Even better, we did the HVAC and plumbing walk-throughs. Very exciting.
Saturday, June 27, 2015
Sunday, June 14, 2015
Tissue paper GAF Tiger Paw polypropylene roof underlayment rather than good old tar paper felt. Very scary for an old timer.
I would mean seeing a little more roof from the guest bedroom. We have to choose by Tuesday. Also decide exterior trim materials.
Next week windows maybe.
New hip roof design over the porch to replace the planned shed roof.
I would mean seeing a little more roof from the guest bedroom. We have to choose by Tuesday. Also decide exterior trim materials.
Next week windows maybe.
Monday, June 8, 2015
Wednesday, May 27, 2015
Tuesday, May 19, 2015
Monday, May 11, 2015
Thursday, April 30, 2015
Thursday, March 26, 2015
Summer Lake [aka Echo Lake Two]
And so it begins …
The Lot [Nov 2014]
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After Bush Hogging [Dec 2014]
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After Clearing [26 Mar 2015]
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Next week foundations, barring
too much rain.
Sunday, August 24, 2014
Important Ideas
I’ve been struggling through Liberalism: The Life of an Idea by Edmund Fawcett; it traces liberalism from its 18th
century roots to today. It reminds me
about the county’s roots and my own. We
hear it often that America is a center-right nation but whatever truth there
may be in that notion, America was founded by liberals. Liberals, mind you, that have very little to
do with the “liberals” of modern Europe and less to do with today’s American
progressives.
America is beset by the most
illiberal political parties in our history.
The parties are supported by propaganda machines that not only invent
their own facts but operate with no ridicule from the nation’s press and less criticism
than any time since I started reading the papers.
You may find this small
collection of columns eclectic but they fit my perception of the loss of
leadership, common sense and accountability in America generally which has distilled
into government with each ascending level worse than the preceding. Populism reigns with all that human nature
brings – government by Facebook.
From
Gaza to Ukraine, the Effects of World War I Persist
Jon
Meacham
Time
Magazine - July 24, 2014
From
Cupcakes to the Police, Fed Up With Government
George
F. Will
Washington
Post - August 20
How
the Carolinas Fixed Their Blurred Lines
By Stephen
R. Kelly
NYT
- AUG. 23, 2014
Personally I’m not one to despair. The solution to our sad state is readily
available. Soon we will return to our
roots and drive the progressives, Bible-thumpers and libertarians back to the
fringes where they belong. We have to
stop taking sides with the propagandists;
get the facts straight;
prioritize; do important things.
Key tools will surely include
reducing the power of the two parties. We
need open primaries; we need to take
districting away from legislatures. But
most important, we need to vote – and vote where it counts: in the primaries. Belatedly I’ve come to realize that voting is
not a privilege, as I was taught, it’s a duty.
The uninformed and misinformed have no chance for responsible action.
Friday, January 17, 2014
The Inequality Problem
Income inequality will likely
be a major issue in this coming election;
it’s the only place for Democrats to run given Obamacare and our public
inability to deal with real issues. We’re
told this class war crap will last until the 2016 election but I have my
doubts.
Every so often the
cockroaches of progressivism find their way out of the woodwork for a while to
ply their populist trade; thus their
appearance in the awful 111th Congress and the predictable
consequences. And also thus the
inevitable backlash from ordinary Americans and the predictable rise of the delusional
Tea Party roaches. Roaches run from
light so it behooves sensible Democrats, conservatives, Republicans, liberals
and centrists to get politicians back to governing. It would be nice if we had a press that would
go back to hating all politicians rather than taking sides. News people should do more fact checking and
less advocacy.
Anyway, here’s a particularly
eloquent column on the subject of the serious problem of growing inequality.
The
Inequality Problem
David
Brooks, NYT
Jan.
16, 2014
It’s time to drop the
ideology and look for leadership. Vote
in the Primaries folks.
Monday, November 4, 2013
Thomas Jefferson: Hero of Democrats Beloved by Republicans?
