister. Unfortunately they are not.

They see the economic meltdown occurring in the Euro-zone, yet refuse to learn the lessons countries like Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain are teaching us, the primary one being that eventually you will run out of other people's money to fund all the wonderful social programs that have been used to bribe the electorate.

Italy is the latest to teeter on the brink of insolvency, and should it go over the edge it is quite likely it will pull the rest of the Euro-zone with it. Greece's default damaged the European economy yet it has only a fraction of the GDP of Italy. Should Italy default Europe will take an additional $2 trillion hit it cannot afford. Is it any wonder Germany is considering abandoning the Euro and going back to the mark? Can anyone deny that this problem has been driving the British public to demand a referendum about whether or not to remain in the EU? At least those two countries see the problem and realize they'll have to bankrupt themselves in a doomed effort to prop up economic policies from Brussels.

But too many of our own politicians at the state and federal level, regardless of party, seem oblivious to the fact that unless we make some drastic changes in how our federal government taxes and spends we will be headed down the same path. Labor leaders ignore the fact that neither businesses or taxpayers are a bottomless source of funds, shortchanging their own members by making promises no one can keep.

Should the US fail to put its financial/economic house in order, and right quick, it will pull the world economy down with it into a depression unlike any we've seen before.

More American Quirks

A busy night tonight, so to cheat a little bit here's some more on American quirkiness.

One astute observation:

As you can read here in the comments: “The” United States may exist as a political entity, but for every strange (or quirky) behavior you will find another American who makes fun of it, generally so spot on and convincing that they beat every foreigner who may try the same.

Spot on.

American Quirks

I came across this indirectly by way of Maggie's Farm. If nothing else it illustrates the quirkiness of America and Americans as seen through the eyes of folks from outside the US.

Some of the observations are amusing, some poignant, and a few quite condescending. Some provide us with some of those “Gee, I never really noticed that before” moments. Some are valid and some are totally friggin' clueless. In other words, they aren't much different from our own observations about ourselves.

Some of my favorites:

I was startled to find out that "God Save the Queen" has alternate lyrics.

The fact that so much American cheese is coloured orange surprised me. ( Orange cheese is most likely a cheese-like product and not actually cheese. - ed.)

People using checks is antiquated in terms of other developed countries.

Everyone eats with one hand and keeps the other hand on their lap all through the meal. Also, sometimes they go through an elaborate switch-fork-to-left-hand-pick-up-knife-in-right-cut-up-food-then-switch-fork-back-to-right-hand dance.

Leave your money in the mailbox. You drive onto a persons home property and they are selling something (small bundles of fire wood, home grown produce, or home made Adirondack chairs) and a sign tells you "If no one is home just leave the money in the mail box."

That they probably have the best customer service culture in the world, but can rapidly descend into being the most aggressive if challenged.

One language - I noticed in Europe most people speak more than one language and usually even 3 or more ( Who needs to speak more than one language in a place like Kansas or Idaho or Ohio? Here in northern New England a large number of people speak French due to our proximity to Quebec. In the Southwest it's Spanish, Navajo, Hopi, or Zuni. In Florida it's Spanish. In the Dakotas it's Lakota. In Europe you might cross through more than one country in a single day. In the US you might be able to make it across a single county in a day. Scale is everything. - ed.)

My girl friends from Ireland and the UK find it strange that the bathroom stalls have such wide gaps between the wall and door. I never noticed it until they talked about how bizarre it was. To this day, my only guess for why is that maybe it's so that you can tell a stall is occupied. Hmmmm.

American lemonade is brilliant stuff. In the UK if you ask for lemonade you get Sprite. Bleh. In the US you get something close to proper cloudy lemonade.

American drivers are far more likely to stop and let a pedestrian cross the road, even when there is no marked crossing. Possibly due to the novelty of seeing someone on foot.

I was shocked to find that hired help is not the norm in such a wealthy nation. When I was a kid I thought all Americans had a butler, a housemaid and a cook.

There is a huge culture of self-help / self-improvement.

My Spanish friend was amazed at all the houses made out of wood in New England.

Checkout clerks in the grocery store do their work standing, not sitting.

Americans waiting in line is just preternatural! Recently, waiting for a bus from DC to Philly, there was no waiting area or anything foreseen (one of those bus companies that doesn't use stations). It was Friday night and the buses were all booked solid. Tons of people were showing up, and yet everyone was till queuing up perfectly politely, waiting their turn, inquiring where the line started and how far it stretched back. It gave one faith in the waiting process, brought the stress of the situation way way down.

The pervasiveness of religion. Europeans know that Americans are religious, but you don't get a sense for how pervasive it is. Everyone mentions God all the time like it ain't no thing. People would lose their jobs over that in France!

