Recently in New Hampshire Category

Winter weather finally arrived, albeit about a month late.

We got about 7 inches of snow here at The Manse, and unlike the first two snowfalls we experienced at the end of October and just before Thanksgiving, this was pretty much all powder. It made for slick roads, snow drifts, and the occasional white out. It required the use of 4WD to make it up the rather steep driveway this morning.

If nothing else it gave BeezleBub an excuse to fire up the Official Weekend Pundit Snowblower and give it a try.

With about 54% of the districts reporting, it looks like Mitt Romney has won the New Hampshire GOP primary with ~37%, with Ron Paul coming in second with 24% of the votes.

After work I headed down the our local election polling place, in this case located in the gym of our middle school. One thing I noticed right off was not so much something that was there but something that wasn't: volunteers holding election signs. There were none.

It wasn't until I got to the entrance to the school that I saw a few campaign signs lying side by side on the ground. But no one was outside holding the signs of their candidate. That is something I haven't seen in all the years I've been voting. It could have been the time of day as I got out of work a little earlier than usual as I wanted to avoid the post-work crush at the polls. The volunteers may have shown up after I had already voted and headed home.

While there was a lack of campaign volunteers, that was not the case for voters.

When I finally entered the gym there were moderately long lines at voter check-in. And while I didn't have to wait more than a couple of minutes in my line (the lines are separated alphabetically), others had more than a dozen or so people in front of them waiting to check in and get their ballots.

Voting itself took all of 30 seconds, with the most of that time spent looking for my candidate's name. (The candidates are listed in random order chosen by lot rather than in alphabetic order, a change made to New Hampshire's election laws some time ago.)

On my way to drop off my ballot in the ballot box I asked the town clerk if it had been busy. Her response: "Since the moment we opened the doors!" Apparently that's been the case just about everywhere across the Granite State, with a heavy turnout, particularly for the Republicans.

As I write this the last of the polls should be closing and we should start hearing the results any time now.

It's voting day in New Hampshire, where the voters will make their preferences for president known. More to follow later!

The GOP primary madness in New Hampshire is starting on its upward swing, with so many media people in the Granite State that you can barely go anywhere without running into someone from the multitude of media. I figure we've just about reached saturation, with the peak to come some time Tuesday after the polls open.

One thing I have noticed is the very large number of campaign signs, specifically GOP signs, in places you wouldn't necessarily have seen them in previous election seasons. This is something that has also been noticed by Andrew Boucher, and as he writes, it means trouble for Obama.

With the exception of a few die-hard Obama-Is-Our-Savior brainwashed Leftists, most folks in the Granite State know he's been a dismal failure. A lot of them are unabashed Republicans, Libertarians, or contrary independents and they are making their displeasure with the president known. Some are disillusioned Democrats. All one has to do is look out on lawns and along streets to see the signs everywhere.

In any case, many of us here in New Hampshire are waiting to get past the campaign insanity and get back to living our lives. We're waiting for the media hoopla to die down and the myriad campaign volunteers to move on to other venues. We'll have a respite until the full blown presidential campaigns start early next fall.

Now that we've made it past the first of the year, the focus here in New Hampshire turns in two directions: the upcoming Presidential Primaries and annual town/state budgets. Of the two, the primaries are receiving the most attention by both the populace and the media.

With the New Hampshire primaries scheduled for January 10^th, the media attention has been cranked up to "11". The various presidential wannabes have been spending every free moment in the Granite State, minus time in Iowa in preparation for tomorrow's Iowa Caucuses. (The one exception seems to be Jon Huntsman, who sees New Hampshire as the key to his moving forward.) There will be one last 'big' debate amongst the GOP candidates on the 7^th, with national coverage by ABC.

It's going to be intense for the next eight days.

The lesser of the two events, the annual battle of budgeting for the towns also start in earnest. Not that there hasn't been a lot of behind the scenes work on assembling proposed budgets for the various departments and schools.

Here in my small town the town and school budgets have been undergoing a lot of scrutiny by the board of selectmen, school board, and the budget committee. Everyone wants to cut spending, but of course it's always "someone else" who should cut their budgetary requests. It's never a pretty process and at times emotion can get in the way of logic and reason. When a position is cut in one of the town departments, many of us realize it means that someone we know, perhaps a friend, will lose their job. (That's happened to a friend of mine in the planning department. Her full time position - with benefits - was cut to part time. She couldn't justify staying there under those conditions and left for another job.) In some cases open positions have been eliminated for the time being, leaving some departments short staffed. But those are the choices that have to be made in order to keep spending in check when everyone is having a difficult time making ends meet, particularly those on fixed incomes within our town.

Once the various boards and committees have done their thing it will be up to the voters in each town to vote on them, either at town meeting or during the town elections in March. (A few towns hold their town meetings in April or May.) Towns with a board of selectman/town meeting form of government fall in to two categories: traditional town meeting and SB2.

The traditional town meeting is usually held in some time in March, and all registered voters are encouraged to attend. The voters will discuss and vote on all of the articles presented on the town warrant, some covering budgetary items and other with changes in zoning ordinances (assuming a town has any zoning at all). A second town meeting, usually called the school district meeting, deals will warrants pertaining to the towns school expenditures.

SB2 towns do things a little differently, with two different sessions for both the town and school portions of the warrants. The first session deals solely with discussion and amendments to the town and school warrant articles. The second session of each meeting takes place on election day in March, with the voters deciding whether to approve the various warrant articles discussed the previous session.

There are advantages and disadvantages to both systems, but they seem to work pretty well. In any case, the tax money that will be spent in the upcoming fiscal year is vetted by the very people that will be paying those taxes. (There are a few taxes which the town voters have no control, those being the county and state assessments levied upon them to run county operations and for some education funding, respectively.)

The state will be dealing with some supplemental budget items during the upcoming legislative session (the state runs on a two-year budget cycle). Sometimes adjustments are made if there's an unexpected expenditure needed to deal with unforeseen circumstances. Sometimes it's the other way around, with some line item that was approved but never implemented, meaning there are surplus funds that can go to other purposes to fill shortfalls someplace else. Sometimes the surplus goes towards the state's so-called rainy day fund, a savings account that can be used to fill revenue shortfalls under very specific circumstances.

All we can do is hope they folks in the state capitol don't go on some kind of a mindless spending binge. But then it does help that the GOP holds supermajorities in the state Senate and Executive Council and a majority in the state House.

It was Thanksgiving dinner here at The Manse, with a good portion of the Weekend Pundit clan in attendance, including my dear brother, his missus, one of this three offspring. (Another of his kids, the oldest, stopped by before dinner to show off his new offspring before heading off to Thanksgiving dinner at his girlfriend's father's home.) Two of the WP sisters made it as well, the oldest with her youngest son, and the youngest with her two girls. The WP parents were also here, assisting with food preparation (Mom made one of the three turkey's we consumed. More on that later.) The WP In-Laws were also here, arriving late yesterday morning.

I had a bit of work to do outside The Manse before everyone arrived, scraping down the walkway and sanding the steep incline on the driveway to assure maximum traction for those braving the treacherous slope.

I won't go into the details of our repast other than to say we tried something other than the ubiquitous Butterball-style turkey, in this case range fed Narragansett turkeys. Though smaller than the supermarket turkeys with less breast meat, they were quite tasty, more so than the usual turkeys. (We got these turkeys from Farmer Andy.)

Everyone had a great time!

We didn't have to wait very long, that's for sure.

We got about 6 inches of snow here at The Manse overnight, giving us an opportunity to try out the new Official Weekend Pundit Snowblower.

I have to admit it took a little getting used to because its controls are so different from the previous Official Weekend Pundit Snowblower. For instance, the positions of the traction control and auger control are reversed compared to the old one. Also, the auger control locks in the 'on' position as long as the traction control is engaged. (I see that as both a plus and a minus.) The electric discharge chute controls were positioned so the can be controlled with the thumbs without the need to remove hands from the handles. The old one required me to release the auger control, reach down to a crank to change the azimuth of the chute, then re-engage the auger control, something that was a real pain-in-the-ass at times.

All in all, I like it.

Yes, I know there was no post last night, but I have a good excuse.

I was attending one of the rare gala events in our small town: the opening of our new supermarket.

Well, it's not really new so much as it's in a new location, with more retail space, more selections, a new sushi bar (must be for the tourists as most of us up here at Lake Winnipesaukee prefer our fish cooked), fancy new coolers (the lights turn on in the coolers only when there's someone actually in front of them). There was all kinds of food at the gala, with everything from cheese and crackers to prime rib, lobster bisque, scallops, and clam chowder. Drinks ranged from ice cold cider, locally bottled soft drinks, and coffee. Of course there was also a large selection of desserts. (I hit the dessert table before partaking of the other delightful foods as I live by the credo "Eat dessert first. You never know when something will come up and take you away from the dinner table!")

The gala was attended by all kinds of important folks, like two of our three selectmen (the third selectman and his wife work for a rival supermarket chain so his decision not to attend was unsurprising), members of the planning board (that's why I was there), various business leaders (Farmer Andy and his missus were in attendance, just to name a couple), and civic organization representatives.

The old location closed at 8PM last night and the new one opened at 7 this morning.

I think it will be quite popular, ayuh.

While snow is expected here in New England every winter (and sometimes in late fall), I admit to a little surprise and dismay to find snow on the ground when I left for work this morning and another 4 to 8 inches expected to fall by sometime Sunday.

We have not yet secured a new Official Weekend Pundit Snowblower, but the missus has suggested buying it sometime tomorrow (but not until after we finish doing some shopping to replace the furniture damaged when we suffered the 'flood' inside The Manse last month).

Tonight was also the first time we fired up the Official Weekend Pundit Woodstove. With all the post-flood repair work done, the new paint dried, and the chimney having been cleaned by the chimney sweeps earlier this week, it seemed the time had come to fire it up and to stop burning expensive propane to heat The Manse. At least we have just under a cord of firewood stored in the garage. We're still waiting on the first delivery of the four cords of wood we ordered from Farmer Andy, something he usually starts just after Halloween.

I have a feeling it's going to be a long cold winter.

It was easy to tell the holiday weekend had arrived.

I had to make trip to my employer's Massachusetts facility Friday morning to conduct an interview of a candidate to fill one of our many open positions. I was done by 11AM and headed back to our home office. As soon as I hit the north side of the highway heading towards New Hampshire I knew my trip back was going to take longer than usual.

The traffic was heavy. Very heavy. And it wasn't even noon yet.

On more than one occasion on the trip back north traffic came to a standstill. This is something you usually see on the evening commute, not at noon. Once I crossed the border the ratio of out-of-state license plates to New Hampshire plates on northbound vehicles didn't change. Most of the out-of-state vehicles had obvious signs of people heading to vacation spots - lots of luggage in the back or on top, bike racks filled with bicycles, canoes and kayaks on roof racks, and lots of camper trailers.

It's the end-of-summer vacation blowout.

Unlike so many others, I am not going to dwell long on the impending doom that is Hurricane Irene. All day yesterday we saw people getting ready for the coming deluge, stocking up on all kinds of supplies, from bottled water to cans of Dinty Moore Stew to toilet paper and paper towels. At more than one gas station I saw people filling up multiple gas cans (I must assume for their generators) while I made sure we had gas for the chainsaw (far more important, I believe).

One thing that stood out above all the others: folks pulling their boats out of the water all around Lake Winnipesaukee. The boat ramps and marinas were plenty busy getting them out of the water. I saw quite a few 'lines of water' on the roads surrounding the lake. (These lines are usually water draining from the bilges of boats as they're towed down the road by their owners, assuming they remembered to remove their bilge plugs.) At least that's one thing I didn't have to do as The Boat never made it into the water this year. (The renovations are proceeding and I expect it will be in tip-top shape for next year.)

BeezleBub is helping Farmer Andy get his farm ready for the deluge and winds. Somehow I doubt he'll have to show up for work tomorrow as the farm stand won't likely be open and there's no real place for him to work on the farm machinery where he won't get drenched.

Now I'm going to put aside the keyboard and get back to cleaning up the mess from yesterday's debacle. (See my previous "Head For The Hills!" post.)

The following is a post from sometime WP contributor Bill Johnson, followed by a bleg/ad/announcement for a benefit hosted by a local establishment on behalf of a local New Hampshire veteran's organization. Normally we here at WP don't post such things, but for this cause I am more than willing to make an exception.

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We live in a Republic.

Those that are educated in, or self-educated about what this Republic entails genuinely support it and those who genuinely serve its function.

When an American citizen swears the oath of loyalty to serve in the armed forces, there is most assuredly a pact between themselves and the government whose sole purpose is to Stand for the American people. