Thoughts On A Sunday

It’s a half-and-half weekend here in central New Hampshire, with really nice weather on Saturday and snow/sleet/freezing rain today.

While we haven’t had what I would call a typical winter weather cycle this year, we’re still seeing enough winter weather. There haven’t been any real major snowfalls in this area, with most storms dumping about 6 to 8 inches with a changeover to sleet or freezing rain at the end. We usually see a lot more snow and it isn’t typical to end with sleet or freezing rain.

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When I read this over at Instapundit my first reaction was that the inmates are running the asylum.

How stupid, intolerant, and ignorant is it to apply 21st Century “sensibilities” to 20th Century actions? (Notice I put sensibilities in quotes because what passes for sensibilities these days is intolerant, ignorant, and neo-puritanical. They have nothing to do with reality.)

When you have ill-educated college students applying those 21st Century “sensibilities” to things like a 1971 Playboy interview with John Wayne or an iconic picture from the end of World War II, you know things are seriously broken in this society. The typical response to be offended on the behalf of people who aren’t offended by what happened back then is the height arrogance and intolerance. They have become the very people they profess to ‘hate’ and they do not see it or their hypocrisy. In fact if they are aware of it they are proud of their willfully ignorant holier-than-thou take on life.

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Oh, lord, but AOC is the gift that keeps on giving!

Her latest contribution to the destruction of the Democrat party is her equating the border wall President Trump wants to build on our southern border with the Berlin Wall built along the border between East and West Berlin.

Either she really has no grasp of history (very likely, considering she has no understanding of the history of socialism) or she is willfully ignorant. To equate one wall that is used to keep illegal immigrants and smugglers from entering the US to a wall that was built to keep people from escaping a totalitarian state, a wall that had guard towers, guards with machine guns, and spotlights to deter people from leaving communist East Germany for free West Germany is ignorant at best and disingenuous at worst. Many were killed by East German guards while trying to get across that wall. How many have been machined-gunned trying to cross from Mexico into the US?

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I’m glad to see that my home state of New Hampshire is only the 42nd most sinful state, at least according to WalletHub. I am disappointed that neighboring states Maine and Vermont scored better than we did. On the other hand New Hampshire has state liquor stores with their own exits off of the Interstates.

At least we’re 48th when it comes to violent crimes per capita, with Vermont and Maine being numbers 49 and 50, respectively. Then again all three states are constitutional carry states, have very liberal gun laws, and a relatively high percentage of gun ownership.

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Is it time to reconsider the Electoral College?

No. It works exactly as it was designed to work. If that is changed what’s to keep the same people hating the Electoral College for pushing to deconstruct the Senate and make it proportional like the House? At that point the “tyranny of the majority” would come into being and small states like mine will become political backwaters while states like California, Texas, Florida, New York, and Illinois will be making the decisions for the other 45 states. That way leads to rebellion.

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

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The New Hampshire Democrats efforts to make our state less safe by implementing Gun Free Zones has some intended ‘unintended’ consequences.

The push to make one of the safest states in the country into one big free-fire zone for criminals is the intended purpose of the proposed legislation. With the definition of school property being so broad, just about every place where things like school buses, school books, and class pets are located would be defined as a Gun Free Zone. That will make every single law-abiding citizen of the state carrying legally owned firearms a criminal under the proposed law.

It’s yet another in an endless attempt to disarm law-abiding citizens.

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Could the reason so many Millennials seem to be willing to embrace socialism is because they have never heard of Lenin, Stalin, or Mao?

With no understanding of the past, and particularly the history of socialism, it’s no wonder so many seem willing to look at socialism. They don’t understand the dark history of that destructive ideology.

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I think the whole Robert-Kraft-Visited-A-Massage-Parlor-And-Asked-For-A-Happy-Ending scandal is a setup. It’s a conspiracy aimed at the New England Patriots in retaliation for their sixth Super Bowl win. The other NFL teams can’t seem to beat them on the field, so they’re going after the owner as a means of weakening the Patriots.

Too bad for them that it won’t work.

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No, cats aren’t psychopaths. But they have conquered the world using humans to do it.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the snow has been falling, the vacationers from Massachusetts have been departing for home, and where much colder temperatures and high winds are expected to arrive.

Thoughts On A Sunday

It’s another wonderful weekend up at Lake Winnipesaukee. Looking out from the deck at The Gulch I can see that the lake is fully frozen over and that fishermen and snowmobilers are making full use of the ice.

It’s also February Vacation week down in the People’s Republic of Massachusetts, meaning a lot of folks from there are up here for the week. That means the ski slopes are busy as are the cross-country and snowmobile trails. It also means the cash registers are ringing as both restaurants and outlet malls are busy. (New Hampshire has no sales tax so a lot of people cross the border to shop tax-free. During this week a lot of visitors will take advantage of their time on vacation to ‘kill two birds with one stone’.)

With more snow on the way tonight and again on Thursday, the conditions will be perfect for those vacationing here this week.

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I have to admit that I was surprised to see a tweet from Sarah Jeong slamming anti-vaxxers. But the follow-on tweet from Brian Rockwell brings things back into perspective.

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You tell them and you tell them and they still refused to listen.

In this case, proponents for $15/hour minimum wage in New York were warned that there would be fallout if it ever came to be. Much of that fallout would be in the form of reduced hours or loss of jobs because of the artificial increase in the cost of labor.

Now that $15/hour has come to be in New York City, fast food workers are losing their jobs and the NYT is saying they are being laid off without “just cause”.

Did proponents really think that affected businesses wouldn’t take steps to deal with their greatly increased cost of doing business? With labor being a third to a half of a restaurant’s operating costs, is it any wonder they would try to reduce their costs when the cost of labor was artificially increased?

As far as the layoffs being called “without just cause”, does the NYT think the businesses should be forced to keep employees they can no longer afford just to make them and the $15 proponents feeling good about what they did? Isn’t “I can’t afford to keep you because I have to pay you more than I can afford” a just cause? How much will employees be paid when the business they work for closes its doors when it goes bankrupt?

That the NYT and $15 proponents chose to ignore the lessons of other places like San Francisco and Seattle when they imposed a $15 minimum wage shows they are either willfully ignorant of the side effects or didn’t really care because the whole thing was just a ploy to make them feel like they were “doing something” to help the poor and oppressed. Too bad their help had just the opposite effect.

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The Democrat-majority New Hampshire Legislature has put forth a list of gun control legislation that, as far as I can tell, does nothing but strip law abiding citizens of their Second Amendment rights. This in a state with very low crime rate and constitutional carry.

They are trying to fix problems that don’t exist all in an effort to make themselves feel safe. But the proposed legislation will have just the opposite effect. While they may feel safer, the truth is that they will be less safe. This is particularly true for one law that will allow local school boards to ban possession of firearms on school grounds. It allows them to create so-called Gun Free Zones. Not that such designations have ever stopped anyone who ignores such laws (like criminals) from carrying guns in those zones. There are enough examples of just how much Gun Free Zones haven’t prevented anyone from entering them with their guns and shooting/killing people.

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Speaking of second Amendment Rights, it appears that a number of county sheriffs in New Mexico have already taken a stand in regards to a number of restrictive gun laws making their way through the state legislature. They plan to support becoming “sanctuary counties”, counties that will not enforce any state gun laws that are seen as violating the US Constitution’s Second Amendment.

This follows actions taken by counties in other states like Washington to provide sanctuary from state laws severely restricting the rights of citizens to bear arms.

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I have watched the feminist movement in the US since the late 1960’s and seen it devolve from an equal rights movement to a “We demand superior rights to those of those misogynist men because we’re helpless and need protection from the patriarchy even though we can do everything they can do” movement that has no grounding in reality.

Here’s a single photo that will show the difference between feminists here and in other countries:

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It has come to this in the Progressive World:

Comrade Vlad Linen has had to denounce new California Governor Gavin Newsom’s decision to cancel the $100 billion High Speed Train To Nowhere, which has upset AOC’s plans for her Green New Deal.