The thing I've seen non-Americans struggle over the most is the scope of influence of local government. Our local (state, and even city or other municipality) governments have a lot of power and influence over day to day life, so there's no one standard for how US law enforcement, zoning, city planning and traffic management, utilities, animal control, and public works are run. Liquor laws, trash pickup, and even criminal laws might seem just as bizarre and foreign to someone from the next state or city over as they are to someone living halfway across the world.

Buy a coffee, have it endlessly refilled for no money. This is like magic heaven stuff to Brits. (I can attest to this. My British ex-fiancee thought it was a wonderful thing every time she was here and made the best of it. - ed.)

There are literally hundreds of observations about American quirks, many which caught me off guard even though I've spent quite a bit of time in Europe. Many are amusing. Some are offensive (that might show the observer's prejudice). Nonetheless, the list is quite informative.

Thoughts On A Sunday

You did remember to turn your clocks back, didn't you?

Personally, I think this semi-annual clock change has outlived its usefulness. I don't have a problem with getting up when it's still dark out to start my day. I'd prefer to have the extra hour of sunlight in the afternoon during the short winter days, but that's just me.

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Almost all the snow that fell last weekend is gone, with the exception of some of the snow piles left over from plowing. Hopefully we won't see any more snow until just before Christmas, but I'm not holding my breath.

One thing I did this weekend was go back to the BBH/A/L/GS store to see if they had replenished their supply of snowblowers. They had indeed, but by a very small amount. So I talked with the OPE guy (OPE – Outdoor Power Equipment). I told him what I wanted, knew they'd had some there prior to the surprise Nor'easter, and wanted him to order another for me. After 30 seconds I knew this was going to be a long drawn out process.

To make a lengthy and boring story a lot shorter, I told him that if I didn't hear back from him or one of his co-workers by end of business Monday that I would take my business to one of their competitors even though it means a considerable drive towards the New Hampshire seacoast.

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I brought Bagheera's remains home from the vet's office late Friday. I didn't think taking the box with his ashes from the hands of the veterinary tech would affect me. But I almost lost it as I carried him back to the truck, and back home.

I miss him.

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Andy Rooney died on Friday.

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Some folks merely complain about the OWS protesters, and others actually do something about them, this time in Modesto, Kalifornia.

The best line in the post: “Better get used to that s**t son, if you want to be a real revolutionary.”

Gotta love it...

(H/T Maggie's Farm)

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Ineptocracy, indeed!

(H/T Instapundit)

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Skip Murphy reminds us about the strength of the “Army of Davids”.

Indeed - an "Army of Davids" which is the name of the book that Glen[n] Reynolds wrote in describing how technology is shifting such that individuals can band together for a purpose via the 'Net, accomplish a voluntary goal, and then disband in ways that never would have been possible before. In fact, many Conservatives and TEA Partiers used the Internet to get their message (visual: Skip waving his hand!) out and coordinating with others in a joint movement.

--snip--

What the Left did was to finally push Conservatives "to the edge"; having tolerated behavior contrary to those above points, and not having ever gone "the protest route" before, we did not have the organizational baggage that the Left had. Thus, having no "legacy systems" in place, we utilized the newer ways of organization.

It is because the Left has that baggage, dating back to the 60's, that they couldn't conceive of the idea that the Tea Parties weren't organized by some overseeing organization or political party. Hence their claims of “astroturf” (artificial grass roots movement paid for by someone else). But their claims didn't hold water. And though the left has tried to 'create' its own grass roots movement – the so-called “coffee party” - their efforts failed and their movement disappeared. Now they've tried to co-opt OWS into their own astroturf movement, but the “Army of Davids” have exposed those efforts and made them look stupid.

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Daniel Foty looks into the story of who really broke the banks and the ensuing blame game that points the finger at everyone except those who actually caused the problem. (Hint: it isn't the banks or Wall Street.)

It's been rather unsettling to watch the various counter-factual attempts to heap all of the blame for the "financial crisis" onto "Wall Street" and "bankers." This sort of scapegoating requires willfully selective amnesia about a number of events going back years (and even decades) - and willfully lets a variety of major contributing actors off the hook. Even uglier have been calls for arrests and prosecutions without any indication of actual breaking of the law; even people you may not like are entitled to due process of law... and like free speech, in the case of due process, if you're not in favor of due process for people you happen to dislike then you are not in favor of due process.

As the saying goes, Read The Whole Thing.

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Just a reminder: The 2012 national elections take place one year from today.

This means we'll have to put up with yet another 12 months of campaign ads and gladhanding politicians seeking our (monetary) support and votes.

It can't be over too soon.

