It appears Frontier Communications has fallen further under the spell of Verizon's sales pitch, with the sale of Verizon's Oregon assets to Frontier being OK'd by Oregon's PUC.

But not everything is rosy. At least someone in one state is questioning the wisdom of the sale in light of the fate of other small rural-service telcos that bought what Verizon was selling.

The State Journal-Register newspaper in Springfield reports that [Administrative Law Judge] Lisa Tapia said in a 46-page report that allowing Frontier to purchase the Verizon lines in Illinois "will diminish Frontier's ability to perform its duties to provide adequate, reliable, efficient, safe and least-cost public utility service."

--snip--

Unfortunately for Frontier, they are caught up in the back wash of Verizon's other local exchange divestments. Both FairPoint and Hawaiian Telecom completed similar transactions, and are both now in bankruptcy.

Both FairPoint and Hawaiian Telecom paid far too much for the assets they bought.

In northern New England FairPoint bought an increasing share of a decreasing market, always a formula for disaster. Wireline customers have been shedding themselves of traditional landlines and using either cell phones or VoIP services from their local cable companies for some time, both of which have been competitively priced compared to FairPoint. FairPoint lost over 13% of their customers since they took over operations from Verizon. And because of FairPoint's financial difficulties, its promise to expand broadband service to at least 95% of its service area has fallen by the wayside.

The best thing Illinois could do for telephone customers is to run from the Verizon-Frontier deal. In the end the only one such a deal helps is Verizon. Everyone else will be screwed. Frontier doesn't have the financial wherewithal to handle such a deal and will end up in the same situation as FairPoint and Hawaiian Telecom - in bankruptcy. That helps no one...except the lawyers.

We miss you, Duchess! The greatest dog I've ever had the privilege of knowing. You were a tremendous gift.

It may be more than you think. Here in New Hampshire with local funding doing the vast bulk of it, most of the expense is difficult to conceal. But in other places, like Washington, DC, the costs per pupil are definitely disguised. Cato or somebody looked at it and determined the per pupil spending was the highest in the country, around $25K. How 'bout $28K?

A lot of good that does.

Watch the wonderful Cato video.

Justice Louis Brandeis said, "Sunlight is the best disinfectant."

Cool.

Hellenists v. Jews.

Go Jews!

HT: Marginal Revolution

There's also Chasidim (ultra Orthodox Jews) v. Franciscans. That's a tough one.

Maybe the g-dd-mn Catholics aren't so dumb, after all.

It is quite obvious the one course University of California students protesting against tuition hikes have not taken but desperately need is Economics 101. The UC system-wide protests highlight the financial crisis facing California, a state verging on being forced into federal receivership because every effort to resolve the its financial problems has failed.

Taxes are sky high and getting higher. Revenues are falling off. Unemployment is over 12%. Taxpayers and businesses are leaving in growing numbers. Union compensation and pensions have reached unsustainable levels and are still climbing. Is it any wonder California has become a financial basket case? How can the students of the UC system expect the state to be able to fund the system when they don't have the money to do so? Do they really believe that just by making demands and throwing mass temper tantrums the state will somehow find a source of funding they haven't already taxed to death? Obviously they do. And by doing so they have displayed their economic ignorance. They don't understand: Their politicians have sold them a bill of goods and the time to 'settle up' has finally come.

Whites in Rhodesia, the bread basket of southern Africa, owned the large, productive farms. That proved unpopular. Now the country is black-controlled and -dominated, renamed Zimbabwe, and the people are starving. Whites have been kicked off the land in many places and given to people who don't know how to grow carrots or manage a hamster cage. The Economist covers it.

Yet, sadly, black Africans dance in glee at whites being persecuted. It makes for good politics to take people's eyes off their own incompetence.

Don't forget Ian Smith, one of the greatest men I've ever met. He bitterly spoke at the Heritage Foundation in August 1990 of democracy's course in Africa: "One man, one vote, one time"; then the dictator sets up shop.

I've seen Reich taken to task before by real economists. Robert Barro of Harvard just embarrassed him on the PBS NewsHour way back on September 14, 2004. Reich has a Harvard Law degree, that's it.

