Thoughts On A Sunday

As if we needed more proof that summer is finally here, we’re at the beginning of another heat wave – 3 days of temps above 90ºF – something that doesn’t really bother me...unless there is oppressive humidity. Unfortunately the humidity is quite high, with dew points above 70ºF. I felt it the moment I walked out of the house here at The Gulch this morning. (I was on my way out for my usual pre-church Walmart run.)

It was already 75º at 7:30am and the air was heavy. I didn’t resort to using anything but the 4 x 50 A/C (4 x 50 A/C = 4 windows down @ 50mph) for my trip to and from Walmart. It was more than sufficient for the trip. But the A/C was on at the house to help dry out the air.

I admit it would have been just as easy to spend time out on the lake to help cool off, but with high heat and humidity, it would only be a temporary relief. I knew the town beach would be crowded (it was), and the number of boats out on the lake would huge with so many people trying to keep cool (which was the case).

The heavy weekend boat traffic is one of the reasons I tend to stay off the lake Saturdays and Sundays, at least between late morning and late afternoon/early evening. It is not fun (there’s lots of wake-driven chop which makes for rough boating) and the number of “Cap’n Boneheads” is disproportionately higher, meaning one’s head has to be on constant swivel because someone else out there will likely not be paying attention. This lack of attention will be due to inexperience, dealing with passengers onboard, chemical overload sloshing above their eyebrows, or some combination of the three.

If the conditions are right I’ll venture out during the day on a weekend. Fortunately for me the conditions were right yesterday – cloudy with some sprinkles now and then – which kept a lot of people off the lake despite the warm and humid conditions. So I went out with some family members and we actually had a pretty good day out on the lake.

==+==

I find it ironic that it’s perfectly okay to tear down statues of historical figures in New York City...unless it’s a statue of George Floyd. Then it’s racist.

It’s just further proof that Mayor De Blasio is a hypocrite.

As one tweet regarding this issue put it, “Didn’t last summer establish this is a reasonable mode of expression?”

As we must perpetually remind everyone, if the Progressives/Leftists/Communists/Democrats didn’t have double standards, they’d have no standards at all.

==+==

An issue in my little town is also being seen elsewhere in the country, that issue being local school boards/boards of education ignoring their constituents, or worse, attacking them and their characters, smearing them because they had the gall to question their actions and motives. (It isn’t that bad in out town...at least not yet.

In our town it appears our school board figures they are not required to answer the townsfolk’s questions, reply to Right to Know requests which under state law they must respond to by providing the requested information. (There are exceptions to this law, usually dealing with ongoing criminal investigations or litigation, and even then the exceptions are limited.) There have been other school boards that are trying to ram things like CRT down the throats of students, or pushing unpopular and discriminatory transgender policies which are not supported by parents, students, or in some cases, state law.

The push back by the public has been growing and I think we will see a number of members of these boards being voted out, and perhaps in some cases, being induced to step down in light of their outrageous behavior, statements, and contempt for the people they were supposed to serve.

==+==

Will we ever find out who shot and killed Ashli Babbitt, the only fatality directly related to the January 6 protest at the Capitol Building? Why is the DOJ working so hard to to keep this information secret?

One of the things that's really pissed me off about this: leftists who will take ANY LE shooting as a reason to riot think this was just fine because 'Trump supporter'. God, I despise these people.

To reiterate, “If the Progressives/Leftists/Communists/Democrats didn’t have double standards, they’d have no standards at all.”

This needs to be repeated as often as possible until it sinks in.

==+==

As hard as the Left and the DNC-MSM keep pushing the “America is Racist!” meme, a sizable majority (61%) of the American people aren’t buying it and the percentage is increasing. This could be why those pushing the racist Critical Race Theory for all they’re worth have redoubled their efforts because they see people across all racial and ethnic lines opposing teaching of CRT, both in schools and businesses, because they see it for what it is: a means to further divide the American people and generate distrust and hatred between those same racial/ethnic groups opposing CRT.

==+==

I had to read this more than once to determine if this was satire or reality. Unfortunately, it appears to be reality, to whit, the Trudeau government is unable to define the term “woman”.

This begs the question to our Canadian brethren: What the hell is going on in Canada?

The Trudeau government does not know what a woman is. This is not rhetorical, it is what they have directly said. A ministry known as Women and Gender Equality states that it "does not use a specific definition of 'woman.'"

An organization founded by Canadian women to protect sex-based rights in the nation, caWsbar, revealed this fact earlier this month, after one of their associates asked the department of Women and Gender Equality (WAGE) in Canada "I'd like to know what definition your Ministry uses to define the word 'woman.'"

In answer, the government responded "WAGE does not use a specific definition of 'woman.'" This seems odd, given that the word 'women' is part of the agency's name.

I would have to say the last sentence in the quote above is a good example of irony.

It is sad to see our neighbor to the north descending into madness, a fate that I had hoped they might escape. But it seems they have fallen deeper into insanity than we have, and that’s a shame.

==+==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the weather is going to be hot and humid for the next few days, the beaches will be full now that school is out, and where I am glad I have A/C both at home and at work.

Institutional Racism Belongs To Whom?

Thoughts On A Sunday

We have survived another Motorcycle Week. The rumbles of thousands of bikes are fading into the distance as visitors head home, leaving their cash behind which have filled the tills of many an establishment in this area.

For the most part I have avoided much of the bike traffic. Part of the weekend was spent out on the lake on the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout, avoiding the motorcycle traffic filling the local roads altogether.

Four things I did take care of over the weekend in the way of chores weren’t all that time consuming, with only two of them requiring venturing out onto the roads – having the oil changed in the trusty RAM 1500 (which was almost 1000 miles overdue) and hitting the local barber shop for a haircut (which I did right after the oil change was done).

The other two were rather mundane, the first being correcting a small error I made assembling the new Official Weekend Pundit Gas Grill (which took all of 5 minutes to correct). The second was troubleshooting a problem with the garage door opener which didn’t want to be found...until the chain sprocket on the drive motor came off, snapping off the sprocket shaft right where it comes out of the motor casing.

So ended my efforts at fixing it this weekend. In the mean time I’ll be spending time online to see if I can find a replacement part.

Normally I wouldn’t be worried about getting it taken care of so quickly because the door can be opened manually, but in this case the WP Mom uses the garage and I don’t want to make it any more difficult for her than absolutely necessary. So if I can’t find the parts I need in the next couple of days I won’t waste any more time and I’ll get a new garage door opener.

And so it goes with home ownership.

==+==

As the debate about racist Critical Race Theory being forced down the throats of kids at school or adults at their places of work expands, I find that many of the proponents of CRT have absolutely no idea what it entails or its history. They only know what they’ve been told be people who do not have their best interests at heart.

While CRT has its roots in Marxism, another socialist group used it to justify the murder of millions of people they didn’t like. The parallels between CRT and the Nazi ideology of hate are striking.

Could some of the support of CRT come from ignorance, willful or not, or people’s lack of understanding when it comes to history? (I find that the two are not mutually exclusive.)

