Recently in Thoughts On A Sunday Category

I got a ton of work done around The Manse this weekend. Of course it helped that I took both Thursday and Friday off from work to get a head start.

The lawn has been mowed (for the most part - BeezleBub took care of the 'flats' and I struggled with the slope). Old stain has been stripped from one of the three decks in preparation for new stain, something long overdue. Weeds have been attacked with some of the nastiest stuff I could find that wouldn't also wipe out half the planet at the same time.

All in all it's a good start. Hopefully I can get the rest of the maintenance stuff finished next weekend.

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Is the Mann Hockey Stick finally dead? According to Rand Simberg, it is.

It's about frickin' time.

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Knowing the pathology of BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome), this doesn't surprise me in the least.

So now that Bush has been out of office over three years, isn't it about time for his successor to take responsibility for his own actions (or inaction)? Apparently not.

It seems that Bush will be held to blame for things like the humungous budget deficits until 2019, if not forever. Never mind that his total deficits were less than Obama's first budget deficit. (Of course he really has never had a budget because the Democrats in Congress have refused to generate one for four years now.

I'm just waiting for them start blaming him for things that happened before he was even born. It's only a matter of time.

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By way of Scary Yankee Chick comes 48 things that will make many of us feel old.

The one that gets me is #14. I remember when I thought those things were tiny compared to the 5 ¼" and 8" floppies. They also held a lot more data than the two older floppies.

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Oh, yeah, I like this one!

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As bad as traffic was last weekend, with what appeared to most of eastern Massachusetts having decamped for the Lakes Region, it was even heavier this weekend.

The few errands I had to run yesterday morning took quite a bit longer than usual due to the longer lines of traffic at stop signs and traffic lights. The parking lots at WalMart, Lowe's, Hannaford's and Shaw's (two local supermarket chains) were full. Parking was at a premium at 8:30 in the morning! Usually the peak traffic time on a Saturday is between 10 and 11AM, but not yesterday.

I don't know if this can be taken as an indication of how busy this coming summer will be because I've heard others talking about how owners of some marinas are saying slip rentals are down from previous years.

One good thing: gas prices have been falling slightly and probably won't reach the $5 gallon level many predicted at the beginning of the year. However I have seen some marine gas prices around the lake hovering around $4.09/gallon.

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By way of Bogie comes this piece about what Google is calling Project Glass.

Basically it's augmented reality, popping up all kinds of information in your visual field and allowing you to perform a number of actions with voice commands and visual cues.

Enhanced reality has been around for a while, with the military being one of the groups developing the technology. (The military has demonstrated the technology, using it to help maintenance personnel service vehicles and aircraft and for use on the battlefield to help ground troops and air support have a better awareness during combat.)

I do have a few problems with the idea, the biggest one being that it is likely to make our already distracted populace even more distracted. It can also lead to an even bigger dependence on the technology.

An example of this increased dependence was brought up during lunch with a vendor supplying the company I work for. He talked about the problems he had when the GPS in his car failed he had no idea how to get to the various customers he had to visit. He was totally dependent upon it to get where he needed to go. As he said, he didn't pay attention to the route he took because the GPS told him how to get to his destinations. He had no "picture in his head" of the routes to take as he would have in the past. That is definite downside to the technology.

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In light of Facebook's IPO faceplant, I have to agree with the sentiment penned by John Aziz:

The truth is that Facebook is a toy, a dreamworld, a figment of the imagination. Zuckerberg wanted to make the world a more connected place (and build a huge database of personal preferences), and he succeeded thanks to a huge slathering of venture capital. That's an accomplishment, but it's not a business. While the angel investors and college-dorm engineers will feel gratified at paper gains, it is becoming hard to ignore that there is no great profit engine under the venture.

Aziz also brings up the fact that Apple wasn't all that successful in the beginning either, and that Facebook might be able to figure out how to pull everything together to create a sustainable business plan.

I am a Facebook user, but I am not a fanatic. I log in to my account once or twice a month just to check on friends and to visit the two or three interest groups to which I belong. This less than stellar participation could be due to my age (though I know lots of folks my age and older logging in to Facebook several times a day) or because I have better things to do with my time. I spend enough time in front of computers as it is. I don't need or want to spend any more than I already do.

(H/T Maggie's Farm)

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It appears NBC has a new post-apocalypse show for the fall line up, depicting life after a massive EMP (Electro-Magnetic Pulse) attack that wipes out all of the worlds electricity and electronics. The NBC show, Revolution, takes place in Chicago 15 years after the attack.

This isn't the first post-EMP drama on network TV. Fox's Dark Angel (2000-2002) took place in post-EMP Seattle. The focus of this show was more about a group of transgenic humans and not the actual post-Pulse world, unlike NBC's Revolution.

(H/T Instapundit)

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The effects of the progressive esteem-building educational system have come home to roost, having created a generation that cannot learn because they have never really been challenged in school.

The unteachable student has been told all her life that she is excellent: gifted, creative, insightful, thoughtful, able to succeed at whatever she tries, full of potential and innate ability. Pedagogical wisdom since at least the time of John Dewey -- and in some form all the way back to William Wordsworth's divinely anointed child "trailing clouds of glory" -- has stressed the development of self-esteem and a sense of achievement.

--snip--

It sounds good. The problem, as traditionalists have argued (but without much success), is that the utopian approach hasn't worked as intended. Rather than forming cheerful, self-directed learners, the pedagogy of self-esteem has often created disaffected, passive pupils, bored precisely because they were never forced to learn.

'Rewarding' them for merely showing up doesn't teach a student anything...other than how to be lazy. The "everyone wins, nobody loses" self-esteem building has done nothing but teach these kids that they don't have to actually do anything to receive praise or to move ahead. Unfortunately once they're out in the real world, whether it be out in the work force or at college, they find those touchy-feelie programs are nowhere to be found and they're shocked to learn that they actually have to perform to a set of standards or meet the expectations of those who don't care about their self-esteem.

Self-esteem is greatly overrated. There are plenty of people in prison, and even on death row, that have great self-esteem. It certainly didn't serve them very well, did it?

All this progressive educational system has done is to create a generation (or more) of intellectual cripples incapable of functioning in the real world.

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Wizbang covers the EPA's effective annexation of Alaska, proving once again that rogue agency is out of control. Never mind that the United States Supreme Court ruled the EPA could not use the Clean Water Act as a catch-all bludgeon to take control of millions of acres of land and waterways, bypassing state and local regulatory agencies and laws. That hasn't stopped the EPA from doing just that.

Of course such actions have certainly made the watermelon environmentalists happy. It also means they're urging the EPA to use the same method to kill any other projects they don't like.

(H/T Pirate's Cove)

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where summer has arrived (even if the calendar says it hasn't), the summerfolk are here in droves, and there's still too much work to do around The Manse.

Summer-like weather returned this weekend, making it possible to start dealing with the almost overwhelming amount of yard work needed around The Manse. I'm even taking a couple of days off during the upcoming week to try and get ahead of it as well as get the decks cleaned, stripped, and re-stained.

Hopefully I can get BeezleBub to give me a hand with a few of the chores that require two people to deal with.

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As Blue states in his post, this is only a story...maybe.

Heaven help us if there's even a grain of truth to it.

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The "Romney was a bully in prep school" meme has been dying out rapidly, proving there was no "there" there. If the Obama campaign has started with digging up potentially embarrassing incidents from Romney's youth, it means they're desperate and they have nothing they can use to skewer his chances.

In the mean time Obama's campaign has been running his re-election ads and the one I've seen on TV has a couple of small truths, but for the most part it's an attempt to put a good spin on a do-nothing-but-hurt-the-economy-and-our-international-standing presidency. One thing's for sure, he's been a big disappointment to the rest of the world.

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Deb had a People of WalMart moment yesterday, spotting a fellow with a gaudy cowboy hat, overalls, no shirt, and a thick pelt of fur. If she hadn't been so hell bent on getting out of there she would have followed him and snapped a picture with her phone.

As she also noted, Massachusetts has emptied out and headed for the Lakes Region this weekend as most of the cars in the parking lots of WalMart and the local supermarket chain were dominated by cars with Massachusetts plates.

The summerfolk have returned, along with the always dreaded "summah people". With the good weather I'm not surprised to see them here to open up their cottages and summer camps.

Another indicator was the parking lot of one of our favorite breakfast joints this morning. The split between New Hampshire and Massachusetts plates favored New Hampshire, but barely. That will change once Memorial Day weekend arrives. Between then and Labor Day the ratio will favor Massachusetts plates.

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Speaking of summerfolk, summah people, and folks from away, I have been digging through the Weekend Pundit archives and re-reading pieces I wrote dealing with those three groups. This activity has made me realize that maybe it's time to revisit those posts, update a few of them, and putting a few together in an easily read compilation. Much of what I wrote 10 years ago (Has it really been that long?) is still true today. A few things have gotten better. Some have gotten worse.

If nothing else it gives me the opportunity to let my few dozen readers to see the Lakes Region of New Hampshire though the eyes of a year-round resident.

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With the recent elections in France and Greece it looks like the EU economy is heading to a major collapse. Both countries have elected leaders who will drive them hard to the left, increasing already unsustainable government spending, raising taxes to the point where anyone with money will leave, taking jobs and the economy with them when they go. It's obvious that neither they nor the people who elected them into office understand how economies work, how they can be negatively affected by government policies, regulations, and confiscatory taxation.

Ironically the UK learned that lesson the hard way during the 1970's and the only thing that turned it around was Maggie Thatcher's ascension to Prime Minister in the early 80's. She undid much of the damage done by previous governments, de-nationalizing industries, doing away with onerous tax rates, and letting business people run businesses. The economic turnaround was dramatic.

But now it looks like Great Britain will be dragged down by folks in the rest of Europe making the same mistakes as the UK made in the 70's. It's Santayana's axiom proven...again.

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Rand Simberg delves into the increasingly uncivil war between the Warmist and Skeptic camps in the AGW debate.

The Warmists are using increasingly eliminationist rhetoric to try to win people over to their totalitarian viewpoint of what must be done, while Skeptics are pointing out that the Warmists are trying to impose draconian measures to deal with a problem that may not exist. In fact, the 'problem' may be more helpful than harmful, but don't tell the Warmists that.

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Does Obama really think publicly attacking donors to Mitt Romney's campaign is going to silence them? According to one recent 'victim' of this tactic, the answer is a resounding "No!" In fact, it may end up doing more harm, particularly when it gets compared to Dick Nixon's enemies list. That is not a positive image by any means and one you'd think the Obama campaign would want to stay away from.

Then again, the Obama campaign hasn't been showing much in the way of smarts lately.

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As if we need yet another example of how things aren't going so well for the Teleprompter In Chief, a stump speech he gave in Reno, Nevada drew dozens.

I remember when he drew thousands, even at such a small venue such as the one above.

(H/T Instapundit)

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Is the Chinese economic bubble about to burst?

From indicators many of us have been seeing over the past year or so, I'd say it's imminent. Between a housing market bubble that makes the one in the US look like a minor glitch (there are entire cities that are empty, built in anticipation of high housing demand that hasn't materialized). Wages are going up. Other business costs are rising. All in all, China is catching up with the rest of the world and the explosive growth of the Chinese economy has been grinding to a halt.

Some American companies that off-shored a lot of work to China are now bringing it back to the US. Rising costs in China and ever increasing transportation costs are making it more attractive to bring the work back here. That certainly isn't helping the Chinese economy.

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There's that word again - "Unexpectedly."

That's only true if you bought the hype coming out of the governor's office in Sacramento.

Anyone else with a lick of sense knew California's budget deficit was going to be higher than the official estimate, particularly in light of tax rates have passed the point of diminishing returns a long time ago.

The gummint folks in California still haven't realized their state does not have a revenue problem, but a spending problem. Until they're willing to admit to this, there is no hope the problem will be fixed.

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When it comes to energy news in the US, not much surprises me any more, including this:

The US Government Accountability Office reports that there are more oil reserves in the states of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming as the entire proven reserves of the rest of the world combined.

As Glenn Reynolds opines, "If I were the Russians and the Saudis, I'd be paying off some Green groups to block development."

Hey, wait a minute!!....

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Leave it to Bob Parks to ask the really important questions.

In this case he wants to know if fast food service has really gone down hill?

Frankly, I find this to be more important than 99% of the crap the Obama Administration is heaping upon the American public.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the summerfolk have been returning, the summah people have too, and where we'd much rather deal with the first rather than the second.