For almost two hundred years,
Democrats have celebrated Jefferson.
This began in the ‘30s when FDR adopted him as the symbol of his
administration. At a 1962 White House gathering
of 49 Nobel Prize recipients, President Kennedy noted that “never before had
such talent been assembled in one room, except, perhaps, when Thomas Jefferson
dined alone.”
Our political propagandists from
all sides have traditionally invoked the Founders as often as possible. And why not;
is there utterance from any more current President, Cabinet Secretary or
political observer that might compare? I
think not; aside from Lincoln, of
course.
The problem with what passes
as factual reporting today, is that there is no appetite – or perhaps resource –
for doing anything other than passing on the factually impaired statements of
our legislators and Presidents and their staff. Also offered are
endless uttterings from anybody on the internet so long as such might agree with
the biases of that particular “news” purveyor. Newspapers in my time once hated all
politicians and ridiculed their lies, half lies and cherry picking; no more.
“Think Tanks”, originally established to get the facts straight in order
to support good governance, are now too often just propaganda factories – and there
are so many, it is beyond the average individual to know which few might be
trusted.
I’m a big believer in
American Exceptionalism so I love to see the Founders and Federalist Papers invoked. But for the propagandists, invoking the
Founders has become problematic. First
of all we don’t seem to teach either American history or civics anymore so the
unwashed masses don’t know who these people are.
One of my Grandsons informed me that the Constitution is
out of date. I asked for the name of his
high school civics teacher so I could find him and beat the snot out of him.
By the way, American Exceptionalism has nothing to do
with Americans somehow being better than somebody else. This is a fact, even though the President and
former Constitutional Law teacher has told the world otherwise. Presidents should have better advisors or
stop straying from the teleprompter.
American Exceptionalism is about our singular system
of democracy and its elevation of individual liberty over the tyranny of the
majority.
Look it up.
Anyway besides general
ignorance, the propagandists find it awkward to be quoting the same guy as the
enemy. Cherry picking is the answer to
that of course, at least until your guy’s quotes are better for the other side.
Thus we can return to
Jefferson who is now widely quoted by the right. The rising Republican force used to be the
Bible-thumpers for whom Jefferson’s Deism was a problem. But now we have the Libertarians rising and
much of Jefferson feels contemporary.
Consider these quotes:
· When we get piled
upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe.
· The democracy
will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and
give to those who would not.
· It is incumbent
on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted
on would save one-half the wars of the world.
· I predict future
happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the
labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.
· My reading of
history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.
· No free man shall
ever be debarred the use of arms.
· The strongest
reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last
resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.
· The tree of
liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and
tyrants.
· To compel a man
to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and
abhors is sinful and tyrannical.
· I believe banking
establishments are more dangerous than standing armies; and that the principle of spending money to be
paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a
large scale.
[Note: I have
removed the quotation marks from these statements because while most are
confirmed accurate, many are also paraphrased.
A few are disputed. However in my
considered opinion, all of these statements accurately represent not only Jefferson’s
views but also a reasonable paraphrase of what he wrote. The links for all of this are listed below so
that everyone can decide for themselves.]
Cherry picked or not, these
thoughts – selected by Cal Thomas, I think – feel timely and they will be
uncomfortable for today’s progressives. We’ll
have to see if Jefferson remains respected by the activists or if he’s
summarily dumped along with the other contemporary human centrist detritus.
Sunday, August 25, 2013
Obama Exacerbates Race Tensions
This column states exactly
what my wife and I have been saying to one another about both race and
the President’s contributions since Trayvon.
Obama’s
Race Remarks Exacerbate Tensions
By
Kathleen Parker, Published: August 23,
Washington Post
Parker leaves out the
President’s statement from the White House that while he didn’t know all the facts
it was clear that the Cambridge police acted stupidly with his friend Gates. That time too he went on to explain how
racism continues in the country as evidenced by the actions of police and
little old ladies.
Parker also left out
candidate Obama’s defense of the awful Reverend Wright during which he threw
his grandmother under the bus. It's ok to cringe at the awful things Gates says because his gramma used to says things that made him cringe too. Please.
The racism grievance factory
is of course mostly aimed at gaining political advantage. And those folks are anxious
to replace the now disgraced Al Sharpton/Jesse Jackson school of political gain
by guilt and extortion. The bigger
problem is that too much of the farther left – the progressives – cling to the
notion that the black underclass are victims;
they believe this stuff. We can’t
have otherwise intelligent citizens drinking this kool-aide and expect to make
progress.
Genesis for this school of
thought goes as follows. After the civil war, slaves were free but their survival
depended upon working for wages for former slave owners in the south. They were not really free and were very poor. The result for some or maybe many ex-slaves
was segregated communities of black workers – and non-workers – who lived
without marriage and with no respect for the law. Black on black crime was often forgiven
because white farm owners would demand that the sheriff ignore the crime – the
worker could not be spared or replaced.
All this generated the culture we see today in underclass black
communities. Thus today’s circumstances
are a legacy of racism and the responsibility of the greater community and not
the responsibility of the “victims” living in poverty in black neighborhoods.
Even if you buy the argument
that slavery and Jim Crow ruined people;
that they had no choice back then but to ignore marriage, family,
morality and law; exactly when do people
become responsible for themselves? We
all know folks who live unhappy or semi-addicted lives who blame their parents
or their experiences and we know that at some point their condition is solely a
result of choices they themselves make. We have no
problem understanding that we can’t solve the problems those folks face. The same is true for those caught in a
culture of poverty; at some point, lack
of personal responsibility is the problem and people have to help themselves. Our “help” must be aimed at education and
opportunity, not handouts.
In my view, support programs
that involve only wealth transfer, simply make the problems worse. Ditto for rebranding personal responsibility as
blaming the victim. If we are to solve
these problems, we’ll at least need to base policy making on facts and plain
language. And we all should care. Nobody wants to see American neighborhoods
that look like those in Mexico, Haiti, Somalia, Palestine or wherever. What happens in one culture will soon spread
to more neighborhoods.
Our black skinned President,
raised by whites in white neighborhoods to be white, has chosen to be
black. Why would he do that if being
black is a daily hell of discrimination?
In any case, he’s not helping.
You might also appreciate Douthat’s
take:
A
Different Kind of Division
By Ross
Douthat
Published:
August 24, 2013, NYT
Sunday, July 28, 2013
The Cluster Box
Here’s an informative column,
written with a smile.
Goodbye,
Mail Carrier; Hello, Cluster Mailboxes
By
Bob Greene, CNN
Sun
July 28, 2013
Just a two questions:
1.
If the cluster-putzed
Congress won’t allow the end of Saturday delivery, how are we going to get to
cluster boxes?
2.
If all this saves
$4 billion a year and they’re losing $16 billion a year, shouldn’t we just shut
their doors now? Or maybe keep the USPS and close down Congress?
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
Stand Your Ground
Recently passed stand-your-ground
legislation is no doubt mostly motivated by the political grandstanding of
legislators. Never the less, I would stress
that we should remember these few things:
1.
The primary
mainstream objective of this type of legislation is to protect the law abiding
both from prosecution for defending their home and themselves – “failing in
their duty to retreat” – and from law suits brought by criminals after they
were injured during the commission of a crime.
These are damned worthy objectives.
2.
Many states have versions
of these laws including California and Massachusetts so it’s not really just about
the NRA crazies.
3.
And it’s not just
about guns either. If you hit a home
invader with a bat, a carjacker with a tire iron or mace a purse snatcher or
rapist – anywhere – you don’t want to be either sued or prosecuted no matter what happened to the perp.
4.
There is zero
evidence, of any kind, that stand-your-ground legislation is about blacks in
any way.
