Family Reunion Weekend

Right at peak leaf season all three children came up to visit. House was full, both of people and computers. More computers than people actually. One laptop had suffered a close encounter with a lemonade and had succumbed to terminal stickiness. A simply disassembly followed by a wash in the kitchen sink revived that one. Then we threw a combined birthday party for my mother (91) and Christopher (28) Baked a cake, dug out the fine china. Had ten people for dinner, something of strain on the chair supply, but we borrowed a couple and made out.
Monday I drove two out of three children down to catch buses to Brooklyn and planes to DC. Gorgeous day, sunny, bright leaves everywhere.
Approaching the state liquor stores southbound on 93 we run into traffic. At the toll booth they tell 93 is closed southbound and everyone is detoured down old four lane 293 right thru the center of Manchester. We nearly miss the plane.
Turned on the radio to find out what was going on. NHPR didn't know anything that we didn't already know. Little things like why the road had to be closed, and how bad the traffic back up was. It eventually had traffic backed up to Tilton, some 50 miles north of the road closure.
Today it's snowing. Two to four inches forecast. Bye Bye fall, hello winter. Global warming strikes again.

So what does the CBO really mean?

Like how much the health care package is going to cost. I heard a ten year cost of $830 billion or so over ten years. That's a little less than a trillion, but not all that much less. But now it is "deficit neutral" what ever that means. How did that happen? And how realistic are the CBO numbers? Do they require impossible acts of Congress to work?
And over what period of time? I heard the Healthcare bill even if passed doesn't start paying off until 2012 where as the extra taxes/fees/whateveryoucallem kick in next week. Do we get four years of higher costs before we see any benefits?

Obama Wins the Nobel Prize.

Wow. I thought one had to actually accomplish something to become eligible. What does he have to look forward to now?
On the other hand, the Nobel committee probably thought Obama was as deserving as Jimmy Carter was.

Republicans running for Paul Hode's House Seat

Paul Hodes, my democratic US house rep, is not standing for re election, he is running for US Senate. That leaves his House seat open. This morning's radio informs me that Jennifer Horn is going to run for the seat. Jennifer is a very nice person, she ran for Congress in '08 and lost. Her TV speaking is weak. Her platform last time was confused.
And, Charlie Bass is making noises like he will run. The seat in question was Charlie's until Hodes beat him in '06. Charlie is a good old boy, pleasant, good man with a smooth, if somewhat empty, line of talk. He didn't do much except vote a straight party line when he was in Congress. He got slack on the matter of answering his constituents mail, something that Hodes is very conscientious about.
Somehow I wish my party could come up with better candidates.

How to win in Afghanistan

Simple. Take Mao Tsetung's famous phrase, guerrillas are fish that swim in a sea. The sea being the civilian population. Plenty of Afghans know who is Taliban and who is Al Queda. All they have to do is drop a dime, call the Americans or the Afghan police and that bad guy becomes a "detainee" in about 45 minutes. If enough Afghans did this, Taliban and Al Quada would be toast. This can happen. Ask the Iraqis.
Why doesn't this happen in Afghanistan. Fear. Anyone who rats on the terrorists gets killed, and his whole family gets killed too. The terrorists don't do Miranda warnings, they just pull the trigger. The Afghans know this. And, the bad guys will be there forever, whereas the Americans are fickle as the weather, here today, exit planned tomorrow. Any Afghan who risks his life, and the life of his family, by passing intelligence to the Americans might get hung out to dry tomorrow. They all know about the American bug out after Charlie Wilson's war.
The Obama administration's dithering over Gen McChrystal's request for more troops is hurting our cause. The longer the dithering goes on in the public press and on Fox News, the more the Afghans get the idea that the Americans are going to pull out, real soon now. Obama needs to do something and do it now. Longer he dithers, the more Afghans get the idea that the Americans are not serious.

You can't pay for health care by taxing healthcare

Some brain dead Congress critters think this will work.
Anyone with half a brain cell understands that taxing healthcare runs the price up, requiring more healthcare funding to pay for it. Raise a billion dollars by taxing health care and health insurance has to cough up another billion dollars to pay the tax. It's a circular firing squad.

Lousy sound work

New movies have terrible sound. They play the score over the dialog so you can't hear what the actors are saying. The score should ALWAYS be muted when the actors are speaking. Same goes for sound effects, the "Foleys" (footsteps, doors slamming, traffic noise etc).
Then the actors have to stop mumbling. Even when whispering in a lovers ear, the actors have to enunciate clearly and remember that they are speaking to the audience.
The old classic movies understood this and their soundtracks are clear as a bell, even when the movie is fifty years old or more. The new movies are just plain hard to hear.