But this is something to remember for a long time. Ah, those moments of clarity.

But I am on the nerdy side. I mean I watched Red Dwarf in the 1980s, in addition to Dr. Who. I even like to wear nerdy-looking glasses.

Why back down from what one is? And if I were smarter I'd be an engineer like Chan.

Having said all that, I don't hesitate in saying, "Yeah, I'd like the President to comply with the Constitution by releasing a valid birth certificate." Call me names, if you want. I don't care.

But there's an awful lot about this man we don't know. It's disconcerting, really. Makes me in the mood for a movie. A 1962 movie staring Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, and Janet Leigh.

Barry Farber has interesting thoughts on birtherism, as well, citing the Sherlock Holmes story "The Dog That Did Not Bark."

I feel compelled to mention that my brother, a novice diplomat with the State Department, caught some flack during his background check that his older brother had been born in West Germany while his father was stationed over there as a second lieutenant.

Notwithstanding the fact that the same older brother attended a service academy for two years, presumably proving his citizenship, repeated requests were made for a copy--a real notarized copy--of a birth certificate from the older brother.

I guess rookie diplomats have a higher bar to cross than a mere Commander in Chief.

This is gross.

One in six Americans between the ages of 14 and 49 have genital herpes and close to one in two black women are infected, new figures from the CDC reveal.

People like this deserve to be horsewhipped.

[W]hen I see a story like this, I don't want to hear about a "plea bargain." I don't want to hear about "parole." I don't want to hear about "what a good mother she is."

I'd rather hear about to which part of the Gates of Hell she'll be chained.

From the NY Daily News:

A heartless Queens woman was arrested for crippling her 11-month-old English bulldog after witnesses caught her on video beating the pooch with a shovel, officials said.

The young bulldog, named Spike, had been abused repeatedly over the past few months.

During his short life, Spike has sustained a hip fracture, a broken leg, three broken teeth and injuries to his ears, according to ASPCA Assistant Director Joseph Pentangelo.

The pup, which is being treated at the ASPCA hospital, is also virtually blind in his right eye.

ASPCA investigators were called to Aguilar's house on Feb. 24 after witnesses reported hearing a dog crying.

One of the witnesses used a camera phone to tape the abuse, also capturing Spike's howls of pain. Aguilar is seen throwing Spike to the ground and then slamming him with a snow shovel.

[The ASPCA] discovered her husband had taken the dog to veterinarians 12 times in the past seven months for treatment.

If you get a pet, and you have no intention of treating it with kindness and getting any self-fulfillment out of it, then, WHY. GET. A. PET?

The story also includes the video of Spike being beaten by his owner.

I could not bring myself to watch it.

The thought of anyone abusing any of the feline members of this household makes me want to reach for the Mossberg 930 12-gauge Autoloader.

Here it is, week 9 of the challenge, and Skip is still ahead, though his lead is back down to 4 pounds. Here's where we are so far:


Click on image to actually be able to read it.

It's hard to believe that only a couple of weeks ago ice fishing bobhouses dotted the lake. On Saturday I saw only one between Alton Bay and Governor's Island. Today it was gone. The ice is looking mushy and dark blue here and there, a sign that the ice is thin. A view from one of our favorite hilltops showed a lot of blue ice across the lake.

Yesterday's and today's temps in the mid-50's and temps in the mid to upper 40's over the next few days or so will speed the melting and break up of the ice. If the weather holds I expect Ice Out will be declared early this year, occurring in late March or early April. (Ice Out is defined as when the M/S Mount Washington cruise vessel can make all five ports of call on the lake - Weirs Beach, Alton Bay, Wolfeboro, Center Harbor, and Meridith - which usually occurs in mid April.)

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BeezleBub was back at work at the farm for the first time since vacation, working at the farm's saw mill cutting timbers for a new pavilion at Farmer Andy's farm stand. Construction will start next month, meaning BeezleBub will then use the timbers he cut this weekend to assemble the post and beam frame of the pavilion.

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It seems the Left is trying to link just about anything bad that happens anywhere to the TEA party movement, including the Pentagon shooter, Amy Bishop, and the Chilean earthquake.