Things are back to normal here at The Manse now that BeezleBub has recovered from his trip to St. Louis for the FIRST Robotics World Championships.

One thing I've noticed since he's back at school is that he's suffering from a moderate form of 'senioritis'. He's feeling less motivated to do homework or to put full effort into his classes because he has less than four weeks of school left before he graduates. It's not surprising. But both Deb and I are staying on his case, making sure he finishes his assignments in a timely (and complete) fashion.

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While we had a rather dry winter, spring is more than making up for it with rain almost all last week and for a few days this coming week. At least yesterday and today was warm and sunny, as will it will also be on Monday. But on Tuesday through Thursday we'll be back in the rain.

It certainly hasn't made it easy to get any yard work done during the week. (I much prefer to do it during the week because I have much better things to do on weekends.)

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As I constantly have to remind many of my friends, Cinqo de Mayo isn't all that big a deal in Mexico. It's right up there with St. Patrick's Day in Ireland. Both are purely American holidays.

But I do have to make the disclosure that St. Patrick's Day is gaining momentum in Ireland, again something driven by Americans of Irish descent. But then there are more Irish in the US than there are in Ireland, so that might have something to do with it.

(H/T Maggie's Farm)

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We keep hearing the 'dropping' unemployment numbers being touted by the Obama Administration as a show that Obamanomics is working. But what they choose to sweep under the carpet is why those numbers are dropping. It has nothing to do with more Americans being employed so much as it does with them dropping out of the labor force. If one takes a look at the overall employment numbers which include both underemployed (working part time or in jobs for which they are greatly overqualified) and those who have given up looking for work, the actual unemployment rate is closer to 16%.

The labor participation rate is the lowest it's been since 1981. How is this good news? But to hear Obama tell it things are just great.

Yeah. Right.

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Newsbusters digs into the New York Times' efforts to stir up racial strife in regards to the upcoming 2012 Presidential campaigns.

It appears the only racists left in the country work for the Lame Stream Media. Most Americans could not care less about the issue.

(H/T Pirate's Cove)

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Cap'n Teach offers this cautionary tale of the sperm donor in Obama's "Life of Julia" tale.

Age 22: Peter's in his senior year, working towards his Sociology degree. He supplements his meager income from student loans and a part time job down at the local Subway by selling his sperm to a local sperm bank, and signs documents which state that all "donations" will be kept completely anonymous.

--snip--

Age 27: Peter moves up the ladder, and is finally able to make money by skimming money from government grants. He receives a letter in the mail from Julia's lawyer slapping him with a paternity suit.

Age 28: Peter attempts to fight the suit, but, a liberal judge throws out the legal non-disclosure forms, saying Peter has to Do His Part. Peter's still in debt from college, and also has some sort of strange disease from his time in the 3rd world s***hole. Very few doctors accept his insurance and government centers have months long waits. He starts filing phony reports to the government in order to get more money.

And it goes down hill from there.

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Assistant Village Idiot points us to two studies that show the differences in TV preferences of Democrats and Republicans and differences in attitude between Democrat and Republican bloggers.

Looking at the TV show lists, I'm not surprised at the dichotomy at all. That there are shows that both sides like (or dislike) equally is also not surprising.

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Glenn Reynolds asks and answers the question "What comes after the higher education bubble?"

The Harvard/MIT EdX model looks good to me. I have perused a number of the courses MIT has available online. (It's entire curriculum is available online..for free.)

I know I'll be availing myself of a number of classes MIT will be offering which will help my career advance. The cool thing is that MIT will offer certificates of completion if you can pass the final exam. That part won't be free, but it will still be a fraction of the cost of actually taking the course at MIT.

As someone once asked (it might have even been Glenn), what would you prefer to have? A Princeton education without the diploma, or a Princeton diploma without the education? It all goes back to the "credentialed, not educated" meme.

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What excuse will Obama use to kill the Keystone XL pipeline this time? And how will he justify killing American jobs and making the US even less energy secure? Somehow I doubt his campaign will use the pipeline as an issue.

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I thought this was cool: maps showing the invisible borders that define American culture. The map below shows an interesting phenomenon, but it isn't what you might think it is. To find out what it means, Read The Whole Thing.



Click on image to enlarge

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where kids are thinking of the coming summer, the rains have held off for the weekend, and where soda pop is sometimes called 'tonic' by summerfolk.

We were on our way back from the WP In-Laws last night when we got the call from BeezleBub: his FIRST robotics team finished 39^th out of 400 teams! Finishing in the top 10% during their first appearance at the FIRST World Championships is not bad at all for a team from a small New Hampshire high school.

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A bit of scary news related to BeezleBub:

The tent collapse in St. Louis yesterday was near the hotel where he and his team mates have been staying while at the FIRST competition.

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Mark Steyn says the US is headed for a financial crisis that will make that of Greece look miniscule by comparison. What's worse is that the players in Washington know it, but are choosing to ignore the coming collapse.

"We are headed for the most predictable economic crisis in history," says Paul Ryan. And he's right. But precisely because it's so predictable the political class has already discounted it. Which is why a plan for pie now and spinach later, maybe even two decades later, is the only real menu on the table. There's a famous exchange in Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises. Someone asks Mike Campbell, "How did you go bankrupt?" "Two ways," he replies. "Gradually, then suddenly." We've been going through the gradual phase so long, we're kinda used to it. But it's coming to an end, and what happens next will be the second way: sudden, and very bad.

Steyn points out the fiscal crisis also has its roots at the state level, with many states and municipalities having problems with debt and underfunded pension plans. This only adds to the severity of the coming collapse.

Public employee pension plans are promising returns of investment that would get anyone in the private financial market thrown into prison for fraud. How can they possibly promise 7, 8, or even 9 percent return on investment? Yet the pension plans depend heavily on returns that high. When they don't come about, the plans go bankrupt. That's something that will happen as more boomers retire and the plans have to start paying out even more money than they do now.

(H/T GraniteGrok)

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Talk about abuse of power: Brooklyn bodega clerk arrested for selling booze to an under-21 customer even though he refused to sell it to the undercover teen.

Fortunately a security camera video may be this clerk's salvation.

(H/T Scary Yankee Chick)

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Have you ever wondered where the money you pay for each gallon of gas or diesel goes? Despite what most people believe, the gas stations themselves get very little, usually between 1 and 4 cents per gallon, depending upon the region of the country and the distributor agreement they have with their supplier.

The biggest portion, up to two-thirds, goes to buying the crude oil used by refineries to create the gas or diesel. The price can vary due to natural disasters or political unrest in oil producing regions.

In case you're wondering, the oil companies aren't making any more profit on a percentage basis than any other business out there, running between 6 and 9 percent. But when you sell hundreds of billions of dollars worth of product every quarter, that 6 to 9 percent adds up.

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I tell you, these guys have got to lay off the hash pipe.

Supposedly, the drop in population growth in California is seen by demographers and urban planners as good news.

Say what? If population growth is falling off that means people no longer see your state as a good place to live and work. People, and their money, leave. Yet you expect this drop off will allow you "time to prepare for bigger population than they did in past years..."

If California, at both the state and municipal level, doesn't get its collective s**t together, it won't matter how much planning you do. No one will want to move to a state that taxes the bejeezus out of its citizens, imposes draconian business and environmental regulations on those creating needed jobs, and makes it impossible to build the needed infrastructure for that still pie-in-the-sky "bigger population."

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Here's a bit of bad news/good news, at least if you're a fan of Fox network's Fringe.

The bad news - Fringe will be ending next season.

The good news - Fox could have canceled it after this season, but fans managed to convince Fox to let the show producers to close out the story line with 13 episodes next season.

I don't know if any of you out there have watched Fringe, but I've enjoyed it as much as I did X Files. It's certainly different and entertaining.

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And you thought I wasn't going to have any mention of the ongoing AGW battle this time around.

Too bad.

In this case, Dr. Tim Ball reiterates a point made by the late Michael Crichton many years ago - Consensus science isn't science. It's politics.

But then most of us with a modicum of science knowledge know that. But that hasn't stopped the AGW faithful from screaming at the top of their lungs "But we have a consensus! The science is settled!!!" The claim of consensus is the sanctuary of those who know their science won't stand up to scrutiny, as it has always been.

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Thomas Sowell delves into the racism that is the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman case. However this time around the racists aren't the usual suspects. This time it's the media, using creative editing and outright falsification to create a racist incident where there was none.

But the purpose of the narrative they tried to create was to "inform the public" about the ongoing problem of racism in the US. Too bad they forgot to mention that it is they who are the racists, or at least they are the one playing the race card.

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Looking at one of the latest Obama campaign ads, it appears that he plans to use the fact that Osama bin Laden was killed on his watch as part of his re-election campaign. That's all well and good.

However, the one thing I don't expect to see in any follow on ads is that while he got bin Laden, he lost the Middle East.

But the killing of one person has been against the backdrop of a complete disaster for the United States throughout the Middle East and Central Asia.

North Africa is or is on the way to domination by radical Islamists. We pushed Mubarak out without any transition, and the Muslim Brotherhood and even more extreme Islamists are nearing control. The same is true in Libya and Tunisia.

In Afghanistan, the Taliban are resurgent, waiting out Obama's timeline for withdrawal. In Iraq, the Iranians have extended their influence and the nation again is dividing along sectarian lines, with the unifying factor (except among the Kurds) being hostility to the U.S.

In Syria, where for once we could have dealt a crushing blow to Iranian influence, we have helped Bashar Assad hang onto power to the extent that both sides hate us.

Our one true ally in the region, Israel, is in its most precarious position in decades, surrounded by massive Iranian-backed missile bases in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria.

There is almost nowhere in the Middle East that the United State is better off than it was four years ago.

If nothing else this problem has handed the Romney campaign another nail to put into Obama's re-election coffin. All Mitt has to do is ask "Are we better off in the Middle East than we were four years ago?"

Of course he can also ask the same question about the economy under Obamanomics.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where cooler weather will be leaving (again), BeezleBub is home again, and where more yard work awaits.

The rain has finally arrived.

It's been very dry here in New England, with little rain or snow and above normal temperatures over the past couple of months. Everything has been tinder dry, creating a huge fire hazard and making headaches for fire departments and forestry services across the region.

We had some light rain over night and expect heavy rains to arrive late tonight or early tomorrow morning which should take care of the dry conditions for now.

Of course this rain does have a downside, that being black flies and mosquitoes will now multiply.

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BeezleBub is getting prepared for his FIRST robotics team's Tuesday departure for St. Louis. His high school's team was one of the three regional winners in the FIRST competition earlier this year, earning them the right to compete in the FIRST World Championship in St. Louis this coming week.

I did my part, making sure all of his clothing (team shirts, etc) are clean and ready to pack. I also lent him what meager expertise I have in packing for a trip, having made more than a few intercontinental trips in the past. Number 1 tip: Pack light. The biggest problem most folks have is that they take too damn much stuff with them. Sometimes this means they have to check their luggage which in turn means baggage fees ($50 for the flights the team is taking to and from St. Louis). For the 5 days/ 4 nights they'll be there he should need no more than 5 shirts (one a little dressier than the rest), two pairs of pants, 4 sets of briefs, and 5 pairs of socks. (You can never have too many socks.)

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Is it just me or has the media frenzy about Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming died down quite a bit? It seemed there were daily stories about how we were all doomed if we didn't go back to pre-Industrial ways of life and/or cut back the world's population by some horrifically huge number.

ClimateGate 1.0 and 2.0 may have something to do with that drop off as the "settled science" turned out not to be settled at all and a number of assumptions made by CAGW proponents came under closer scrutiny. It also doesn't help their cause that studies suggest there have been massive increases in scientific fraud.

Of course I expect there to be another round of media hysteria about CAGW once they get past trying to foment race riots and bring about the lynching of George Zimmerman.

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Bogie gives us a little insight into getting her fork truck license.

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From Blue's Blog by way of Scary Yankee Chick comes a picture of a sign I'd like to see at my place of employment.


Click on image to enlarge

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Also by way of Scary Yankee Chick comes this story about hundreds of thousands of infected computers that will lose their Internet service come this July.

Fortunately the fix is pretty straightforward and instructions for checking your computer are included in the AP article. As the article states, it's mostly home computers that may have been infected by way of an Internet ad scam. (In case you're wondering, I did check the validity of this story and the fix and it is legitimate.)

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The Great California Exodus continues, with more people and businesses fleeing the ever more oppressive Golden State than are moving in. As US demographer Joel Kotkin has reported, over 4 million more people have left California over the past 2 decades than have moved in. Over-regulation is but one of the factors that have led people to abandon California for better economic climes.