In either case, people supporting something they do not understand, something hateful and racist, will come back to haunt them when they see their children acting with racist intent that CRT was supposed to ‘cure’. They won’t understand that they’ve allowed racism to re-establish itself in a country that has fought harder than most to do away with racism.

Just how effed up is that?

==+==

Skip over at GraniteGrok brings up a good point regarding Progressives - Progressives are, in general, angrier about more things than Conservatives.

Writes Skip:

I don’t understand this other than having a Savior complex in which EVERY STUPID thing has to be taken as a crisis and everyone besides themselves and their SJW-wrapped-up ideological kin must be made into second or third class citizens (if not demoted to evil subhumans).

From the comments comes this follow up:

This is something I've been thinking about for some time, seeing the depths Progressives will sink to to elevate some trivial matter to MAJOR CRISIS! status, just so they have something to be 'for' or 'against'. They need a "cause" or they feel their lives are without meaning. They can't do the Civil Rights thing since their grandparents were at the forefront of that fight. There's not all that much left unless they truly want to put their lives on the line (which they won't because they aren't that brave). So they take that aforementioned trivial crap and blow it all out of proportion so they have that something to be 'for' or 'against'.

However, there's a problem with that, that being the people now realize what they're doing and aren't willing to buy in to their latest MAJOR CRISIS! The people understand it is the fruit of people desperate to be relevant.

It seems there’s an ever growing list of things we’re supposed to be concerned about, to torture ourselves over, things over which we have absolutely no control. If we did as the Progressives demand, nothing would ever get done, the economy would collapse, people would starve to death or die of otherwise treatable diseases because there are no medicines available and...well, you get the idea.

It’s time to show the Progressive obsession with trivialities for what they are – absurdities worthy only of being ridiculed and then ignored. We all have more important things to deal with in our lives. Maybe our Progressive brothers and sisters need to do likewise.

==+==

The latest victim of Get Woke, Go Broke?

HBO-Max.

In the rush to elevate anyone shouting about the evils of white people, HBO Max is littered with basement garbage that looks like the work of college students laboring on public access TV.

HBO-Max rolled to the Left and has seen its subscriber numbers falling off, just like so many other corporations and organizations that preceded it. Pandering to a small percentage of their customer base at the expense of the majority is always a losing proposition. It has been proven again and again over the past few years, yet the corporate C-level executives choose to ignore the lessons of those who went before them and then suffer the same fate.

==+==

And speaking of Going Woke (and likely going to go broke), it looks like Victoria’s Secret has been infected with the ‘woke’ virus.

One has to wonder what the folks at Victoria’s Secret are thinking. Haven’t they seen the outcome of other businesses when they went ‘woke’? Is it something they truly believe they should do, or is it just yet another example of corporate virtue signaling? In either case, it isn’t going to help them, particularly in light of their already falling sales numbers. At worse, this will merely hasten their fall into bankruptcy.

==+==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the weather has been great, the lake keeps beckoning, and where the rumble of motorcycles is fading away.

A Few Bike Week 2021 Observations

It’s the second weekend of Motorcycle Week here in central New Hampshire. The ‘second wave’ of bikes started arriving this past Thursday, bringing with it the constant rumble of motorcycles.

While this isn’t the largest crowd we’ve seen for a Bike Week, it’s pretty darned close. Officials have already started planning for both the 99^th and 100^th Annual Motorcycle Week. It is expected the 100^th Annual Motorcycle Week will be huge.

Some have asked whether I am sick of the sound of all the bikes and I have to honestly say that I am not. That rumble means dollar signs and the hospitality industry here in New Hampshire is raking in the bucks. It means so for the entire state as Bike Week, while centered here in the Lake Winnipesaukee area, reaps benefits for other areas of the state as well since the visiting bikers travel all over the state sightseeing and attending other Bike Week related activities and events in other towns and counties.

The weather has certainly been cooperative for the most part, with rain on this past Monday and some showers early this morning and more expected late this afternoon/early evening.

Of the few bikers I have talked to, they have all enjoyed this year’s Bike Week, glad that it has fully returned.

It's Up Versus Down, Not Left Versus Right

I came across a reference to this speech by Ronaldus Magnus in a comment over at Chris Muir’s DayByDay cartoon. Ronald Reagan brought up a number of good points that are relevant even today. What’s even more interesting is that Ronaldus Magnus gave this speech back in October of 1964. One of the more poignant and thought provoking quotes from that speech is something we need to keep in mind, particularly in light of the situation our nation is facing today.

“You and I are told increasingly we have to choose between a left or right. Well I'd like to suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There's only an up or down: [up] man's old -- old-aged dream, the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order, or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. And regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would trade our freedom for security have embarked on this downward course.”

It is a constant battle between freedom and security.

Those who fear or can be convinced to fear all kinds of things that are common in life seem willing to surrender their freedom to those who helped foster those fears to begin with. It is not a new thing by any means as we have seen this numerous times during the 20^th century alone.

The 21^st century versions of those selling fear have a more effective set of platforms to instill fear in the populace, and it helps them that most of the media is all in on helping to do so, to help push everyone (but them) down to the lowest common denominator, to give them dominion unending over those who have willingly sold themselves into slavery.

They must not succeed.

Thoughts On A Sunday

The roar of motorcycles filled a good portion of last evening, just as they did during the day today. The weather has been great all weekend and looks to be good all week (except for Monday, maybe). That will certainly help the visiting bikers plenty of time to enjoy the amenities (and spend a lot of money). It does mean the rest of us will likely be avoiding our usual haunts, giving them over to the visitors. (This is nothing new. While we love our local restaurants, we don’t always like dealing with the folks from away, so we tend not to visit them nearly as often between mid-June and Labor Day. The one exception is the seasonal restaurants that are only open during the summer.)

One of the important tasks I did take care of this weekend was assembling the new Official Weekend Pundit Gas Grill. I have been without a grill since we sold The Manse (the new owners wanted to keep the grill, so I left it behind), and the WP Mom convinced me it was time to bite the bullet and acquire a new one. A George Foreman grill can only go so far when it comes to grilling some nice marinated sirloin tips. A good flame does it better. All I need to do now is pick up a 20lb bottle of propane and it will be ready to go.

==+==

By way of Instapundit comes this confession by one of the people responsible for the kangaroo kourt konvictions of young male college students on vaguely defined sexual assault/sexual harassment charge, asking “How much damage have me and my colleagues done?”

The possibility that this young woman held in her hands the power to derail their son’s education, something these parents might have been imagining since he was in utero, was untenable. The possibility that the process designed to respond to exactly these sorts of accusations already appeared to presuppose his guilt — that was unimaginable.

No amount of assurance on my part convinced them that their son would be treated fairly. If that were the case, why were they already being told he had to leave campus and his classes before there was so much as a preliminary hearing? . . .

“My son’s hearing was a joke,” she said. “He never stood a chance. Do you know that the hearing officer and the investigator are good friends? And that the ‘advocate’” — she practically spit out the word — “they assigned to him was also a friend of theirs? I found them all on Facebook, attending the wedding of the person who is supposed to hear appeals. All friends. I saw them leaving together after the hearing, and in the parking lot of a restaurant heading in together. We decided to eat somewhere else.”