Ocasio-Cortez has said these would make air travel obsolete, which means she has a solution to take us to Hawaii and all the continents. Probably even the moon and Mars by way of train! Does anyone realize the harm to the climate that happens when people use a rocket to go to the moon?? So, naturally a high speed rail network to everywhere in the solar system would be the better option.

Commissar Newsom will now have to go the way of Debbie Whatshername-Schultz. Yes, still with a political position, but a non-person who will go nowhere nonetheless.

The Leftist autophagy continues!

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where winter is safely ensconced, winter activities abound, and where we have more snow on the way.

Thoughts On A Sunday

An exciting week has come to an end, one that saw the New England Patriots triumphant (again), temps swinging from single digits below zero to above 50°F, rain, snow, snow & rain, as well as the exercise of small town democracy (town and school district meeting), and editorial sparring in the local paper’s Letters section.

We’ve also seen a number of possible Democrat presidential contenders visiting New Hampshire, trying to get a feel if there is any support for their possible campaign to become the Democratic nominee for President. It signals that the political silly season has started and that soon we’ll be seeing an increasing and endless train of candidates, camp followers, and press. It will be absolute madness as we get closer to the New Hampshire Primary.

This might be a time to start drinking heavily.

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This isn’t news to any of us engineering types.

It turns out that cold weather can have a negative effect on the batteries of electric vehicles.

Under ideal conditions, these [EVs] can deliver more than 200 miles per charge and, in some cases, even 300. But as many owners discovered last week as winter storms slammed much of the country, cold weather conditions do not qualify as "ideal." A new AAA study finds that when the thermometer drops to 20 degrees Fahrenheit, range falls by an average of 41 percent on the five models it tested.

"We found that the impact of temperature on EVs is significantly more than we expected," said Greg Brannon, AAA’s director of Automotive Engineering."

Some EV drivers — including this correspondent — recently found that range can drop by half when the mercury tumbled into negative territory. But the AAA study appears to be the first to have used standard, repeatable methodology to confirm the problem and compare the effect of winter temperatures on different models.

Once it gets below freezing the battery chemical reactions can slow down and the internal impedance can go up, meaning the battery can’t deliver all of its stored charge. While heating the battery system will help maintain the full capacity of the system, the extra drain placed upon the batteries to keep them warm decreases the energy available to drive systems. Now add the need for the environmental system to keep the passengers comfortable and the vehicle range will go down even more.

EVs will be fine when the weather is warm, but for places like here in New Hampshire we might find that EVs are a not a viable means of transportation during the depths of winter.

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As if we need yet another in an endless series of proofs that socialism just doesn’t work, there’s Panera Bread’s experiment in socialism that has ended in a dismal failure.

Panera Bread’s ‘pay-what-you-want’ socialist program goes totally belly-up.

Panera Bread will be closing its last pay-what-you-can restaurant, located in Boston, on Feb. 15.

The move comes after the business’s “nonprofit” restaurant concept became unviable. On Tuesday, Eater reported that none of the restaurant’s five locations was self-sustaining.

Better that an experiment in socialism be a small one that affects a single business (Panera) rather than a big one that ruins an entire nation (Venezuela, for instance).

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One of the things that at least one potential Democrat Presidential contender has put forth as part of their platform is the oft-touted Universal Basic Income. While it may sound like a good idea at first glance, once one delves into it and takes human nature into account, the idea falls apart. That’s certainly what Finland found out when it tried as an experiment.

When it launched the pilot scheme back in 2017, Finland became the first European country to test out the idea of an unconditional basic income. It was run by the Social Insurance Institution (Kela), a Finnish government agency, and involved 2,000 randomly-selected people on unemployment benefits.

It immediately attracted international interest – but these results have now raised questions about the effectiveness of such schemes.

Did it help unemployed people in Finland find jobs, as the...Finnish government had hoped? No, not really.

Mr Simanainen says that while some individuals found work, *they were no more likely to do so than a control group of people who weren’t given the money. They are still trying to work out exactly why this is, for the final report that will be published in 2020.

I can explain why they saw what they did: human nature. It always wins in the end.

But will that stop the experiment from being tried again? Unfortunately the answer is no. It seems the city of Chicago wants to give it a go.

Giving people something for nothing and not expecting anything in return gives you... nothing in return. But it sure makes lefties feel good to be giving out other people's money for such a good cause.

I expect the experiment will show the same results as the one in Finland.

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is the poster child of today’s biased colleges.

Considering her disdain for anything not of a socialist bent, her willful ignorance of socialism’s history, let alone history of any kind, and her stunning lack of knowledge of economics despite an Economics degree from Boston University.

Do you think AOC has read one word of Friedrich Hayek? Do you think that she has even heard of him? What do you think she knows of history in general? We already know how informed she is about the Middle East.

This is a new form of proud Know-Nothingism. We can't even say it will come back to haunt us because it already is doing just that. Reforming our educational system is the most important mission of our time. Presidents come and go. Even media grandees come and go — after a while (too long a while). But education remains, shaping our future. Change it or everyone sitting in Congress will be AOC. (No it doesn't stand for All-Out Communist. But wait long enough and it could.)

And people wonder why she is disparaged with the moniker Alexandria Occasional-Cortex. It’s because she only uses her brain oh a now and again basis.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where we’re expecting some more snow later this week, thoughts of the coming boating season in 3 months, and the realization that Monday is coming upon us once again is disturbing to no end.

Thoughts On A Sunday

Super Bowl Sunday has arrived (also known as New England Patriots Invitational Sunday).

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We survived the arctic blast that afflicted the Midwest, though it was attenuated as compared to what was seen in Fargo, Minneapolis-St. Paul, and Chicago. We’ll be seeing temps swing into the 50’s by Tuesday, meaning we should be able to get some of the accumulated ice and snow to melt away, making room for more snow slated to arrive next Friday.

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Seeing as it is Super Bowl Sunday, it’s time to address the myth about sex trafficking and domestic abuse increasing during this particular weekend.

Police reports do not show an increase in either. However there are more incidents of drunk and disorderly as well as DWI.

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It’s one thing to make promises during an election campaign, and another thing to find some way to keep those promises and pay for them. That’s something rookie governor Gavin Newsom is learning the hard way.

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Why doesn’t this surprise me?

CBS has rejected an ad from Line Nine Apparel that is the antithesis of Nike’s Colin Kaepernick ad.

I guess patriotism is out of fashion at CBS. I wonder how long it will be before CBS cancels shows like NCIS or Blue Bloods because they are two patriotic?

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Steve MacDonald will get no argument from me on this one.

Anarchists and Leftists share a common blind spot – Ignoring Human Nature.

The always do which is why the fail again and again and again. Human nature is stronger than either anarchist or socialist theory. It always wins in the end.

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“Right to be Safe” is more important than the “Right to Bear Arms”? That’s what California Democrat Eric Swalwell believes. Remember him? He’s the one who threatened to use nukes against gun owners.

One commenter to the above post had a suggestion to make those like Mr. Swalwell feel safe. However I doubt he’d ever be willing to give up everything just to feel safe.

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This is irony, squared.

Cory Booker (D-NJ) was the first mayor of Newark in over 45 years who left office without being indicted.

Was it because he was a straight arrow or that he left before they found any evidence of corruption? Considering every one of the indicted mayors was a Democrat I’d say it was more the latter rather than the former.

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And that’s the abbreviated Super Bowl Sunday news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the weather is warming up, the supermarkets are full of people stocking up for the big game, and where just about every TV in New England will be tuned to the game.

Thoughts On A Sunday

It’s been a quiet weekend for a change, with no real chores needing attending to or places I needed to be. There’s also no football games other than the Pro Bowl and I have no plans to watch it. Weekends like that don’t come along very often so I am enjoying it as much as I can.

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Seen at Powerline:

NFL has changed the name of the Super Bowl to New England Patriots Invitational!

Hmm. Seems about right considering that out of the 53 Super Bowl games, the Patriots will have played in 11 of them.

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Some people are saying that President Trump has caved in to Pelosi and Schumer, funding the government without any promises for funding a wall. But others are saying he has done no such thing because the funding Trump has signed is only good for three weeks and that it is a calculated move on his part.