Part of California's dysfunction, he says, stems from state and local government restrictions on development. These policies have artificially limited housing supply and put a premium on real estate in coastal regions.

"Basically, if you don't own a piece of Facebook or Google and you haven't robbed a bank and don't have rich parents, then your chances of being able to buy a house or raise a family in the Bay Area or in most of coastal California is pretty weak," says Mr. Kotkin.

While many middle-class families have moved inland, those regions don't have the same allure or amenities as the coast. People might as well move to Nevada or Texas, where housing and everything else is cheaper and there's no income tax.

Give people enough incentive to leave, and they will, taking their money (tax revenues) and their jobs (even more tax revenues) with them.

So endith the lesson. The question is, will the Powers That Be in California learn that lesson before it's too late? If we have to go by previous and proposed actions, then the answer is an unequivocal no.

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If California isn't enough of a lesson on the failures of socialism (let's face it, California is a socialist state), then perhaps Venezuela will suffice.

After years of Hugo Chavez's socialism in that once prosperous country, the economy is in a shambles, the electrical infrastructure has been breaking down, their oil infrastructure doing likewise, and now there are food shortages.

It seems that in just about every country dominated by socialist economics food shortages are the norm. The old joke in the now defunct Soviet Union used to run:

"Is this the line for the store that doesn't have shoes?"

"No. This is the line for the store that doesn't have bread."

It appears that joke is making a comeback in Venezuela.

(H/T Pirate's Cove)

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Here's a lesson in economics President Obama might consider looking at, even briefly, before tearing off on yet another round of "Let's tax the heck out of the rich!" In this case, he should look at the examples of the 50 states, how they handle taxes, and the effects taxes have on their economies.

In California, a union-backed ballot initiative would raise the state's highest tax rate to 13.3%. Union-funded groups in Illinois aren't satisfied with last year's income tax rate hike to 5% from 3%, so they now want to go as high as 11%. That would put them in the big leagues with California and New York. And in Oregon, lawmakers are considering raising the highest rate to 13% from 9.9%. In all of these states, proponents parrot Mr. Obama, insisting that the rich can afford it.

They can, but they can also afford to save hundreds of thousands or more each year by getting out of Dodge. Every time California, Illinois or New York raises taxes on millionaires, Florida, Texas and Tennessee see an influx of rich people who buy homes, start businesses and shop in the local economy.

Republican governors in Florida, Georgia, Idaho, North Dakota, South Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, Wisconsin and even Michigan and New Jersey are cutting taxes to lure new businesses and jobs.

Asked why he wants to reduce the cost of doing business in Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker replies: "I've never seen a store get more customers by raising its prices, but I've seen customers knock down the doors when they cut prices."

Georgia, Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma are now racing to become America's 10th state without an income tax. All of them want what Texas has (almost half of all net new jobs in America over the last decade, for one thing).

My home state of New Hampshire has neither an income or sales tax. Even during the deepest part of the recession New Hampshire didn't suffer nearly as much unemployment as surrounding states, and actually saw some growth in both population and its economy while other states in the Northeast lost population and jobs.

Though there were a few stumbles by the legislature when there was a Democrat majority in both the House and Senate (they increased spending based upon pie-in-the-sky revenue projections and increased business taxes during the worst part of the recession), in 2010 Republicans routed the Democrats in both chambers, securing a supermajority in the House and one vote shy of a supermajority in the Senate. The legislature reversed the economy-killing measures enacted during the previous legislature. Not surprising to many, economic activity increased and the state saw higher tax revenues. Amazing how that works, isn't it?

(Shamelessly stolen from Tom Bowler)

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As LabRat over at Atomic Nerds reminds us, high school is not real life. It doesn't even come close.

...successfully transcending the social realities of high school isn't that much of a thing to celebrate so much as getting over with as quickly as possible, just because life immediately ceases to be like school the second you leave it. Lots of people continue going through the motions as though it were, but it's because the only patterns they know and no one bothered to tell them that contrary to preparing them with rigorous accuracy for adult life, school gave them a highly artificial reality that must be adjusted away from. There should really be some sort of an exit briefing at or after graduation, just so you are warned, whether or not you choose to listen to any of it.

He then goes on to list the 5 important things you have to know to survive in the real world.

The lesson LabRat puts forth reminds me of something the WP Dad told me when I was suffering through the vagaries of life in high school. It is advice that I have since passed on to others, including BeezleBub and various other family members and friends. It all boils down to this:

Nothing that went on in high school will matter worth a damn to anyone 5 seconds after you graduate.

That one thing got me through some tough times in high school.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where badly needed rain has arrived, yard work has stopped (for now), and yet again Monday has arrived all too soon!

The warm weather has returned, making it easier to take care of some of the cleanup around the outside of The Manse. Today it was removing the sand left behind on the driveway and pulling brush cut last fall down to the brush pile on the lower 40. Screen doors were also put back in in light of the warmer temps expected this week (it's supposed to be in the mid 80's on Monday!).

With the better weather for the upcoming week I hope to get a lot more done around The Manse after work.

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I'm not the only one who's come to loath Microsoft Word. Glenn Reynolds still prefers Word Perfect and has used Open Office. And you can add the name of Tom Scocca of Slate to the list of those who think Microsoft Word has outlived its usefulness, become bloated, and less user friendly.

Maybe Microsoft should start with a clean sheet of paper.

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Are the Democrats trying to paint Mitt Romney as one of the characters in Mad Men? It would appear so.

President Barack Obama has noted the presumptive GOP nominee uses archaic turns of phrase such as "marvelous" and warned in an email to donors Thursday that his rival would usher in "a social agenda from the 1950's."

Gee wiz, does that mean that everyone who uses 'archaic turns of phrase' must necessarily be stuck back in the 50's? Personally I think Mitt Romney is kinda neat, and his missus is just swell!

(H/T Maggie's Farm)

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I almost forgot that the Boston Marathon is tomorrow. Normally I wouldn't make such a big deal out of it, but as Bogie reminds us it's going to be very hot for April in Boston, with temps expected to hit the low 90's down there tomorrow. That's a good 20 to 30 degrees warmer than what they usually see for the Marathon, which does not bode well for the competitors.

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Is it possible the so-called Smart Meters used to measure and report your electricity usage may be too smart for their own good?

With some readily available software from the Internet it may be possible to hack into some of these meters and reset them in a fashion that lets the user pay less, or even nothing, for the electricity they use. It's power theft in the 21st Century, eliminating the need to modify existing meters or to steal and reconfigure meters to make the theft possible.

They need to rethink these things.

(H/T Scary Yankee Chick)

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Also by way of SCY comes this second round of Microsoft 'news': Windows XP is finally coming to an end.

Not that this news is by any means surprising. We all knew Microsoft was going to kill it because, after all, it is over 10 years old and outdated.

Microsoft did try to end support two years ago, but business users rebelled, stating that XP's successor, Vista, wasn't ready for prime time because it didn't support many of the programs businesses used for their operations. What good was a new operating system if it didn't support the software businesses depended upon? So Microsoft relented (or caved, depending upon your point of view), and decided to continue support of XP until 2014. Microsoft also continued work on improving Windows, eventually shelving the much derided Vista and releasing Windows 7.

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The racial narrative pushed by the media and the race-baiters in regards to the Trayvon Martin shooting have been falling apart faster than a cheap suitcase in the rain.

It appears the only racists involved in this tragedy are the aforementioned media and the professional race-baiters, like Al Sharpton.

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Pat Austin has a roundup of the devastation caused by the series of tornadoes to hit the Midwest.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the weather has been gorgeous, the trees are sprouting leaves, and where boats have already been put into the water.

It's Easter and preparations leading up to it reached a fever pitch here in the Lakes Region. While we here at The Manse didn't have the chance to celebrate it together - Deb had to work, BeezleBub celebrated it with Horse Girl and her family, and I went to the WP Parents - it was still a great day.

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I realized after reading the above that I have been remiss, making mention of Horse Girl but never having 'introduced' her.

Horse Girl is BeezleBub's girlfriend. I assigned her sobriquet not because she has a horse face (she doesn't), but because she rides. She has her own horse. Another reason for her nickname? Because that's how some of BeezleBub's friends referred to her...well not specifically her but aimed at what she is.

"You're dating a horse girl? Oh, great! I'll bet she has horse stuff all over her bedroom!!"

She does, but that doesn't mean she isn't a great girl. Besides the youngest WP sister was a 'horse girl', and a pretty darned good rider at that, and she turned out OK...mostly.

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The Trayvon Martin shooting has stopped being a story about a shooting in Florida and become one about the corruption now endemic in the mainstream media, using old photos and creative editing to change the perception of the victim and the perpetrator. It seems they will bend the facts to meet the narrative in an effort to control the debate and boost ratings. Never mind that the police haven't finished their investigation and that evidence and facts presented so far do not match the media narrative. It's like they're trying to stir up trouble in an effort to create more problems, maybe even the lynching of George Zimmerman. And as I've written before, if that should happen the media will claim "But we didn't know anyone would do this!" even though they would probably have cameras there to record the whole thing in HD.

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It looks like we're headed for a economic downturn two-fer, in this case another wave of mortgage foreclosures and one hell of a tax hike as of January 1, 2013.

In regards to the first:

In 2011, the "robo-signing" scandal, in which foreclosure documents were signed without properly reviewing individual cases, prompted banks to hold back on new foreclosures pending a settlement.

Five major banks eventually struck that settlement with 49 U.S. states in February. Signs are growing the pace of foreclosures is picking up again, something housing experts predict will again weigh on home prices before any sustained recovery can occur.

Some are saying the foreclosure rate in 2012 will be higher than that seen in 2010. That doesn't bode well for the housing market. How many more millions, if not billions of dollars worth of shadow inventory is out there waiting to hit the market?

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The Obama Administration keeps playing the "unemployment rate is falling" card as if that's all that's needed to win re-election. But the electorate isn't being fooled. While the official rate has dropped to 8.2%, the number of jobs created (120,000 in March) is well below what was projected (200,000).

Why the drop in the unemployment rate? Simple - people have stopped looking for work and/or are no longer on the unemployment rolls. The official keeper of the employment figures, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, tracks the numbers of under-employed and those no longer officially on unemployment but still looking for work and reports those numbers as well. When those numbers are added into the official tally, the unemployment rate is closer to 16%.

An recent illustration of the disconnect between the Obama Administration's claims and reality is a job fair held at a local New Hampshire amusement park, hiring for summer workers. Over 1000 people showed up for the 200+ job openings. One thing I noticed about those standing in line for those summer jobs? Most of them were older than one would think would be applying for them.

As one teen standing in line to apply for a job stated:

"It's definitely a lot harder because you have the adults that need to support families, they're first priority right now," [Sidney] Battle said. "So it's hard for a teenager like me to get a job."

Indeed.

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Jeff Soyer clues us in to the fact that the Anthropogenic-Global-Warming-Is-Killing-Polar-Bears narrative is just so much bunk. At least that's what the Nunavut Wildlife Management folks are saying.

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And a second link to Jeff, where he compares the logic of licensing gun owners with that of licensing drivers. As he states, "...it hasn't saved lives when it comes to death-by-automobiles."

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Tom Bowler gets into the reasons for rising gas prices and their unintended consequences. The biggest cause? The Obama Administration.

Obama expected millions of so-called green jobs to be created after he put the screws to the traditional energy industries. But what he got instead was bankrupt green energy companies, billions of taxpayer dollars wasted, and higher unemployment because of skyrocketing energy costs he helped to cause.

Unintended consequences indeed.

Another unintended consequence - One and Done.

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Some time ago Remington Arms, located in New York, started making noise about leaving the Empire State because of the increasing costs of doing business there. Between higher taxes, more onerous regulations and laws, and a feeling of being unappreciated by the powers-that-be for the jobs they provide, the motivation to look for a new place to set up business has increased.

I have a suggestion for Remington - move to New Hampshire.

My home state already hosts a number of small arms manufacturers including Sturm Ruger, Thompson Center Arms, and now Sig Sauer. (Sig Sauer just moved their corporate headquarters to Newington, New Hampshire at the Pease Trade Center. There will also be manufacturing operations located there.)

It seems that unlike New York, folks here in New Hampshire actually like guns. Adding yet another manufacturer here helps both us and the manufacturer.

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Is stealing campaign signs off of a blogger's front lawn a sign of desperation from Democrats?