Thus was the “presumed guilty until proven innocent...and are still guilty even if proved innocent” attitude that came to exist on college campuses due to that damnable “Dear Colleague” letter. It also led to lawsuit after lawsuit against colleges and universities for ‘convictions’ based on nothing but an accusation, the so-called courts ignoring due process, meaning the accused was always assumed to be guilty, had little or no opportunity to question the accuser or present exculpatory evidence. The telling event about these kangaroo courts is that the plaintiffs won case after case after case against those institutions of higher learning, in some cases receiving millions of dollars in damages. Yet the kangaroo courts continued unabated and an untold number of young college men have seen their lives turned upside down based solely upon an accusation, no proof required, no actual investigation performed.

==+==

More counties (and states) are declaring themselves Second Amendment Sanctuaries, a growing trend as Americans see the federal government (including Congress and especially the President) willfully ignoring the Constitution by trying their best to eliminate one of our enumerated rights. If the feds succeed in this effort, the next one in their sights will be the First Amendment, and after that maybe the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments. (Remember that President * has stated that a constitutional amendment isn’t ‘absolute’, meaning he believes the Constitution can be ignored by the government as needed. Then again we know the extreme Left Wing of the Democrat Party doesn’t believe in the Constitution and would love to be able to ignore it entirely.)

The legislature in my home state passed a bill that makes New Hampshire a Second Amendment Sanctuary state. We’re just waiting for our governor to sign it. (We expect he will as he has been a strong advocate for the Second Amendment, for the most part.) If he does sign it, I would push to see an amendment in the state constitution to strengthen the Second Amendment sanctuary status so a future Democrat majority legislature can’t remove it at whim.

If we don’t defend our Rights now, there may not be a later to do so, or it will require armed rebellion, bloodshed, and a lot of death, something none of us wants.

==+==

For anyone who’s been paying attention over the past year, this won’t be a surprise.

It turns out everything President Trump claimed prior to the election last November was true. Even the DNC-MSM is now admitting he was right, though reluctantly.

==+==

You know it’s bad when a member of a foreign government friendly to the US states Biden “is so senile that he probably won’t remember what we tell him.”

Those of us paying attention have known that for well over a year, ever since SloJo started running for the Democrat nomination. He’s displayed classic symptoms of dementia, has had limited exposure to the public, calling a ‘lid’ on his appearances early in the day. He has memory lapses that can’t be covered up, even by the leftist DNC-MSM. He appears confused, doesn’t seem to know where he is from one moment to the next, and has difficulties with his vocabulary, and you rarely, if ever, see him evenings. (Those suffering from dementia tend to be worse late in the day/evenings, something called ‘sundowning’ or ‘sunsetting’.)

How can anyone believe SloJo is running anything if he’s having problems dealing with everyday activities? When our allies comment on SloJo’s diminishing capacity, one has to think they are seeing the same things we are, but up close and personal.

==+==

I’m sure the business owners in San Francisco are pleased as punch about the ‘new normal’ when it comes to selling their goods, that being looting/shoplifting. California’s changing the definition of felony theft by setting a much higher felony threshold for the value of goods stolen ($950) has certainly helped fuel the problem. Then there’s also this:

An organizer for Black Lives Matter has informed us that such activities are to be regarded not as theft but as “reparations” owed to those who are oppressed according to liberal doctrine.

What has been the unintended consequences of the new normal?

Walgreens has been closing stores because it is effectively legal to shoplift in Democrat-dominated California. Thieves are expected to limit themselves to swiping less than $950 worth of merchandise at a time. However, if you allow any crime, you get a lot.

This was the insight behind the Broken Windows approach to police work that allowed Rudy Giuliani to clean up New York City, which has since slipped back into dysfunction thanks to liberal rule. The current War on Police and ever more lenient treatment of criminals puts Broken Windows into reverse by encouraging crime.

Then when crime is rampant and society is coming apart, they will ‘crack down on crime’ using draconian measures, with crime being redefined to mean anything they want it to mean, including exercising the freedom of speech. Then again, that’s exactly what they want, as most incipient totalitarians do.

==+==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the rumble of motorcycles is constant, the weather is great, and where The Day That Shall Not Be Named has returned...again.

Motorcycle Week Has Returned!

It started yesterday just prior to noon.

At first it was just an occasional rumble passing by my place of employment. Over the next few hours the occasional rumble became a steady stream, passing from south to north. It was interspersed with occasional light showers lasting only a few minutes.

No, it wasn’t lines of thundershowers working their way through central New Hampshire.

It was thousands of motorcycles making their way to Laconia for the 98^th Annual Laconia Motorcycle Week. Today marks the beginning of 9 days of celebrating the love of motorcycles.

Laconia Bike Week is one of the Big Three gatherings of motorcycle enthusiasts taking place in the US every year – Daytona, Laconia, and Sturgis.

Last year’s celebration was delayed due to Covid, taking place in a greatly attenuated form during the fall. Less then 25% of the usual number of attendees made the trip, something understandable under the circumstances.I have a feeling this year’s attendance will be close to a record as people are shaking off the last vestiges of Covid lockdown/lockout from their systems.

We’ve certainly seen record numbers for vacation bookings in this area this year, with every seasonal rental booked months ago from Memorial Day to Labor Day, and heavy bookings between Labor Day and Columbus Day. The restaurants, food shacks, and food trucks are all busier that we’ve ever seen. That leads me to believe this will apply to Motorcycle Week as well. I am certainly seeing more motorcycles on a first Saturday than I recall seeing during previous Bike Weeks. All parking lots at some of my favorite breakfast eateries were full of motorcycles. There were a lot of bikes in the Walmart parking lot late this morning. The same was true of the lots at our two supermarkets at the edge of town.

Things are getting back to normal. It’s about time.

Proposed New Gun Legislation - New Hampshire

This is a comment I made to an Instapundit post dealing with the aftermath of the shooting in Boulder, Colorado three months ago. Seeing as it is likely our governor is going to sign a bill that makes New Hampshire a Second Amendment Sanctuary State, I thought I would bear repeating as a proposal for new gun legislation here in the Live Free Or Die state, to whit:

"Every able-bodied adult not otherwise restricted by law (convicted felons and those under Domestic Violence Restraining Orders or Mental Health 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."

Yes, it needs some work, but I figured I could lay out the basics here for your perusal. As comments [still] aren’t working, you can e-mail your suggestions to the e-mail address in the ‘Contributors’ link to the right.

Thoughts On A Sunday

It was a typical summer weekend, being hot and humid (more so today rather than yesterday). Plenty of summerfolk were about over the weekend, though it wasn’t as crazy this weekend as it was over the Memorial Day weekend even with the better weather these past two days.

We are also likely to see our first official heat wave (three consecutive days of temperatures 90ºF or above) which started today and is supposed to last through Tuesday. The hot and humid weather is likely to generate thunderstorms each day, a not atypical effect of this type of weather. It will mean keeping an eye on the sky, particularly while being out on the lake. Being caught out on the lake in a thunderstorm is no fun. (I can speak from experience about this.)