Of the two options presented, I am more inclined to go with calculated move as Trump is not one known to cave when there’s something he really wants. Too many people are judging Trump as if he were the usual Washington politician. After two years in office one would think that the Washington establishment/media/insiders would have stopped trying to fit Trump into the usual political pigeonholes because he doesn’t fit into any of them. But they haven’t which is why they constantly underestimate him.

Keeping that in mind, what Trump has shown is that he’s open to compromise and negotiation and that Pelosi and Schumer are not. He’s the adult in the room and they’re the spoiled children throwing temper tantrums unless they get their way.

Should the Nancy & Chuck show drive the government back into shutdown it will be them taking the heat, not Trump. He’ll be able to show he made the effort to solve the impasse and Pelosi and Schumer are being closeminded and stubborn, not for the benefit their constituents but for their egos.

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Are we seeing another victim of the Mueller investigation’s overreach in the person of Roger Stone?

Yes. Yes we are.

Has he been charged with activities that could be part of the alleged collusion between Trump and the Russians? No.

Has he been charged with crimes that are tied in to Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016? No.

Was he charged with helping the Trump campaign ‘steal’ emails from the Democratic National Committee or their publication by Wikileaks? No.

So what’s he being charged with?

There is nothing wrong with what Stone did. Mueller charges, rather, that Stone lied to a Congressional committee about his actions. If that is true, Stone is in trouble. But the charges against him do not support the theory that the Trump campaign colluded with Russians to invade the DNC’s email system. On the contrary, the Stone story is just more confirmation that the Trump campaign had nothing to do with it.

That’s it? He allegedly lied to Congress about his actions even though those actions weren’t themselves crimes? So as it has been pointed out before, he’s possibly guilty of a process crime, not an actual crime.

That’s pathetic…and desperate on the part of the Mueller investigation.

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Here’s yet another history lesson that will be devoutly ignored by the socialists amongst us. The latest lesson? Another nation having run its course of socialism – Venezuela.

A very wise person once said that "The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money." Venezuela has reached that point and now is paying the price, for once you're out of money in a socialistic country the only thing left of value is blood. It is indeed a tragedy as this nation was once South America's wealthiest.

Venezuela's dictator, Nicolas Maduro, is fighting to retain power. At least four people are dead in rioting that broke out today. Millions have left the country due to a failing economy, hyperinflation, no food, no medicine … you know, socialism at its best.

Fraudulent elections have a way of supporting socialism and Venezuela is no different. The Presidential elections last May were plagued with allegations of fraud and rigged voter registration.

This is the path that those like Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Occasional-Cortex, and Nancy Pelosi would like to see the US go down. But of course they believe it won’t happen like that here because they’re smarter than the others that have gone before them.

Yeah. Right.

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I don’t know if you have experienced this:

You get a call from a phone number you don’t recognize and when you answer it you find you are being asked if you are in pain.

I certainly have, sometimes as many as three times a day. So has David Starr and he’s tired of it.

I am getting a phone call every other day now. It's a robocaller who starts out asking if I am feeling any pain, and goes on to point me toward a pain clinic that will prescribe any kind of happy pill I might want. I wonder how many opioid addicts get started by such drug pushing robocallers. For that matter how many opioid addicts get started at those pain clinics…?

Another question to ask: Who is paying for these robocalls?

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It looks we’ll be heading back into the deep freeze later this week. While we won’t see the kind of temps that the upper mid-West will be experiencing – they’ll be experiencing temps as low as -30°F, and that’s before any wind chill is factored in – and we’ll be seeing temps in the single digits below zero. Though with wind chills we might see down to -20°F. It will mean I might need to start up the trusty RAM 1500 a few minutes before I depart from The Gulch for work.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where bobhouses are dotting the ice, ice fishing has been increasing daily, and where we’re looking forward to the Ice Fishing Derby in a couple of weeks.

Thoughts On A Sunday

As I write this we are still experiencing snow, now mixing with sleet. We got about 10 inches of snow before the sleet started mixing in. While I have shoveled around the environs of The Gulch, there’s still more to move.

I did leave some snow behind, but it was with a purpose in mind, that being as a buffer should the sleet change over to freezing rain. That snow will make it easier to keep the driveway and walkway from becoming a sheet of ice, allowing me to remove it once the snow/sleet/freezing rain ends this afternoon.

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It’s Playoff Sunday, with the NFC and AFC championship games taking place today. These games decide who will be playing in the SuperBowl in two weeks.

I am not as interested in the NFC game because my favorite NFC team, the Philadelphia Eagles, isn’t playing this year, having been eliminated last week. However the AFC game is one the WP Mom and I will be watching intently as it’s between the New England Patriots and the Kansas City Chiefs.

The Chiefs are three point favorites, but as many have learned over the years, never underestimate the Patriots.

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Since Trump has called the Democrats’ bluff, offering a compromise in regards to the DACA and TPS programs in regards to illegal immigrants, one they rejected out of hand, it appears the Dems are ready to double down on stupid.

At a Thursday conference, some Democrats floated the idea of forcing cancelation of the SuperBowl as a means of ending the government shutdown.

Yeah, that’ll work…NOT.

One way to make sure a good portion of Americans never vote for Democrats again is to screw around with the SuperBowl.

While the NFL has tarnished its image by caving in to BLM protests, a lot of people will gladly back up the NFL if the congressional Democrats go full ‘stupid’. So will a lot of corporations that spent millions of dollars on ad buys for the big event. I would also expect millions of dollars of campaign funds to not make their way to Democrat coffers if they actually did this.

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I find it interesting, but not surprising, that US CO2 emissions have been rising as nuclear plants have been closed. What makes it worse is that some plants are being closed prematurely, not for technical or safety issues but purely political reasons.

Trying to force US energy production towards renewables, a technology that isn’t as green as proponents keep claiming, isn’t nearly as efficient as claimed, and is nowhere near as reliable as proponents want it to be. They have to be backed up by fossil-fueled plants using coal or natural gas, hence more CO2 being emitted.

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Is the whole kerfuffle about the border wall really nothing more than a Democrat scam? It is, according to Harry Reid.

What's in the news day and night? The wall.

It's all anyone talks about or thinks about or debates. Have you heard? The U.S. government is partially shut down over the wall.

But it's all a massive liberal scam. A Ponzi scheme. Pure fraud. Bernie Madoff couldn't come up with a better scam.

Because the same liberal politicians and donors who scream about the "racism" and "immorality" and "ineffectiveness" of a wall all live behind walls.

President Trump needs to buy TV infomercial time and run a 30-minute TV show in a Ross Perot fashion -- featuring aerial views of the mansions and estates of liberals, protected by walls, gates, and armed guards. You know, the exact same protections they don't want you and me or our children to have.

Exhibit A is Harry Reid, the Democratic former Senate Majority Leader from my home state of Nevada.

Read the whole thing.

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Does it really surprise anyone that families are pulling up stakes and leaving states like New Jersey, New York, Illinois, and Connecticut?

Considering the confiscatory taxes, business-hostile policies and regulations, profligate state spending, and willful lack of economic understanding, is it any wonder people are leaving those states? Why remain someplace where the government is doing everything it can to damage the economy, make it more difficult to do business, and make day to day living more expensive?

The thing that makes this even more ironic is that the governments in these states think that by doubling down on what they’ve already done they can somehow make things better, not understanding that their previous actions are the very things that caused the decay of their state.

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With the inclement weather we’ve experienced it behooves us to take a look at Skip Murphy’s take on the media feeding frenzy such weather events create.

It happens every time we have a significant snow event, one that most of we New Englanders see as part of a normal winter. To hear the news media you’d think snowstorms like these have never happened before and that everyone is gonna DIE unless we stay in and watch their news coverage.

Yeah. Right.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the snow and sleet are still falling, the temps are going to drop to single digits with well below zero wind chills tonight, and where dreams of this coming summer’s boating season fill our dreams.