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The New England Patriots play the New York Giants today in Gillette Stadium starting at 4:15PM. I'm just hoping they won't let their defeat at the hands of the Steelers affect their game today.

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Bogie has two related posts on smart phones, one dealing with what she calls Good Apps/Bad Apps and the other with smart phone drop tests.

On the first, she tells us she got suckered in to downloading a new version of an app that allows her to listen to the streaming audio from a couple of her favorite local radio stations. She had used the older app because radio reception where she works is spotty at best. The old app worked quite well.

Once she downloaded the new app all of that changed. Now she gets nothing because the app doesn't work. It doesn't even load properly, hanging up once it reaches a certain point.

She adds this warning:

Anyway, this is a word of warning for anyone contemplating downloading this particular app on an Android phone- stay away, it sucks!

Indeed.

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Cap'n Teach gives us observations by the NYPD in regards to OWS. As one officer put it:

“Every single night it’s the same thing. I mean, some guy was a victim of rape!” an officer snarls. “There comes a time when it’s over. This is a disaster. It’s all we’re doing, every two seconds, is locking somebody up every time. It’s done.”

“It’s done,” he repeats. “Occupy Wall Street is no longer a protest.”

I'm not sure what it is either, other than a bunch of ignorant wanna-be revolutionaries trying to recreate the worst part of the 1960's radicalism, and failing. Or worse, maybe they're succeeding and we've just forgotten how nasty it was back then.

Cap'n Teach adds:

In all seriousness, I want the Occupiers to keep their little slice of insanity (violence, criminality, etc) up for another year and 2 days. The longer this goes on, the more people get an eyeful of what the Left, especially the Progressives, stand for, and, by extension, what Obama, Pelosi, and a good chunk of elected Democrats stand for.

Heh.

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Posting might be non-existent tomorrow as tomorrow evening I have a public hearing to attend in another town here in the Lakes Region.

A number of towns are in the process of renewing their franchise contracts with the local cable MSO and I am a technical adviser for the consortium handling the negotiations. I attend the meetings should there be any technical questions about the cable system and the services they offer or are planning to offer.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where Eastern Standard Time has returned, most of the 12”+ of snow that fell last weekend has all but disappeared, and plenty of outdoor work awaits as the warm temperatures have returned for the next few days.

Useful Idiots

I saw this the other day but waited until I had a chance to show it to a friend who, like the fellow in this video, grew up in the old Soviet Union. His opinion of the people advocating the elimination of capitalism and replacing it with socialism: “Useful idiots, just as Lenin and Stalin labeled them!”


As my friend pointed out, these people are insane. Because they have allowed themselves to be brainwashed about the so-called “evils of capitalism” and are no longer capable of thinking for themselves, they should be put away into an asylum. When I asked why he thought them insane, he said this:

You would agree that Albert Einstein was a brilliant man, yes? He said that insanity is doing the same thing again and again, hoping the results would be different this time. What these folks want has been proven not to work, time and time again. It has killed millions upon millions of people. Yet these crazy people want to do it again. See? Insanity!

What these folks don't realize is many of those socialist paradises only lasted as long as they did because of capitalism, not in spite of it. Without funds from the capitalist countries and the thriving underground capitalist economies operating in those socialist worker's paradises, they would have collapsed far sooner than they did. Why do they think China has abandoned socialist economics and embraced capitalism? It's simple: socialism doesn't work, and the Chinese knew it.

If these useful idiots want to try living in a socialist society, there are still enough around for them to go to to give it a try. I suggest Venezuela or Cuba, two bastions of socialist paradises.

Venezuela, a country with the wealth of abundant oil, has devolved into a poverty-stricken socialist dictatorship where infrastructure has broken down. The only ones benefiting from Chavez's socialist ideologies are his cronies. Everyone else there has suffered, seeing their livelihoods destroyed all in the name of socialism.

Cuba is an economic basket case and has been since Castro took over. It became even worse once the Soviet Union collapsed because there were no more socialist subsidies flowing from the always almost empty socialist coffers (usually filled by way of aid from capitalist countries).

Socialism is an ideology of envy and greed, as history has proven more than once. Many claim it is an egalitarian ideal, but the only thing shared equally in those egalitarian socialist societies is misery and terror. Some of the more radical socialists say that unless everyone can have X, Y, or Z, then no one should have X, Y, or Z. The problem with that is that it is an unrealistic vision because no one will ever have anything new, except misery and terror. (Actually, I must correct myself. Only the ruling elite will be able to have X, Y, and Z. Everyone else is screwed.)

If nothing else the Occupy Wall Street protests are showcasing the radical beliefs of these fringe lunatics and showing them to be the insane purveyors of unrealistic and totalitarian ideologies.

A Checklist - The Tea Party Versus OWS

The Jawa Report has a handy dandy checklist comparing the Tea Party folks to the #Occupy folks. Again, it's no surprise the OWS folks come out on the short end of this one.

There are also a couple of related links at the bottom of the list you should check out.

(H/T Maggie's Farm)

Yet Another Step Closer To Star Trek

As time passes we get closer and closer to what has been called The Singularity. I call it getting closer to Star Trek.

The latest step towards that vision is something called biophotonic instrumentation . Now that we've named it, it's time to learn what it does.

At the moment when it's necessary to monitor a patient's heart rate, blood pressure, or blood glucose level a nurse or technician is required to attach a heart monitor, a blood pressure cuff, or to draw blood for testing. It's time consuming and requires a number of different pieces of equipment. But what if it were possible to monitor all of those parameters at the same time using nothing more than a laser beam and a camera?

Now it is.

When human skin is illuminated by a laser beam, the movement of blood under the skin manifests itself as vibrations at the skin’s surface. These vibrations create a secondary optical speckle pattern that correlates to the blood flux, which depends on blood viscosity (related to glucose concentration), blood pulse pressure, and heart rate.

A few-milliwatt infrared (IR) laser at 1550 nm is used to illuminate the wrist of a patient at an oblique angle (see figure). The vertical-reflection speckle pattern is collected by an optical system that consists of a fast camera to record the reflected intensity pattern.

--snip--

Although the distance between the light source and the subject’s skin was approximately 50 cm in the measurement setup, the researchers say they can also extract these biological parameters when the laser-skin distance is several-hundred meters. In addition, the parameters could be obtained not only from wrist-skin reflections, but also from chest and neck reflections.

The system could be located above the patient's bed or off to one side in one corner of a room, yet allow unobtrusive monitoring of the three medical parameters. That means less need to tether a patient to the monitoring equipment, greater comfort for the patient, and less effort for medical personnel.

There could also be certain security applications for this technology, such as monitoring passengers in an airport. A raised heart rate and blood pressure could trigger closer monitoring of some passengers as it's likely both parameters would be elevated in someone “up to no good.” Of course it might also mean a passenger is a nervous flier. But it would be another covert tool for use by airport security personnel in screening passengers before boarding a flight.

Bagheera The Magnificent: 1999-2011

It is with heavy heart that I must announce the passing of Bagheera The Magnificent. He died late this morning in the arms of my wife Deb.

He was an opinionated, stubborn cat, a leader of the feline members of the Weekend Pundit Household. He was also an occasional contributor to this blog, covering topics of import...to him.

As snooty as he was, he was also a great companion, a comfort during troubling times, and generally an all around “Gu' Boy”. He helped Deb raise BeezleBub from the age of 5. He managed to decimate the chipmunk and mouse population around The Manse over the past 6 years. He lulled us to sleep with his purring, curling himself around the tops of our heads like a cat hat as we fell asleep. He would dry BeezleBub's hair after his bath because “he couldn't do it hisself!” He tolerated the other felines in the house, but personally I think he liked having the others around if for no other reason than to show his magnificence by comparison.

It's never easy losing a member of the family, even if they have four feet and fur. Bagheera was a sweet lovable cat, his curmudgeonly online persona notwithstanding.

Sleep well, old friend. May your supper dish always be full and your bed filled with catnip, Big Kitty.

Occupy Wall Street Learning A Randian Lesson

Is it possible the Occupy Wall Street protests might succeed where indoctrination has failed?

While the OWS protests are obstensively supposed to show “the people” the evils of capitalism, it is having an unexpected side effect. It's teaching the OWS protesters the evils of socialism up close and personal, by way of Ayn Rand.

Not surprisingly, Occupy Wall Street has become a magnet for thieves and con-men. As one organizer complains, "Stealing is our biggest problem at the moment."

Then there are the bums. Originally, from what I can tell, street people were actively recruited by the Occupiers as a way of adding to their somewhat anemic numbers. But the naïve young hippies who make up the bulk of the movement are quickly discovering what the rest of us, with the benefit of actual life experience, already know about "the homeless."

Over at Occupy Boston, a protester complains, "It's turning into us against them. They come in here and they're looking at it as a way of getting a free meal and a place to crash, which is totally fine, but they don't bring anything to the table at all." Another report concludes with a similar sentiment.

"We have compassion toward everyone. However, we have certain rules and guidelines," said Lauren Digioia, 26, a member of the sanitation committee. "If you're going to come here and get our food, bedding and clothing, have books and medical supplies for no charge, they need to give back," Digioia said. "There's a lot of takers here and they feel entitled."

These kids had better watch out. If they start thinking that like this, pretty soon they might find themselves at a Tea Party rally.