But here’s the rub as I see
it. Our legislators – mostly lawyers –
don’t seem to have the competence to write laws any more.
·
In Florida, drug
dealers are able to shoot it out in the streets and claim immunity from all
harm done, even to bystanders.
·
In South
Carolina, a man murdered a home owner during a home invasion. He admits to all of this but wants immunity
from prosecution under the state’s stand-your-ground law because he was afraid
the homeowner would kill him.
The SC
State Supreme Court says he has a right to be heard in this argument.
Wouldn’t it seem obvious to
you that there is no immunity for those committing a crime? Doesn’t it seem equally obvious that we
retain responsibility for all harm we do to bystanders? It’s fine with me for drug dealers and gang
bangers to kill each other and then go free to kill some more evil doers but if
they harm innocents, that’s at least manslaughter and innocent victims should
be able to sue them and maybe take away their gold teeth and Uzis.
Shouldn’t a legislator – let alone
a lawyer – be able to get that into the law in the first place?
I hate bringing
Martin/Zimmerman into this; it was the
South Carolina Supreme Court that got me to the keyboard. But given the heat of the moment, it seems
impossible for me to write this and avoid that case. Consider this:
·
If your daughter
maces an attacker, with no witnesses or cameras around, and the guys dies of an
asthma attack or allergic reaction, what process and penalty do you want to
apply to her? Make it your son, who is
white, and make the dead guy black. Same
question.
·
We don’t know
what exactly went down with Martin/Zimmerman but a jury has decided and some
people would be very upset if Zimmerman was now headed to 30 years for manslaughter. Innocent until proven guilty and the state
has to prove things beyond a reasonable doubt.
No witnesses means plenty of doubt and no way to convict.
·
If Zimmerman was
not armed, I doubt that anybody would be dead.
But this is America. Bad guys
have guns and there is nothing anyone can do about that. Good guys have guns too. Personally, I like the line from a favorite
movie called “Nobody’s Fool”. A judge
says that if we arm one moron, we have to arm them all. That seems right. Suck it up and focus on the things we can
change.
·
The press and the
activists made this case what it has become.
If it was just another case of black on black, nobody would take any notice. Oh yeah and in Florida, the black
neighborhood watch person would never have been prosecuted.
If you look at my
Martin/Zimmerman comments, you’ll see that the majority have nothing to do with
stand-your-ground legislation and the one that does suggests an important need
for such laws. How did we ever get to a place where self defense could be a crime or liability?
So let’s get the laws right
and move on.
Wednesday, July 3, 2013
Syria is a Serious Problem
Any conservative worth the
label should be against intervention in another nation’s troubles.
Today’s sham version of
conservatism seems to include only Bible thumpers yearning to bring democracy
and Christ to the savages at the point of an armed drone and the near-anarchist
libertarian wing nuts.
Meanwhile, traditional
American liberalism has been overrun by the pinko-commie progressives – AKA the
DDGs [delusional do-gooders] – who must forswear all combat when they undergo
the lobotomy required for ordination in the hydra-cult of progressivism.
Completing the political soup
in which the nation currently simmers is the least capable President in a
lifetime and a nearly lone advocate for Syrian intervention [John McCain] who
has almost no remaining credibility whatsoever.
If you are trying to ignore
the Iranian bomb and Assad’s Syria, good for you but I think these two
situations are as critical to the nation as any of Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan 1,
Iraq 1, Bosnia, Iraq 2, or Afghanistan 2.
There are barely two American choices in those examples that don’t seem
to be folly today. Perhaps the easiest
path regarding Syria now is resigned apathy but if you have an interest, I
offer two excellent opinion columns.
Can
Iran be stopped?
Economist,
Jun 22nd 2013
After
150 Years, the Choices Made At Gettysburg Still Reverberate
By
George F. Will, Washington Post, June
30
George Will, true
conservative, is against foreign engagements and says so often. He also points out that we are powerless to
prevent an Iranian bomb – the Economist agrees – and that the evils of
involvement in Syria cannot possibly be offset by any plausible reason for such
– the Economist disagrees. Still I
cannot help wondering whether this Will column about Gettysburg argues, by
inference, for Syrian intervention.