Yup. And the blogger in question, Steve MacDonald of GraniteGrok, says "I've got another post coming Monday that will make them bleed out their beady little sign stealing eyes."

Hmm. Could there possibly be video of the perpetrators committing their crime?

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Detroit is on the brink, and if it can't find a way to avoid financial insolvency by Thursday the State of Michigan will take over.

Fierce opposition from unions -- in a city that remains a bastion of labor power -- has so far stymied efforts to pass a rescue package.

A deal backed by Mayor Dave Bing and Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, a Republican, would grant the city the power to void contracts and slash costs but not provide state funding or loans to bail the city out of its financial problems.

Without city council agreement on that deal, Snyder can by law appoint an "emergency manager" who will assume the powers of the mayor and council to run day-to-day operations. He has until Thursday to take such action.

Apparently the unions don't realize that should that happen, they lose everything. At that point all union contracts are void and the emergency manager will control the purse strings, including the number of those who will remain employed by the city of Detroit.

The unions have dug themselves into a deep hole. Too bad none of the union leadership had the smarts to say "Stop digging!" while there was still time to fix the problem with far less pain than they're going to feel now.

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To close out, let me include this link to a promo piece done by the New Hampshire Film Office to show off the Granite State to filmmakers and television producers. While aimed at that specific audience, this video gives you a taste of where it is I and the others of the WP team live and work.

And in case you're interested, I've been to most of the places shown in the video and I can attest that they are indeed as beautiful as depicted.

Enjoy!

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the waters of the lake are softly calling, the sun has been warming the land, and where there's no better place to live.

As many of you can see, Brent has picked up the blogging gauntlet again. I guess the bug bit him and he's been typing away, adding his input to this blog.

Welcome back, bud!

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The summer-like weather is gone, replaced with more normal temps. It's been dry, though we've had some snow - a dusting to half an inch - twice over the past week, with more coming overnight tonight.

The cooler, more normal weather hasn't stopped trees from budding and some plants from putting out green shoots. I expect we'll see more this week as temps climb back into the 50's for most of the upcoming week.

I haven't made the mistake of thinking Old Man Winter is done, keeping the Official Weekend Snowblower in the garage and ready to go just in case. Winter has come roaring back on more than one occasion over the years, so I'm not taking any chances.

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The Trayvon Martin issue has taken on a life of its own, with race-baiter Al Sharpton trying to up the ante. (I wonder when the black community will come to realize he's nothing but a charlatan, in it only for the power and the money that comes with it and not for "his people".) Calls for the arrest of George Zimmerman abound despite the fact that the investigation is ongoing and that the narrative from the media may not reflect the reality of what happened.

If Zimmerman is indeed guilty of shooting the unarmed teen because he was "guilty of being black", then the full weight of the law should fall upon his shoulders. But if Zimmerman did act in self-defense, an arrest made because the media and the community demand it may add more fuel to the fire and leave Zimmerman even more vulnerable to being lynched.

As Glenn Reynolds mentioned last week, this incident is starting to smack of the Richard Jewell case, where the media indicted him, tried him, and convicted him despite the fact that he was innocent and later fully exonerated.

Should something happen to Zimmerman I have no doubt the media will claim "But we didn't know anyone would do this!" despite all their efforts to make sure just such a thing would occur.

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Jim at Parkway Rest Stop adds his 2¢ worth to the Trayvon Martin incident, wondering why the State of Florida isn't taking action against the New Black Panther Party, who have posted a $10,000 reward for Zimmerman. Then he remembered that the NBPP have a get out of jail free card from USAG Eric Holder.

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To look elsewhere for a different type of insanity, all we have to do is cast our gaze in the direction of Wisconsin.

The public employee unions have lost their minds and are trying anything they can think of to unseat Republican governor Scott Walker. Unfortunately everything they've done to this point has weakened their position and strengthened his. They've also lost support from the private sector labor unions after throwing the unions under the bus, getting their puppets in the state legislature to kill a bill that would have brought 3000+ union jobs and billions in economic activity into the state all in an effort to "get" Scott Walker.

The public employee unions also tried thug tactics, informing business that if they didn't post pro-union fliers or posters in their windows they would be boycotted, something illegal under Wisconsin law. (I don't recall which statute covers this other than it had something to do with racketeering, specifically 'protection'.) The public employees unions had to backpedal and issue apologies to the businesses they tried to strong-arm into compliance.

In the meantime a growing majority of the Wisconsin electorate have been backing Walker and his actions to bring the runaway state spending and taxation under control.

Call it a major FAIL for the Wisconsin chapters of the SEIU and their affiliates.

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Glenn Reynolds has more on the higher education bubble, particularly the Clery Act expansion and the actual causes driving skyrocketing tuition costs.

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The Arkansas Supreme Court struck down a law that made it illegal for teachers to have sex with students who are 18 years old.

Their finding stated that "people 18 or older have a constitutional right to engage in a consensual sexual relationship."

This doesn't mean that teachers can't be disciplined for such actions, but it does mean they can't be jailed because of it, something that happened to an Arkansas teacher who was sentenced to 30 years for having a 5 month long consensual affair with an 18 year old student at his school. With the law struck down, the imprisoned teacher will have his conviction overturned and will be released from prison.

Does this mean that it's now OK to be hot for teacher?

(H/T Maggie's Farm)

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Bird Dog over at Maggie's Farm tells us how to become one of the 1% "working in your basement in your underwear, in your spare time!"

I like the idea, but I prefer to do it in my sweats rather than my skivvies. They're more comfortable.

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Is Spain the new Greece? Looking at the numbers it appears the answer is 'yes'.

Germany has already stopped accepting bonds issued by Ireland, Greece, and Portugal as collateral for loans, and that may soon be the case with Spanish bonds as well. None of this bodes well for the Eurozone.

As Steven asks:

Oh well, that's just the European weenie socialists who can't put their house in order. Can't happen here, could it? Well, it turns out that last year the Federal Reserve accounted for 61 percent of purchases of U.S. Governemnt debt. In other words, we're just printing money-lots of it. Hard to see how this doesn't end badly. And then the big question is: who bails out the United States when it becomes Greece? Anyone? Buehler?

Who, indeed?

(H/T Viking Pundit)

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Only in California... Because of the new minimum wage that took effect in San Francisco this past January, Subway can no longer afford to sell their much touted $5 Footlong subs there any more.

The new minimum wage in the city by the bay is $10.24/hour. That entirely changed the business model for Subway and the $5 Footlong became a money losing proposition for the chain in San Francisco.

Yet another example of the Law of Unintended Consequences coming into play in California.

Hmm, it seems California itself is one big example of that law, so maybe this problem, like so many others in California, has become a foregone conclusion whenever cities or the state try to 'fix' something by making it more expensive to do business there.

(H/T Scary Yankee Chick)

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The always excellent Bob Parks links us to the PDF of the day. The abstract reads:

In recent years, study after study has found that a college education no longer does what it should do and once did.

This report is concerned with the corruption of the University of California by activist politics, a condition which, as we shall show, sharply lowers the quality of academic teaching, analysis, and research, and results in exactly the troubling deficiencies that are being found in the studies to which we have referred. We shall show that this is an inevitable consequence of any substantial influence of radical politics in academia, because its characteristic interests and modes of thought are the very antithesis of those that should prevail in academic life.

This doesn't just apply to the University of California, but to colleges and universities across America. It just seems there's a lot more of it in California than anywhere else. (UC Berkeley anyone?)

For the most part the serious STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Medical) colleges (MIT, Cal Tech, RIT, WPI, Georgia Tech, etc) have managed to avoid much of this, though there are still elements within those halls of academia that would like all STEM studies to be politically correct and fall under the sway of leftist ideology. However STEM studies deal with measurable realities and the Lysenkoism being pushed by the left doesn't fare so well.

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Cap'n Teach tells us why some people believe we're racist if we want cheap energy.

Yup, better to keep African Americans and their African cousins in poverty than to let them have cheap energy. After all, it's for their own good. Or that's what the Left claims. But then the Left wants everyone (but them) to be kept in poverty. It gives them so much more control over everyone else.

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We'll stay with Cap'n Teach to close out this week's TOAS, where the Cap'n's post title says it all - Obama 2012: The Campus Apathy Tour

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where temps are back to normal, the feline members of the household are demanding attention "right now", and where yard work awaits.

The above normal temperatures we experienced over the past couple of weeks have been affecting the vegetation. Sugaring season ended early as with warm nighttime temps the sap doesn't flow as well and starts to thicken up. Buds have appeared on trees, and in some cases, leaves have started appearing. (A black birch tree just behind The Manse already has leaves showing as are a number of white birches elsewhere on our property.)

Ice Out on Lake Winnipesaukee occurred the earliest date on record, though BeezleBub reminded me that the only reason for that is because it is a leap year. If not for that then Ice Out this year would have been on the same day as a previous early Ice Out. (Ice Out was declared on March 23rd, but if would have been March 24th if this was not a leap year.)

Over the next week or so we'll be experience cooler temps, though they might still be above normal for this time of year. Today we had some much needed rain as with the warm temps the fire danger was quite high.

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Glenn Reynolds links and comments about the Trayvon Martin shooting, pointing out that all is not as it appears to be. Witnesses are now saying that things did not go down the way the media has been claiming and that Zimmerman did act in self-defense.

Glenn also makes references to the Bonfire of the Vanities and the Richard Jewell case.

No matter how this turns out Zimmerman is going to have a target on his back.

Oh, one more thing to add fuel to the fire: a Florida Democrat operative has somehow linked the shooting to the Koch Brothers.

Is there anything the Koch Brothers can't do?

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Wirecutter explains why he got into blogging. While his reasons are different from mine, they aren't all that different.

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Jim over at Parkway Rest Stop is seeking some advice about a computer problem he's having dealing with not being able to see some types of streaming video. He's done some checking online and come across a couple fixes, but he's asking whether he should download and install these 'fixes'.

Anyone out there want to tackle his question?

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I was sitting here in front of the Official Weekend Pundit Main Computer when I heard the distinctive 'beep' of someone pushing the power button on one of the UPSes here in the office.

I turned around and saw that Hilda was standing on top of the UPS connected to Deb's computer, looking quite pleased with herself. Unfortunately when she stepped on the power button she shut off the power to Deb's computer.

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Top Industry Leader: "Obama is the most anti-business president in my lifetime."

Gee, ya think?

It seems every time the president comes up with a new "plan" to revive the economy, it usually entails either tax increases on the rich and businesses, more onerous regulations on businesses, or tax incentives that sound good to the media but won't do squat to increase employment. An example is his plan to create tax incentives for businesses to hire more workers. He obviously doesn't understand that businesses only hire when they need more workers. They won't hire anyone if they have nothing for them to do, tax incentives or not. That's a good way for businesses to go out of business.

(H/T Maggie's Farm)

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Ten things you didn't know about Mister Rogers.

Very cool.

(H/T Scary Yankee Chick)

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Cap'n Teach links us to the top 15 signs at a religious freedom rally that you'll never see in the media.

It's amazing how many of those supporting the government's edict that religious organizations must fund birth control choose to ignore the First Amendment when it comes to religious freedom.

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Cap'n Teach also schools us in regards to debunking a number of Obamacare myths. I particularly like Myth #3, where supporters seem to think that even of the Supreme Court shoots down the individual mandate, the rest of the law will still apply. However the suits brought by 27 states do not include severability, meaning that if the Supremes decide the individual mandate is not covered by either the Commerce Clause or the Necessary and Proper Clause, and therefore unconstitutional, the entire law is struck down.

In light of the recent 9-0 decision by the Court that slapped down an on overreaching EPA, I have a feeling the Justices will strike down Obamacare as well, seeing it as yet another overreach by the federal government trying to force citizens to purchase a good or service in order to maintain good standing with the government.

I've seen some comments and letters to the editor trying to equate the individual mandate in Obamacare to laws requiring drivers to purchase auto insurance, but it's a straw man argument. First, a number of states do not require motorists to have insurance. Second, driving is not a right, but a privilege. Third, neither the federal government or state governments force anyone to get a driver license or purchase a car if they have no desire to drive.

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David Starr brings up an important point that too many people in the power industry are ignoring: the power grid is becoming increasingly vulnerable to hackers.

He points out where some power operations are connected together by way of the Internet, and far too many power operations use Windows for their computers. This is a formula for disaster. All power grid networks should be separate from the 'net and the really important computers should be using anything but Windows. There are too many vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers to shut down or damage our power grid.

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Assistant Village Idiot looks into the Grandfather Paradox and other related alternative history ideas.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where summer weather has fled, leaves are popping out on trees, and where the ice is gone from the lake.

Though the Weather Guys™ didn't exactly come through for us yesterday (it barely broke 50ºF here), it still wasn't all that bad a day.

I didn't get done nearly what I'd hoped yesterday, but more than made up for it today. It was nice being able to open the windows and air things out. This also let me clean the windows, which now let in even more sunlight!

With today's warm weather (70ºF!) I was able to hang my first loads of laundry out on the Official Weekend Pundit Clothesline. This is the earliest I've ever been able to do that since we've had it up. And if I recall correctly the last load hung this past fall was in late October just before our Halloween snowstorm.

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With the warmer weather we've been enjoying I've let the Official Weekend Pundit Woodstove go out and go cold. No need to run it or the propane furnace if it's above 65ºF in The Manse. I am certainly not complaining about the mild winter we've had as it's meant less work for me and BeezleBub and less firewood burned to keep things warm.

If this is global warming, then bring it on!

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Bogie and her WS went shooting yesterday, trying to "get back into the groove." They tried out some of those 2" X 2" reactive targets, the kind that go "BOOM" when you hit them dead center.

Cool!

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Adam Minter may have a solution to the problem of Asian carp invading US inland waters: catch them and sell them to China.

To the US they are an invasive species causing havoc in a number of major US rivers and lakes. To the Chinese they are a much in demand delicacy, preferred over farm raised carp.

It would certainly help balance the trade deficit with China. As the saying goes, the Chinese word for "trouble" is also the same word for "opportunity". Best that we take the opportunity to make the best of the trouble we have with a certain Asian fish.

(H/T Instapundit)

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A new Rasmussen poll shows 58% of American adults believe in an across the board income tax rate. I do, too. Everyone should have skin in the game. The fact that just under 50% of American workers pay no income tax is not a good thing as they have nothing to lose if those who are taxed are burdened even more.

While the Left cries that the rich should pay their "fair share", they have never defined what that fair share is other than "more than they do now." It's a moving target and no matter how much the rich pay it will never be enough. Eventually there will be no more rich to tax because one of two scenarios will occur: the rich will be impoverished and the economy will collapse, or the rich will flee and take their wealth with them which in turn will cause the economy to collapse. Either way we all lose.

A flat rate lets everyone feel the pain.

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Cap'n Teach explains that because we drove cars, Alaska suffered from record snowfall and record cold.

As the Cap'n comments, "In the past, back when there were more sane people, this would simply be "the weather." "

The Cap'n also links to a Scientific American blog post that outlines a solution to the problem: a worldwide tyranny that will kill you if you don't stop trying to live your life in the 21st Century rather than the 14th Century.

But then that's what the Progressives want for us. They'll be the only ones allowed to enjoy the fruits of 21st Century technology. After all they have to keep an eye on us and it's hard work oppressing the masses and keeping them in their places.

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Glenn Reynolds links to and comments about how batteries are the limiting factor for all these new 4G phones, tablets, and other connected technology.

That's been a problem with some of the equipment I help design. We try to use every power saving technique and technology to ensure the instruments we make will last for an 8 hour shift when used out in the field. Sometimes we've been able to use a bigger battery, but even that solution quickly reaches the point of diminishing returns as the battery becomes more expensive and is almost as large as the instrument it's powering.

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And that's the abbreviated news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where summer weather is here in spades, we've been outside enjoying it, and where I still haven't gotten all the work around the house anywhere near done.

Once again winter has tried to reassert itself, dumping around 4 inches of snow here at The Manse early yesterday morning and greater and lesser amounts around the Lakes Region.

BeezleBub fired up the Official Weekend Pundit Snowblower and cleared the driveway so the sun could melt off the remaining snow. By mid-afternoon the snow on the driveway and the roads was gone.

Spring will return this coming week with temps expected to be in the mid 50's and low 60's.

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Adjusting to better vision is still taking some time. One of the first things I noticed when I started driving again was that my depth perception is off a bit.

Another thing: I thought I was doing a decent job cleaning the house, but now that I have close to normal vision I can see a number of areas where I was less than effective.

Yet another thing: Standard analog TV looks so much better and sharper. I wonder what HD TV will look like?

And one last thing: Now that can see better I've noticed that I've aged far more than I thought I had.

Damn.

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Something I've been kicking around for some time is the idea of a semi-regular political cartoon or comic strip. I've had a lot of ideas or thoughts that would have been better presented visually rather than with lots of words. I have already approached an artistically inclined friend of mine (heretofore referred to as GG) with the idea and GG was quite receptive.

We still have some details to work out but I hope to get the ball rolling by the end of April.

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How messed up is this?

First, Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) sponsors the "Healthy Food In Schools Act" which promotes the availability of more fruits and vegetables in our schools, then works to kill a bill that would make it likely those fruits and vegetables will come from her home state? Without the bill those healthy foods will likely come from outside the US.

After large cuts in the water supply to farmers in California's Central Valley, most farms have had to cut back on their farming activities, if not shut them down completely. The proposed House Bill (HR 1837) would restore the water supply to the San Joaquin Valley, voiding the arbitrary decisions by state regulators caving in to radical environmental groups.

California used to have the most productive farms on the planet. But since the water cuts, the US went from being a net vegetable exporter to a net vegetable importer. In the process the prices of vegetables have skyrocketed, adding even more strain to family budgets.

I have an idea about how to address this issue: Cut off all food to the radical environmental lobbyists behind this debacle and let them go raise their own food....in the Mojave Desert. After a year most of them will have either starved to death or died of thirst, leaving the rest of us to get on with our lives and our farmers to once again become the most productive in the world.

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By the way, you did remember to set your clocks ahead one hour (in the US), right? Daylight savings time kicked in today, meaning that many of us woke up at our 'usual' time only to find we were an hour late for church, etc.

Penn Gillette sounds off about Daylight Savings Time, saying it's an idea whose time has passed and that it's really not necessary any more. He also explains that it's a government conspiracy and yet another example of overreach.


It wouldn't bother me if we did away with DST altogether..or instead did away with Standard Time and stayed on DST year round, just so we wouldn't have to be bothered with changing our clocks and getting our schedules all confused twice a year.

(H/T Maggie's Farm and Moonbattery)

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Is the Chinese economy sliding into recession? If one looks at declining electricity consumption and aggregate financing, as well as increasing unemployment, then the answer has to be yes.

It doesn't help that hundreds of billions of government money went into building cities and buildings that are still empty and aren't likely to be occupied any time soon, adding to the financial crush and impending implosion. When it comes will China be able to handle it as they've never had to deal with the end of a business cycle before? I have my doubts.

Welcome to the party, China.

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Bogie picks up Stu's Old Vinyl Albums meme and is running with it. Bogie's two choices: Fleetwood Mac's Rumors and Boston's first album.

I have to agree with Bogie's choices on this one. Both albums were hits as were most of the songs on them. In the case of Boston's first album I could walk around campus and hear it being played in most dorm rooms along with ELO's New World Record. The campus radio station also played those two albums constantly, along with Yes and Jethro Tull.

I think I'm going to have to do likewise. I have a lot of old vinyl albums dating back to the late 60's and early 70's. Most are pristine as the only time they were played was to record them on tape or cassette. (I was one of those music geeks that would play the albums constantly and recording them and using the tapes kept them from being damaged.

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Is HBO seeing a falloff in subscribers because of Bill Maher's misogynistic slurs? If so, I hope those canceling have been explaining why they're doing so. I think that if enough people start doing this Maher's days on HBO are numbered. Ann Althouse also adds her 2¢ worth, giving Maher a well deserved fisking.

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Bring up the subject of Bill Maher's ire, HBO's hit piece on Palin shows the left is still terrified of her. This is yet another reason to cancel your subscription to HBO. It seems a lot of people are doing just that according to a number of e-mails received by Glenn Reynolds on the subject.

You know HBO is going to start noticing when even the customer service reps are commenting upon the cancellations.

Another thing to consider to hit 'em harder: cancel Cinemax as well as it's owned by HBO.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where spring weather has returned, the ice is melting on the lake, and where many of us are considering getting the snowblowers ready for summer storage.

I got some great news from BeezleBub late yesterday afternoon: his FIRST robotics team alliance (along with teams from Manchester, NH and South Portland, ME being the others in the alliance) took First Place during the regional FIRST competition held in Manchester, NH yesterday!

The team got a police escort from the highway to the high school last night. Students and parents helped unload the equipment from the bus and get it safely packed away at the school.

Onward to the national competition in St. Louis!

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It seems timely that after yesterday's post about March coming in like a lion that Bulldog over at Maggie's Farm posts audio of the late great John Belushi explaining the phrase "In like a lion and out like a lamb" is true only in the US.

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Just a blogroll note: Scary Yankee Chick has moved, leaving Blogger and moving to a new site.

(I gotta remember to change her URL here, too.)

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No further explanation needed.


(H/T BogieBlog)

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Also from BogieBlog is Cheryl's take on the snow we received over the past few days.

She got a lot more than we did here at The Manse.

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I think Parkway Rest Stop has the right of it when it comes to the accidental burning of the Korans in Afghanistan. We have to stop "appeasing the Seventh Century Savages and their "Religion of Peace." "

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The 'big paper' here in New Hampshire, the Union Leader, took a survey of New Hampshire residents to find out how many of them use snowblowers, shovels, or plows to clear their driveways.

According to the survey almost 60% use snowblowers, 24% use shovels, and 13% use plows. The balance hire local kids to shovel their driveways.

I'll bet that even 10 years ago the number hiring local kids was a lot higher.

On the other hand snowblowers are kinda cool. I know the Official Weekend Pundit Snowblower fits the bill, with electrically driven chute position and angle, and handle warmers! I actually used the handle warmers this past week and they made a big difference, keeping my hands toasty warm when usually they get rather numb from the cold.

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I should probably mention that sometimes my job requires me to visit our lab over a weekend. In this case I've been going in two or three times a day to change over environmental tests on lasers that are used for calibration purposes. This allows me to fit a week's worth of testing time into two and a half days. (The environmental test chambers are being used during the regular work week, meaning that I sometimes have to work around other test schedules in order to get my tests completed. Under other circumstances I just want to get the results that much faster. This is one of those times.)

Come Monday morning I'll have a full series of tests completed and I'll be able to analyze the data by mid-morning. That's a lot better than having to wait another week to get all the results.

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Cap'n Teach posts the Fine 15 Apology Edition of his regular Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup feature.

Quite often I'll find something interesting in his SBSP feature and link to one or two of them. This time around all of them are good enough that I had difficulty choosing, so I figured I just link to the whole thing and let you pick and choose your favorite(s) instead.

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This is the first of a twofer from Wirecutter.

Somebody up there really loves the owner of this car.

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And then there's this, with Wirecutter asking "Why does the Department of Energy need to buy urban combat weapons?"

Yet another move by big government to control even more of our lives.

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An d that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where winter has reminded us it isn't over yet, spring is just around the corner, and where really warm temps will be returning later this week.

Winter reappeared briefly, with 4 inches of snow falling Friday night/Saturday morning.

I fired up the Official Weekend Pundit Snowblower to clear the driveway and got about 95% cleaned off. Then the shear pin on one side of the auger let go. This is not an unusual occurrence considering the type of stuff that can be mixed into the snow (usually chunks of ice, small pieces of tree branches, and other detritus). It's one reason we keep spare shear pins handy.

In this case I didn't stop to replace it because the last bit of snow to be cleared was taken care of with a shovel. (It also would have taken longer to replace the pin than finishing up with the shovel.)

Temperatures will be returning to the low to mid 40's on Monday and Tuesday, helping to melt what's left of the snow and ice still on the driveway.

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Watts Up With That provides us a time line on the whole Gleick/FakeGate debacle.

The only think Gleick has managed to do is hurt his 'cause', that being AGW, and added even more fuel to the fire, showing to what lengths the AGW faithful are willing to go to protect their gospel. No facts need apply.

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The News Junkie breaks down the whole "angry Muslims rioting because someone burned a Quran in the US" insanity.

As he puts it:

Who is crazier: the ignorant, lunatic, hyper-reactive Muslims, or our pathetic Western governments? Gee whiz, I am so deeply sorry I hurt your sensitive feelings while sacrificing our lives while trying to rescue your freedom and lives.

Frankly, I think the "angry Muslim response" is nothing but an excuse to do what it is they wanted to do anyways.

And then this:

Screw 'em. We gave them a chance, and that's all we can do. On this topic, I agree with Obama and the Russians and the Brits before: Afghanistan is a tar baby. If they aren't one kind of trouble, they're another: heroin, terrorism, tribal warfare, Taliban. Kipling knew this.

Maybe it's time we leave, but leave them with this warning: "If you support those making war on us, we'll be back, but next time we won't be so nice." Read it as you will.

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I knew I had to read this once I saw the header: Intelligence minus judgment equals intellect.

This is something I realized over three decades ago and nothing I've seen or experienced since has changed that realization.

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I have to agree with this particular question:

"Is catastrophic global warming, like the Millenium Bug, a mistake?"

The evidence points more and more to that being the case.

(H/T Maggie's Farm)

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A bit of good news here at The Manse: Deb has been accepted into the nursing program at one of the local colleges. She already has a number of credits towards becoming an RN, so she'll be able to shave off a semester or more from her schooling.

Ironically she'll be attending the same college as BeezleBub when he starts next fall.

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And that's the abbreviated news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where winter has made a brief reappearance, the latest snowfall is rapidly melting away, and where warm weather returns on Monday.

One of the first signs of impending spring have showed up, that being the ubiquitous "Frost Heaves" signs. For those of you from more temperate climes, let me explain (once again) frost heaves.

They are not, as some might believe, something that happens if you eat or drink something too cold too quickly. It has nothing to do with reverse peristalsis.

Frost heaves are the result of alternating thawing and freezing along the sides of our roads, highways, and byways. As the ice and snow along the sides of the road melts, the water works its way under the road surfaces. Then once the temperatures fall below freezing at night, the water under the road freezes and expands. After a few cycles of this thaw and freeze, ridges appear in the road surface that turn a once smooth road into something with a lot of nature-made speed bumps.

Frost heaves can play havoc with the suspensions on cars and trucks, and garages see a steep uptick in business as drivers have to have their suspensions repaired and/or aligned. I can attest to this as the trusty F150 suffered some suspension damage last month, in this case two broken front sway bar shackles.

Though the calendar says spring starts March 20th, I think it's already here, Punxatawney Phil notwithstanding.

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Another sign of an early spring: sugaring started a week or so ago here in northern New England. (Sugaring is another term for making maple syrup.) One of my co-workers made mention that she and her husband started tapping their maple trees two weeks ago and expect start up their evaporator this weekend. I haven't checked with the WP Father-In-Law, but I suspect he's done likewise.

This mild winter and early start of spring may affect syrup production this year as sugaring requires warm days (above freezing) with no wind and nights below freezing. We've had quite a few nights recently where the temps never made it below 32ºF (0ºC). If that continues sugaring will end too soon.

I am not attributing this to AGW as I recall more than one winter over the past 50+ years that resembled this one. It's called "weather".

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This whole brouhaha over the "food police" taking away kids' made-at-home lunches and making them eat only 'approved' foods shows exactly how niggling and small minded the Obama backed bureaucrats have become. In at least one case I read about the substitute lunch the child was told she had to eat was far worse for her than the food provided by her mother.

These incidents also beggar the question whether these same food police require observant Jewish and Muslim kids to eat non-kosher or non-halal foods because the food police decide they aren't 'healthy'?

I see a lot of lawsuits over this governmental idiocy.

What's worse is that I expect to see more of this kind of intrusive idiocy should Obama gain a second term. The biggest problem I have with this is that the bureaucrats themselves believe they are more qualified to run other people's lives when they aren't any more capable of running their own. (I have to wonder whether the food police involved in these school lunch incidents follow their own governmental guidelines. If I had to guess, I'd say no. After all, these kind of regulations are for the little people, not for the ruling class or their minions.)

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Have you seen the banner or video ads touting what a great job President Obama has done over the past 3+ years? I saw the first one when I started watching an episode of Body of Proof on Hulu.

The number of outright falsehoods in that 30 second ad made me start in amazement. Do the Dems really believe most of the American people are going to buy it? Is it a matter of "Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?"

I think all anyone is going to have to do is look at their food bills, electric bills, and fuel costs to put the lie to those claims. And those who are no longer counted as unemployed but still want jobs aren't going to buy it either.

One of the maxims I learned a long time ago (I was in my early teen years) was that presidents can't fix the economy, but they sure as hell can damage it. The only way for the present occupant of the Oval Office to fix the economy is to get the hell out of the way and let the economy fix itself. It certainly worked when Reagan did it.

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Talk about chutzpah!

Maxine Waters, Democrat Congresscritter from California, will be chairing the influential House Financial Services Committee. Isn't that like letting the fox guard the henhouse?

In case you need to be reminded, her husband had a considerable stake in a failing bank for which Maxine managed to arrange a bailout. Can you say "conflict of interest"? Sure you can.

Yet another example of "Do as I say, not as I do" from the Democrats.

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Cap'n Teach adds his 2¢ worth in regards to rising gas prices and the GOPs use of this to slap Obama around.

If gas does indeed hit $5 gallon this summer, you can pretty much guarantee the GOP will use this as a campaign issue, and rightfully so. Obama did state he would like to see higher gas prices during his 2008 campaign, and he got them. Everything he's done has lessened our energy supply and raised energy costs despite the fact that we now have more proven oil reserves than Saudi Arabia, trillions of cubic feet in new natural gas findings, as well as a steady supply of oil from Canada if we want to buy it. (It does require building a new pipeline, which Obama rejected.)

If the report about gas prices on ABC News last night is correct, for every 10¢ rise in gas prices, approximately $9 billion less is spent by consumers on other goods and services.



So if the average price of gas goes up another $1.50 by summer, the economy will take approximately a $135 billion hit as consumers cut back. (Yeah, I know this is a flat math projection, but I had better things to do with my time than do a curve fit to project the financial hit the consumer market is going to take.)

Yeah, that will get Obama re-elected.

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If gas does hit $5 per gallon at the pump this summer, it will be closer to $6 per gallon at the marinas. This means it's unlikely the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout will make it onto the lake this upcoming summer. A $180 fill up for a day out on the lake isn't in the budget. Considering we'll also have to be careful about our regular travel with $5 gas, there are a lot of things we just won't be doing this summer.

I was amazed at how quickly the temperature dropped last night, going from 35°F to 7°F in a couple of hours. We escaped the snowfall forecast for yesterday, something that does not bother me in the least. At least the cold temps over the next couple of days will help the ice on the lake thicken a little more.

This is definitely one of those mild winters we get now and then up this way.

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The trusty F150 went into the shop this past Friday for its annual safety/emissions inspection.

It failed.

The only issue with safety was that three of the four tires were just above minimum tread. So today I went out and got 4 new tires for the truck, something I hoped I wouldn't have to do until late next fall.

The 'Check Engine' light came on just as they were pulling it into the work bay, something that happened last year when it was in for inspection. And like last time it was an O₂ sensor code, something the mechanic says happens a lot more often during the cold weather months because of the ethanol in the gasoline (his claim, not mine...but it wouldn't surprise me in the least). And like last time, they reset the code and said I should drive it a couple of hundred miles and then bring it back to see if it's the same issue as last time. If the light doesn't come back on then, the F150 will be good to go for another year.

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Here are two post dealing with the declining demand for gasoline and other petroleum derived fuels here in the US. Both posts show the demand over the past few decades and indicate both boom times and recessions. What's particularly troubling is the rapid falloff since 2007, when the Democrats took control of Congress and the recession started rearing its ugly head.

Both posts state that increased fuel efficiencies cannot adequately explain the falloff in demand, particularly in light of the average age of cars and light trucks on the road is now almost 11 years. Instead, these falloffs are indicators of a deepening recession, contrary to what the Obama Administration has claiming.

I can certainly see that being the case. Looking over the log book in the trusty F150, I can see I've cut back on the miles traveled quite a bit. The first 12 months we had the F150 I put just under 10000 miles on the odometer (9872, to be exact). The next 12 months, which just passed this weekend, I've put just over 8000 miles on the odometer (8098), 1774 less miles than the previous year. That's an 18% drop year to year. Also looking over the log book, I can see that I've been filling the tank an average of every 2.3 weeks this past year rather than every 2 weeks the previous year. Some of that decrease has been because there are some places I no longer need to go, but that's only been the case since last November which means there were about 160 miles I haven't driven since then. It doesn't explain the balance of the decreased miles driven.

Some might be explained by erratic gas prices. I know I carefully think about any trip I take, particularly in light of the F150 having a fuel economy of 17 mpg. When ever the gas prices start edging upwards, particularly just over the past 6 weeks or so, I start thinking about combining trips. The one thing I hate seeing is the total on the gas pump approaching $100 when I fill up the tank on the F150 (it holds 30 gallons of fuel). And with gas prices expected to be around $4/gallon by this summer, you better bet I'll think twice before hopping into the truck to run some errand.

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We didn't win the big $325 million jackpot for PowerBall last night. I guess I've got to show up for work tomorrow morning.

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Eric The Viking explains why he hates the main stream media. I hate them too for the same reason.

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I have to agree with Sarah Palin on this one.

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin didn't come to CPAC to endorse any of the GOP presidential hopefuls, but to encourage that the nomination contest continue as long as necessary to pick the right guy.

She chastised those who panned the process as dragging out too long, "as if competition weakens our nominee ...and yet in America we believe competition strengthens us."

Palin expressed confidence that a nominating contest without an end currently in sight "will lead us to victory in 2012."

She cautioned against the fight turning too dirty, though. "Let's make sure this competition brings out the best in our party," she said.

Unfortunately the best candidate isn't even running this time around, but I don't blame her one bit.

(H/T Pirate's Cove)

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Also by way of Cap'n Teach is this green who's found out the hard way that living the green life ain't easy. So in order to meet her goal of offsetting the 1858 pounds of carbon dioxide created when she went to visit Texas, she plans to force her neighbors to help her offset the balance from her trip.

Spoken like a true watermelon. (No, this is not a racist term. It is a term used to describe 'greens' who are really red on the inside.)

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By way of Maggie's Farm comes this post from Coyote Blog, which finds that Young People Are Being Forced To Work To Support Themselves!

First, this study is great evidence of my "what is normal" fail. There is no baseline. OK, 24% moved back in with their parents. How many did this in good times? How much worse is this?

But the real eye-catcher to me is that somehow I am supposed to be shocked that people have to find a job to pay the bills. Even a job that, gasp, they really didn't want. I have a clue for you. A lot of jobs 22-year-olds have to take are not that compelling. Mine were not. Despite what colleges seem to be telling them, the world does not offer up a lot of really cool jobs to inexperienced young adults. Long before you are closing deals with CEO's, you are probably writing sales literature in some cubicle.

OMG!!

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the ice has been getting thicker over the pats couple of days, the annual Ice Fishing Derby was held, and where once again Monday has appeared all too soon.

Our non-winter winter continues, with above average temperatures and, for the time being, below average precipitation (we're about 20 inches below the 'normal' snowfall for the beginning of February). In light of this past week's focus on AGW, maybe someone will claim it's global warming. (Never mind that both the Farmer's Almanac and NOAA predicted a rather mild winter and below average snowfall for northern New England.)

We're not complaining all that much. The mild winter has meant we haven't used nearly as much fire wood as we might have and the Official Weekend Snowblower has spent most of its time in the garage. (I think I've used it all of three times this winter.)

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It's Super Bowl Sunday and the New England Patriots are playing the New York Giants in a rematch. The Patriots are hoping to make up for their loss against the Giants at their last Super Bowl appearance, one that ruined their perfect season. (The Patriots had a 16-0 record during the regular season, and an 18-1 record overall.)

And again the Giants won. (I still find it difficult to believe a 9-7 team even qualified for the Super Bowl, let alone won it.)

But I have to hand it to the Giants - they wanted it more than the Patriots and worked harder for it.

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I have to agree with Bogie on this one: Thank god for AAA!

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Here's another favorite blogress I have to agree with, particularly in regards to not learning the proper lessons from the movies. Hasn't anyone down there ever seen The Thing?

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By way of Maggie's Farm comes this explanation of the Eurozone bankruptcy.


While it does cover the basics, it does overlook why the Eurozone got into this mess to begin with: promising more to their citizens than they could deliver, particularly in the way of social services they had no means to pay for. Now that the bill has come due they expect others to foot the bill. The problem is that "the others" are reluctant to do so.

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It appears income tax evasion increases during times of rising income tax rates, rising unemployment, and/or decreasing per capita real GDP.

Gee, not a surprise to me. How many otherwise unemployed or underemployed folks are willing to work "under the table" in order to feed their families during tough economic times? How much bartering of goods and services takes place under those same conditions?

The underground economy almost always flourishes during tough economic times, particularly when the government itself one of the main causes. (The underground economy in the old Soviet Union was the only thing that let it continue as long as it did, seeing it was thought the GDP of that underground economy was greater than that of the official Soviet GDP.)

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Glenn Reynolds links to Russ Douthat's piece on the 'outrage' of pro-abortion advocates due to the decision by the Susan G. Komen Foundation - a private organization - to cease its funding Planned Parenthood. To hear the media tell it, it's tantamount to murder.

The Komen Foundation made it's reasons clear - PP doesn't do mammograms. The Komen Foundation's raison d'étrè is fighting breast cancer by funding research and helping to provide support services, period.

Writes Douthat:

Three truths, in particular, should be obvious to everyone reporting on the Komen-Planned Parenthood controversy. First, that the fight against breast cancer is unifying and completely uncontroversial, while the provision of abortion may be the most polarizing issue in the United States today. Second, that it's no more "political" to disassociate oneself from the nation's largest abortion provider than it is to associate with it in the first place. Third, that for every American who greeted Komen's shift with "anger and outrage" (as Andrea Mitchell put it), there was probably an American who was relieved and gratified.

Ironically, with all the media brouhaha about the Komen Foundation's decision, donations to the foundation increased dramatically.

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Also this from Glenn Reynolds: It's takers versus makers and these days the takers are winning.

In today's America, government benefits flow to large numbers of people who are encouraged to vote for politicians who'll keep them coming. The benefits are paid for by other people who, being less numerous, can't muster enough votes to put this to a stop.

Over time, this causes the economy to do worse, pushing more people into the moocher class and further strengthening the politicians whose position depends on robbing Peter to pay Paul.  Because, as they say, if you rob Peter to pay Paul, you can be pretty sure of getting Paul's vote.

It's a nightmare scenario right out of Atlas Shrugged. The only thing missing is Directive 10-289, but I figure that one is only a matter of time unless we change our course.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the ice on the lake is still dark blue, warmer weather is on its way, and where we have to swallow yet another Patriots defeat at the Super Bowl to the Giants.

The winter weather pattern continues, with snowfalls ranging between 2 and 6 inches followed by sleet, freezing rain, and/or rain. It makes for one heck of a mess on the streets, and particularly driveways.

Here at The Manse this mixture has made it difficult to keep the driveway passable. Thursday night's snowfall, though totaling only about an inch and a half, was followed the next day by rain and freezing rain. This turned the snow into a slushy mixture with the consistency of soggy mashed potatoes. It also made it very difficult to remove, something that needed to be done because once the temperature fell below freezing overnight it would leave an icy mess that would make the driveway nearly impassable. No amount of sanding would help at that point.

This has been the pattern since late December and frankly I think we're all getting tired of it. A straightforward snowstorm would be a relief because then all we'd have to do is move the snow, something easy to do with the Official Weekend Pundit Snowblower.

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Two of the big winter events here at Lake Winnipesaukee have been disrupted due to the mild winter weather.

The annual Rotary Ice Fishing Derby is questionable this year because the lake froze over only last week, meaning the ice is very thin and won't support vehicles, bob houses, or people. If we have a few weeks of below freezing temps the ice might be ready by mid to late February.

The annual Pond Hockey Tournament has been moved from Meredith Bay on Winnipesaukee to nearby Lake Waukewan. At least Waukewan has been frozen over for some time and the ice is thick enough to support the tournament.

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Scary Yankee Chick has this one right:

Calling mommy cause you don't know what to do when your dorm catches on fire may be a sign that you're not ready to live on your own.

Heh.

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This is scary. A man was held for two years in solitary confinement in New Mexico's Dona Ana County Jail after a drunk driving arrest. No arraignment. No trial. No conviction. Jail personnel denied him medical treatment. At one point he had to pull his own tooth in his cell when he was denied dental care.

A jury awarded him $22 million after he filed a civil rights suit against the county in federal court.

It took them two years to figure out he wasn't even supposed to be there, let alone that he never saw a judge or went to trial? $22 million isn't enough by half!

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Gee, it seems the MSM can't even get their hit pieces right. In this case Reuters went after Sen. Marco Rubio, trying to paint him as unfit to even be considered for a vice-presidential nod. The only problem with the article is that none of it was fact checked and glaring errors were found by a number of readers, including the Daily Caller's Matt Lewis.

One of the most telling:

"Rubio also voted against Sonia Sotomayor, Obama's Supreme Court nominee who is of Puerto Rican descent..."

There's only one problem with that claim, that being Rubio didn't enter the Senate until the year after Sotomayor was confirmed.

A number of other claims were made about financial difficulties or improprieties and investigations by the IRS, all of which were proven to be false.

Is it any wonder why more people have a growing distrust of the MSM?

As one commenter to the Lewis post wrote, "This kind of hit piece is just more evidence that Rubio is someone the left fears. And it's pretty pathetic, really. Rubio owes more on his home than it's worth? Welcome to the collapsed housing market! If anything, this smear piece makes Rubio come off more as a regular joe than anything."

(H/T Maggie's Farm)

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Why doesn't this surprise me?

The most popular online newspaper read by Americans is not the New York Times or the Washington Post but the Daily Mail in the UK.

This does not bode well for the US print media. They had better change their ways and actually start reporting the news rather than editorializing under the guise of reporting or they're likely to go the way Oldsmobile, Studebaker, and the dodo.

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The National Association of Realtors seems to be think the housing market will recover in 2012. But Megan McArdle points to a StreetTalk Advisors piece by Lance Roberts that begs to differ with that assessment. Even with historically low interest rates, too many Americans do not have the wherewithal to get financing due to their debt-to-income ratio.

That's not the only thing that can put the kibosh on a housing market recovery.

With the large amount if shadow inventory waiting in the wings, there are far more properties waiting to be listed than there are buyers with the means to purchase them.

Shadow inventory is properties held by banks or other institutions that have been foreclosed upon but not yet listed for sale or auction. No one really knows how much shadow inventory is out there, but some have estimated it could be quite large. If all of the shadow inventory were to hit the market over a very short period of time, the already weak real estate market would collapse and with it, property values. Just about everyone with a mortgage would end up being underwater.

When will the shadow inventory hit the market? Nobody knows.

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Go see Wirecutter's Quote Of The Day.

'Nuff said.

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Dems to Republicans: Do as we say, not as we do, at least when it comes to financing campaigns.

But then the Dems have always been more than willing to apply a double standard to everything their opponents do.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the ice still isn't thick enough, last week's snow and ice have melted away from our driveway, and where I refilled all eight sand buckets just in case.

We dodged a bullet, weatherwise. It snowed yesterday in New England, but for the most part we were on the fringes of the storm and got about an inch of snow. But because it was so fine (due to the well below freezing temps), the roads got pretty slick in a short period of time. The few errands I had to run yesterday required me to use 4WD most of the time while I was out on the road.

The small snowfall didn't mean I didn't have to clear off the driveway as the few inches of snow we received Friday was still there.

Call me lazy, but I didn't want to clean the driveway twice. Clearing off 4 inches of snow is actually easier than clearing 1 inch, so I waited until the snow stopped Saturday afternoon before finally firing up the snowblower.

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It appears Chicago-style politics has made its way to Iowa, with a former Obama staffer and Democrat Party apparatchik arrested for identity theft. In this case the identity he tried to steal was that of Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz. His plan was to use the stolen identity to frame Schultz (a Republican) for unethical behavior in office.

It sounds like a play right out of David Axelrod's Chicago politics playbook.

As an aside, I have to wonder whether it might be fun to start a betting pool whose sole purpose will be to bet how many Obama staffers, czars, and cabinet members will be investigated, indicted, or convicted and sent to prison.

Nah, probably a bad idea. It will be a sucker bet.

(H/T Instapundit)

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Victor Davis Hanson likens Greece to a modern day Cassandra, showing us the future but being ignored.

The United States should pay heed to the modern Greek Cassandra, since our own rendezvous with reality is rapidly approaching. The costs of servicing a growing national debt of more than $15 trillion are starting to squeeze out other budget expenditures. Americans are no longer affluent enough to borrow hundreds of billions of dollars to import oil, while we snub our noses at vast new oil and gas finds beneath our own soil and seas.

In my state, Californians for 40 years have hiked taxes; grown their government; vastly expanded entitlements; put farmland, timberland and oil and gas lands off limits; and opened their borders to millions of illegal aliens. They apparently assumed that they had inherited so much wealth from prior generations and that their state was so naturally rich, that a continually better life was their natural birthright.

It wasn't. Now, as in Greece, the veneer of civilization is proving pretty thin in California. Hospitals no longer have the money to offer sophisticated long-term medical care to the indigent. Cities no longer have the funds to self-insure themselves from the accustomed barrage of monthly lawsuits. When thieves rip copper wire out of street lights, the streets stay dark. Most state residents would rather go to the dentist these days than queue up and take a number at the Department of Motor Vehicles. Hospital emergency rooms neither have room nor act as if there's much of an emergency.

And his list goes on and on. These scenarios are being played out in Greece today, and California is following not too far behind. To say the Greek/Euro debacle can't happen here is just another form of denial, one we cannot afford to ignore.

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R.L Polk reports the average age of a car on the roads of America is just under 11 years.

This is not as much as a surprise as it might have been considering cars are better built than they were in the past, meaning they last longer than they used to. The ongoing recession hasn't helped things either because people are less likely to buy a new car when they can't be sure whether they'll still have a job six months down the road.

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The New England Patriots played the Baltimore Ravens for the AFC Championship in Foxboro today. The hype leading up to the game kept mentioning it was the #1 offense (Patriots) against the #1 defense (Ravens). Most folks would agree that it's defense that wins championships.

But as more than one commentator has mentioned, even though the Patriots have the #31 defense in the league due to the amount of yards they have allowed, passing and rushing, they don't let their opponents score very often. As some of those same commentators have said the scoreboard doesn't show the yards, only the points scored.

From watching some of the press conferences over the past week, neither team has been taking anything for granted. Both teams appear to have great respect for the other, knowing the game would likely be a tough one.

In the end the Patriots won it, 23-20, in a squeaker of a game. Only a missed field goal attempt by the Ravens with 51 seconds left in the game kept the game from going into overtime.

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Bogie shares a picture of her three cats enjoying a treat of canned cat food.

We do something quite similar here at The Manse, with all 6^3/4 cats sharing a can of "wonderful food" in the late afternoon/early evening. It's not meant to be a meal, just an appetizer before their regular evening meal.

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John Stossel makes the case for his claim that everything we know is wrong, at least when it comes to trusting our instincts in regards to our increasingly complex world. As he says, simple answers are satisfying, but often wrong.

Simple answers are so satisfying: Green jobs will fix the economy. Stimulus will create jobs. Charity helps people more than commerce. Everyone should vote.

Well, all those instinctive solutions are wrong. As Friedrich Hayek pointed out in The Fatal Conceit, it's a problem that in our complex, extended economy, we rely on instincts developed during our ancestors' existence in small bands. In those old days, everyone knew everyone else, so affairs could be micromanaged. Today, we live in a global economy where strangers deal with each other. The rules need to be different.

--snip--

It's not what people don't know that gets them into trouble. It's what they know that isn't so.

That certainly seems to be the case today, where more often people will support programs, laws, ideas, spending, and "revenue enhancement" without having a clue about the effects of any of them, intended or otherwise. That's true from the local level all the way up to Congress. That's why we're in the trouble we're in now.

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You can't say we didn't see this coming.

Labor union quits alliance with greens over Keystone pipeline.

While some unions still support the greens opposition to the pipeline, a number of large labor unions see Obama's decision against it as costing jobs their members badly need.

Some unions, like a couple of the transit workers unions, support the green position. (There's no word whether the SEIU supports the greens or the laborers, at least not yet. But I expect they'll end up supporting the greens on this one because they have no real skin in the game.)

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The Obama Administrations plan to destroy the economy continues apace, with the closing of the oil refinery at St. Croix, USVI, and the continuing delays and increasing legal maneuverings upon at least one new refinery slated for South Dakota.

By destroying the energy infrastructure and reducing the supply of crude and refined products by fiat, Obama's EPA is doing a great job dismantling the US economy one power plant, one refinery, one pipeline at a time. If I didn't know better, I'd say this was a long term plot by the old Soviet Union to destroy the West. But then we've had far too many of their programmed "useful idiots" getting involved with government for decades. So even though the Soviet Union is gone, their drones are carrying on with their mission.