Thoughts On A Sunday

Winter temps have returned with a vengeance, with our overnight lows in single digits above and below zero. The lake is quickly freezing, with the bays and coves already solidly frozen over and the main part of the lake following suit.

We did see one optimistic ice fisherman arrive at our town docks, towing his bob house behind his truck. But once he saw the ice wasn’t as far out or as thick as he might have thought it was, he decided it probably it wasn’t a good time to put it out on the ice and drove off, taking his bob house with him.

One positive thing about the cold temperatures – the LA Chargers aren’t used to playing in temps this cold which might give the New England Patriots an edge when they play them this afternoon.

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David Graham asks Why hasn’t Trump folded?

Why fold when he’s winning/

I have had conversations with a number of my liberal friends and they lay the blame for the government shutdown on Trump. But I reminded them that the story has two sides and that Pelosi has the mistaken impression that she runs the government. He knows that if he capitulates and gives Pelosi and Schumer what they want that they will kill any attempt to discuss funding the border wall. Everyone else knows it, too.

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I keep waiting for the miracles of the 21st Century to arrive and I have to admit to some disappointment that some of those miracles are nowhere to be found. Things like flying cars, colonies on the Moon and Mars, and nuclear power everywhere should already be here, yet we are without those things.

But every now and then one of those 21st Century miracles appears suddenly, catching us off guard. The latest ‘miracle’? How about wood that is stronger than most metals.

Engineers at the University of Maryland have found a way to make wood more than 10 times stronger and tougher than before, creating a natural substance that is stronger than many titanium alloys.

"This new way to treat wood makes it 12 times stronger than natural wood and 10 times tougher," said Liangbing Hu, the leader of the team that did the research, published in the journal Nature. "This could be a competitor to steel or even titanium alloys, it is so strong and durable. It's also comparable to carbon fiber, but much less expensive." Hu is an associate professor of materials science and engineering and a member of the Maryland Energy Innovation Institute.

This certainly looks promising.

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It’s one thing to be accused of fearmongering in the cause of promoting AGW, but it’s an entirely something else to be accused of ‘factmongering’, using facts to “cause irrational calm and complacency.” That’s so much worse than fearmongering, using misinformation to cause irrational fear and panic.

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The picture at Climatism should put the green energy scam into context.

Call it a perfect illustration of why green energy isn’t as green as proponents make it out to be.

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Then there’s another looming green energy crisis, in this case what to do with all of the solar panels out there when they reach the end of their useful life cycle? They cannot be merely disposed of in a landfill because they contain a number of toxic substances, meaning the panels must be treated as toxic waste. Did anyone think of this problem when they were promoting solar as an alternative energy source, or did they merely kick this problem down the road like so many others have been?

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And now it’s time for me to put down the laptop and pay attention to the Patriots/Chargers game, so that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the temps are frigid, the skies are bright, and where Monday is returning all too soon.

Thoughts On A Sunday

Here it is, the first TOAS of 2019.

I wish I could say that with the change from 2018 to 2019 that there have been profound changes for the better, but six days into the New Year it doesn’t seem that that’s the case. There appears to be a lot of the Same Old Same Old.

Even with the change of the majority in the House of Representatives down in the Swamp, or here with the New Hampshire legislature, I doubt we’ll see anything new. Only the faces and the names will have changed. For the most part it’ll be easy to predict what we’ll see both from Congress and from the state legislature.

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One thing the new members of the House need to learn is that the rhetoric they used while campaigning (and during their prior protests/community organizing/general PITA efforts) doesn’t always play well on The Hill. One thing that draws the wrong kind of attention is when a representative uses invective aimed at the President that would be better left to their constituents. They have to understand that the rules on The Hill are different from what they’re used to and that those rules won’t bend to their will. Flouting them is a great way to end up being censured by the very people they may consider their inferiors.

That’s not a good way start their congressional careers. Now if only some of the veteran Representatives (like Maxine “Mad Max” Waters) understood that.

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Is it possible Netflix could go the way of Sears?

The consensus appears to be “Yes”.

Unless it can rein in its debt and get its fiscal house in order it may find itself in financial trouble pretty darned quick.

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It seems that “Alex from the Bronx” Occasional-Cortex is the gift that keeps on giving.

She continues to display her expansive ignorance about how government works and keeps digging the proverbial hole even deeper with each tweet.

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It may be time to finally stick a fork in Twitter as it seems that posting facts is considered “hateful conduct”.

The victim of censorship by Twitter in this case is feminist Megan Murphy who had her account suspended because she tweeted that “men aren’t women”.

This is yet another example of “Just when I thought they couldn’t get any stupider…”

At this rate no one will be able to tweet about anything without running afoul of Twitter’s Terms of Use. So what use is Twitter under those conditions?

While this incident occurred a couple of months ago, it seems the problems with Twitter have only gotten worse since then.

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Is CNN going to go the way of the Dodo and Passenger Pigeon?

Their ratings continue to suck, with very few actually watching the news network by choice.

When CNN is being beaten by the Hallmark Channel, History Channel, and TNT you know they’re in trouble.

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The government shutdown is being blamed on President Trump when in fact that it can be laid entirely at the feet of the House. When they say it’s up to the President to compromise on this matter, they are reverting to the Obama definition of compromise – Sit down, shut up, and give us what we want.

But when the Democrats won’t even discuss the matter with the President and choose to ignore the realities of what’s been happening on the southern border, then the fault is theirs and theirs alone.

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This explains everything in regards to the Progressive Left.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the lake has not yet frozen over, our local ice fishing derby is less than a month away, and a lot of people are wondering if we’ll be able to pull it off.

Thoughts On A Sunday - End Of Year Edition

Here it is, the last TOAS of 2018, and it is time to take stock of the past 12 months.

While the Number One story (for me) was the sale of The Manse and the subsequent move to The Gulch until The New Manse is built, there were plenty of other events and stories that were more important in the greater scheme of things.

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One of the most annoying things I (and many others) have dealt with all year is the media’s constant barrage of the Orange Man Bad meme. It seemed to me that every news broadcast begins with three or four stories slamming President Trump for offenses real or imagined (mostly imagined). It got old after the second day. I have learned to not tune into the any newscasts for the first 5 minutes or so as they are usually reserved to bashing Trump.

This phenomenon is one I expect to continue during Trump’s entire time in office. After all most of the MSM have been a major part of the propaganda wing of the Democrat National Committee for years.

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One of the biggest non-stories of the year has to be Christine Blasey Ford’s accusations and unsubstantiated testimony against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. She couldn’t remember where or when the party took place thirty years prior where the alleged assault took place. Friends of Kavanaugh couldn’t remember any such party where the alleged assault took place. Two other men claimed it was they who were the ones who ‘felt up’ the young Christine Blasey at a party when they were all teens. (The assault that was alleged would have been considered fourth degree assault, a misdemeanor in the state of Maryland where the alleged assault took place. The statute of limitations for misdemeanors is one year and is not something that is extraditeable.)

Blasey Ford’s testimony was further debunked by an expert in reading body language that reached the conclusion that she had been coached, using facial expressions, poses, and changes in the pitch of her voice to portray herself as an “innocent young girl”. The expert caught on to expressions that indicated that she was ‘reading from a script’ and not actually addressing the memories about the assault.

It was the biggest ‘non-event’ to take place on national television.

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The new Congresscritter representing the Bronx, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes (D), is the gift that keeps on giving. The freshmen representative has overblown expectations of the power she’ll be wielding, either not caring or not understanding that she’ll have little if any power during her first term. Of the two, the latter is the more likely as she has shown a particular lack of knowledge about how things actually work, a bad case of biblical illiteracy, and a troubling lack of understanding about economics considering her economics degree from Boston University. The fact that the only job she could seem to find after graduating from BU was as a bartender is an indicator that something doesn’t add up about Ms. Occasional Cortex.

She even plays the “I grew up a poor Latina in New York” game even though she and her family were and are quite well off.

I have a feeling she’s burning bridges she can ill afford to burn in her quest to turn the US into a failed socialist state.