“There's a lot of takers here and they feel entitled.” Gee, that sounds familiar. Could it be because the very ones complaining about the takers are themselves takers of a higher order? What hypocrites. They're finding out that the socialist/marxist creed of “From each according to his ability. To each according to his need,” does nothing but create a large amount of 'needy' while diminishing the number filling the needs. It's right out of Atlas Shrugged, where the takers (looters) take more and more while creating a huge disincentive for those producing what is taken to keep working. At some point the producers end up becoming nothing more than slaves to the takers, as Rand outlined in her novel.

It seems the OWS protesters are “dominated by 20-year-old white middle-class college boys .” What the hell do these college boys know of real life and how economies actually work? From what they're showing the world, not much. But they're sure as heck learning the hard way that nothing free is actually free. Someone else has to pay for it. This time around, it's them.

(H/T Maggie's Farm)

Thoughts On A Sunday

The snow certainly arrived earlier than usual this year, at least snow with a substantial accumulation. The lack of a snowblower certainly made cleaning up after the 12+ inches of heavy wet snow deposited by the storm a rather difficult task. Bogie has even more snow to move than we do.

While Deb and I accomplished our primary mission, finding replacements for the furniture that was damaged when the bathtub in the master bath sprung a leak, we didn't get the chance to go out shopping for the new snowblower yesterday.

You know this latest weather 'calamity' will be blamed on AGW. It's only a matter of time.

UPDATE: See, that didn't take long.

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Considering most of the leaves were still on the trees here in northern New England the snow caused a lot more power outages than a snowfall like this would under normal circumstances. Over 200,000 were without power in New Hampshire, with the total number in the millions across the Northeast.

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It's Halloween tomorrow night, which brings to mind an old saw: “You know you live in New Hampshire when you make sure your kids' Halloween costumes will fit over their snowsuits.”

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There is a rebellion brewing in rural California, with the ever increasing hardhanded edicts from Sacramento being felt by folks in rural counties causing them to fight back, along with help from their local law enforcement.

The state government decide to cave to the watermelon environmentalists and start destroying hydroelectric dams along the Klamath River, taking away both power and water resources from a number of farms and ranches in the area. (It seems hypocritical to me, destroying a renewable energy source all in the name of the environment.)

These rural folks, living in the shadow of the majestic Mount Shasta, believe that they are being driven away so that their communities can essentially go back to the wild, to conform to a modern environmentalist ethos that puts wildlands above humanity. As the locals told it during the Defend Rural America conference Oct. 22 at the Siskiyou Golden Fairgrounds, environmental officials are treading on their liberties, traipsing unannounced on their properties, confronting ranchers with guns drawn to enforce arcane regulatory rules and destroying their livelihoods in the process.

The evening's main event: a panel featuring eight county sheriffs (seven from California, one from Oregon) who billed themselves as "Constitution sheriffs." They vowed to stand up for the residents of their communities against what they say is an unconstitutional onslaught from regulators in Sacramento and Washington, D.C. In particular, they took issue with the federal government's misnamed Travel Management Plan, which actually is designed to shut down public travel in the forests.

Plumas County Sheriff Greg Hagwood related the stir he caused when he said he "will not criminalize citizens for just accessing public lands." Siskiyou County Sheriff Jon Lopey reminded the crowd that county sheriffs are sworn to uphold the Constitution "against all enemies, foreign and domestic." These are fighting words.

I think we always knew the lunatic fringe seemed to thrive in California, now we're seeing they've taken over the reins of government and are doing their best to destroy what little is left of liberty and rights in the Golden State.

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Bill Whittle schools the Progressives about the actual meaning of the Commerce and General Welfare clauses of the Constitution, and warns them that “if the social compact is broken by the government, then we don't have to live by their laws,” something that could easily lead to rebellion and the end of the rule of law. But then Progressives seem to like that idea. They have certainly worked hard to make the Constitution nothing more than a worthless piece of paper interesting only in a historical perspective, and to replace it by the rule of the politically correct courts and edicts from politically correct Progressive leaders...like Castro, Stalin, Breznev, Chavez, Hitler, Mussolini, Obama, etc.

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Thought this is a little dated, it's still indicative of the problems facing a lot of American cities who for years spent far more than they could afford. In this case it's Detroit (again) having troubles keeping the streetlights on.

This is yet another ongoing example of the result of years of Democrat governance and union in the Motor City. I have a lot of sympathy for present Detroit Mayor Dave Bing seeing as he has decades of damage and neglect to undo.

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The liberal meme that supporting Herman Cain for President proves the Right's racism is growing. Never mind that they have to twist their logic in ways that would have caused such folks expressing it to be involuntarily committed to a mental institution only a few decades ago because they would have been seen as being totally disconnected from reality.

