]]> Several Councilors asked good questions. One in particular stood out. Newly minted Councilor Esther Kennedy asked the simple, direct question as to whether the listed road constructions projects had been prioritized. It is my experience that you can tell how much you’ve gotten under someone’s skin by how much tap dancing they do when answering a simple question. Ms. Kennedy was treated to a dance performance that would have put Gene Kelly’s “Singing in the Rain” to shame. She deserved better.
With any document the size and scope of the CIP it is always easy to find little nuggets that require further thought.
One item was $25,000 to fund a feasibility study for a new police station. Oddly, this was the first that I had heard that Portsmouth was in desperate need of a new facility. Another item was $1,000,000 to be spent over the next
two years to rehabilitate the indoor pool. The pool probably needs work, but exactly how many people are served by it? Might it be better use of tight money to just fill the hole?
The crown jewel among all these nuggets is $3,000,000 to be spent for artificial turf for the athletic fields. Currently 
we spend $10,000 yearly for mowing and other simple maintenance. In addition these fields were re-sod for $30,000. For $3,000,000 we could maintain and re-sod these fields every year for 75 years. Just how long does artificial turf last? The answer is 10-20 years. How dumb is that?
There would be at least one benefit to artificial turf. The football uniforms would remain clean. This would lower our 
carbon footprint in the short term, detergent wise. But, how many little plastic trees would have to sacrifice themselves for the fake grass and, more importantly, where does it go when it wears out?
On the other hand, this synthetic turf could open up a whole new use for the indoor pool. If we take the roof off, 
we could then use the pool to wash the artificial turf and, perhaps, it would last the 75 years we’ll all be paying for. Never mind, the spin cycle would probably cost another 3 million.
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She makes a couple of astounding statements that tell me she hasn’t the foggiest about the economics of what she proposes. “79 percent of these newly insured individuals are very poor people enrolled in Medicaid or similar free plans. Virtually all of them were previously eligible for completely free care funded by the state, but face co-payments under the new plan.” There is no such animal as free health care. You and I pay every penny, through taxes and our own insurance premiums. And in any single payer system, you and I will still pay every penny. The difference is that the notoriously incompetent hand of federal bureaucracy will screw up costs and service delivery as only they can.
medical expenses. That pesky 7% business tax would never be passed on to the consumer. Like Dorothy I know I’m not in Kansas anymore, and as I tap my ruby slippers together, I have a few questions that I hope the Clairmonts and Nardin will be able to answer.
that we can avoid the problems of quality and speed that have devastated their state medical systems? Do the Clairmonts and Nardin really not know that those who can in those countries buy private insurance and often come here for sophisticated procedures? 
they are screwing up the marketplace. Portsmouth’s own State Senator Martha Clark is co-sponsoring a piece of legislation that “would force Public Service of New Hampshire and the big power plants in Newington and Londonderry to reduce their carbon emissions and pay for the harm they do to the climate.” It makes you feel all warm and fuzzy – until you get to the bottom line. 
fines to the power company when goals aren’t met. What’s important to realize is that these carbon credits are a far left fabrication meant to show what they believe the market’s reaction should be to carbon usage. The market (as in you and I) is too stupid and incompetent to react appropriately without their interference.
They must impose their divine guidance on us lower orders. Invariably this guidance comes in the form of fines, fees, and taxes that destabilize the economy and burden middle class and working class consumers. As often happens, the far left want you to believe that evil corporations will pay these monies. That is fantasy thinking, which is age appropriate in 5 year olds. Look in the mirror. It will be you and me opening our wallets even further. And it will be people who can least afford it. 
The day after Christmas I found myself in an emergency room in Olympia, Washington and two days latter they removed my gall bladder. I was released the following day and had to schlep myself across country to get home to recover. Real life can interfere.
Mitt – he’s been too moderate too many times and seems to be having trouble remembering if his father marched with Martin Luther King. McCain – I want desperately to support him. His service to this country alone should do it. But it doesn’t. His connection to the gang of fourteen is just too much. Huckabee – sorry religious populism just isn’t my thing. Ron Paul – only loons believe we can have no foreign entanglements. Rudy maybe – but I still don’t feel my temperature rising. Thompson’s wife- now she makes my temperature rise. Check to see if he still has a pulse.
After all, Al “The Sky is Falling” Gore just won a Nobel Prize for Peace for his Magnus Opus concerning global warming. But at least my claim seems to have the backing of a British High Court Justice. 
As a the result of a law suit filed by a British truck driver who did not want his children exposed to Gore’s fabrications, this Justice ruled that there were 11 misstatements of fact (aka lies) in Gore’s documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth.” Who would have thought, that inconveniently for Al, polar bears can drown for reasons other than global warming? 
and have the living snot scared out of them (my words - not his) by watching this movie, they had to have these 11 misstatements of fact clarified for them. It would appear our British cousins still have something to teach us.
Since Gore won a million bucks along with this Nobel, it appears that the Stockholm committee sells itself pretty cheap. It works out to something less than $100,000 per lie. Er … sorry - per misstatement of fact.
even blames the Democrats for doing nothing after having been elected with a mandate to end the war. 
The words themselves aren’t shocking for they grace the editorial pages everyday in the form of letters written by Carol-Shea Porter supporters. It’s almost as if he has written her speeches. It’s got to be tough to be one of said supporters, look yourself in the mirror in the morning, and realize the degree of self loathing that has brought you to the point where you closely resemble a man who is responsible for the death of thousands of Americans, makes no bones about his hatred for this country, and vows to continue killing us. 
Shania, the all American country music star from Canada now living in Switzerland - a Democrat. She who sets male hearts aflutter. The Hillary campaign is using her song “Rock This Country” as campaign fodder. It can only be happening with the approval of Ms Twain at some level. Betrayal at its worst!
But then again, there was the whopper that Carol-Shea Porter told. She actually uttered the words, “The Democrats are strong on defense.” Judging by the minimal applause no one in an otherwise enthusiastic audience believed that for one second. The applause came when she said, ”We must get out of Iraq.” Her two comments were her usual mush of incongruity. Same old same old.
I don’t claim to be an expert in excrement, although many on the left would say that I am – especially of the bull variety. But this leads to several questions. Is it possible to identify E. coli by the species producing it? Why pick on dogs? Why not cats? 
skunk and squirrel populations. We then must also consider foxes, rabbits, raccoons, deer and all other manner of land and water creature inhabiting the Great Bay water shed. So, what percentage of the offending poop actually belongs to dogs? This leads to the even broader more philosophical question, how does one diaper Mother Nature? 
The column’s title said it all, “A War We Just Might Win.” After an 8 day fact finding tour in Iraq, they have concluded that the surge is working. In addition, they recommend that the troops should not be pulled out before the end of 2008.
Shea-Porter says she supports the troops and that her husband was in the military, so she understands their plight in having to follow, at the very least, “immoral” orders. But her actions demonstrate on a daily basis that her position requires that our troops be killed to prove that we face imminent defeat.
So much for my electing not to own an SUV, airplane or motor boat or for the recycling and composting I’ve done for over 20 years.
about the war in Iraq where our troops are fighting and dying for our right to pursue this foolishness. The Left considers that little more than a bumper sticker. No, I’m talking about the only war the Left considers serious: the war against Mother Nature and global climate change.