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The “We’re All Gonna DIE!!” warmists are trying hard to ignore the 2018 weather record that shows there have been no violent tornadoes in the US. Zip. Zero. Nada. Not one. After all, that news doesn’t fit in with their narrative that hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzards, and all other kinds of weather events would become more numerous and stronger, causing far more damage than we’ve ever seen.

The only other news that is upsetting the warmists is Judith Curry’s study that shows that a lot of the supposed sea-level rise has less to do with actual rising sea-level and more to do with sinking land.

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Voter fraud was front and center this past November as a number of races were decided by ‘found’ ballot boxes, questionable absentee ballots, and ballot harvesting that singlehandedly changed the outcome of a number of congressional races all by themselves.

The one thing all of these ‘found’ ballots had in common? They always favored the Democrats. Every. Single. Time.

Statistically that’s impossible, particularly when it occurs in election after election. Yet the Democrats keep telling us that we’re just sore losers and that we should ignore any improprieties because SHUT UP!

We seriously need to do away with things like ballot harvesting, something that lends itself to voting fraud. Ballots need to be counted where they are cast, not boxed up and carted off to a central location for counting because it lends itself to voting fraud because it too often leads to ‘found’ ballot boxes. Absentee balloting needs better security because too many voters have been disfranchised when they show up at the polls and find out that they had already “voted” by absentee ballot, meaning someone else voted in their place and stole their vote.

Unless these issues are addressed, faith in our election system will erode to the point where no one will trust the system and elections will be meaningless.

But then, that’s what the Left wants, right?

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One has to wonder if the Mueller investigations will ever end. Two years plus and what does the investigation have?

Nothing.

What was supposed to be an investigation into possible collusion by the Trump campaign with the Russians has turned into a never-ending witch hunt that has only managed to trap some former Trump staffers with ‘process crimes’, basically made up crimes that were created just to get someone Mueller wanted to use as leverage against Trump.

This has to be the least productive and most expensive open-ended investigation in US history. Unless Mueller comes up with something that directly ties with the original purpose of the investigation it should be shut down.

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And that’s what I have for a look at ‘The Year That Was’ from Lake Winnipesaukee, where it looks like winter weather has finally returned, the shopping malls are back to normal, and where we’re hoping that 2019 will be even better than 2018.

Tall Men, Short Women

From the “Just when I thought they couldn’t get any stupider” Department comes this latest bit of scholastic insanity.

It appears that Mizzou still hasn’t learned its lesson when it comes to being “woke” and is working hard to further destroy its already diminished enrollment. It’s latest means of self-destruction?

Claims by one of their officials that “tall men asking short women out could constitute sexual misconduct.”

Say what?

Unless the biological differences between men and women have drastically changed recently, most men in general are taller than women. They’re also bulkier and stronger. So what are men at Mizzou supposed to do if they want to ask a woman out? Only ask out women that are of a similar size to the man asking? Yeah, that’ll work.

For years, we have been told that one must receive “affirmative consent” before anything of a dating or sexual nature takes place. Critics of such policies, such as this reporter, have often wondered what would happen if the mere ask is unwanted, does that also constitute sexual harassment or assault?

Now we appear to have our answer: Yes.

When a Mizzou official was questioned regarding a case where a black male Ph.D. candidate at the school asked out a white female fitness trainer, she bizarrely suggested that the fact that the male student was larger than the female student gave him “power over her” and violated school policy. (Emphasis mine.)

This is taking this crap too far. The reasoning is bizarre at best, sexist at worst, and completely disconnected from reality. Then again these woke college administrators don’t live in the real world.

It’s long past time for this nonsense to be removed from college campuses, if need be removed with prejudice. Administrators like this one need to be fired and banned from ever working in a college environment ever again. They’ve already caused far too much damage to our youth and it has to be stopped before the damage is irreversible.

Merry Christmas

A very Merry Christmas from the WP clan!

Thoughts On A Sunday

Christmas rapidly approaches and fortunately all of my Christmas shopping has been completed. I am still spending time getting settled in at The Gulch, with unpacking some boxes, repacking others, storing some away in the attic at The Gulch and others at my storage rental is taking time. A few dump runs have also been necessary as the WP Mom has decided it was time to shed herself of some of the detritus that has collected in her garage and attic.

It’s slowly coming together.

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We’ve been hearing about ‘5G’ wireless service for some time now. It’s going to be faster than the present 4G service presently available, using radio frequencies that are up in the millimeter wave bands. The hype has been increasing even though real 5G service isn’t likely to be available any time soon. It’s being tested in a number of cities but is not yet being deployed in any great numbers. There aren’t even any cell phones available that are capable of using 5G and even the larger cell phone manufacturers won’t have 5G phones ready to market until sometime in 2020.

However, that hasn’t stopped one wireless provider from claiming that 5G service is now available even though it’s really more like 4G with some added functionality.

On top of that one of our local activists has decided that 5G technology will be the death of us all and is working to ban deployment because it will cook us all from the inside out and give all of us cancer. While the concerns are not unfounded, the risk being portrayed is orders of magnitude above that of reality. Of the only studies I’ve been able to find, one from the National Cancer Institute stated “A limited number of studies have shown some evidence of statistical association of cell phone use and brain tumor risks… but most studies have found no association.” The National Toxicology Program of the National Institutes of Health has found that male rats exposed to cell phone radiation saw a small increase in tumors. The study stated “The rats were exposed to nine hours of radiation daily, in 10-minutes-on, 10-minutes-off intervals, over their whole bodies for two years. The researchers found increased incidences of rare brain and heart tumors starting at about the federally allowable level of cellphone radiation for brain exposure, with greater incidences at about two and four times those levels.” What about female rats? How does this directly tie into use by human beings? There isn’t a direct correlation that the NIH cited.

All of the other ‘studies’ I could find were rehashes of other claims made by some of the ‘usual suspects’. No official studies were cited. Most of ‘studies’ cited were actually quotes from those expressing opinions about the possibility of adverse biological effects of millimeter wave RF. But no references to actual studies have been found.

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Want to know why Obamacare doesn’t work? Moonbattery lists a couple of reasons why. And here’s a video that delves deeper.

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From the “Just when I thought they couldn’t get any stupider” Department comes this:

In the latest bit of PC fascism, the SJW snowflakes want to ban gingerbread men because “Sexism!” Will yet another tradition enjoyed by millions fall victim to their vicious dislike of everything?

The one thing I’ve noticed about SJWs is that they are seriously unhappy people. It appears the only joy they experience (and then only briefly) is when they make other people as unhappy as they are. How sick and twisted is that?

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Is giving catnip to cats unethical?

The debate on the matter can be found here.

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Skip Murphy offers us this equational Christmas Greeting.

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It looks like George Soros has taken a page from the Democrats’ 2012 election strategy, inundating Trump with endless lawsuits. This was the same tactic Alaskan Democrats used to try to bankrupt Alaska Governor and Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin, filing lawsuit after lawsuit over trivial and nonsensical ‘ethics’ violations that were, in the end, unfounded. (At the time Alaska did not provide the governor with legal representation and she had to pay her legal costs out of pocket.)

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The New England Patriots are playing the Buffalo Bills in Foxboro today. If the Patriots win today they clinch a playoff slot.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where of our snow was washed away this past Friday, more snow is expected early Christmas Day, and where our Christmas shopping is all finished!

Thoughts On A Sunday

The sale of The Manse is complete and I am now fully ensconced at The Gulch.

I have to admit to feeling bittersweet about the sale: sad to be leaving it behind after thirteen and a half years considering all of the memories made while living there, yet glad to have the sale completed and moving on to a new environment.

There is still a lot of work I need to do in order to get settled into The Gulch, mostly getting our belongings properly stored away yet readily reachable. I figure it’s going to take a couple of weeks to get things squared away.

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Will the plans by the watermelon environmentalists to force everyone to change over to renewable energy sources come to a screeching halt for the simple reason that there are not enough materials available to make all of the solar panels and wind turbines that would be needed?

I’d say that’s a pretty fair bet. Better that we build more nukes, particularly thorium reactors. The amount of materials needed to build zero-carbon nukes is infinitesimal compared to those needed to put up those damnable solar panels and wind turbines. They are also far more environmentally friendly.