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As the saying goes when it comes to scandal or corruption, follow the money. When it comes to AGW skeptics, they receive a small fraction of the funding of the AGW faithful receive, and from the same sources.

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Speaking of following the money, we should look closely at the Tides Foundation, "which is one of the original "philanthropic" donation launderers for donors who don't want to be tied to fringe activist groups."

The list of donors and recipients is illuminating and makes one wonder how some of these organizations and businesses can support organizations that do not have our country's best interests at heart and are working to damage as much of our economy as they can, all in the name of 'fairness' and 'justice'.

(H/T Instapundit)

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A comment to neoneocon's post about whether Obama has already done irreversible damage to America brings up a point that few may have thought about.

Neo's point is valid but Obama damages us in a more insidious direct fashion. At the end of the day what constrains both foriegn and domestic policy is money. Nothing new, that goes back thousands of years.

Obama is removing future options by burning up our capital actively managing the private sector's participation in the economy and racing through our credit by ramping up the deficit.

If he wants to remove any possibility of America doing anything here or overseas all he needs to do is bankrupt the nation, and that appears where he's leading us.

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Here's yet another preview of what we can expect in the way of health care if Obama gets his way.

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The Weekly Standard has their own take on the AGW crowd being in denial about ClimateGate and the continuing disintegration of AGW theory. (I particularly like the magazine cover illustration, finding it appropriate.)

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Now I'm off to watch the Oscars.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the ice is melting away, the bobhouses are gone, and thoughts of boating now intrude.

Chris Edwards of the Cato Institute has 'em.

This morning, after yesterday listening to a podcast with Alan Gura, the lead plaintiff lawyer in McDonald V. Chicago, I checked in how oral arguments went Tuesday. I was guardedly optimistic at the likelihood of the Court ruling in favor of the Second Amendment.

From this and this I'm crestfallen. I don't mind an activist court--in the pursuit of Constitutional guarantees. It sounds as though many of us who were having expectations of victory--like the Patriots in the Super Bowl against the Giants--may face bitter defeat. I hope this won't be the case when the decision comes down in a few months. I've heard June is the time.

Mid-March is usually the end of Town Meeting season here in New Hampshire.

Here in our small town Tuesday is the second session of our town meeting, where residents will vote on list of warrant articles that cover everything from town and school district budgets, capital reserve funds and bond issues, to zoning changes and voter petitions. It's also town elections, where a number of citizens, including yours truly, are seeking offices ranging from cemetery or library trustee, road agent, school board, to selectman.

Many towns have tried to hold the line on spending, keeping both the town and school portions of their budgets under tight control. Some have even managed to cut their budgets, like our town, knowing that with today's economy their residents are struggling to make ends meet. Unfortunately a few towns are acting as if the good times are still here, attempting to expand their spending despite the poor economy.

Regardless, the people will be speaking, letting their town leaders know what they think via the ballot box and whether they really want to spend the extra $20,000 for the chihuahua dog park.

As the saying goes, if you don't attend town meeting or vote, you have no right to complain about your taxes.

It's become quite apparent to me that far too many of my more liberal friends and acquaintances have little or no understanding of the TEA party movement, including why many supporters capitalize the word 'TEA', but not the first letter of 'party'.

First, TEA. It stands for Taxed Enough Already. It's simple and straightforward.

Second, it is not a political party like the Democrats or Republicans, hence no capital 'p' in the word 'party'. Instead it is a loose coalition of like-minded citizens - Democrats, Republicans, and Independents - tired of over-the-top government deficit spending, the threat of confiscatory tax rates being imposed, and the attempts to expand government beyond the limits imposed by the Constitution. The movement harks back to the original Boston Tea Party, with Rick Santelli's rant on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange seen as the start of the modern TEA party. Unfortunately too many opponents of the movement don't see it that way, making claims of racism, naziism, and 'astroturfing' as part and parcel of the TEA parties. I guess it's better they believe that rather than taking a close look at those supporting the TEA parties and seeing that they are average Americans driven to political activism by the irresponsible actions of the Obama Administration over the past 14 months and the Democrat-controlled Congress over the past 3 years.