I am still surprised to see how many boats are still in storage at some of the local boatyards/marinas and how many slips are still not occupied despite there being a shortage of available slips. The pier where I berth the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout – aka The Boat – would normally have all of the boats tied up at their usual berths. But as of today mine is the only boat there, one of the last things I expected to see at this point. Usually all the berths are occupied before Memorial Day.

It is a paradox – a very high demand for boat slips, a lot of boats still in storage, and a lot of boat slips are still empty. The boat yards and marinas are very busy trying to get the boats still in storage ready to launch. They had a bit of a head start since the winter weather was pretty much done by mid/late March. (That’s when I called the boat yard that stores and services The Boat and made arrangements to have it pulled out of storage and readied to launch by the second weekend of May. They weren’t able to get it ready until the third weekend!)

I have a feeling we’ll be seeing a lot of paradoxes this summer.

==+==

The housing crunch continues, both here in northern New England and elsewhere in the rural and semi-rural areas, so-called ‘Flyover Country’.

People are fleeing the cities...blue cities… and blue states for red states and cities and Flyover Country to escape the effects of Covid, the overbearing taxes, the high cost of living, the rising crime, the spreading mental illness of the ‘woke’, increasing populations of homeless, and a whole list of other self-inflicted blue state/city ills. By doing so, the demand for housing in the non-blue areas has skyrocketed.

We’ve certainly seen that issue here in New Hampshire, with folks from Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New York buying homes here and driving up the prices since they seem to be willing to offer well above asking price to get a home they want. Of the three groups, it surprises me that a majority of those folks ‘from away’ are from Connecticut and that most of those are not from the cities. Please be aware this is anecdotal data, some from people whom I asked directly, other info from the real estate transaction data, and yet other data from a few realtors I know – though not from my realtor – so take my claim with a grain of salt. The balance come from Massachusetts and then New York and the few I know of personally from New York came from Upstate New York, not the Metro New York Area.

I have seen selling prices going through the roof, whether that’s because the folks ‘from away’ didn’t grasp that property prices here were a lot lower than where they came from or they want to make sure they get the house they’ve set their sights on. Perhaps it’s a mixture of both. All I know is that home prices have gone way up, locking a lot of locals out of the market. There’s also the the huge increase in the cost of building materials which is making things even worse.

I’ve postponed starting construction on The New Manse because lumber costs have gone up over 300%, and plywood prices are up over 400%, making it financially untenable for me to even consider building anytime soon. That’s true for a lot of other families wanting a new home. Developers aren’t necessarily going to dive in at this time either for the same reason. They know the demand and prices will fall, just like they always do, and they don’t want to be left with overpriced homes they can’t sell.

It’s not that new homes aren’t being built. They are. However, they tend not to be ‘spec’ houses but higher end homes that a lot of middle class families can’t possibly afford. Therein lies the problem.

The other problem is that corporations are also buying houses in ‘resort’ areas, turning them into short-term rentals listed via AirBnB and VRBO, just to name two online rental sites. That means homes that would normally house a family, be it year round or seasonally, is no longer being used as a normal residence. This has also driven up housing prices as these LLCs are willing to outbid other buyers as they see the home as a source of revenue. (We recently saw an ~1700 sqft chalet with a gravel driveway, no garage, and no view that would normally sell for ~$240k went for $700k to an out-of-state LLC who plans to use it solely for short-term rentals. In that general neighborhood there are just shy of 100 homes that are now short-term rental only. That’s 100 less houses available as residences for families.)

==+==

Over the years I’ve had more than a few people ask me if I believe in UFOs. I have asked them in turn if they meant ‘Unidentified Flying Objects’ or ‘Little Green Men’.

If they reply with the first, I say “Yup. I’ve seen more than a few in my time.” If they reply with the second, I say “I’ve seen something, but I can’t say if it’s Little Green Men or not.”

Are they secret government craft? Are they of alien origin? Is it the “Russkies”, the Chinese, or someone else? (I’m thinking it’s Elon Musk and his SpaceX guys pulling it off.)

All we do know is that US Government is saying “We don’t know.”

The report concluded that the vast majority of the incidents did not originate with the American military or other advanced U.S. government technology. That some of them might have is an intriguing possibility. Just what is it that the U.S. military is flying around up there?

It should be noted that the intelligence agencies mostly examined incidents involving Navy pilots. Most of the incidents occurred at sea while a few of the occurrences were recorded by Navy vessels in the open ocean. A few other incidents studied came from foreign militaries.

Are they telling the truth? “We don’t know.”

So, basically they’re saying the same thing they did back in 50’s and 60’s with Project Blue Book: “We don’t know...and we wouldn’t tell you even if we did.”

==+==

Maggie’s Farm asks “How far can social insanity go?”

I don’t think we’re anywhere near peak social insanity yet, but we’re getting there. When we do, it’s going to be ugly, and, unfortunately, likely to be deadly.

==+==

Twitter is getting slapped around, being hoisted upon their own petard after the government of Nigeria banned it in their country because of the platform’s partisan censorship.

Twitter’s ‘policy police’ fired back with an unwittingly ironic response, stating “We are deeply concerned by the blocking of Twitter in Nigeria. Access to the free and #OpenInternet is an essential human right in modern society.” The fact-deficient response to Nigeria’s action unleashed a well deserved flood of “Isn’t that the pot calling the kettle black” responses.

Lauren Chen’s tweet slapped Twitter’s ‘thought police’ right upside their collective heads:

So why are you depriving President Trump, Laura Loomer, Mike Lindell, Milo Yiannopoulos, Alex Jones, and countless others of this "essential human right"?

I expect Twitter will ignore Ms. Chen’s tweet...or delete it for violating their ‘Terms of Use’ policy.

==+==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where summer has actually arrived despite what the calendar says, where I’ll be spending time out on the lake, and Monday is once again interfering with spending even more time out on the lake.

Will New Hampshire Become The Newest Second Amendment Sanctuary State?

First, we were an Open Carry state.

Then we became a Constitutional Carry state.

Now, with the passage of SB154 in the New Hampshire House, we are going to become a Second Amendment Sanctuary state. (This assumes our governor will continue his track record of supporting the 2^nd Amendment and sign the bill.)

More states are sending a signal that they will not tolerate or support the Progressives in federal government efforts to erase the Second Amendment, and with it the ability to protect the rest of our constitutionally enumerated rights.

(H/T GraniteGrok)

Throw This One At Them

I think I can use this as a counter to the gun-grabbers' argument.

Hymn To The Fallen

On this Memorial Day I can offer this wonderful piece by John Williams as it says more than any words I can offer.

Thoughts On A Sunday

Memorial Day weekend has arrived and it was likely somewhat disappointing to a lot of visitors due to the less then stellar weather. (Oh, heck, it has been outright dismal with cool temperatures – low 50’s - and rain now and again throughout the days.) It hasn’t been conducive to regular Memorial Day weekend activities.

We did see a large number of weekend visitors arrive and make the rounds here in central New Hampshire despite the weather.

We also have seen our share of bonehead drivers ‘from away’ doing incredibly dumb things on our highways and byways, including one fellow I witnessed on Saturday who decided the traffic laws (and the laws of physics) didn’t apply to him, trying to ‘beat the traffic’ by bypassing the traffic at a stop light by using the right-turn lane to get around the line of traffic going straight ahead.

