Thoughts On A Sunday

One of the ‘rituals’ of spring in our town is what are called ‘Free Dump Days’ which allows residents to haul all kinds of junk and detritus to our dump...err...Solid Waste Center and dispose of it for free. Things like construction demo, old furniture, mattresses and box springs, old lawn mowers and snowblowers, appliances, and so on can be disposed of for free. Some of those items usually require those dumping them to pay a fee to dispose of them. But for two days in the spring, people all throughout town can get rid of all that junk. A lot of folks make use of those days to clean up around their homes or lake cottages, signifying the approach of another summer.

From reports I’ve seen, Saturday’s FDD was a big success, with a line of cars and trucks almost a half-mile long waiting to get in. Some of that might have been due to last year’s Free Dump Days having been canceled due to Covid-19, so there were two year’s worth of junk to dispose of.

Free Dump Days moves us one step closer to summer.

==+==

I have to admit to being dismayed seeing a lengthy real estate article in our local paper touting the joys and advantages of moving to our town. It sang its praises, with a list of all the great things that make it a great place to live.

Just what we needed. [/sarc]

I was tempted to write a rebuttal article, informing people why they should stay as far away from our town as they can...except for a week or two in the summer.

I want to tell them about the all the potholed roads, heavy traffic, bible-thumping/gun-toting bitter clingers who don’t cotton to “flatlanders” taking over our town, informing them how the sidewalks are rolled up after 8:30PM, the streetlamps (what there are of them) are turned off at 9PM, and how they have to keep an eye and ear open for for packs of coyotes just waiting to pounce on them in the dark. Oh, and did I mention the mountain lions and fisher cats waiting to do likewise while they’re out walking their dog?

And then there’s the housing market, with dilapidated houses/cottages and single-wide mobile homes asking prices being eight times the market value, places you’ll still have to sink a lot of money into to return them to livable condition.

So don’t move here. Stay away. You don’t want to live here.

You’ve been warned.

==+==

Just when I thought they can’t get any stupider (or crazier), they prove me wrong.

It seems SUNY’s Geneseo campus has announced they will be expanding their segregated housing and support programs.

The State University at New York Geneseo has announced their newest addition to the school’s Umoja House, a dorm "for students of color."

--snip--

SUNY Geneseo Associate Director of Residence Life for Educational Initiatives Meg Reitz reasoned that “Part of the goal in supporting BIPOC students is giving them a place where they don’t feel like they have to put on a different face."

I have to wonder if the next step will be a wholly segregated campus? I would like to think it won’t go that far, that some form of sanity will return. However, seeing how woke insanity has spread through academia like the Black Plague (no pun intended) did through Europe during the mid-14th century, it may be just a matter of time before some administrator proposes just such an idea, totally unaware (or uncaring) of the outcome of that kind of segregation in the past.

Welcome back, Jim Crow….

==+==

In light of ever expanding defunding of police departments, willful destruction of morale in police departments, increasing demonization of police officers by city government and ‘gripe’ groups, and round the clock scrutiny by the Lame Stream Media/DNC, is it any wonder more police officers are deciding to leave their departments, retiring, moving to new departments away from the big cities, or giving up their careers entirely.

The NYPD lost over 15% of their force in 2020, with a little over 5300 officers departing. That’s a 75% increase over 2019. It will be no surprise if that number increases this year, particularly “as corrupt De Blasio and Cuomo allow the continued attack on cops...”

The NYPD isn’t the only city seeing this happen, with Minneapolis, Portland, Seattle, Atlanta, and other cities in the same situation. It will only get worse unless the Progressives running these blue cities are cured of their cranial-rectal inversions.

==+==

And then there’s this, something I feel more of us should be demanding, particularly in those cities where continual acts of “mostly peaceful” protests have been taking place and the damages have been mounting.

(H/T The Feral Irishman)

==+==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where we’re hoping for some more rain, warmer temps, and shorter Mondays.

The Bedlam Of A Nation Without Cops

I have to admit I am becoming a fan of Daisy Cousens. She certainly makes some interesting videos that makes one go “Hmm, I wonder if she’s correct on this one?”

Her latest certainly struck a chord with me, making wonder if the endgame of defunding the police is merely another step in bringing about anarchy which in turn will allow a police state to come into being as a means of restoring order? (This is not her conclusion, but she did get me thinking.)

Am I being paranoid? Of course I am, but you are asking the wrong question. The correct question is “Am I being paranoid enough?”

In this video she paints a picture of a nation none of us want, even the woke (thought they don’t realize it...yet). Parts of what she envisions has already been described in Kurt Schlicter’s People’s Republic series. I know I certainly have no desire to see any of that happen, at least not in my lifetime or that of my son or my nephews or nieces. But if something doesn’t change soon, that’s where we might be headed.

Making The Same Mistakes As The Jacobins?

This comment was posted in response to this piece by Victor Davis Hanson which delves into the deliberate ruination of the American nation from within.
Writes Hanson:

As Americans know from their own illustrious history, any nation’s well-being hinges on only a few factors. Its prosperity, freedom and overall stability depend on its constitutional and political stability. A secure currency and financial order are also essential, as is a strong military.

Perhaps most important is a first-rate inductive educational system. Of course, nothing is possible without general social calm (often dependent on a reverence for the past) and secure borders.

The ability to produce or easily acquire food, fuel and key natural resources ensures a nation’s independence and autonomy.

Unfortunately, in the last few months, all of those centuries-old reasons to be confident in American strength and resiliency have been put into doubt.

The challenge is not just enemies abroad such as China, Russia, North Korea and Iran. The greater problem lies within us, as we erode the inherited and acquired strengths that made us singular, both materially and spiritually.