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You know New York State’s government has gone full thug when it’s AG-elect “vows to go one step further than her predecessors, going full on thug and threatening to get him any way she can, even to go as far as attempting to change NY laws to do so.”

When the state’s top law enforcement official is going to go so far as to change state law as a means to ‘get’ a sitting president, it’s time for the US Attorney General to start an official corruption and/or conspiracy investigation.

These politicians have to learn that the law applies to them as well and that even though they hold power, it is not the power to pervert the laws of their state and to flout federal law as a means of destroying their political enemies. It’s time to send some of these people “who walk the halls of power with impunity” to be reminded that we are a nation of laws and that they are as much under their power as well.

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Just when I thought they couldn’t get any stupider.

The latest lunacy?

Banning yoga on the American University campus because of complaints that it is cultural appropriation.

These cultural Balkanists must be stopped. They either don’t know or don’t care that all cultures ‘appropriate’ portions of other cultures and have since there have actually been cultures. It’s how they evolve and grow. Without that appropriation, cultures can stagnate and die. Then again, maybe that’s what these Balkanists want.

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Apparently antifa has no problem with hypocrisy, particularly when it comes to assaulting two United States Marines. As they attacked them, calling them “Nazis” and “white supremacists”, they also threw racial slurs at them, calling them “wetbacks” and “spics”.

So which is it? Are the two Latino US Marines Nazis and white supremacists, or are they wetbacks and spics?

These antifa a**holes need to get their narratives straight. They also need to get their a**es kicked when they pick on a bunch of folks who aren’t intimidated by their mob bravado.

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A lot of people like organic foods. Too bad they’re far worse for the environment than traditional farming because organic farming requires more land, more water, more labor, and more fuel to grow the same amount of food.

So tell me again how organic farming is better than traditional farming?

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the weather has been warmer than normal, there’s only an inch or two of snow predicted to fall between now and next weekend, and where the stores are still crowded with Christmas shoppers.

Thoughts On A Sunday - Moving Monday Edition

Sorry for the delay, but as I explained yesterday I am in the midst of moving from The Manse to The Gulch. Deb and I have sold The Manse as it is far too big for us and staying there made no sense financially.

We had hoped to find a smaller place that was move in ready and a lot less expensive than The Manse, but after months of looking at homes that were the right size but way over market price or priced right but needing a lot of work, I realized the only way to find the right fit was to build. In the meantime a new residence was needed and the WP Mom offered her place until a new home was built.

I had hoped to have everything moved out by yesterday, but some things took longer than expected and moving is still not completed. But it’s almost done.

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Listening to the LSM, they are licking their chops at the prospect of President Trump’s impeachment. They rate the chance of it happening as 100% and they expect him to be convicted. But there is still little but innuendo, illegally obtained surveillance warrants, conviction over so-called ‘process’ crimes that have nothing to do with the actual investigation about Russian collusion during the 2016 election. But they see it all as a ‘smoking gun’ that will sink Trump.

Where were these LSM motherf**kers during the Obama Administration? He pulled far more illegal and unconstitutional stunts during his 8 years in office, was divisive, racist, uncompromising, willfully ignorant, and arrogant, yet we heard nothing from the MSM. Then again, the MSM has devolved into the propaganda wing of the DNC and facts, evidence, and truth mean nothing if it doesn’t push forth the Progressive narrative.

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The InstaProf has published yet another paper that delves into the machinations of the above mentioned DNC and their minions. Titled “Crime Follies: Overcriminalization, Independent Prosecutors, and the Rule of Law”, it is well worth downloading and reading.

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You the Progressives have gone too damn far when they start trying to destroy our Christmas holiday classics.

This week the principal of LaGuardia, the performing-arts high school in Manhattan, decreed that all Nazi paraphernalia be removed from the set and production of “The Sound of Music” — an anti-Nazi show (duh) set in Austria just as it’s being taken over by the Nazis.
--snip--

Another case in point: ABC’s 1973 classic “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving” was recently attacked because its only black character, Franklin, was seated alone on one side of the dinner table while his white friends sat on the other side.

Meanwhile, the Huffington Post noted that the 1964 TV show “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” was “seriously problematic” because many viewers said they were disturbed by its themes of sexism and bullying.

Then there’s the song “Baby It’s Cold Outside.” In 1944, the songwriter Frank Loesser began performing a skit in song form at the parties he attended in Hollywood with his then-wife, Lynn. He was “the wolf,” she the “mouse,” and they were together at his home when she decided to take her leave.

It’s getting to the point of being terminally ridiculous.

Almost anyone can be offended by something in just about anything if one looks hard enough. Then again, Progressives are offended by everything all the time, particularly if it doesn’t fit in with the Progressive narrative. They profess to not want to offend anyone, but in the process they offend everyone, even themselves. It gets to the point that no one wants to deal with them in any way, shape, or form because they are major buzzkills about damn near everything.

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I have been saying this for years.

It appears the warmists have been purposely ignoring factors that likely have a far greater effect on the climate than CO2, specifically water vapor and the Urban Heat Island effect.

The warmists need CO2 to be the culprit because it is something that is quantifiable even if it only a minor factor affecting climate. Water vapor is almost impossible to control, mitigate, or tax. The Urban Heat Island effect is something that would require more research to quantify, can likely be mitigated without spending trillions and destroying national economies, and something that doesn’t lend itself to being exploited by the warmists or being taxed to death.

It’s time to call a spade a spade and slam ‘em up side the head with reality.

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And that’s the delayed and slightly abbreviated news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the below normal temperatures have made it seem more like January, the Christmas shopping frenzy has not abated since Black Friday, and Christmas is fast approaching.

Thoughts On A Sunday

My usual TOAS post has been delayed one day as the work to make the move from The Manse to The Gulch has taken longer than expected. We still aren't done. I just arrived back at The Gulch after a lengthy day making trips between The Manse, The Gulch, and my rental storage unit. I'll be getting back to it first thing in the morning. I'll have the Moving Edition of TOAS Monday evening.

Thoughts On A Sunday

This is the last Thoughts On A Sunday to be authored from the present Manse as the time to move arrives next weekend. I will be moving to temporary quarters at The Gulch, the WP Mother’s home hidden away in the hills of our little town.

Deb and I will be having the closing on The Manse with the new owners a week from this coming Friday. We wanted to get everything emptied out well ahead of time, allowing us to clean The Manse and leave it in pristine shape for the new owners.

Plans for the new Manse are in the works, its location “somewhere in the hills near Lake Winnipesaukee”. Hopefully construction will begin this next summer and The New Manse will be occupied by this time next year.

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It was with sadness I learned of the passing of former President George H.W. Bush. I had the opportunity to meet him during his 1998 presidential campaign during one of his visits to New Hampshire. He was gracious then and from what I’ve seen of him since then, he was gracious right to the end. That he was also willing to make fun of himself, particularly as a foil to Dana Carvey’s impressions of him, showed his sense of humor.

He will be missed.

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Hmm, it seems that the PC disease is after new targets. The latest victims of PC?

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Baby It’s Cold Outside.

It’s getting to the point that everything is un-PC, and therefore must be banned.

It’s yet another move by those who are perpetually offended on the behalf of people who aren’t offended and could not care less.

My theory, which mirrors others, is that things are so good that the perpetually offended have to take minor things, blow them all out of proportion in order to make them seem to be more important than they really are, and then express over the top outrage about these same minor things. Otherwise they have no raison d’être. One would think they could take up something more constructive and productive like crochet or macramé.

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You’ve got to love all those tolerant Democrats in government.

The latest example of that tolerance took place on the floor of the Illinois House where a Democrat representative wished death upon one of her Republican colleagues and his family.

Is it just me, or has this kind of ‘rhetoric’ become far more prevalent over the past 10 years, particularly by the Democrats?

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Are Americans less religious than they have been in the past? Or have they actually replaced one religion for another, in this case the ‘new’ religion of Leftism?