He blew through the intersection in his compact car shortly after the traffic light turned green and then tried to cut in front of a truck near the front of the line of traffic. He found out that two objects cannot occupy the same time-space coordinates and ended up slightly clipping the front bumper of the truck with his rear bumper. The truck wasn’t damaged as best I could tell, but the compact car’s rear bumper had a lengthy black scrape starting on the left side and ending somewhere near the center. The car swerved a bit after contact but continued on its way, the driver picking up speed as it did so. (I did manage to see it had out-of-state plates as it sped away.) I guess his time was far more precious to him than our safety.

Then this morning as I was on my regular pre-church Sunday morning Walmart run, a fellow in a Nissan Rogue with PRT (People’s Republic of Taxachusetts) plates came up behind me at high speed (probably a good 80mph+). On three separate occasions the fellow tried to pass me in places passing wasn’t appropriate, i.e. dangerous and incredibly stupid, and on one of those occasions he almost went head on with a vehicle coming from the opposite direction. When we reached the next intersection which had a traffic light, I had to stop because the light was red. There were no vehicles waiting to cross the highway I was on as they had already done so. So what did the moron do?

He cut to my right and blew right through the red light. By the time the light changed and I could proceed, he was a good half mile down the road.

What’s ironic is I found this same fellow in the Walmart parking lot. One has to ask what was it this moron needed that he had to take the type of chances he did to get to Walmart?

As I was walking towards the Walmart I saw one of our town’s police cruisers and walked up to it, seeing the officer behind the wheel was one that I knew, and explained what had happened. I knew he couldn’t do anything about it short of following the miscreant out of the Walmart lot and seeing if there were a repeat of his actions. But the officer had a better idea.

He pulled out a PD business card and scribbled something on the back, got out of his cruiser and placed the business card under the driver’s side wiper. When he got back to his cruiser I asked him what he’d written on the card.

You shouldn’t be speeding or running red lights in our town.

I went into Walmart and did my shopping. On my way out the officer let me know the miscreant saw the card under the wiper, read it, looked around and saw the cruiser. The officer said he waved to the fellow, just a kind of “I know what you did” kind of wave.

And so it begins.

==+==

Just when we thought President Creepy Uncle Joe couldn’t get any creepier, he proves us wrong.

Writes Stacy McCain:

Certainly it is not my intent to defend His Fraudulency, but let’s admit this: No actual child molester would be so blatant about his interest in little girls. It’s almost as if Biden is campaigning for honorary membership in the National Sex Offender Registry, telegraphing to the world, “Don’t let me within 500 yards of a public school.”

I figure it’s only going to get worse from here.

==+==

Black Lives Matter...except in Democrat-run St. Louis.

St Louis is our most murderous city. As of last night, there had been 76 homicides in the Gateway City . . . and 71 of the victims were black. St Louis is ‘only’ 45.3% black, but comprise 93.4% of the city’s murder victims. Of the 32 murders of blacks in St Louis, all 32 suspects are black.

It isn’t just St. Louis which has little regard for black lives. Other Democrat-run cities are just as bad, one of which is Chicago which has more than its share of black-on-black murders...and the Mayor and Aldermen don’t seem to care.

It seems Black Lives Matter only when it’s politically convenient, otherwise it is to be devoutly ignored.

How pathetic.

==+==

By way of GraniteGrok comes this: Is it time for a coalition of Free American States?

States have a long history of creating partnerships with each other. Law enforcement task forces, farming cooperatives, river management boards, and collegiate sports conferences all benefit individual states through regional collaborations and are common throughout the United States. It is also common for state attorneys general to coordinate lawsuits against the federal government. Republican governors and Democrat governors meet at party retreats to strategize how best to advance their respective parties' interests. And innumerable lobbying and legal groups work every year to promote the passage of nearly identical statutory language in state legislatures across the country.

What I have in mind is more substantial — the formation of a coalition of free states whose explicit purpose is to reduce the power of the federal government over individual states and their citizens while banding together to lessen the inevitable retaliatory blows the federal government will initiate against the states in response.

If Congress won’t start taking back the states’ power then it’s up to the states to do so by forming coalitions as mentioned above. The people in power in Washington seem to forget the states are sovereign, that they are a part of a national Union, but aren’t supposed to be subordinate to it. The states make their laws, make sure those laws abide by the US and state constitutions. The federal government has been trying to suborn the states’ sovereignty for well over a century, either by legislative action, executive orders, or administrative laws created by bureaucrats who do not have the best interests of the American people at heart. (A bureaucrat’s mission is to expand his/her bureaucracy size and reach, not to serve the people. If the people are served, it is more of a side effect of the bureaucracy’s primary function.)

==+==

At this point I find I must return to the topic of holiday traffic as I experienced yet another one of the downside of folks from away flooding the area.

I took the ex-missus grocery shopping today seeing as she’s still recovering from knee replacement surgery. We headed to the local supermarket and once we reached the center of the town where she lives we realized the traffic was horrendous. It was then we decided it might actually be easier to go back to my town and hit the supermarket there, so we found a side-street and returned to my town where she completed her shopping. I then returned her to her home.

Knowing the traffic conditions near her supermarket I figure it took us less time to drive two towns over, take care of the shopping, and drive two towns back to her town than to go to her local supermarket. How sad is that?

==+==

It’s bad enough when so-called climate scientists want us to take unreasonable measures to reduce anthropogenic sources of carbon dioxide. It’s worse when they set their sights on natural sources of carbon dioxide. Their new focus?

Tree farts.

I kid you not.

Where there is life or has been life recently, there is carbon dioxide. CO2 was previously viewed as an essential nutrient for plants. But now that CO2 has been revealed as environmentally unclean, plants are part of the problem.

The only way to heal the planet is to abolish all life. This will also serve to eradicate racism and capitalism.

While the above quote is satire, there rest of the linked article is not. I figure it is only a matter of time before the We’re-All-Gonna-DIE climate change faithful will make elimination of tree farts yet another part of their plan to ‘save’ the Earth. What can we expect from people who have deep belief in the pseudo-science of anthropogenic [place latest climate/environmental subject to blame humans for here]?

How is it we allow these mentally ill, deluded souls to drive the narrative? They need to be pitied...and institutionalized until their delusions can be cured.

==+==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the rains are falling, the drought is easing, and where we don’t have to about Monday getting here too early this weekend.

Economic Ignorance Is Getting Even Worse

First, the economically ignorant push for huge (107%) increase in the federal minimum wage from $7.25/hour to $15/hour, not understanding the economic consequences – the ripple effects of an arbitrary increase in a commodity that doesn’t affect just those making minimum wage but everyone making less than the new minimum wage. It also affects those working under union contracts with wages tied to the federal minimum wage as they will also see their wages increase.