--snip-->

Modern Jacobins seek to erase our founding in 1776. Mobs tear down statues and deface monuments with impunity. There is no consistent rhyme or reason to why the names of schools, institutions and streets are erased overnight — except the relative dangers of a nihilistic electronic mob.

Anyone who paid attention in History class knows what happened to the Jacobins and the damage they did to their native France.

The comment made to VDH’s piece addresses another issue those tearing the nation apart are ignoring.

What gets me is that the folks supporting this downfall, particularly the 'useful idiots', think that somehow things will be better once everything has been turned to rubble. However, when the reality of what they have wrought hits them they will wonder how it all happened.

And then we, who remember the times before they came upon us like the Four Horsemen, will point to them and say "You brought this upon yourselves and now you will pay the price for your willful ignorance, and the mayhem and destruction you have wrought in that ignorance. Enjoy this hell you have created. Enjoy the chains you have willingly placed upon yourselves. Revel in the pain you have caused and the pain you have inflicted upon yourselves. Suffer in the knowledge that this is what you worked so hard to create."

The nation will become like Detroit, a wasteland of closed factories, dilapidated public buildings, and homes that are Soviet Concrete Block chic, lines for food, lines for clothing, lines for basic necessities, full prisons, full gulags, schools to teach dogma, to indoctrinate, but not to educate. It is this they have worked so hard to create. But we also know they will say "But this wasn't our intention. We had the best of intentions!"

We know where that road leads, don't we?

Indeed.

Always Ask Them These Questions. Always!

Seen in the comments to this post at Instapundit:

To any claim you need to ask The Three Questions: 1. Compared to what? 2. At what cost? 3. Where has this worked before? (Link added – ed.)

Political claims especially fail when attempting to answer these.

Those are questions the Left rarely bothers to answer…because they can’t.

SloJo Needs To Go Back To School

So the Constitution is more of a suggestion rather than the Law of the Land? It can be 'reinterpreted' to fit the needs of those in power? Yeah, that's going to work out just fine. Uh-huh.

Thoughts On A Sunday

Old Man Winter reminded us that he’s still hanging around with a Nor’easter dropping as much as 12 inches of snow in the western/southwestern parts of New Hampshire on Friday. Not that it will be around for very long as temps will be back in the 60’s starting Monday.

We were fortunate here at The Gulch, seeing far more rain than snow, and what snow we did see – about a half inch – disappearing by late Friday afternoon. There was still plenty of snow on the higher elevations in our town yesterday, including the location of The New Manse once it is built. (That still looks to be a couple or three years off at this point.)

It was mostly on again/off again rain during Saturday, something we have needed. The weather didn’t stop some folks from taking their pleasure boats out for a spin on the Big Lake. (I saw a couple of boats out on Paugus Bay while taking one of the feline contingent of The Gulch to the vet for a check up. I envied them.)

Some of the work on The Gulch mentioned in yesterday’s post has started. In this case I am making changes in the Official Weekend Pundit Office, removing some furniture, moving wall-mounted shelves, putting in a new computer desk to hold my work computer and dual monitors. (Using just the laptop screen hasn’t been cutting it for some work, hence the change.) These additions don’t replace the Official Weekend Pundit Computer and monitor as I keep work and ‘play’ equipment separate. (For me ‘play’ is sometimes indistinguishable from work as it usually means I’m writing, but for myself or this blog.)

==+==

It appears the shooter at the FedEx facility in Indianapolis was ‘known to authorities’.

Brandon Scott Hole was a nutcase known to both local and federal law enforcement officials, had been reported to be dangerous and violent by family members, and nothing was done until after the fact.

This seems to be a recurring theme lately – a dangerous person known to authorities murders a number of people in a mass shooting, and those same authorities are surprised when that known dangerous person kills. In many cases that person ‘known to authorities’ shouldn’t have had any weapons to begin with because they are convicted felons or under protective orders from a court. If an earlier report that Hole was using a machine gun is correct, meaning a fully automatic weapon, then it was one he obtained illegally.

I have to wonder how many other ‘known to authorities’ mass shooters we’ll be seeing over the next few years? If I were paranoid, I would say just enough to give SloJo, WRBA, and the totalitarian Progressives to strip law abiding citizens of yet another Constitutional right? (The Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Religion are teetering on the brink of extinction, courtesy of MSM and social media corporations, Covid nannies, and woke ignoramuses.)

==+==

With so many schools, public and private, having gone ‘woke’, parents are withdrawing their children from those schools. Some are enrolling them in other schools and others have decided to homeschool. This trend has been accelerating since Covid.

When schools reopened in our town, a full 11% of parents decided their children would not be returning. Many decided to homeschool because they saw their children were actually learning and not being indoctrinated. (I have known many homeschooled kids since moving into town almost 20 years ago and without exception they were better educated with a broader and better understanding of the subjects they studied. They also tended to be more mature than their peers in public school.)

This isn’t a phenomenon seen just here in rural ‘flyover’ country. It has also appeared in Manhattan, and has done so in spectacular fashion. In this case, a father withdrew his daughter from the prestigious Brearley School and sent a letter to the 600+ families of the school, explaining why he was doing so.

Our family recently made the decision not to reenroll our daughter at Brearley for the 2021-22 school year. She has been at Brearley for seven years, beginning in kindergarten. In short, we no longer believe that Brearley’s administration and Board of Trustees have any of our children’s best interests at heart. Moreover, we no longer have confidence that our daughter will receive the quality of education necessary to further her development into a critically thinking, responsible, enlightened, and civic minded adult. I write to you, as a fellow parent, to share our reasons for leaving the Brearley community but also to urge you to act before the damage to the school, to its community, and to your own child's education is irreparable.

