Obama Comes to NH

A friend called up the other day and talked me into going down to Nashua to see the show. So, yesterday morning we loaded Tea Party signs, American flags, heavy sweaters, gloves, hats, a picnic lunch, thermos of hot coffee, another one of hot tea, and a point&shoot camera into the Caddy and roared off down I93 for Nashua. Following email directions we found an easy parking spot, even though Nashua had plastered Broad St with temporary no parking signs.
It was below freezing, but SmartWool socks inside good lace up boots, good gloves and ski parka's kept us warm enough. The affair was held at the Nashua North High School even though school was in session. Long line of people with tickets formed up to wait for the doors to open. Five heavy duty TV trucks with satellite dishes raised. We got interviewed and photographed by the Boston Globe, the New York Times, the Lawrence Eagle, The Boston Herald, CNN, and a couple of very nice young students.
About 1 PM the Nashua cops chivvied us back from the front door of the school and back out the the rotary on Broad St. By this time we had a modest crowd of a few hundred demonstrators with signs and such. The cops then amused themselves by herding the demonstrators around and around the rotary. By 2:15 the cops had all the streets blocked off and the Obama caravan swept thru. Long line of cop cars, vans, the White House black stretch SUV, and an ambulance swept thru the rotary and off the the school auditorium. Must have been 75 people or more in the whole shebang. Seems like a lotta pencil pushers for just another "support your local rep" campaign stop. We heard that the White House had overbooked the event and the ticker holders at the end of the line didn't get in, and got sore about that.
Then we went to a Republican town hall in the nearby by CourtYard Marriot. They threw three ball rooms together into one vast hall, which was packed. I saw Kelly Ayotte, Jack Kimball, Jennifer Horne, Karen Testerman, and Ovide Lamontaigne. After a number of warm up speakers we got down to the main event Stephan Moore of the Wall St Journal. Steve was good, he had the audience on their feet and cheering. Lotta good Republican spirit was raised.
We got home too late to catch anything on TV.

Lets save some money

There are multi billions of dollars left in the $750 billion TARP bailout fund. We ought to apply all that money to deficit reduction. There is maybe $500 billion unspent in the $787 billion Porkulus appropriation. Since a. Porkulus didn't work, or b. Porkulus spending got GNP growth up to boom time 5.7%, (take your pick), lets cancel the rest of the Porkulus spending to reduce the deficit. If we did these two things, we could cut this year's budget deficit down from $1.8 trillion to a "mere" $1 trillion. Put $500 billion of unspent Porkulus together with $300 billion left in TARP and that's a significant bite out of this year's horrifying deficit.

Citizens Against Government Waste

This bit of political (junk?) mail showed up the other day. Since it bore John McCain's name on the envelope, I opened it. The letter was full of indignation about wasting money, but, when you read it thru, there wasn't all that much money involved. There was a list of six questionable programs, but all put together it only came to $42 million, which is peanuts out of a $500 billion defense budget. Less than the cost of single military aircraft. Nothing's perfect, and if we are only wasting .00084% of the defense budget, the republic is well served.
Then there was a rubarb about purchasing 262 more C-130 transport aircraft than the Pentagon had requested. Maybe, but the old C-130 is one helova useful aircraft, capable of getting tons of troops and material into short dirt runways anywhere in the world. C-130's are essential in any kind of war, guerrilla war, full scale first world war, insurgency, Haitian relief, inserting special forces behind enemy lines, you name it and C-130's will do. It's as general purpose as pickup truck or a jeep. So I don't get upset about buying another 262 C-130's, I see it as money well spent on a versatile and reliable workhorse.
I dare say there is a good deal of waste fraud and abuse in the defense budget. I don't think Citizens Against Government Waste has found enough of it to get excited about. They need to look harder.

Is Bipartisanship a sellout?

Bipartisanship, a word beloved of today's democrats. When uttered, it means they want Republicans to vote for Obamacare, Cap & Tax, union card check, Porkulus, earmarks, and plump budgets. Republican support for any of these odious bills would give the Democrats enough votes to pass them, and prevent Republicans for using the bills as campaign issues in the 2010 election. Said election is already gathering steam.
So far, the Republicans have been pretty good at holding the line. The total lack of Republican votes shows the bills as questionable public policy. When all the Republicans refuse to vote for a bill it sends a message to the voting public. I think the Congressional republicans have been showing some backbone in their united opposition to awful bills.

Catcher in the Rye

The death of the author, J.D. Salinger, brought the book back to mind. I first read it in high school, on my own time, 'cause of the buzz it was getting. The book was new then. Like Holden Caulfield, I was attending boarding school, in fact a boarding school within 75 miles of Holden's fictional school. I could relate to Holden's desire to go to New York, to get served, and then get laid.

Unlike truly well written books, Catcher required real effort to keep reading. About three quarters of the way thru, where Holden starts obsessing about hairs in his roommate's razor, I decided Holden was a nut case and I was wasting my time reading about him. Forty odd years later, my son is required to read Catcher for school. So I borrowed his copy and read it thru, so I could discuss it with some authority.
On the second reading, I was struck by how Holden goes around with a kick-me sign on his back and then wonders why he isn't very popular at school. Early on Holden manages to loose the fencing teams equipment on the way to a match. It never occurs to him that his team mates are going think he is a jerk for that play. He takes advantage of his younger sister who adores him and lacks the courage to actually get sexual with a prostitute. With a more adult viewpoint, I could see that Holden, in addition to being a nut case, was a loser to boot. This time I got to the end and see Holden incarcerated in a booby hatch. At last, there is justice in the world I thought.
Son was unimpressed with Catcher. Teachers all love it.

5.7 % GNP growth. Do I believe it?

Yesterday the TV announced the US gross national product (GNP) had grown 5/7% in the last quarter of 2009.
Wow. Normal GNP growth is 3%, that number holds good all the way back to WWII. 5.7% is a boom.
Why does not the country feel like boom times? Could the figures be off or fudged? How can the country raise output of goods and services 5.7% with 10% of the workforce laid off? Surely it requires workers to turn out the goods.
On the other hand, if the number is real, Great Depression 2.0 is easing off. Lets hope.

Commentary on Avatar

Commentary, a conservative high brow magazine of politics and the arts, did a piece on Avatar. Not remarkable, it's only the top grossing movie of all time and thus worthy of a writeup. Stephen Hunter does the review and gets sucked into a search for the deep inner meaning of the flick. Trouble is, there is no deep inner meaning. The plot is shallow, as shallow as a Western or a Bond movie. Focusing on the light weight plot doesn't do much for his readers, most of whom have seen the movie by now. We know the plot was so light weight as to float. We enjoyed the scenery, the fighting, the flying, and exploring the lush jungle of Pandora.
A more perceptive review would have explored just what made this movie the all time best seller/top grosser despite the light weight plot, cardboard characters, and good guy bad guy role reversal.
Especially as Avatar is a "see once" movie, unlike Star Wars which racked up money from awe struck fans seeing it two, three, and four times.