Such an arbitrary rise in wages with a follow-on decrease in economic activity as businesses cut worker hours or the number of workers even as the higher cost of labor drive costs of goods and services through the roof, in turn fueling inflation and increasing unemployment. Why some economists think only the inflated costs of raw materials, energy, transportation, etc. can have a deleterious effect on an economy while the artificially inflated costs of labor will have little or no effect never ceases to amaze me. How can it be they can ignore the effects of meddling with the feedback mechanisms that drive an economy, believing there will be no negative outcomes from doing so, that their actions will be a net positive? History has shown over and over again such meddling only brings disaster, distorting an economy and generating second and third order effects that go beyond the initial changes forced upon the economy.

Now there’s something else that’s being looked at, something driven by a not-unexpected side effect of the whole Covid-19 debacle, something that will be just as damaging if it is mishandled (and it will be, if history is any indicator). This new something?

Four day workweeks.

The explanation for this is that a four day workweek will reduce carbon ‘pollution’...and smog in general. With the lockdowns, traffic volumes plummeted. Carbon emissions and pollution decreased worldwide.

When the pandemic first forced offices to close and the number of commuters on roads suddenly dropped, the environmental impact was visible in cities like Los Angeles and New Delhi: Smog disappeared as more cars stayed at home. Carbon emissions temporarily fell. A new report looks at how some of the same benefits could come from a shift in schedules if more companies shifted to a four-day work week.

One downside to the proposal linked? The proposal calls for a 32-hour workweek, but still paying the workers for 40 hours. In effect it’s a pay increase for working fewer hours. While the argument has been made that “a shorter week can boost productivity because workers are more focused and refreshed when they are in the office.” I have two words that explain my feelings about that claim:

Yeah. Right.

Such a claim goes against both my experience and human nature. Workers will not be 25% more productive during their 8-hour work day, despite what the proponents of the 4 day workweek claim. If the 4 day workweek were a 10-hour work day then productivity may not be an issue (though a 10-hour workday can be tiring and productivity may fall off during the last two hours of the day), and workers will receive 40 hours pay for 40 hours of work. Commuting is still reduced by 20%, but without the 20% decrease in economic output. (I am one of those folks who regularly work 10-hour+ workdays, sometimes 6 days a week. This is due to our department being shorthanded. A 40-hour workweek is like a vacation to me. And before you think it, no, I am not virtue signaling. It is just reality and something I hope I and my colleagues won’t have to do once we get more staff hired.)

Now add the push for a $15/hour minimum wage to the proposal and the conditions are ripe for high inflation, a severe recession, and double digit unemployment. But the ‘economists’ will keep telling us it will help the economy, create all kinds of jobs (which they can never seem to tell us how that works), and cure the heartbreak of psoriasis. (No, not really. But it sounded great, didn’t it?)

Once again we have people who have never run a business, never had to meet a payroll or deal with the myriad of state and federal regulations, fees, and taxes who are telling us how everything is supposed to work even though they have no experience having to deal with the things business owners and their employees have to deal with. It’s all theoretical, all based upon perfect conditions that will never exist that include humans that are also perfect (which also do not exist). The have fallen under the sway of the Non-Reciprocal Theory of Theory Versus Practice:

In theory, Theory and Practice are the same thing.

In practice, they are not.

Thus endith the lesson. Too bad they will never learn it even when their face is rubbed in it.

Thoughts On A Sunday - Part 2

As promised, here’s the second part of yesterday’s post. It’s rare I’ve had to move a post by a day, but I have done so.

==+==

Is it just my imagination, or are the Democrat Powers That Be distancing themselves from Vice President Kamala Harris? After four months she has shown herself to be a bigger non-entity than her boss when he was Vice President, and he was a pretty big non-entity back then.

It seems she’s enjoying the perks of her position but she sure is heck is not doing the job President * or WRBA tasked her to do – border security and illegal immigrant crisis. Even the DNC-MSM has been taking notice of DaHo’s nonfeasance. Does she think she’ll be able to coast when the time comes to step in when President * is truly unable to perform his duties?

==+==

I’m surprised this wasn’t already the case.

It looks like Texas will soon become the 21^st state to legalize constitutional carry.

Until this, Texas was the only Republican-led state that didn’t have constitutional carry. Texas governor Abbot has declared his state will also become a Second Amendment sanctuary state.

My home state, New Hampshire, is a constitutional carry state. There has been a push to make it a Second Amendment sanctuary state as well, though our governor doesn’t seem to be enthusiastic about the idea even though he helped push through the constitutional carry legislation.

A (hopefully not premature) congratulations to the Lone Star State for joining the rest of the constitutional carry states.

==+==

I hadn’t realized I had spent as much time out in the sun yesterday as I had. Part of that was spending time out on the lake in The Boat with my friend Katy I mentioned in Part 1.

We had gone out yesterday morning for breakfast at one of my favorite local diners and saw there was quite line waiting to get it in, so we decided to head out onto the lake for a couple of hours, figuring we’d come back later for a late breakfast.

This was Katy’s first time out on the lake so I took her to some of my favorite places on the lake that were within an hour of the The Boat’s home berth. There weren’t too many other boats out on the lake at the time so we didn’t have to deal with much in the way of wake-driven chop or any Cap’n Boneheads as they usually show up later in the day.

That time out there did cause a little bit of sunburn as we were out there a little longer than I had expected and hadn’t slapped on quite enough sunscreen.

In any case we did make it back to the diner and had a late breakfast.

One nice thing about eating at the diner – masks were no longer required to enter! This was something else Katy liked.

==+==

And that’s Part 2 of the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where it has been Monday, people are already preparing for the upcoming holiday weekend, and I am looking forward to it as well.

Thoughts On A Sunday - Part 1

There was no posting on either Friday or Saturday as I was busy hosting a dear friend over the weekend, with her getting here Friday evening (when I usually post). There were all kinds of things we did and saw yesterday and today, including a quick 2-hour trip on the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout, aka The Boat. (This time out on the lake saw the inadvertent creation of a new hairstyle – the Winnipesaukee Windblown Look. It looked good on her!)

I started this only a few minutes after she departed for home in Connecticut, crafting this post as a distraction until she texts/calls to let me know she made it home unscathed.

==+==

It wasn’t a surprise to me to see how quickly Critical Race Theory has become anathema to parents, taxpayers, governors, legislators, and people in general. It seems some of those supporting it have absolutely no idea what CRT is teaching, that being government support of racism against one particular group of people all in the name of combating racism and specifically systemic racism. Yet CRT supports the idea of systemic racism if it is aimed only at one specific race. (Hint: It’s against a non-BIPOC race on one hand and against those of Asian descent on the other hand.)

Proponents keep pushing CRT as a new idea, but it is an old one dating back over a century, one no one here should want to emulate that in any shape or form. It does not address the problem of racism or a solution to the problem. Instead, it creates even more racism, pushing the idea that only one race is racist and the way to deal with it is make that race the target of racism, as if more racism will solve the problem of racism. (We’ve seen something akin to this in the past. It was call Affirmative Action and discriminated against one or two ‘races’ to the benefit of other races. It was just ‘racism used to solve the problem of racism’. It didn’t work.)

==+==

A little drama to interrupt – I got a call from BeezleBub asking for help. He was out on the lake on his jet-ski when it broke down. It was a little after 7PM and the sun would soon set. Being on a broken down jet-ski on the lake after sunset was not a good thing, so it was yours truly to the rescue.

