Up here trees are the enemy

Damn things keep growing, spreading, reseeding, putting up shoots, dropping leaves on the grass.  Around the edge of my lawn,  the brush and the saplings try to move in on the grass.  Shade it, bury it in dead leaves,  emit hostile pheromones.  The trees were staking a claim to 4-5 feet into the lawn.
   Can't have that, they will be tearing down the house next.
   Hedge clippers, very good against the pricker bushes, the saplings, the low hanging branches.  And lopping shears for the stuff too thick for the hedge clippers.  And a rake, a metal leaf rake.  I used to use a big bamboo rake but it isn't strong enough to tangle with the brush.  Any how,  I pushed the woods back a good 5 feet.  Long live the grass.
   Gotta wait for the grass to green up this year.  At least I got it all raked and looking better before the trees leafed.    

Meet and Greet Jim Rubins, running for US Senate

I'm doing a meet and greet at my place for Jim Rubins next Thursday 8 May 6 PM.  Jim is a Republican running for US Senator for New Hampshire.  My place is up at the top of Franconia Notch.
22 Ridge Cut Road
Mittersill
Franconia, NH 03580

The Mittersill driveway is a couple of hundred yards down the road from the Peabody Slopes parking lot at Cannon.  You can get off I93 at the Peabody Slopes/Echo Lake/ State Rt 18 exit.  It's one exit north of the Cannon Mt Tramway exit.

Obama fired general officers on the night of Benghazi

With the new Ben Rhodes email the Benghazi story is coming back to life.  As was obvious at the time, Obama spun the story, from a terrorist attack to a political demonstration.  The consulate held out under attack for seven hours that night.  Plenty of time to send reinforcements.  Commanders on the scene, General Carter Ham, and Admiral Charles M Gaouette were fired by Obama that night.  No explanation has ever been given.  Rumor has it that Obama fired them when they refused to recall rescue missions en route to Benghazi. 
   I noticed that while Bret Baier was roasting Tommy Vietor medium rare last night, he didn't ask about the firings of general officers with distinguished service records. 
   Put this together with retired Air Force general Robert Lovell, who testified before Congress that "We should have gone in."
  I think the real untold story of Benghazi is that the armed forces  attempted rescue missions but Obama ordered them to stop and return to base.  I think Obama sacrificed four brave Americans to prevent an incident that would have made him look bad, and demanded some serious US intervention in Libya, which he did not want to cope with. 

Microsoft does one more XP patch.

Despite months of XP whines about Microsoft cutting off upgrades and patches, a new "zero day exploit" (hole in Windows just discovered today) is so bad that M$ cranked out a patch for it.  Actually the hole seems to be in Internet Exploder Version 8, rather than in Windows proper, not that it mkes much difference to us users.  We don't care where the bug lives, we just want it squashed.  Anyhow, if you fire up Windows Update, and wait, the Exploder patch will download and install.

Sexual Orientation

We have a push to amend the New Hampshire constitution to guarantee equality (or something) for "sexual orientation".  Not sure just what sexual orientation means.  Is it a new word for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered?  Actually I, and everyone else, assumes that anti discrimination laws already on the books covers them.  Or is it a term that just covers boys who want to be girls and girls who want to be boys?  And what equality does it offer?  I can understand requiring equality in things like college admissions, apartment rental, hiring.  But what about more intimate jobs such as live in house keeper, day care provider, or nanny?
Apparently the NH senate has passed the amendment (dubbed CACR 17) and it's now over at the House. 
   I'm dubious about the value of this one. 

Citizen's ID cards

They used to be a characteristic feature of police states.  Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, North Korea, Red China, the Soviet Union, all issued ID cards, and woe betide the citizen who failed to produce his ID when stopped by the police.  In America we have always taken pride in an open society,  we don't have citizen's ID cards.  When social security cards first came out they were marked "Not for Identification Purposes" just to emphasize that they were for social security benefits only.
   Well that's faded out.  Driver's licenses now have color photos.  You better have yours on you should you get stopped on the road.  You need to show ID to board an aircraft. You have to show ID to get a job.  And now, we are moving toward demanding ID in order to vote.  The democrats are pushing back against this, claiming that many citizens lack photo ID.  This I doubt, everyone has a driver's license.  The majority feels voter ID is a good idea to prevent voter fraud.  Which it probably is.
   But, I kinda like the old ways, when we didn't have to show our papers all the time.  When we put in voter ID we are telling citizens, get ID if you want to vote.   It's a step toward a police state.     

Down with Toll Roads

After 60 years of a no-toll-road federal policy, the Obama administration is backsliding.  They have been making noises that would allow states to put up toll booths on the interstate highways.  Obviously the attraction of squeezing more money out of the people overcame the very sensible principle of freeways rather than toll roads. 
   Travel means business, sales, and money.  It's good public policy to encourage travel and shipping.  Tourists bring money, and spend it, all along the way and at their destination.  Trucks bring every sort of good, which gets sold, for money.  The more goods shipped the more money everyone makes.  It was federal policy that freeways paid for themselves thru the increased business and economic activity.  Discouraging travel and shipping thru road tolls costs us more in lost business than it returns in tolls.
  Despite crying and wailing from the road contractors, US roads are in good shape, much better shape than say Canada.  I drove around the Gaspe peninsula in Quebec once.  It was a major road, a two lane provincial highway along the St Lawrence River.  Only it had washed away to the point that only one lane was left.  You don't see that in the US.  Except for some really beat up roads around New York City,  American roads are better than anywhere in Europe.  We do not have an "infrastructure crisis" except in the minds of state highway departments and road contractors.  Which has been used as an excuse to call for more money for "infrastructure".  Road tolls might provide this extra revenue.  So says the highway lobby.
  I say we ought to stick to the freeways rather than toll roads policy.