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Cap'n Teach tells about a woman who left her 11-year old son with strangers at a convenience store so she could go to the OccupyPortland site and wash dishes.

What a moron.

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Wizbang has an interesting and simple comparison by the numbers between the OWS and the Tea Party protests. OWS doesn't come out looking very good, but then I really didn't expect them to.

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Watching the New England Patriots play the Pittsburgh Steelers was painful. Neither the defense or the offense were working. During the beginning of the second quarter the only way the Patriots seemed to be able to get first downs was due to Steeler penalties.

The second half wasn't much better. In the end the Patriots lost.

Just before the game started one of the TV commentators mentioned that Bill Belichick had checked the stats of all 12 teams coming off a bye week and found that the win-loss records of such teams was only 3-9. It looks like the Pats fell victim to that statistic.

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Speaking of the Patriots, Bob Parks brings us this story of Marcus Cannon, whom the Patriots drafted even though he'd been diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma. The thirty one other teams decided he wasn't worth it. Bill Belichick decided he was.

He was right.

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One thing I have to admit to: being weirded out by seeing all of the snow on the ground along with the trees still bearing green, red, yellow, and orange leaves. It was while BeezleBub and I were heading to the local Big Box Hardware/Appliance/Lumber/Garden Supply store to get a few 2X6's and 2X4's for a little project in the garage that we saw the paradox of snow and leaves.

As an aside, while at the BBH/A/L/GS store we decided to see what they might still have in the way of snowblowers. Last week they had a couple of dozen lined up out in front and another dozen just inside the main entrance. Today, they had four. And one of the helpful BBH/A/L/GS store employees tried to convince us to buy one of four the leftover snowblowers even though none of them were big enough to do the job at The Manse. Needless to say we took a pass.

We'll give them a few days to replenish their supply and then maybe we'll finally be able to replace our defunct snowblower.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the snow is melting away, the temperatures will be rising back into the upper 50's, and where we still need yo lay up our supply of firewood.

Some Harsh Truths

I saw this by way of Instapundit. It reveals some harsh truths the #OWS folks won't admit to, but something We The 53% understand completely.

We are Wall Street. It’s our job to make money. Whether it’s a commodity, stock, bond, or some hypothetical piece of fake paper, it doesn’t matter. We would trade baseball cards if it were profitable. I didn’t hear America complaining when the market was roaring to 14,000 and everyone’s 401k doubled every 3 years. Just like gambling, its not a problem until you lose. I’ve never heard of anyone going to Gamblers Anonymous because they won too much in Vegas.

Well now the market crapped out, & even though it has come back somewhat, the government and the average Joes are still looking for a scapegoat. God knows there has to be one for everything. Well, here we are.

Go ahead and continue to take us down, but you’re only going to hurt yourselves. What’s going to happen when we can’t find jobs on the Street anymore? Guess what: We’re going to take yours. We get up at 5am & work until 10pm or later. We’re used to not getting up to pee when we have a position. We don’t take an hour or more for a lunch break. We don’t demand a union. We don’t retire at 50 with a pension. We eat what we kill, and when the only thing left to eat is on your dinner plates, we’ll eat that. For years teachers and other unionized labor have had us fooled. We were too busy working to notice. Do you really think that we are incapable of teaching 3rd graders and doing landscaping? We’re going to take your cushy jobs with tenure and 4 months off a year and whine just like you that we are so-o-o-o underpaid for building the youth of America. Say goodbye to your overtime, and double time and a half. I’ll be hitting grounders to the high school baseball team for $5k extra a summer, thank you very much.

So now that we’re going to be making $85k a year without upside, Joe Mainstreet is going to have his revenge, right? Wrong! Guess what: we’re going to stop buying the new 80k car, we aren’t going to leave the 35 percent tip at our business dinners anymore. No more free rides on our backs. We’re going to landscape our own back yards, wash our cars with a garden hose in our driveways. Our money was your money. You spent it. When our money dries up, so does yours.

The difference is, you lived off of it, we rejoiced in it. The Obama administration and the Democratic National Committee might get their way and knock us off the top of the pyramid, but it’s really going to hurt like hell for them when our fat a**es land directly on the middle class of America and knock them to the bottom.

We aren’t dinosaurs. We are smarter and more vicious than that, and we are going to survive. The question is, now that Obama & his administration are making Joe Mainstreet our food supply…will he? and will they?”

So if the OWS folks get their way and kill off Wall Street and the corporations, what they'll get in return is an economic collapse that will make the Great Depression look like a minor market correction in comparison. But what do you expect from economically illiterate and spoiled children who feel entitled to what the rest of us earned?