A quick drive down to The Boat and I was on my way. I knew roughly where he was and I managed to find him shortly after I got the part of the lake where he’d broken down. It took a while to tow the jet-ski back to our town docks. A little over two hours after I left we made it back to the town docks. A half hour or so later I made it back to The Gulch.

With that in mind, I am going to truncate this post and continue it with a follow-on post on Monday as there’s a lot I still want to cover. But it’s getting late and I still have chores to perform before I shuffle off to bed.

==+==

And that’s Part 1 of the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where there was a lot of boat traffic out on the lake today, the boat yards are working overtime to get boats ready to launch before Memorial Day weekend, and where I was one of those able to spend time out on the lake over the weekend, not counting the rescue of my son and his broken down jet-ski.

Thoughts On A Sunday

It’s been a great weekend, with some nice summer weather – sunny and in the 70’s. There are some popup showers expected later today, but for the most part the weather is cooperating.

The plan had been to launch the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout, aka The Boat, has been in jeopardy as it wasn’t quite ready, at least as of this morning. One last service it needed hadn’t been completed and I am not about to pay for services not yet rendered. I don’t want to have to pull The Boat back out of the water just to have this service performed, a service I scheduled back last November and reminded the boat yard of this past March when I scheduled its removal from winter storage.

We’ll see if they’ve managed to get it done by the time we’re ready to launch.

UPDATE: They didn’t, so launching The Boat has been delayed for a couple of days.

==+==

Just a heads up that this post may be a little shorter than usual as I have been working with the WP Mom to finish up our annual Spring Cleaning here at The Gulch. This is something that takes place over two or three weekends between mid-April and the end of May. This weekend was (hopefully) the last weekend required to finish this year’s cleanup. It has meant a number trips to the dump...err...Solid Waste Center to get rid of the detritus, to recycle the recyclable, and to leave some items in our town’s “goody shack” that are too good to throw away that others may be able put to use.

==+==

A quote by way of Powerline:

From energy independence for the first time in 50 years to gas shortages in 4 months.

Quite an accomplishment.

Yup, it looks like the best we can hope for under President * is a repeat of the Carter Years, only worse because in this case it’s being done deliberately. All this while we’re being told “It’s for your own good” by people who won’t have to suffer under the conditions they have created.

==+==

Also by way of Powerline comes this:

==+==

In its efforts to go ‘green’, should the US go nuclear?

Yes. Yes it should, preferably as quickly as possible.

==+==

And that’s the abbreviated news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where my boat still isn’t in the water, plenty of others are, and where I am becoming peeved at the situation.

Infrastructure On The Internet Is A Really Bad Idea

Before I delve to the issue of the Colonial Pipeline debacle, I need to state that my job involves the telecommunications industry, and more specifically, the Internet, Cable TV, Cell and Telephone industries, and particularly the physical layers of those industries which means the hardware (switches, routers, servers) and all the cabling (primarily fiber optic cabling) that makes it possible to transmit increasingly huge amounts of data.

Understanding how it all connects together, how it routes the data from Point A to Point B, how the various types of data (data files, photos, videos, phone calls) are handled, is important to making sure the systems do what they’re designed to do.

With all of that in mind, let’s turn our attention to the debacle that is the Colonial Pipeline and how any of our infrastructure like pipelines (natural gas, oil, refined products like gasoline, diesel, home heating oil, propane, etc.), electrical grids and generation facilities, water and sewer systems, communications systems (phone – landline and cell, video – linear TV and streaming, e-mail, and the Web), and transportation (traffic control, trains, subways, tractor trailers, airlines, shipping), are vulnerable to cyber attacks. How is it that all of these things are so vulnerable to such attacks?

Because they are all connected to the Internet, something that is an incredibly stupid thing to do.

‘Secure’ systems aren’t as secure as many people think they are. If they are connected to the outside world via the Internet they are vulnerable. Firewalls, a combination of hardware and software, are systems that help prevent outside intrusions into public, private, and government networks. The problem is that firewalls are not perfect, are not invulnerable, and therein lies the problem.

Because of this, connecting any infrastructure such as those listed above to the Internet is madness. It leaves them vulnerable, just as we saw with Colonial Pipeline, in this case to a multi-million dollar ransomware attack. (The Russian crackers – a criminal gang also being sought by Russian authorities - managed to get malware uploaded to the system that would encrypt all data and make it unusable unless their target, in this case Colonial Pipeline, paid a ransom to the gang. If they didn’t pay the ransom, their systems would crash, or even worse, cause the destruction of their pipeline facilities.)

All such systems should be completely isolated from the Internet, should run their own command and control networks on their own equipment that has absolutely no connection to the Internet in any way, shape, or form. There should be no wireless access points on such a network (just another way to hack into the network). This is called ‘air-gapping’ and is the best firewall to prevent outside crackers from gaining access to such important networks. While not perfectly secure, such air-gapped systems are much more difficult to attack. There are other means of uploading malware into such closed systems, but it takes a lot more effort to do so and the crackers need to have an intimate knowledge of the target system.

Attacks such as this usually involve what is called social engineering, using people’s perceptions to get them to do things that will unwittingly give the ‘bad guys’ indirect access to the target system. One example – leaving a USB thumb drive on the ground just outside the entrance of the target, on a table or counter inside the lobby, or on the counter inside a restroom. Someone picks it up, and plugs it into their computer, either from curiosity or as a means of finding who it belongs to. When they do, the malware contained on the thumb drive is automatically loaded into the computer and from there infects the target network.

What’s the worse case scenario should crackers manage to take control of our infrastructure? Returning us to the 19^th century with no electricity, no cars, no Internet, no air travel, no medical care, no food. It will be a war fought and lost without a single shot being fired.

If you want a sneak peek of such a nightmare vision and what it could mean, all you have to do is watch the movie Live Free Or Die Hard. (Yes, there are explosions and gun fire, but then it is a Bruce Willis movie.)

Thoughts On A Sunday

Another weekend slowly winds to a close, but I don’t mind as it gets me one weekend closer to launching the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout, aka The Boat. The gear for the boat has been pulled out of storage and will be cleaned during this upcoming week in preparation for being loaded onboard once The Boat is out of storage and prepped for launching.

If all goes well, The Boat will be back into the water next Saturday and I’ll spend part of the weekend performing a shakedown to make sure everything is good to go for the boating season.

It’s a burden, but someone has to do it, right?

==+==

The more I watch the whole ‘Everything is Racist’ meme being pushed down everyone’s throats, the more I have to agree with Thomas Sowell’s take on the issue:

Racism is not dead, but it is on life support – kept alive by politicians, race hustlers and people who get a sense of superiority by denouncing others as “racists”.

One commenter put it succinctly:

Racism - The Duct tape of the Democrat Party and its' minions.

They try to use it to fix everything ...

I wish I could take that as a tongue-in-cheek comment, but these days it seems more likely to be true.