“Studying history serves democracy by highlighting
contingencies: Things did not need to turn out the way they did; choices matter.”
The only thing I can be sure
of in the moment is that politicizing foreign policy is as detrimental to the
nation as it can get.
Intervention in Korea created
yet another shining example of capitalism over communism but should we have
stopped before winning? On the other
hand, is America better off with the Korean
situation today than we are with the current capitalists in Vietnam? What did helping Afghanistan against the
Russians get us? Perhaps the collapse of
the Soviets? Booting the Taliban from
power was necessary and painless but everything after that in Afghanistan 2 is
a waste. Iraq 2 is obviously a disaster –
that nation hates us, is an economic and political mess and is now allied with
Iran. Of course we finally finished Iraq 1; we're out the
no-fly zone business there and Saddam is no longer paying Palestinians to
blowup Israeli children.
Russia, Iran, Hezbollah and
Syria are at war and they intend to win.
American is as unserious about that as we could ever be. Handing a military victory to Iran, Hezbollah,
Putin and Assad cannot be a good thing for America or peace or democracy. But is a better outcome from our involvement plausible? Such decisions should be made by experts
without input from the partisans, crazies and populists. The sausage-making should be conducted behind
closed doors with the conclusion explained to the nation afterward and without
dissent – think of how the Fed works.
If the conclusion is to make
war, then the Congress should declare it and support it. Bombing, drone attacks, arming rebels and
serious sanctions, let alone invasions, are all acts of war. The government should follow the Constitution
and put war making Presidents back in their box. And when we declare war, we should fight to
win and leave the political bickering for other topics until it’s over. We need the boys and girls in the
Congressional kindergarten to grow up.
If only there were some competence in the White House to lead us.
Sunday, June 23, 2013
The Worst President since Jimmy Carter
W. clearly had this title
sewed up; one hoped for generations to
come. But the ever competitive Barack
Obama looks to overtake Bush in a walk. Back
to back disasters staggering our great nation.
It is interesting to remember the hatred for the awful Bush while
watching the lack thereof for a President who perpetuates all of Bush’s
policies – while steadfastly claiming he hasn’t – and occasionally making
things even worse.
Try these two excellent columns:
Obama
Hits a Wall in Berlin
By
George F. Will, Washington Post, June
20, 2013
The
Great Disconnect
By Ross
Douthat, NYT, June 22, 2013
Nobody does sarcasm like
George Will; he’s a pleasure to
read. Between them, these two men on, separate
days, point out that that our political class out of control; dysfunctional on both sides but sadly not sufficiently
so as to at least stop making things worse.
Put down the shovel please.
There will be no work on the
big issues of our time, jobs, the economy, entitlements, the tax code and corporate
welfare. Personally, I’d like to see an
immigration bill but the excellent bill crushed by Republicans in 2007 has been
replaced by a disaster – no doubt this one will pass.
The President intends to use
his Executive Branch authority to push the climate crazy agenda despite 16
years of no warming and the fact that these moves will cost jobs.
I
have always hated the climate propaganda that claims “all scientists agree” –
they don’t – and says their critics are “science deniers” when the reverse is
the actual case. Thus I love it when
Will points out the President’s – and the true believers’ – “strange
understanding of respect for science ... forswears skepticism".
And don’t miss Douthat’s
punch line:
“Republicans
[are] … sticking with an agenda that’s even more disconnected from the
anxieties of the average voter than the White House’s second-term priorities. Their assumption seems to be that eventually
the public will simply have to turn to them.”
Turn to whom? Sarah Palin?
Michelle Bachman? Eric Canter? Don’t bet on it. In what way exactly are these jerks different
from Nancy Pelosi?
It’s past time for Congress
to try governing.
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