For the most part social issues are not at the forefront of the TEA parties. They aren't interested in dealing with abortion, drugs, religion, education, or a host of other issues. They are seen as minor as compared to the impending train wreck that is the government's insatiable quest for revenue, control, and profligate spending. Social issues are merely a sidebar as quite often the deficits are deepened by spending on the myriad of issues that really aren't that important, or as some claim, unconstitutional.

If one can understand that about the TEA parties, then one might look at the movement with a more open mind.

The purpose of women as traditionally understood is to have & nurture babies. That's what they're built for, not competing against men as equals in the brutish world. But feminism decades ago went to war against things traditional, even the traditional understanding of biology.

Well, evolutionary biology is providing much corroboration to the traditional views of the sexes. This started for me way back in 1991 by hearing an interview with Anne Moirs, the author of Brain Sex, which made much hay of reporting on studies showing that brain wiring and endocrinology make the sexes different, giving legitimacy to traditional views of sex differences. She was apologetic about it then. The years have only given added strength to her thesis. One of the UK reviewers, where Ms. Moirs hails, wrote, "Women talk, and men drive." Hm-um.

This is not to say I excuse lack of opportunities for women or sex discrimination. I refuse to use "gender" incorrectly. I don't. My wife works outside the home, for instance. More power to her.

But she's also the mother of four children. God bless her. And she leads me to believe that I'm the father of all of them.

Well, some feminists who drank the Kool-aid are not happy campers. Not happy at all. Their biological clocks have stuck the dooming chime on the last of their fertility and they are wondering what it's all for. The good job, the vacations, the nice clothes...

They want a baby, dammit!

I am childless and I am angry. Angry that I was so foolish to take the word of my feminist mothers as gospel. Angry that I was daft enough to believe female fulfilment [sic] came with a leather briefcase.

It was wrong. It was crap.

The Democrats talk a pretty good game about jobs and how they're so supportive of labor. Unfortunately what they don't tell is that their 'support' usually ends up causing labor to lose jobs. And while the Democrats blast the Republicans as being pro-business, it is those businesses that provide jobs for labor, something often overlooked or purposely ignored by them.

Here's an interesting graphic that shows an interesting correlation between which party was the majority in Congress and job growth, courtesy of the Bureau of Labor Statistics and Skip at Granite Grok.

The Cato Daily Report, run by Caleb Brown, who happens to have a very mellifluous voice, has an interesting discussion by Tom G. Palmer about a new case wending its way through the courts. It's about whether DC resident can do more than keep arms, but bear them as well.

The same attorney is handling the case who handled Heller, Alan Gura.

Mr. Palmer, as a gay man who apparently was engaged in a public display of affection with his boyfriend, was set upon by a pack of thugs who were trying to kill him. I think this happened in California. Running away, he eventually had to turn around and brandish the weapon he was carrying to thwart violence.

This is often how it goes down. Mr. Palmer, who has no doubt the threat of physical violence was real, says that thanks to that firearm he's lived for another twenty-eight years.

He was also one of the original plaintiffs for Heller.

Reading the historian Esther Forbes and her account of Paul Revere's ride, I learned that the colonials were forbidden from having large caches of weapons and gunpowder. Which they ignored. So our War for Independence could not have happened if we had not been violators of unreasonable gun laws.

This gives me solace. The last time I was in D.C., for example, I went a little overboard by packing...something full service. And doncha know I nearly had to pull it on a young thug who began physically confronting my friend and me from out of nowhere. He crashed into us as if we were bowling pins and he was the bowling ball. The hand was on it in its concealed position, when luckily the threat receded. But like any former Eagle Boy Scout I was prepared.

Just brandishing a gun at a criminal thug is usually all one need do to cause a prompt cessation of hostile activity directed at one.  It happens much more than people realize.

My friend, the very high-ranking gubmit lawyer who occasionally had after-lunch walks with former Supreme Court Justice David Souter, was momentarily freaked out. Needless to say, he's very hostile to the Second Amendment as properly understood, and thought I was insane for exercising my Second Amendment right. We're former West Point buddies and our bond is deep. But he did gratefully acknowledge he felt relieved I was as prepared as I was.