It cannot be stated strongly enough that Brearley’s obsession with race must stop. It should be abundantly clear to any thinking parent that Brearley has completely lost its way. The administration and the Board of Trustees have displayed a cowardly and appalling lack of leadership by appeasing an anti-intellectual, illiberal mob, and then allowing the school to be captured by that same mob. What follows are my own personal views on Brearley's antiracism initiatives, but these are just a handful of the criticisms that I know other parents have expressed.

I object to the view that I should be judged by the color of my skin. I cannot tolerate a school that not only judges my daughter by the color of her skin, but encourages and instructs her to prejudge others by theirs. By viewing every element of education, every aspect of history, and every facet of society through the lens of skin color and race, we are desecrating the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and utterly violating the movement for which such civil rights leaders believed, fought, and died.

As the saying goes, Read The Whole Thing.

==+==

Germany has invested heavily in renewable energy, specifically wind, and phased out nuclear power. It also been using coal plants as backups to wind, but have been working to reduce their dependence on them. Right after the first of this year Germany shut down and disconnected 11 coal-fired plants from the electrical grid as a means of reducing carbon dioxide emissions.

Then the winds stopped blowing.

Eight days after the phase out began, a number of the disconnected coal plants had to be reconnected and restarted to meet demand due to that lack of wind.

My question is this: Why didn’t they foresee this event? It wasn’t like it wasn’t predictable.

Germany went from having the most reliable and resilient electrical grid in Europe to the worst, and all of it done on purpose in pursuit of a goal based upon an unfalsifiable hypothesis. Germany would he been better served by keeping their nuclear plants and building more. Nuclear is also a means of reducing carbon dioxide but is not vulnerable to weather. The newer Generation III and IV plants are safer, more efficient, and if modular design is used can be built quickly.

Ask what the German public thinks about wind turbines and you’ll find that while they were enthusiastic about them at first, the reality of their downsides has shifted opinion away from them. Between increasingly poor grid reliability, the sound, the light flicker, and particularly the health effects of infrasound, many Germans wish they would go away.

Has Germany become an object lesson about how not to deal with reducing carbon emissions?

Yes.

==+==

This is an interesting look at people’s perceptions versus reality. Even with hard facts and evidence, some people are unwilling to change their minds or perception of what’s true. This is true across socio-economic, political, and religious lines.

Let’s take a look at a few of them from the point of view of voters:

During the late 1800s when the renowned scientist Louis Pasteur was trying to overturn the medical community’s deadly belief that germs are not communicable, he wrote: “The greatest aberration of the mind is to believe a thing to be, because we desire it.” The results of a scientific survey conducted just after the 2020 presidential election show that voters from across the political spectrum have failed to heed that warning.

--snip--

76% of Trump voters think that the average income of middle-income households fell during the Obama administration. In reality, their inflation-adjusted average income rose by $5,300 during this period.

88% of Biden voters think that police are more likely to use lethal force when arresting black people than white people. In reality, police are 42% less likely to use lethal force when arresting blacks than whites.

The survey also found that a considerable portion of Trump voters have adopted some progressive fallacies spread by the media. For instance, 38% of Trump voters (and 86% of Biden voters) think that the number of strong-to-violent tornadoes in the U.S. has generally increased since the 1950s. In reality, they have slightly decreased.

The study linked the article do some further breakdowns of misconceptions and show us this problem does indeed exist across political lines, something everyone needs to aware of. They also need to question what they believe to be true. As John Maynard Keynes once said, “When my information changes, I alter my conclusions. What do you do, sir?”

Indeed. I find myself constantly challenged and always have to question what I think I know. I have found from time to time that what I and “everyone else” knows just ain’t so.

==+==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where winter tried to make a return even if only for a day, warmer weather is returning, and where preparations for summer are becoming increasingly apparent.

The White Woke Racists Among Us

A recent post highlighted the problem with woke liberal racism, specifically the soft racism of low expectations. The cartoon in that post overstated the issue (but sometimes that’s the only way to get their attention), but I have to say I have actually interacted with people I know who act exactly that way. While the blatant woke racists are a minority, it is the subtle and unaware ones that are the big problem.

While I could expound in depth about this problem (and it is a big problem), I figured I’d let someone else do the heavy lifting this time. (I have been very busy at work and getting ready to start some renovations here at The Gulch.)

Without further ado, I present to you Daisy Cousens and her take on Georgia’s new Voter ID laws, and how White Woke Racists are trying so hard to prove non-white voters are incapable of dealing with them which, as any halfway intelligent human being could tell you, just ain’t so.



Ayuh.

Promoted From "Promoted From The Comments"

To borrow a subject line from Skip at Granite Grok, the following was promoted from the comments at GG about a subject near and dear to yours truly, that being the problem when folks “from away” relocate here to New Hampshire. We aren’t the only ‘locals’ that worry about such problems as we see the same concerns in places like Arizona, Nevada, Texas, and Wyoming worried about folks relocating from California trying to turn their states into the very place the fled from. In our case it’s folks from Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York coming here and trying to recreate the very places they came here to get away from.

Over the years, I have seen many folks from away move into our town and they can be categorized into three different and distinct groups.

The first group are those who move here, do their best to fit in and enjoy their new home town, and after a few years you’d swear they’ve always lived here. That’s a good portion of the folks coming here from away.

The second group are those I call “drawbridge” folks.

They move into town and then want to freeze everything, allow no changes of any kind. In effect, they want to ‘raise the drawbridge’ to prevent change from entering the town. While I can understand this mentality, it isn’t realistic. Change is inevitable. Some changes will happen quickly, usually forced by circumstances. Other changes will take place slowly, a little at a time and barely noticeable, but it will happen.

Most “drawbridge” come to realize their expectations are unrealistic and eventually come around. Those who can’t come around fight against every change, large or small, and tend to be unhappy about the changes they see. There is no mollifying them. Fortunately they tend to be a very small minority of those moving here from away, but they can be the most problematic.

The third group tends to be the loudest, most disruptive, and least likely to listen to reason. It is this group that Skip and commenter NHNative address (hence the “Promoted from the Comments” tag) .

They are the folks that move here to get away from wherever they came from, and the first thing they do I try to recreate the very place they fled, recreating the very conditions that caused them to flee “back where they came from” to begin with. They want all of the amenities of their old home towns and expect the rest of us to pay to provide them, amenities the rest of us couldn’t possibly care any less about than we already do. They make a big stink if we bumpkins don’t automatically bow to their ‘superior’ wisdom, not understanding that their wisdom isn’t all that wise and rarely applicable to their new situation. Those with lots of money tend to be the most obnoxious, not understanding that some of the bumpkins have even more money than they do or, lacking that level of cash, have far more influence in the town/county/state than the newcomers could ever hope to have.

It is to this group the following message is addressed:

They should take the message to heart.

Thoughts On A Sunday

We’ve seen a preview of summer with nice sunny weather with temps in the 70’s, light winds, and the wide open lake. Very few boats have been venturing out on the lakes, and those that have have been mostly fishing boats, trailered in and launched by their owners for the day. I have seen only a handful of boats at their slips in the marinas and coves here in my town, but that will be changing with every day as the boatyards, marinas, and residents launch their boats and get them to their summer berths.

About the only dark cloud making itself known is the cost of gasoline, up about $1/gallon from a year ago. (Gee, I wonder why that might be?)

Despite the higher gas prices, the enthusiasm for the upcoming boating season here in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire is quite high, with the demand for new boats outstripping supply.

Despite the age of the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout (28 years), it is still quite serviceable and I expect to get quite a few more years out of it. (I would like to get a new boat at some point, but I have other priorities for my money for the time being.) With regular maintenance I should be able to keep it in running shape for as long as necessary, something that, for the time being, is a lot cheaper than buying a new boat. But some day...

==+==

Are we seeing yet another example of the Law of Unintended Consequences coming to bite President *’s administration in the butt? Of course. This isn’t the first such instance nor will it be the last. This latest iteration?

His threat to order the banning of a whole host of ‘scary’ guns has driven the sales of AR’s, ammunition, and “ghost” guns to unbelievable levels.

Then again, SloJo has already stated he believes the Constitutional restrictions on government can be ignored because none of them are absolute. It seems he (or WRBA) thinks the Second Amendment can be ignored despite the phrase “Shall not be infringed” being part and parcel of the Amendment. In effect, Biden’s proposed gun policies will treat everyone as a criminal, except for the real criminals, of course.

Once he disposes of the Second Amendment the focus will shift to the First.

They are about to find out the hard way that a majority of the American people won’t stand still for that.

==+==

At least our governor has gotten one thing right: He says New Hampshire will not have so-called “vaccine passports”.

Requiring citizens to have a government-issued vaccine passport to travel and to attend public events would needlessly stir more controversy over the risk of contracting COVID-19, Gov. Chris Sununu said Tuesday.

“Washington is so removed from what is happening on the ground. We shouldn’t be mandating anything. These vaccine passports, creating the haves and the have-nots, you are just going to create a lot of problems and anxiety,” Sununu said.

Sununu said the passport runs counter to New Hampshire’s tradition of treating vaccines as voluntary.

“I am very hesitant about any of that. At the end of the day, it is an individual choice,” Sununu said.

Of course the Left will need to silence the Governor because he is refusing to follow the narrative, refusing to create or follow a system that will ask “Papiere, bitte!”

==+==

A quote from Pete Buttigieg: “Freeways were built on a “racist” system, and built at the expense of communities of color.”

So now even highways are racist? What’s next? Water mains and sewers? Electricity?

If everything is racist, then nothing is racist.

==+==

One of my friends was up visiting today and on his way back home he called me on the phone to share a sign he saw outside a business:

We warned you about Joe Biden, but did you listen?

No. No they did not.

==+==

One thing that has become a concern, at least here in New Hampshire (but also seen in other places), is the spreading phenomenon of short-term rentals, particularly those booked by way of services like AirBnB, VRBO, and other similar operations. There has been a growing problem with such short-term rentals, both here and in other towns, one of them being poor behavior by those renting the short-term rentals. None of those problems are the fault of the rental servcies. Some of the problems are resolved by the owners of the short-term rental properties, particularly those who also reside in or nearby them. (Some owners only offer to rent their properties during certain time periods such as for a couple of weeks when they are away on their own vacations.)

A more recent phenomenon has been properties bought for the sole purpose of using them as short-term rentals. That has been seen here on an increasing basis. What’s even more disturbing is corporations – LLCs – buying up such properties, sometimes paying well above the market value for ‘vacation’ homes, then listing them via the aforementioned services. This has certainly skewed the housing market, making homes that would have been occupied by owners, i.e. families, unavailable, particularly since some corporations have been paying well above market value to acquire them.

The problem we’re seeing with this? If there are issues regarding the property, who do the parties concerned contact? Some anonymous LLC in Boston or New York whose only concern is that they keep making money back from their investment and not quality of life issues caused by those renting their properties? Will it be a property management company who will handle it? One of the members of the LLC? A law firm representing the owners? Who does a municipality contact of there are immediate problems...or chronic problems that constantly plague neighbors, and by extension, the town?

We haven’t figured out the answer to that question...yet.

==+==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where summer has been been giving us sneak previews, summerfolk have been showing up to get their vacation homes ready, and where everyone is anticipating the summer restaurants reopening in a few weeks.

Yes. Yes It Does.

Umm, yeah. I think this explains real racism pretty well.

(H/T Powerline)

Thoughts On A Sunday

It is Easter and we are celebrating the Resurrection, something that has brought Joy to many throughout the centuries. He is Risen!

==+==

This will be a short TOAS as we are on the road, visiting family to share Easter Dinner. Since most of those participating have been immunized, we believe the risk is small. Those who aren’t yet immunized have been working from home for months.

==+==

One of the side effects of last week’s visit to Southwestern New Hampshire was a couple of tires in the trusty RAM 1500 being out of balance. I thought I had managed to get all of the mud and gravel out of the wheels after our trip down there (the last mile or so of our trip to our family’s home was on muddy dirt road), but I was wrong. I didn’t manage to get the last of it removed until Saturday afternoon, being aware of our trip to the older WP Sister’s place for Easter dinner would be much less comfortable if I didn’t restore the wheel balance.

==+==

Is it just me or have our adversaries realized that no one really appears to be in charge at our highest level of power? Certainly China and Russia understand this.

The new administration started off using virtue signaling as an important component of foreign and domestic policy. But now even the “only adults in the room” suddenly suspect that Woke garlic doesn’t repel vampires. Russia and China continue to defy the rules of the Biden-Harris administration despite their expectation that the world would return to its pre-2016 order.

--snip--

Russia and China — not to mention North Korea and Iran — are all on the move and don’t seem deterred by Washington. If disaster overtakes the Biden Harris restoration future historians will conclude that organized self delusion played a leading part. The cultural and political establishment belief in the Great Reset after Trump sputtered and instead of the predicted return to normal the global world has continued its descent into crisis.

--snip--

While Biden-Harris sees itself as “back” in charge, recent Great Power challenges treat them as a fading, decadent relic. At a top-level diplomatic meeting in Alaska, the Chinese envoy said: “The United States does not have the qualification to say that it wants to speak to China from a position of strength” according to the New York Times.

They realize the US is no longer cohesive, that those in power are nothing like the previous administration, the one they disliked but respected since it spoke from a position of power and strength. Now we have SloJo “in control” and Whoever is Running the Biden Administration believes they can make nice with China, Russia, and even scarier, Iran and, that because they’ve done so, they will fall in line. But not so ancient history (just 5 years ago) shows they won’t. They will exploit the Biden Administration’s focus on making sure no Democrat will ever lose an election again and fomenting a for-the-moment cold civil war.

One thing we can count on: If the feces hits the rotary oscillator and adversaries like China and Russia make moves against Taiwan and Ukraine respectively, SloJo and WRBA will find some way of blaming Trump...and will do absolutely nothing about it.

==+==

And that’s the abbreviated news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where there’s still snow on the ground here and there, Ice Out is close, and where boats are already being unwrapped and prepped for the upcoming boating season.

Irony...Writ Large

How does one define irony? Let’s give it a try, shall we?

(H/T Powerline)

Prepping For Summer

Normally I would be writing about this subject on Sunday, but with it being Good Friday today and Easter on Sunday, I figured I’d delve into this subject today, that being preparations for the upcoming summer. There was another motivation for this subject, that being a discussion with an old friend, talking about Covid-19 and the differences between the mandates here in New Hampshire and her home state of Connecticut.

One big difference – restaurants and bars are fully open here, but still locked down in Connecticut.

That got us talking about summer in general and what I’ve got planned.

The first thing: Ensuring the slip for the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout – aka The Boat – will be ready. The rent for the upcoming boating season has already been paid and the owner has already made arrangements for any repairs that might be needed to ensure the docks are serviceable.

The second thing: Calling the boatyard where The Boat is stored and asking that it be taken out of storage and serviced by the second weekend in May. (It needs to be unwrapped, the hull acid-washed to remove the algae buildup that collected during last boating season, and the oil changed in the engine and stern drive.)

The first and second things are probably the biggest things that need to be taken care of before summer since boating is one thing we do a lot from May to October.

The third thing: Since it looks like summer will again be summer around here, that means we’ll see cookouts again. One thing we lack here at The Gulch is a grill, a lack I plan to correct sometime in the next week or two. (When we left The Manse a little over two years ago, we left our gas grill behind at the request of the new owners. We have been grill-less since then and last year it didn’t seem like we really needed one since cookouts were strongly discouraged...and we didn’t have too many family or friends visiting.) I have seen some nice ones over at Lowes and Tractor Supply Company, so time permitting, I will swing by sometime this weekend to see what’s available and how much they want.

The fourth thing: Spring cleaning. There are a number of items in the attic and the storage area above the garage that we neither need or want, so would be better off going to the dump, Goodwill, or St. Vincent de Paul. A few more will go to rental storage. There are some items elsewhere in The Gulch the WP Mom would like to see go away as she has no use for them and they are doing little more than taking up space. Some will go to family members as they are family heirlooms. Some will go to the Goody Shack at the local dump, some will go to Goodwill, and others will be sold. We hope to have more friends and family visiting, but we need to make room and make sure we have the amenities available for guests. As part of this effort I will be bringing a few items from storage to The Gulch to help with those needed amenities.

The fifth thing (sort of): It looks like I will be residing here longer than originally planned. With the housing market being what it is and the high demand (and costs) for building materials, starting construction on The New Manse makes absolutely no financial sense. Finding a general contractor has been a problem as well as many of them are booked out until next year. Better to maintain the status quo for the time being and wait until the housing bubble deflates. I don’t want to spend a penny more than necessary so I am willing to wait this out.

And so it goes for the upcoming Summer of 2021.

Scary Thought Of The Day

Seen over at the comments at Knuckledraggin comes this scary thought of the day:

Every time you say this year's name, it reminds you that 2020 won.

Next year? That's 2020, too.

It. Is. Never. Going. To. End.

Thoughts On A Sunday

We had a lot of warm spring weather this past week, ending with a number of thunderstorms rolling through Friday afternoon.

Driving around portions of Lake Winnipesaukee yesterday while running some of my weekend chores/errands I saw that large portions of the lake were now ice free. I figure the heavy rain and the high winds helped break up the thinner sheets of ice. Much of the ice seen from The Gulch and along the southern shore had been a darkening blue as of Thursday afternoon. Most of that ice is now gone.

The cove where the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout docks during the boating season is mostly ice free, with a sheet of mushy ice along one side of the cove, pushed there by the winds.

Last week I figured Ice Out would be called on April 12th. I’m beginning to think it’s going to happen a lot earlier than that.

==+==

It seems Nancy Pelosi is bound and determined to foment the Second Civil War.

First with the execrable HR 1, and then with her move to unseat a duly elected Representative from Iowa from the House because she only won by 6 votes. I guess that means that even if a Republican wins, it only counts as a win if the Republican wins by a huge margin...and even then only temporarily until the Speaker can invalidate the election results by decree.

Every time I think Pelosi couldn’t be a bigger scumbag than she already is, she proves me wrong.

She needs to go before she destroys what’s left of our Republic and turns it into a Leftist dictatorship. She has already shown she has no respect for the law, the US Constitution, or the American people, at least not those who are not part of the Progressive ‘elite’. The rest of the people are just deplorables to be abused, ignored, or both.

==+==

Yeah, I see this, but I have a different take on it than Skip.

Skip writes:

The problem isn’t the number of guns in the US (estimated now at around 400 million) but the culture of those that have them. Culture counts and a culture that doesn’t value life has chart results like this. If you need any more proof, look at the stats in Chicago after almost every weekend.

And that Culture is? Gangbangers. Get rid of them (which Chicago assiduously refuses to do), and the chart goes flat.

Take away the top 5-10 counties in America where gun CRIME (not violence, CRIME) is tops, the chart goes flat.

But we can thank Progressives for moving the Overton Window to the left and removing Societal norms, like marriage, like respect, like Judeo-Christian values, like valuing Private Property Rights, like behavior, and all the other bricks that used to make up the Wall of Society.

And this is what we’re left with – chaos. For we Normals, a disaster. For Progressives wishing to both remake us AND remake our Society, a manmade opportunity not to waste.

The culture the Progressives have in mind is not a new one by any means, their protestations notwithstanding. They want a culture that is the recreation of a society that vanished 30 years ago, a society of misery and terror, of show trials, of the brutal repression of human rights, with a nomenklatura that saw themselves as an elite that tried its best to separate themselves from the proletariat, a society that was so dysfunctional its economy was wholly dependent upon its greatest adversary’s largess, a society that poisoned its own environment “for the Glory of the State”, a society that was so repressive that it killed the souls of so many of its people that it finally collapsed because no one believed anything its rulers said anymore.

They want to recreate the old Soviet Union, pine to replace it with their own version, because they will do it better. Of course they won’t because they will make the same mistakes, will ignore the same factors that destroyed the previous version of their Socialist ‘Utopia’, and will suffer the same fate. Only millions more people will be dead and they will have killed them, either directly or indirectly through neglect. That is what they want for us...because they know better.

Thanks, but no thanks.

==+==

By way of Chris Muir comes this, the New Declaration of Independence:

When in the Course of human events which impelled our Founding Fathers to form a new Nation, conceived in Liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created free and equal and endowed by their Creator with the inalienable Rights to Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness, they determined to declare the reasons which inspired them to such a noble cause.

Because we hold to these same self-evident truths, we seek to adhere to these same timeless principles and to conduct our lives in a way which shows ourselves worthy of the precious legacy which has been handed down to us by such brave and honorable men.

WE are the worthy posterity of our noble Founding Fathers.

WE are the ones who have kept their Covenant and Constitution.

WE are the ones who recognize and revere the God of nature who has blessed us with the fruits of their labor.

All we have ever required of our fellow countrymen is to respect our Right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness and, in turn, we have respected theirs.

Now our endowed Rights have been stolen by those especially entrusted for their protection.

Those who were created equal to us now think they have been elevated above us merely due to the office they have acquired solely through our good graces.

The Governments which have been instituted among us exclusively for the protection of our Rights, have become destructive of those very ends.

Our Safety and Happiness have been abused and usurped.

The principles upon which our Country was established are now distorted and derided, if they are remembered at all. As all of history shows, the pursuit of such a Government is designed to reduce us to absolute despotism.

Because we understand it is no light thing to alter, abolish or institute new Government, for far too long we have tried to content ourselves while evils were sufferable. But now there is no rule of law and our patience is viewed by our abusers only as consent to more abuse.

It is strongly suggested you Read The Whole Thing, particularly before it disappears.

==+==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the rains are heavy, the winds are getting heavier, and where the ice on the lake will soon be gone.

The Freedom Of Speech Is Becoming "You Are Free to Speak Only If You Agree With Us"

I have been watching Pat Condell’s videos for some time. While his point of view is quite often that of a UK citizen cover subjects of import to the UK, the points he brings up quite often apply equally to the US, Canada, and a whole host of other western nations.

His latest diatribe covers the constant erosion of the freedom of speech, where a small minority can control the content of speech by declaring anything they disagree with, anything they don’t like, or anything that makes them feel uncomfortable as “hate speech”. Such oversight stifles the free exchange of differing ideas, something every healthy society needs. In turn, censoring differing speech also stifles the society, something that is never good.



While Pat believes the US First Amendment will protect the free speech of those of us in the US, he is wrong. There are those among us who have been working hard to make the First Amendment moot. They have been trying to get their fellow travelers to push the idea that “hate speech” is not constitutionally protected. One example: they have tried to use the “Yelling ‘Fire!’ in a theater is not protected by the First Amendment” argument as if it is somehow germane to the discussion. I have responded “But there is a fire in the theater...and you set it,” to more than one woke snowflake who would like to control every aspect of our speech to prevent any ‘uncomfortable’ speech. Eliminating any speech they don’t like is their goal and the First Amendment be damned.

Think it won’t happen here?

It already is, with heavy censorship of posting to places like Twitter and Facebook, and the actions taken by those same media platforms, backed up by Amazon/AWS, Google, and Apple deplatforming and demonetizing websites, apps, and YouTube channels of those they disagree with. Their terms of service have been changed to the point that any speech used that their anonymous and ignorant censors deem offensive can be removed.

An example of this I came across personally: Someone writing a comment to a post about cats and the discussion was comparing the size and characteristics of Savannah and Maine Coon cats. The comment was removed “due to the use of offensive language”. The ‘nanny algorithm’ the censors used apparently didn’t like the name of the Maine cat breed, seeing part of the breed name as being racist in nature. Even an appeal to the human censors elicited a “continued use of the offensive term could result in termination of offending account” response.

How. Effin’. Stupid.

Now apply that to everyday speech. Think it won’t happen? It has already started. On YouTube you find that some YouTubers can’t mention terms like ‘feminism’, ‘sex’, ‘sexism’, and ‘MGTOW’ just to name a few, without YouTube algorithms/human censors tagging/removing their videos. Not all YouTubers, just some. It has also led to YouTube demonitizing their channels, while leaving others employing same language and terms untouched. The difference as best I can tell? Those allowed to keep using the questionable language appear to be the ‘correct’ kind of YouTuber.

Another place we see this, and it is nowhere near as subtle, is the halls of academia. Faculty, students, and guest speakers are silenced on campuses because many of the aforementioned woke snowflakes are so offended (or so triggered) they can’t allow those with differing viewpoints to speak. They label those differing opinions as “hate speech” and will do anything they can to stifle it. It has gone as far as physical attacks to prevent those they see as ‘whateverists’ from speaking.

It is as Pat described in his video – the claims that the speech they disagree with is “hate speech” is a lie, a pernicious lie. It’s only purpose is to silence those with differing opinions, period. Silencing free speech doesn’t make things better. It makes things worse. It always makes things worse.

Two Accomplishments Of The Biden Presidency...So Far

Shamelessly stolen from Instapundit:

Harsh...but fair.

And these are just the latest. One of his first accomplishments was when he made tens of thousands of good paying union jobs disappear with a stroke of the pen. (Keystone XL pipeline cancellation.)

Real Common Sense Gun Legislation

This post was inspired by a comment made in an Instapundit post dealing with the shooting in Boulder, Colorado. One comment dealt with “Every Democrat-elected NPC has already has rushed to a microphone to urge “common sense” gun legislation.” This response to the comment offered some truly “common sense” gun legislation.

Hmm. Common sense gun legislation. Let's see.

How about this?

"Every able-bodied adult not otherwise restricted by law (convicted felons and those under DV Restraining Orders) shall be required to carry a loaded firearm when out in public. Accommodation will be made for religious belief exemptions. Those who cannot afford firearms or ammo will report to their nearest police station where loaner weapons and ammo can be signed out for not more than 4 days. Loaner periods can be extended but the requests must be made in person and cannot exceed 28 days. Loaner weapons and ammo will be returned to the PD in the same condition as they were issued. The cost of any loaner ammunition expended shall be reimbursed to the PD within 90 days of use."

Will that do?

It certainly makes more sense to me than the “common sense” gun legislation that disarms law-abiding citizens but leaves armed criminals armed.

All such legislation has ever done is increase the incidence of gun violence. Our self-anointed ‘betters’ always focus on the wrong word in the phrase “gun violence”, that word being “gun” rather than “violence”. Eliminate the violence and the gun problem goes away. ‘Eliminate’ the gun and the violence problem is still there…and will get worse.

Thoughts On A Sunday

Spring is finally here, at least according to the calendar. We’ve certainly had spring weather, seeing temps in the mid 50’s yesterday and low 60’s today. The ice on the lake is getting thinner and I’ve seen a lot of bobhouses being pulled off the lake over the past 2 days. A few more days of this kind of weather and some wind would help the ice start breaking up.

We’ll be waiting for Ice Out (defined as when the M/S Mount Washington ship can make all five ports of call on Lake Winnipesaukee). This means boating season won’t be too far behind.

There is an annual Ice Out contest, calling for the date and time when Ice Out is declared. I’ve picked 1PM on April 12th. Now only time will tell.

==+==

Is South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem being condemned unfairly for her opposition to South Dakota House Bill 1217 as it was passed by the legislature? The bill deals with banning transgendered athletes from competing in sports on teams that do not match their biological gender, i.e. transgirls competing on girls’ teams. The bill is meant to protect women’s sports, but as passed it has some problems and unintended consequences that will do more harm than good, something Governor Noem wants corrected before she signs it. As she posted to her MeWe page:

I believe that boys should play boys’ sports, and girls should play girls’ sports. I'm returning House Bill 1217 with the following recommendations as to STYLE and FORM.

As the legislative findings in the original version of the bill set out, “[w]ith respect to biological sex, one is either male or female[,]” and “[p]hysiological differences between males and females include ‘those most important for success in sport: categorically different strength, speed, and endurance.’”

That is why House Bill 1217 properly provides that females should have opportunities to play youth sports on teams comprised of females and against teams of females. Unfortunately, as I have studied this legislation and conferred with legal experts over the past several days, I have become concerned that this bill’s vague and overly broad language could have significant unintended consequences.

(I do not have the direct link to the Governor’s MeWe page, but the quote above came by way of a screenshot provided by a commenter linked above the quote, so take it as such. - ed.)

The linked quote includes more information from the Governor regarding the changes she states need to be made.

Better the bill be fixed beforehand rather than scrambling later to deal with the unintended consequences.

==+==

Registration for Covid vaccinations for my demographic group (Misanthropic and Surly Curmudgeons Above the Age of 50) opens tomorrow in New Hampshire.

I will be registering, but I will admit I will be looking for vaccination sites that will be offering the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. There are a couple of reasons for my decision which include that it is a single dose vaccine (so I only have to make one appointment, not two) and that its creation and manufacture uses a process that is very similar to that used for making flu vaccines rather than one that employs genetic engineering/gene therapy. (I choose not to be a test subject for a vaccine that makes use of mRNA to create immunity.) One has to remember these vaccines have not undergone the full testing suite usually required by the FDA. They received emergency authorization for use.

Does that make me a conspiracy theorist? No. I don’t believe Bill Gates is using the Pfizer/Moderna vaccines to insert chips into the populace to track and control the population. We all know it’s really the CIA and the Illuminati! /s

My decision is based upon my own research, a medical background (I was a EMT/Paramedic for over 15 years), I have old friends who are medical professionals (including one who is an epidemiologist), and an ingrained distrust of an ‘authority’ that keeps changing its mind (sometimes on a daily basis) about what is and is not effective regarding Covid-19 precautions and treatments.

==+==

It seems Senator Rand Paul can’t catch a break.

First, a little over three and a half years ago he’s assaulted by a neighbor while mowing his lawn, the assault breaking five of his ribs.

Now he has a self-righteous Karen harassing him about not wearing a mask while he’s working out on a treadmill at a gym.

Senator Paul was fully vaccinated and as such, wearing a mask is merely a psychological sop to someone else that provides no additional protection. The Karen harangued a physician with more knowledge about infectious diseases, the efficacy of vaccines and precautions like masks and washing one’s hands than she could ever know. I guess Karens have got to Karen.

I know that two of our local gyms require masks when moving from one workout station to another and when entering or leaving the gym. They do not require them while actually exercising.

==+==

Jo Nova has hit it on the head: The Chinese have nothing but scorn for our self-hating ‘woke’ upper-class.

That’s OK. Most of us in the US also have nothing but scorn for those same scumbags.

The Chinese know our leaders well. In fact, they have a name for our self-hating professional class.

They call them “baizuo.” The rough translation from Mandarin is “White liberal,” and it is definitely not a compliment. Chinese state media describes baizou as people who, “only care about topics such as immigration, minorities, LGBT and the environment, who have no sense of real problems in the real world, who only advocate for peace and equality to satisfy their own feelings of moral superiority, and who are so obsessed with political correctness that they tolerate backward Islamic values for the sake of multiculturalism.”

As Chinese state media notes, “former US [sic] President Obama was considered an advocate of baizuo ideology.”

So is “German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her decision to welcome more than one million third-world [sic] immigrants to Europe.”

Other observations about baizuo, as reported by Chinese state media, include the fact that they “advocate inclusiveness and anti-discrimination but cannot tolerate different opinions.” Baizuo’s political opinions are “so shallow that they tend to maintain social equality by embracing ideologies that run against the basic concept of equality.”

According to one scholar from Peking University, “[B]aizuo are phony and hypocritical and will make the situation in the West go from bad to worse.” And so on.

It is rare I would agree with something from official Chinese state media, but in this one case I have to agree with their assessment of our ‘betters’. It seems everything they do makes things worse for everyone, including themselves. They won’t recognize they are doing that because they are too busy congratulating themselves and virtue signaling for having “done something” about a problem, real or imagined. However, that ‘something’ usually comes back to bite them, too, but by then it’s too late to undo it. So what do they do?

They double down on stupid.

They “do something” that’s worse than the original ‘something’ they did, and perpetuate the cycle. Things get worse, they get crazier, and all of us suffer for it.

This is something we need to stop, and the sooner the better for everyone, even our ‘betters’.

==+==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where spring has arrived in earnest, the ice on the lakes is melting away, and we’re enjoying the weather...even if it’s on a Monday.

It's Time To Address "Offense Culture"

As is my habit, I tend to watch TED Talks and TEDx Talks on YouTube. These talks, each around 20 to 30 minutes in length, can be quite informative. They cover a wide range of subjects from cosmology to suicide to families to math to social issues, past and present. I don’t always agree with what the presenters say, and when that is the case the disagreement is often a matter of degree, not magnitude. (Not that there haven’t been those occasions where the presenter and I have diametrically opposed views. Even then, I usually learn something new.)

I was perusing a TEDx Talk this morning and came across this one hosted by Jess Butcher, MBE and her guest, Claire Fox. The subject of Claire’s talk – How Offence Culture Stifles Progress.

She mentions the pervasiveness of what she calls the “Snowflake Generation”, those who are offended by speech that presents ideas with which they disagree. This is done not to foster debate and discussion about the ‘offensive’ idea, but to stifle it in its entirety and to silence those who caused the ‘offense’. They demand safe spaces, not to protect them from some physical threat, but to shield them from offensive subjects.



How is it so many, more specifically college students, have become so psychologically fragile they cannot ponder the idea of debating subjects they disagree with without feeling anxious, nauseous, or ‘fainting away’? One does not treat such a malady by kowtowing to their demands to never be offended. All that does is feed their neurosis and make it worse. To hold the rest of the population hostage to their psychological fragility is madness in itself. Better to see they get the treatment they need to reduce, if not eliminate this fragility. Otherwise they will not make it out in the real world, as Claire stated in her talk.