I93 widening finish in 2020???

I93, the stretch from Manchester down to the MA line, was built, back in the 70s as a four lane divided highway.  Over the years it has become the Number 1 commuter road to Boston.  With horrible traffic from Manchester to the MA line.  MA built their section of I93 six lanes and eight lanes.   Everyone noticed that the traffic jam broke up after crossing the MA border.  
   Better than five years ago NH started to widen I93 out to six lanes.  They still haven't finished it.  Channel 9 (WMUR) had the NH commissioner of transportation, Victoria Sheehan on TV this morning.  She opined that I93 might be finished by 2020.  FOUR YEARS from NOW.  Arghhh!

Tucker Carlson's 7PM news show

It's Fox, natch.  Tucker now has the hour after Brett Bair's news hour.  Tucker is pretty good.  First week or so he had a number of liberal guests on, who he proceeded to disembowel right in front of the cameras.  Fun to watch.  But the amount of blood spilled has scared off the game.  At this point, nobody who is even a little bit left of center, and has two brain cells still functioning, is going to be on Tucker's show.  Nobody wants to be red meat, eaten raw, on national TV. 

Risk vs Regulation

The objective is (or ought to be) preventing banks (and their ilk like brokerage houses) from losing wads of money and kicking off Great Depression 3.0.  The way a bank looses money is to make bad loans that default and don't pay off. 
    Democrats think you prevent this by setting up federal bureaucrats to watch the banks, check their books, and meddle in their deal making.  Hence the Sarbanes Oxley law and the Dodd Frank law.   Many think the terrible economy during the Obama adminstration was caused by these two laws. 
   I think you prevent undue risk taking by banks by insuring that the bankers who lead their banks into disaster should be made to smart for it.  First we make very very clear that Uncle Sam will never ever bailout any failing bank.  If we have any bank "too big to fail"  it's time for anti trust action to break that bank up into smaller parts.   Bankers need to know that if they screw up, they are out of business, right then and there.  Bank officers loose their pensions, and deferred compensation, and their company health insurance. FDIC can pay off the depositors, but bank investors, officers, employees, and stock holders loose everything.  Which ought to produce some pressure on the suits to avoid stupid plays, like Greek loans.  Or mortgage backed securities, or credit default swaps.  And we encourage every blood sucking lawyer in the land to sue the management of failed banks for gross negligence.  

Vintage Cary Grant and Sophia Loren Romantic Comedies

Just finished watching two of them.  Houseboat, where Washington lawyer and widower, with three small cute children, meets up with Sophia Loren, who first charms the children, and then wins Cary Grant's heart.  With a few amusing mishaps, like when moving a house, they get it stuck in a grade crossing, and then a diesel powered express train roars thru, blowing the house to splinters.  Which results in the family moving into a beat up house boat on the Potomac. 
   Then there is The Pride and the Passion, a movie set in Napoleonic war Spain.  Spanish guerrillas come into possession of an absolutely humongous cannon.  They set about dragging the mountain of metal clear across Spain to the siege of some-where-or-other.  Sophia Loren is the BFF of the guerrilla leader  (Frank Sinatra).  Cary Grant is the English naval officer who is the only man with the guerrilla army who actually knows how to work the gun. 
   Heartwarming movies the likes of which they don't make anymore.  Houseboat is the better of the two, Sophia Loren gets a better role.

New Buzzword, WWC

Stands for "White Working Class"  They started using it late in this election.  Prior to this election I had not heard it anywhere.  Strange.  Back when I was growing up, every kid's father  worked, at the Dennison plant, at the GM assembly plant, at the Roxbury carpet company, at truck farming, at auto repair.  None of them had a college degree.   No blacks lived in  Framingham MA in those days.  I went to public school and I don't remember a single black kid in any of my classes. I didn't meet any blacks until I joined the Air Force.   So,  back then, everyone in town was white, and worked and so the white working class was everybody. 
   The other thing I don't like about the buzzword is the "working class" part of it.  Has an unpleasant Marxist sound to it.  Or is it an attempt to revive the idea of Communist class war? 

Words of the Weasel Part 49

Bipartisan  (n) or bipartisanship (adj).   Noun or adjective.   Generally perceived as a "good thing"  or at least the pol using the word hopes that is what the voters perceive.  At it's strongest, bipartisan is a code word meaning vote for my bill.  A weaker form of the word means I will talk compromise with my political opponents rather that just yelling at them.  
   If a pol has nothing better to offer than bipartisanship,  you ought to vote for the other guy.

Secretary of State

I hope who ever Trump picks can manage the State Dept, a goofy bureaucracy stuffed full of democrats, know-it-alls, and peaceniks.  They all have snivel service protection against firing.  Many of them are scattered all over the world where it is harder to keep track of, and ride herd on them.   Flinty old John Bolton might be able to handle them, but  I'm doubtful of Romney, Guiliani, and Corker.  Petraeius might be tough enough.
  As it is, a lot of 'em are getting ready make leaks embarrassing to the incoming Trump administration,  and the MSM are sitting up, wagging heir tails,  and begging for some dirt to print.
   Although the secretary of state cannot fire them, he could announce a policy of unaccompanied overseas tours in unpleasant places for State Dept leakers.