An Early Snowfall

While snow is expected here in New England every winter (and sometimes in late fall), I admit to a little surprise and dismay to find snow on the ground when I left for work this morning and another 4 to 8 inches expected to fall by sometime Sunday.

We have not yet secured a new Official Weekend Pundit Snowblower, but the missus has suggested buying it sometime tomorrow (but not until after we finish doing some shopping to replace the furniture damaged when we suffered the 'flood' inside The Manse last month).

Tonight was also the first time we fired up the Official Weekend Pundit Woodstove. With all the post-flood repair work done, the new paint dried, and the chimney having been cleaned by the chimney sweeps earlier this week, it seemed the time had come to fire it up and to stop burning expensive propane to heat The Manse. At least we have just under a cord of firewood stored in the garage. We're still waiting on the first delivery of the four cords of wood we ordered from Farmer Andy, something he usually starts just after Halloween.

I have a feeling it's going to be a long cold winter.

Women Serving In Special Units In Afghanistan

I don't rightly recall, but I may have mentioned that one of the Weekend Pundit nieces is in the United States Army and presently deployed to Afghanistan.

I recently received an e-mail from her by way of my sister-in-law and my lovely missus which points to a WaPo piece about her unit and the training she and the others went through to prepare for their tour of duty. The article covers the specialized training and evaluation these troops went through in order to qualify for one of these special units. Those who made it through are some tough cookies.

My niece appears in a number of pictures in the accompanying photo gallery, but I am not going to reveal her name.

We've always thought she was special, and this and her present duty post certainly prove it without a doubt.

The Walken Dead...

Something I got from a friend at work.



“More cowbell!!”

Another Edict From Obama...To Help Him Get Re-elected

I'm beginning to wonder if President Obama will end up being the president to issue more executive orders than any other. It certainly seems he's headed that way.

With his latest I-won't-waste-my-time-going-through-Congress-to-get-this-passed edict that changes the entire student loan system, including payment caps and 'forgiveness' clauses, he shows he really doesn't like the rule of law. Not surprising for an Alinskyite leftist trying to buy his re-election through giveaways to the naïve and willfully ignorant.

But I still am not sure whether his actions are made through ignorance of how the real world works coupled with incompetence, or through the belief in a failed ideology of greed, envy, and elitism, i.e. Marxism. I'm not sure which would be worse, unless it's a combination of both.

Waht Do They Want? More. What Do They Need? To Grow Up.

Taking a look at many of the protesters involved with #OWS, you realize most of them are quite young, generally college age. This is quite telling as in the past it has been the so-called 'enlightened' youth that have led protests and revolutions. But in this case their cause célèbre is not one of justice or rights or racial harmony. Instead it's borne of a belief in entitlement to things of which they have not earned. In other words, they want someone else to pay for the things they want.

Bill Whittle does a pretty good job of explaining what it is the protesters want: More. He also tells them what it is they need: To grow up.

Thoughts On A Sunday

It's another typical fall weekend here in New England, with cooler days predominant and fast fading foliage colors.

The foliage wasn't as good this year as seen in past years, not so much for the actual colors than the scattershot timing of it. Usually the leaves will change in rough unison, but not this year. Instead the timing of the change has been far more random, as seen here in the Lakes Region. We still have quite a few trees sporting green that are just now beginning to change while others changed a couple of weeks ago, hit their peak color, and are now shedding their leaves.

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My dear brother and I were at the WP Parents yesterday, taking care of a number things that needed doing. John cleaned windows as I dealt with some minor computer issues.

When he was done with the windows, we both tackled a semi-daunting problem with configuring our parents' new Sony media player so they could stream Netflix movies. This required replacing an existing wireless router (an early version of an 802.11g wireless access point) with a new one capable of connecting to the media player. I also helped the WP Dad finish assembling his new computer desk and getting everything on his old one moved over to the new one. This move also allowed me to untangle the rat's nest of wires that seem to grow all by themselves as time passes. (This always seems to happen, no matter how careful we are to prevent it. Maybe we've discovered a new universal physical law or a new twist on an existing one.)

The first movie we watched once everything was up and running was The Expendables, with Sly Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Terry Crews, and Mickey Rourke. Lots of really neat explosions in that one! (A dislaimer: we watched that movie to test the system and make sure everything was working. No, really!)

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It looks like the conflict between Nevada and New Hampshire in regards to the Nevada caucuses has been resolved, with Nevada deciding to hold their contest in early February, negating the need for New Hampshire to move its primary to sometime in December.

This decision by the Nevada GOP may have had something to do with a number of leading GOP candidates stating they wouldn't participate in the caucuses if Nevada didn't back off.

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In regards to yesterday's post about the supposed dangers of Smart Meters, here's another large study showing no link between cell phone use and brain tumors.

Considering the RF field generated by cell phones is 125 times that of a Smart Meter (assuming the meter is transmitting 100% of the time, which it doesn't), I'd say the anti-Smart Meter folks have got some explaining to do.

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Reason presents a poll that asked Americans to state in their own words the biggest problems they are facing today. The three biggest in order were jobs, the economy, and debt/deficits/spending.

One thing that wasn't on the list? Climate change.

(H/T Maggie's Farm)

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Also at Maggie's Farm comes this analysis about the #OWS protesters and their lack of self-esteem. Most of them are young adults stuck in an extended adolescence with no real identity, many of them in college. As Bulldog writes:

[Eric]Hoffer pointed out that blue collar workers rarely joined protest movements. Since they tended to join the workforce at a young age, they developed their identities earlier than protesters. Their self-esteem was in place and didn't require an outlet for juvenile behaviors.

Indeed. RTWT.

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The We Are The 53% site is still quite active, with more posts from those who are the 53% paying the taxes for those 99%-ers who don't.

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You have got to be kidding me.

Is this yet another example of the failure of our educational system or is this guy just a moron?

Unfortunately the answer is probably both.

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It seems these days that if you want a shot at business success without all of the government roadblocks standing in your way, the place for you is Estonia.

[Spaniard Naphtali Peral] says that he established his company here in only half a day, mainly online. The record for establishing a company, he adds, is only 18 minutes. In other words, the government doesn't say: Hey, Peral, who do you think you are, starting a company, just like that? No, he says, the state actually encourages entrepreneurship, and says things like: So you have an idea, Peral! Go for it! And then he says that it takes him 20 minutes to prepare his semi-annual tax return, and that when it was time to slash the government budget, Estonia's cabinet ministers started with their own salaries.

I don't see anything like that happening here, even in my home state of New Hampshire which has less government regulation of business than most other states in the US. Starting a business in the US can be daunting, particularly in states with a heavy-handed bureaucracy, high business taxes and fees, and too many politicians more than willing to choose the business winners and losers. And since BHO has taken office it has become more so, with his blessing.

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This past Friday it became official: Deb and I are no longer small business owners.

We sold our business to one of our customers, someone who believes she can put the time, effort, and money to grow it even during these tough economic times. Both Deb and I will be working with the new owner to help her do just that. (I'll be handling tech support for the computer systems used by the business.)

It wasn't that we didn't want to do it. Quite the contrary. But Deb wanted to go back to school in pursuit of a nursing degree and between her regular job, our business, and school, she didn't have enough time to devote to all three. Giving up her 'regular' job wasn't an option as we receive our family's medical benefits through her job (one she absolutely loves, by the way), and our business wasn't making enough money pay anything more than the bills, payroll, rent, and franchise fees. There was nothing left over to pay ourselves. And with my job the hours didn't allow me to put in time at our business except on weekends and some evenings. In order for it to grow we each needed to put in more than 40 hours per week, something we just couldn't do. So we had only three options: keep limping along, close it, or sell it.

We didn't want to close it as we had a group of customers we didn't want to let down. We didn't want it to just keep limping along because we knew that eventually we would have to close it, just much later. So the only option was to sell it. Fortunately we had someone who saw the potential and made us a reasonable offer.

Deb admits she didn't expect the sale to be so emotional for her, but the moment she walked into the business for the last time she broke down. So did a number of our employees (friends she made while running and later owning the business) and some of the customers who were present.

But the business lives on. The new owner sees this as an opportunity for her and we're willing to help her succeed in any way we can.

And so it goes in small business America.

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While I and many of my fellow conservative bloggers have railed against the Main Stream Media and their all but publicly announced left bias, my fellow Granite Stater Jay Tea goes to town against the NYT and their attempted hatchet job on Senator Mark Rubio of Florida.

Then again, the Times lost all credibility years ago after numerous plagiarism scandals and episodes of reporters just making stuff up. You'd think they would have learned their lessons, but no, they pushed the Rubio story without doing any fact checking and now every claim they made about Rubio has been found wanting.

Is it any wonder why people distrust the media?

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One last bit of information before closing things out.

Repairs to The Manse started last week. A plumber was in to fix the leak that caused all the problems, and the main contractor has had his guys put up, tape, and mud the new drywall on the dining room ceiling. Half the hardwood flooring has been torn up with the rest to be pulled up starting sometime Monday morning. Once the ceiling has been completed the new flooring will go in and then the walls will be repainted. If things hold to schedule the work will be completed in another week and a half.

It will be nice to have everything back together as it was before the Great Flood.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the fall foliage is still changing, the weather has cooled somewhat, and where we expect to see our first delivery of firewood sometime next week.