Unfortunately the answer appears to be ‘yes’. This new religion is one of envy, greed, perpetual offense, and lax or non-existent morals. So much of the new leftist religion has its adherents acting like spoiled children.

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There have been warnings about possible EMP attacks against the US which are still being devoutly ignored, much to our peril.

Hardening our electrical grid against EMP isn’t difficult, but more a time consuming task that could pay big dividends. Such hardening also helps protect against CME like the Carrington Event, a solar flare that took place back in back in 1859. Were such a flare take place today, the electrical systems around the world would be affected, if not damaged or detstroyed.

As I build the new Manse, I plan to incorporate as much EMP protection as I can into its electrical system, computer network, and amateur radio shack. It doesn’t require thousands and thousands of dollars or large amounts of equipment.

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Here’s a question to which I agree with the answer.

Is Western Civilization superior? Why, yes! Yes it is.

Here’s one reason why:

The beauty of Western Civilization is that it isn’t limited by either blood or soil, but transcends anything and everything… aside from a dedication to tyranny and delusion.

Plenty of other civilizations/cultures also have their tyrannies and delusions.

Western Civilization created so much that we all take for granted, and has had aspects of it incorporated into so many other cultures. Yes, it’s cultural appropriation. But that’s how civilizations can improve themselves. Western Civilization has also borrowed from so many other cultures, trying to incorporate the best of those other cultures into its own.

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David Starr, NH State Senator-elect and fellow New Hampshire blogger, relates his experiences at orientation day for newly elected New Hampshire legislators down at the state capitol.

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How do you define irony?

Segregation was ended decades ago by both legislation and court decisions, all in the name of civil rights and the God given equality of men. Six decades later the descendants of the very people who fought to end segregation, to end the Jim Crow era, are working fervently to reinstitute segregation on college campuses.

So much for diversity bringing us all together. Instead, it heralds the Balkanization of American culture.

Yeah, that will work out well.

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You know our educational system no longer works when government employees don’t know that places like New Mexico and Alaska are actually states and part of the US.

Then again, if government employees are ignorant it makes it that much easier to have them ‘enforce’ laws and regulations that either don’t exist or are illegal/unconstitutional.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where winter weather has returned (again), the house is looking increasingly empty, and where Christmas and New Year’s will arrive all too soon.

Thoughts On A Sunday

This January-like November we’ve been experiencing in New England has finally receded, with temps today being close to normal (lower 40’s) and rain helping to melt away some of the snow we’ve received. On Thanksgiving Day we had temperatures in the single digits and low teens, with wind-chill factors well below zero all day. I had to keep checking he calendar to conform that we were indeed still in November, not mid-January.

Our Thanksgiving gathering at the youngest WP Sister’s place went off without a hitch. Though it wasn’t the largest gathering we’ve had by any means, we still had a good portion of the WP clan in attendance.

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OK, folks, I think we have to agree that Hollywood has run out of ideas and has been resurrecting old movies and TV series. The next TV series to be raised from the dead?

Northern Exposure.

While I liked the show, goodness knows it was a quirky show with a lot of appeal, I’m not sure how well it will do. Should the project go forward, I can see where the first episode would garner a lot of viewers. Most of those viewers are likely to be fans of the original (like me), but if the resurrected version does not retain the quirkiness and, dare I say ‘fun’ of the original, it won’t survive.

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Oh, this is embarrassing!

One group of special operations undercover police officers in one Detroit precinct acting as dope dealers were targeted for arrest by another group of special operation undercover police officers from another precinct acting as buyers.

Don’t these special operations groups talk with each other?

As amusing as this sounds, this kind of mistake could have ended up with cop-on-cop shootings. Somebody needs to be fired.

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Coyote Blog has a suggestion when it comes to government involvement with health care: Have the government focus on the one thing it does best and keep it away from the rest. What is that “one thing”?

…the one thing the government is really, really good at is being an insurer of last resort -- they have the deep pockets and the fiat money power to do this better than anyone else -- that is why they are the insurer of last resort of bank deposits and for flood insurance (I am not saying that there are not moral hazards in these or unintended consequences, but the insurance works). So there is the clear opportunity -- what people need most is catastrophic insurance even when the private market won't provide it and the government does really well is provide catastrophic insurance as a last resort.

Keep it away from everything else. As Coyote states, the government is awful at things like cost control and service effectiveness. Goodness knows there are enough examples to prove these two points, including things like Medicaid and Medicare.

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The Perpetually Offended Social Justice Warrior Snowflakes have cost yet another college administrator his job. His offense?

Asking questions that needed to be asked about those accusing then SCOTUS nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault that had the snowflakes swooning onto their fainting couches.

While the administrator himself was not fired, he was suspended by the college and he later tendered his resignation.

I have one message for these snowflakes: Grow up!

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This is something anyone with even a smattering of economic smarts has known right from the beginning: Green energy is a disastrous flop.

“Green” energy is expensive, even with government subsidies, is not dispatchable (not readily available when needed), and tends to displace inexpensive and reliable energy sources because they take priority.

Green energy is a loser and the sooner people realize it the sooner we can get back to sane, fact-based energy policies.

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I’m with Skip Murphy on this one: Stop Premature Christmas Decorating!

It seems Christmas decorations go up in stores earlier every year. I have seen them while Halloween decorations are still up!

As a kid I remember that Christmas decorations in stores didn’t go up until after Thanksgiving. There was no ‘Black Friday’. No endless TV commercials hawking unidentifiable presents. Our Christmas decorations didn’t go up into about a week before Christmas and came down on New Year’s Day.

I figure it’s only a matter of time before the Christmas decorations start going up even as the flashes and booms of Fourth of July fireworks are fading away.

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Are we an ungrateful nation?

Unfortunately, the answer is mostly “yes”.

According to Pew Research from 2015, when it comes to standard of living, "The U.S. stands head and shoulders above the rest of the world. More than half (56 percent) of Americans were high income by the global standard ... and 2 percent were poor."

Fantastic products are cheaper than ever. Human Progress investigated the amount of time Americans must spend to earn enough money to buy key products and found that since 1979, the amount of time spent to earn a refrigerator had dropped 52 percent, 95 percent for microwaves, 65 percent for gas ranges and 61 percent for dishwashers. Between the mid-1960s and 2007, Americans were able to work less and leisure more: They worked nearly eight hours fewer per week, according to The Heritage Foundation. The wage gap is almost entirely a myth: Women who work the same jobs as men for the same number of hours, and have the same work history and same education as men make the same as men. The chief obstacles to income mobility in the United States are related to personal decision-making, not racial discrimination: As the Brookings Institution points out, of the people who finish high school, get a full-time job and wait until age 21 to get married and have children, nearly 75 percent join the middle class, and just 2 percent remain in poverty.

What of freedom? In America, people of all religions practice freely, so long as the government isn't attempting to cram social justice down on them. People are free to speak, so long as government actors aren't utilizing the heckler's veto. We are free to use the press, free to associate and free to protest.

All of this is the result of the greatest governmental philosophy ever committed to paper: God-given individual rights protected by limited government. We haven't always lived up to that philosophy -- in some areas, we've progressed mightily, and in others, we've regressed. But the overall success of the United States should be ringing proof that at the very least, we should be grateful and proud to live here.

I know I am. I have managed to spend time in 40-some countries over the past 40+ years, and not as a tourist. A few have been wonderful places. More than a few of the others have been nightmares best forgotten. And the rest lie somewhere in between those extremes. Yet none of them measured up to the US. None of them.

Of course I realize that it is my bias speaking, but it is a well-earned bias and one to which I am unapologetic.

We take so much for granted, have so much, and yet some of us are unhappy and ungrateful. For some, the answer seems to be to unmake America and turn it into a Third World s**thole as some kind of atonement for our success. They believe we are guilty of some kind of sin and must flail ourselves in punishment, and if we don’t do it voluntarily they’ll force us to even if it means tearing America apart to do so. What a bunch of ungrateful morons.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where warmer weather has returned for a few days, where the snow is melting as a result, and where the stress of upcoming Christmas is ramping up.

Thoughts On A Sunday

Though it’s still mid-November we’ve been experiencing weather that is more fitting for January, with daytime temps at or just below freezing and nighttime temps in the teens and single digits. We also had 4 inches of snow on Friday, just enough to remind folks that winter is just around the corner and that it’s best to make sure our vehicles are ready for adverse road conditions.

I have been using the Official Weekend Pundit Woodstove to heat The Manse. It’s good thing we had almost a cord of dry firewood still stacked in the garage. It’s meant I haven’t had to use the furnace (and burn expensive propane) to keep the rather sparsely furnished Manse warm. (I am still in the process of packing up our various belongings and moving them into storage, so most of the rooms are empty.) Over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend I expect to get most of the rest of our belongings put away.

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As the trend of our younger generation becoming more enamored of socialism despite knowing nothing of its history, I have spoken to many of them about what they find so appealing. Almost every one of them responded with some or all of the following:

“It’s so appealing in its equality.”

“No one will be more equal than anyone else.”

“Poverty will go away.”

“Racism and sexism won’t exist anymore.”

Of course they know nothing of the history of socialism and its unbroken chain of failures, the bloody trail it has left behind, and how it has left economies and financial systems in ruins that leads to the populace living in abject poverty.

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I think it’s long past due time for the UK to make a break with the EU. Delaying Brexit is causing more harm than good and with some of the British politicians working hard to kill of Brexit, the UK is being torn apart.

Frankly, I have long been of the opinion that the UK would be better off joining an Anglosphere organization, maintaining their independence, and ending their increasing dominance by unelected officials and bureaucrats in Brussels. It’s time to tell the EU to piss off.

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You know the Democrat gun-grabbers have gone over the edge when one of them threatens supporters of the Second Amendment with nuclear weapons if they won’t willingly give up their guns.

Class act, that one. It also gives us a damn good reason to keep our weapons because politicians like that are a danger to everyone.

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Uh-oh.

It looks like the scientific Powers That Be are about ready to dethrone the physical representation of the kilogram, redefining it.

When the 26th General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM) convenes next week in Versailles, France, representatives of the 60 member nations are expected to vote to redefine the International System of Units (SI) so that four of its base units—the kilogram, ampere, kelvin, and mole—are defined indirectly, in terms of physical constants that will be fixed by fiat. They’ll join the other three base units—the second, meter, and candela (a measure of a light’s perceived brightness)—that are already defined that way. The rewrite eliminates the last physical artifact used to define a unit, Le Grand K.

In the past the meter was redefined in terms of the speed of light, making the old meter ‘stick’ nothing more than a relic. And so it will be with the platinum-iridium sphere that is presently is the physical representation of the kilogram.

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Earlier I wrote about the incredible ignorance of our younger generations when it comes to the actual outcomes from the socialist systems. If they need a real world example of just how bad it gets, all we need to do is point them to Venezuela, and particularly their oil output which is in freefall. That Venezuela has some of the largest oil reserves in the world makes this news even more ironic. It was the wealthiest nation in South America, then Hugo Chavez was elected and imposed his vision of a Socialist Venezuela, carried on by his successor Nicolas Maduro. Now Venezuela is the poorest nation in South America and it’s poverty is purely self-inflicted. Famine is wide-spread. Healthcare is non-existent as are badly needed medications. Electricity is in short supply. Foreign capital investment is only a dream. The only wealthy in Venezuela are the leaders who have enriched themselves by impoverishing the people they lead.

Such is the promise of socialism.

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Here’s something that doesn’t surprise me in the least.

A study from tech developer Asurion has found that cellphone etiquette has shifted to the point where cellphone use is ubiquitous and intrusive.

Americans will often use their mobile phones in places such as public bathrooms and are not shy about the personal topics they discuss.

In fact, one of the advantages of the phone booth was the relative privacy. That’s not the case in a public bathroom, but that has still become the new phone booth, according to the survey – nearly half (45%) of people have talked, texted or checked their phones while in a public restroom. One in 10 people surveyed said they use their phones in public restrooms at least once a week; additionally, one in 7 said the person they were talking with knew they were in a public restroom and didn’t care.

I can attest to that, having witnessed more than a few restroom cellphone conversations that should have taken place more private.

Then there’s the other end of this experience where people will pay attention to their smart phones rather than the people with them. We all see it all the time, with people bowed over their smart phones, typing, swiping, or tapping the phone displays as they surf the web, text, watch cat videos, and so on. No one exists outside their area of focus.

How many of you have walked into the break room at work or a coffee shop filled with people and no one is looking up, talking to the people beside them? I’ll bet that most of you would answer “I have!” It’s an all too common occurrence these days. It is also rude, something that present day cellphone etiquette fails to address.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where winter has arrived early, my boat is safely stored away for the winter (whew!), and even colder weather is forecast for Thanksgiving Day.

Thoughts On A Sunday

It was a happy event for the WP clan on Saturday with the nuptials of one of the WP nephews. My dear brother’s middle son tied the knot in a farm wedding setting in the little town of Greenfield, NH. It is one of the few times we’ve been able to get most of the family together at one place at the same time.

As the saying goes, “A good time was had by all.”

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I did make a post on Election Day and promised a follow up, but never did get to it. I ended up getting back from the polls a lot later than I had expected and all I was thinking of going to bed.

I do have to say that some of the results were disappointing, especially in regards to one of our Congressional districts. The GOP candidate did do pretty well considering he had a fraction of the money to spend that his Democrat opponent had available, losing by 3 percentage points.

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You know things are getting bad when the SJW snowflakes start slamming a long time greeting – “Long time no see” – as being racist because it’s “not inclusive”. For the life of me I cannot figure out how such a greeting is “not inclusive”.

I have a feeling that they will whittle away all greetings until “F**k you, all you a**holes!” will be the only politically correct and inclusive greeting allowed if these idiots get their way.

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If this doesn’t sound like election fraud and a cover up, I don’t know what does.

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One thing I have to admire about President Trump is that he refuses to yield in regards to things that have been weakening the US. He’s been undoing a lot of the damage that has been done by the previous administration and by the Deep State. That he has been unyielding and even impolite to those wishing to turn us into a tyrannical socialist hellhole.

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In my opinion, the president’s order limiting asylum requests to those made by people who did not cross the border illegally makes sense. Asylum seekers can apply for asylum at the border crossings. If they cross illegally they should be automatically denied asylum, period. If they’re willing to break our laws to get here, how many other laws will they be willing to break in order to stay here? We have to remember that we are a nation of laws. If we start ignoring the law, we won’t be a nation for long. Unfortunately a lot of our fellow Americans would be pleased if America ceased to exist and became an anarchist dystopia. On the other hand I would have no problem making sure they become some of the first victims of that anarchy they want so badly.

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How can you tell when someone really has no grasp on how an economy works, and more specifically, how businesses live or die based upon the economic choices they make? When they believe silly s**t like this:

Tell me again why it should be legal for an employer to pay a wage that doesn’t cover living expenses? Freedom to exploit is freedom to kill, and it does.

This tells me this person has no grasp of reality when it comes to running a business and is pushing what is rhetoric as truth.

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I don’t know about you, but I wear sunglasses to protect my eyes from UV and to be able to see better on sunny days. But apparently one of the more over-the-edge third wave feminists think men wear sunglasses only because “[t]hey’re used to hide ogling eyes and sinister looks.”

Really? There’s no other possible reason someone, or more specifically, men would wear sunglasses?

So here we have yet another deluded close-minded SJW deciding that something that is seen as normal and has been seen that way ever since sunglasses have existed is now a sexist tool?

This is wrong on so many levels.

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I have always wondered why it is that the only time boxes of ballots are ‘found’ is when Democrats are trailing in vote counts? We never see that when Republicans are trailing.

As such, we really need to dig deep into the problems we’re seeing in Broward and Palm Beach Counties considering how often they have ‘found’ ballot boxes or delayed vote counts or ignored state law and court orders.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where temps have been running below normal, snow is coming later this week, and where Thanksgiving is less than 2 weeks away.