Having traveled quite a bit during the earlier years of my career, I have seen actual racism, I have experienced racism directed towards me, and I have seen ‘institutionalized’ and legally codified racism in action. The US has not been a racist nation for generations, but it seems the Progressive forces are working hard to make it one again as a means of dividing everyone. (No, I am not saying there aren’t racists in this country. There are racists here...of all colors and ethnic backgrounds. To think that one race can be racist is either self-delusion or is being pushed by the aforementioned race hustlers.)

==+==

Climate policy is being driven by climate models, models that have been proven again and again to be erroneous, with actual data showing the models do not reflect reality. Yet those mismatches are either denigrated or ignored outright. This can have political consequences, not to say economic consequences if the models are taken as gospel and the data is ignored because it goes against climate catastrophe doctrine.

The wrong actions will be pushed as a means of mitigating climate change that may not be caused by humans, actions that may have little or no effect on climate. Even the “We’re-All-Gonna-DIE-If-We-Don’t-Do-Something” true believers choose to ignore that the models upon which they depend show even the most extreme actions taken to ‘fix’ the climate will have little effect, yet they still push them for all they’re worth.

That begs the question, are they pushing ‘climate-saving’ actions to ‘Save the Earth’ or are they doing so to garner more control over the human population? To me, it seems it is more the latter than the former, seeing how the data isn’t backing up their sacrosanct models.

==+==

How many times have we heard the phrase “Your rights end where my nose begins”? How many times have any of us said that in one form or another? I know of at least one person who is basically saying this regarding Covid and those who are using their fear to abrogate our rights.

Writes Skip Murphy:

Frankly, I’m exhausted about having to always think about the Collective before MY outlook can be considered and I’m angry that too many people demand that they are allowed to place obligations upon me without my assent – so neither is going to happen anymore.

I’m vaccinated and I started to refuse to wear a mask a long time ago in most cases. This kabuki theater has gone on too long – and the Powers That Be...can’t get their stories straight.

The masks work.
Oh, the masks don’t work, get the vaccine, it works.
Oh, the vaccines don’t work 100% of the time so put a mask on anyway.
In fact, Masks Forever!

Yeah, Up Yours.

--snip--

Folks...DEMAND that I have an obligation to others in this regard – their unrealized problem is that they’ve tried to bring that message home with sledgehammers far too often and want to make it permanent. They are, knowingly or unknowingly, are using the notion that the Collective outside of oneself is the UTMOST obligation you can have – YOU must keep ME safe.

No, YOU keep YOU safe. As I have told the detestable Moms Demand Action gun-grabbers during testimony in front a NH House Committee, my Rights don’t stop at your fears, they TRUMP your fears.

I have to agree with Skip that if you do not want to take the vaccine, that’s your decision and we’ll respect it. But that decision does not obligate those of us who have received Covid vaccinations to go out of our way to protect you. This will be particularly true if a large percentage of the people are vaccinated. At some point it is those unvaccinated by choice who are obligated to protect themselves from exposure, to take the needed precautions. It is not up to the rest of us. They have the right to be unvaccinated, but the do not have the right to demand that we give up our rights because of their fears. Their rights end where my nose begins, period.

==+==

Chicks On The Right writes about the disastrous April Jobs Report and the part government handouts have been playing in this issue.

If the Feddle Gummint keeps rewarding otherwise employable people for not working, they’re not going to look for work. Some states have already cut back on the extra unemployment benefits, noting a lot of jobs are going wanting for people to fill them. Paying people to stay out of work made no sense, so doing away with the extra unemployment ‘stipend’ supplied by the Feds would certainly motivate those collecting unemployment benefits to go out and fill the open jobs.

==+==

The New York Times has gone so far to the Left they have all but disappeared from view. Their latest outrage?

Telling us we should all bathe less often in order to prevent climate change.

Now they’ve gone too damn far.

While the point was made that many of us working from home weren’t showering daily while working from home, it had nothing to do with ‘saving’ the climate. In many cases some of us didn’t because we weren’t going anywhere or seeing anyone and we hadn’t done any heavy physical work that would have meant we needed to shower at the end of the day. But now that things are almost back to normal, I don’t want to see us returning to the Age of Lice because the New York Times thinks it would be good for the climate (but bad for us). (The Age of Lice was a period in the Eighteenth Century when the nobles in Europe didn’t bathe, but used powders and perfumes to cover their body odor. They were also infested with lice, hence the ‘Age of Lice’.)

The Times needs to suffer under it’s ‘suggestion’. That’s assuming of course their staffers haven’t already dialed back on their bathing.

==+==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where more boats appear on the lake every day, summer is fast approaching, and where Mondays are starting to feel like the movie Groundhog Day every time it comes around.

The COVID Insanity Of A Bank

To address just how insane the whole Covid-19 issue has become, I offer the following.

The incident in question took place in Florida (a state with lax Covid restrictions as compared to so many of the 'woke' states) at a Bank of America branch, specifically in the drive-thru teller lane, and it illustrates perfectly why the Covid protection “guidelines” are being twisted and being overused in situations that do not warrant them.

The transcript below comes from a recent video posted on the Better Bachelor YouTube channel, starting at the 9:17 minute mark.

WARNING: The linked video is from a YouTube channel that is nominally a MGTOW sympathetic channel, but covers a lot of topics unrelated to MGTOW. If MGTOW offends you, then don't click on the link. That's why I provided a transcript. If you still click on the link and are offended by the other content in this video, too bad. You were warned and you chose to click on it anyways. It's your problem, not mine. And don't even thinking of making it mine. You've. Been. Warned.

Last week, I went to the bank. I went to the bank through the drive-through. Now that means I'm in my car and the bank teller is on the other side of bulletproof glass using a speaker and that slide-out drawer you drop your stuff into. I had to make a deposit. I pulled up, rolled down my window, and she says on the speaker “Please put on a mask.”

Now, I'm in Florida. There's no mandate here for it. Anybody, any age, anybody can go ahead and get the jab if they want to. So there's no one who hasn't gotten it that wants it. So that means anybody who's worried about this stuff can get it taken care of.

She said “Please put on a mask.” I said “We're on the other side of two inch thick glass. Why?”

And she said “It's company policy.”

I said “But it doesn't make any...I don't have one. I'm in my car. I'm not getting out of my car. I'm not...I'm just in my car. I don't have one. I think you can speak to me across the speaker...through two inches of glass.”

She said “I'm sorry, but it's company policy.”

I drove home, I grabbed a mask, I came back, I walked into the bank, I closed my investment accounts, my retirement accounts, my bank account, my checking account, my savings account, I canceled my credit card. I obliterated everything. I made sure I told them why.

Now in the past...in the past, I would have gone home and I might have closed them online, or I might have said “Ah, whatever!” and gone home.

Now, I'm not saying you have to agree, but I just feel...I'm sorry. Bulletproof glass I think is a pretty good, you know, we're more than a few feet apart. She had a mask on. Everyone that wanted the jab have got it.

I'm done with this. I'm done with this foolishness.

I don't blame him. Covid has infected everyone, not with the virus, but with fear, and most worrisome, with foolishness. That corporate foolishness exists to this level is troubling. While corporations are generally conservative, at least regarding their public actions, that Bank of America went to this level of stupid is dismaying.