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Democrat racist wacko Shiela Jackson Lee is at it again, claiming Newt Gingrich is using "secret racist encryption" because he called Obama the "food stamp president".

As Doug powers writes:

And "Sheila Jackson Lee" is poorly disguised code for "pathetic race baiter."

Yeah, I'd say that about sums it up.

(H/T Pirate's Cove)

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Somehow California's Governor Jerry Brown thinks that more of the same failed policies of the past that have brought his state to the brink of failure will miraculously fix the Golden State's economic problems.

He's rightly earned the long running sobriquet of "Governor Moonbeam" because he's still living in the past.

I wonder when that acid he dropped back in the 70's will finally wear off?

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At least someone in New York is paying attention to the coming state pension debacle. Believe it or not, it's (Democrat) Governor Andrew Cuomo.

There may be hope for the Empire State yet...but I'm not holding my breath.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where winter has finally arrived, snow is covering the ground, and where the lake has finally frozen over.

BeezleBub spent the weekend split between work at the farm and his high school's FIRST robotics team...for the most part.

He tried to do some work at the farm this morning. With temps well below zero he couldn't get any of the tractors started even with the block heaters plugged in overnight. No tractors meant no work. He was home from work this morning by 9:15AM. After warming up and indulging in a couple of cups of coffee he was off to robotics for a couple of hours.

At least it keeps him off the streets.

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Today was Deb's birthday and BeezleBub and I split the cost of her birthday present: a Kindle Fire.

I think she really likes it!

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The New England Patriots pounded the Denver Broncos down in Foxboro last night, 45-10.

The Patriots face the Baltimore Ravens next weekend.

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Apparently the New Hampshire League of Women Voters didn't care very much for the voter fraud sting run by James O'Keefe's Veritas Project. From reading their reaction it appears they really didn't understand the problem O'Keefe was exposing. It doesn't help their cause that they keep repeating the oft debunked claim that requiring voter ID prior to voting will disenfranchise the poor and minorities. The poor and minorities already have to provide proof of identity for a whole host of other activities in their lives, so we have to ask why this is any different?

It's simple, really: It isn't.

Then there's this - Dead Voters Of New Hampshire Unite!

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The so-called PissGate scandal has assumed the mantle of an event of great significance. However, it isn't. As Col. Allen West says, "Shut your mouth. War is hell."

As I recall a commenter on another blog (I can't remember which one) put it in perspective, stating "Our enemies behead people they don't like, including Americans. What is this compared to that?"

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I have to agree with Gerard Vanderleun on this one: "This is not a "Vote-For" election. This is a "Vote-Against" election. This is not a "Sit-It-Out-And-Pout" election. This is a "Get-Obama-Out" election. That is what it is about and that is all it is about." (emphasis original)

(H/T Instapundit)

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Is the fact that more cities in the US are shutting off or removing streetlights because they can no longer afford to run them a sign that they have their priorities wrong?

As Glenn Reynolds comments, "...it's either that or lay off some drones working in City Hall. Guess which one they pick . . . ."

It's always about protecting those patronage jobs, isn't it?

Another reader at Instapundit adds "I seem to recall a president who told us that our electric bills would necessarily rise. This is just another consequence, though I'm not sure it was unintended."

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In light of the snowfall we had last week, I have to say I wholeheartedly agree with Bogie on this one.

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Is the answer to the "problem" of income inequality really a rehash of something that has been tried before (and failed)? I think Eric the Viking has the right of it:

What can be done to reverse this, short of a modern-day techno-Luddite movement? People really seem to like their iPads.

Income inequality can't really be solved by government except by impoverishing everyone. Even Maggie Thatcher understood that and wanted no part of it.

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This is wrong on so many levels.....

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Pat Austin has a nice blog roundup for the weekend despite her Saints losing to the 49'ers yesterday.

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The American Perspective gives us a list of a number of 'firsts' achieved by the present occupant of the White House.

A few of my favorites:

First President to have a social security number from a state he's never lived in.

First President to Require All Americans to Purchase a Product From a Third Party.

First President to Spend a Trillion Dollars on 'Shovel-Ready' Jobs- and Later Admit There Was No Such Thing as Shovel-Ready Jobs.

First President to Abrogate Bankruptcy Law to Turn Over Control of Companies to His Union Supporters.

And the hits keep on coming...

(H/T Pirate's Cove)

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Apparently Tammy is craving some sugar cookies.

I think I could go for a few of those as well!

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Steven Hayward makes the case for the need for a new "Laffer Curve". The existing Laffer Curve shows the relationship between tax rates and tax revenues in the form of a non-linear parabola. While many (primarily on the Left) have criticized it, it is an accurate representation of that relationship.

What Hayward wants is a Laffer Curve that shows the effects of government regulation.

Here's where we need the regulatory equivalent of the Laffer Curve. Take the Keystone pipeline as an example. The pipeline is likely to be approved eventually, but only after more years of review and litigation. Certainly measures will need to be taken to reduce the environmental risks of the pipeline, but is there any safety measure that we will eventually impose that we didn't recognize in the first six months of the review process? It's not like we've never built a pipeline before, or learned from previous pipeline accidents (like the one in Montana last summer). Are there really any potential environmental impacts of deepening a harbor in South Carolina by five feet that require six to ten years of review and litigation, and a three-thousand page Environmental Impact Statement?

Clearly the review process we have now is largely deadweight loss, just as high marginal tax rates discouraged capital formation, investment, and productivity improvements in the high-inflation 1970s. We can arguably afford the extravagance of regulatory suffocation when the economy is booming at 4 percent growth a year or better (as in the late 1990s) and unemployment is 5 percent. We cannot afford it under the current stagnant circumstances. A Laffer Curve for regulation will explore just how much economic growth and how many jobs were are sacrificing for this artificial punctiliousness.

I think a lot of the problem can be laid at the feet of the BANANA environmentalists. (BANANA = Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything.) They want zero risks and want project proposals to estimate the effects of those projects up to 100 years in the future. That 'need' is an automatic loser because no one is capable of making those kind of projections.

How many needed projects will die or have died due to bureaucratic red tape foisted upon project developers for no legitimate reason other than someone somewhere didn't like it?

As the saying goes, Read The Whole Thing.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the cold weather has finally arrived, the ice in the lake is starting to form, and where keeping warm is going to be costly.

It's been a quiet weekend here at The Manse, with the most exciting thing being the kickoff for the annual FIRST robotics competition. BeezleBub is participating again this year, and he and some of his teammates made the trip down to Manchester to attend the kickoff activities. About the only other excitement was the trip Deb and I took to Center Harbor yesterday to do some yarn shopping. (Yes, I did enjoy the trip. The place we stopped was amazing. I learned more about yarn than I ever thought possible.)

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The big GOP debate before the New Hampshire primary took place last night at St. Anselm College in Manchester.

The top three performers last night in my opinion: Romney, Paul, and Gingrich, with Romney and Paul edging out Gingrich.

The losers: Santorum, Huntsman, and Perry. These three needed to do well last night and as far as I can see, they fell short. I expect at least two of them to drop out after Tuesday's primary.

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I have to agree with Steve MacDonald on this one.

As he writes:

You are more than welcome to visit us on weekends. We'd love to have you stop buy, spend a few bucks, and enjoy what we have to offer. But if you were thinking about turning New Hampshire into another progressive wasteland, no thanks. We're all set. We'd rather you didn't.

So that is what we mean when we say, "Welcome to New Hampshire. Now Go Home." The water is fine, and everyone is invited for a swim, but if you have come to pee in the pool, we are going to have to ask you to leave.

Over the past 30-plus years I've seen people move here from away and enjoy the low taxes and lack of government bureaucracy. But then they start asking for the same things they had 'back where they came from.' When they found out they would have to pay for them directly through their property taxes, they rebelled. Where did they think the money to pay for all that stuff was going to come from? If they expected the the state to pay for it, they found out it wasn't going to happen. (There were a few close calls when the Democrats held majorities in both the New Hampshire House and Senate, but common sense finally reasserted itself and the voters kicked out the tax-and-spenders lock, stock, and barrel.)

We'd love to have you come visit. But leave your nanny-statism back home. We neither need it or want it.

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Bogie tells us about a break-in at her place of employment. From what she describes, it had to be an inside job.

And they did something odd, which points to it possibly being an inside job; they broke into the IT guys desk, which had been locked. The IT guy had just moved over to that building the previous Friday. The IT guy had no sign pointing to which was his desk (and no, he doesn't have an office), so it is rather odd that someone would pick his desk at random to break into. They didn't try to break into any of the other locked desks.

I think that certainly narrows down the list of suspects. It goes to show you, criminals really aren't all that smart. That's why so many of them get caught.

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As I wrote earlier this past week, gas prices have taken a big jump recently. The prices have gotten higher since then. Yesterday I filled Deb's car and paid $3.329, up an additional 3¢, giving a total increase of 25¢ per gallon since just before Christmas.

I still believe it's the end of the ethanol subsidies driving the price. I wonder how long it will be before Brazilian ethanol starts making inroads into the fuel supply chain? Considering it costs a lot less than our corn-derived ethanol, it probably won't take long. But the question begs, how will it affect gas prices. If the past is any indicator, fuel prices will go down very slowly, if at all.

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Is the Green movement dead? If Amanda Carey is right, it's breathing its last gasps.

While the original intent of the environmental movement was good, it has devolved into a purely political operation that has little to do with environmental issues. These days it's more about control of the populace through environmental 'protections' rather than the environment itself. Many of the proposed protective measures will waste hundreds of billions of dollars yet add little actual benefit to the environment. (Many of these proposed measures deal with issues that have already reached or passed the point of diminishing returns, meaning spending more money will have little if any impact on anything but your wallet.)

(H/T Maggie's Farm)

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Both Bogie and I agree: George Foreman Grills are awesome. Right now Amazon has them for 40% off.

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Obama as Pharaoh. "So let it be written. So let it be done."

Heh, indeed.

(H/T Instapundit)

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Scary Yankee Chick laments the lack of real winter weather. Not me.

Though I am a hardy Yankee through and through, I am not missing the traditional northern New England winter weather. Not one bit. While it is true that we scrambled to get the new Official Weekend Pundit Snowblower into the garage this fall, we've had occasion to use it only twice - once at the end of October and again just before Thanksgiving. Since then it's been sitting in the garage unused. The fact that I haven't had to go out at O'dark thirty in the morning to clear our rather treacherous driveway doesn't upset me one bit. I also haven't had to do much in the way of sanding the driveway either, something else that is not upsetting to me in any way.

While there has been a few brief blasts of frigid temps, with only one night getting below zero, I'm not missing them. With the warmer than normal temps I haven't had to stoke the Official Weekend Pundit Woodstove nearly as often, meaning the supply of cordwood will last just that much longer and will let us get by on just three cords rather than the more normal four cords for the heating season. That's $250 that stays in our bank account, thank you very much.

There is a downside to this, I admit, that being the ice is not forming on Lake Winnipesaukee as it usually does. During yesterday's trek up to Center Harbor I was able to look at many of the bays and inlets to the lake. For the most part all I saw was open water. There were a few rafts of ice in one or two of the bays (Paugus Bay had a few sheets of ice at its northern end and Meredith Bay had a little ice along the shore of Hesky Park). What happens if the ice doesn't form? The annual Rotary Ice Fishing Derby may be postponed, if not canceled. No ice means no ice fishing.

Before someone goes off on how this mild winter (so far) is obviously a sign of global warming, let me remind you that last winter was bitterly cold, with a lot of snow and ice. This is merely a mild winter (as predicted by the Old Farmer's Almanac), something that has happened numerous times since people have been living in this portion of North America. It's weather, not climate.

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One little leftover from our Christmas decorations that will be remaining for the time being: a candle in the window.

While Deb, BeezleBub, and I were taking down the Christmas tree and other decorations last weekend, the subject of the WP Niece came up. (She's presently deployed in Afghanistan.) We decided we would leave one of the candles that usually grace the windows of The Manse during Christmas in place for her. It burns 24 hours a day and will remain there until she is safely home.

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The Lonely Conservative tackles the spin the White House has applied to the 'recess' appointments to the NLRB. As he says, the White House's claim they were necessary due to obstruction by Senate Republicans is a blatant lie.

There wasn't even enough time to conduct routine background checks on the individuals. But I'm sure the media will continue to give Obama a pass as they tout his "We Can't Wait" power grab.

"So let it be written. So let it be done."

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the temps are above normal, the ice is below normal, and we're not minding it at all.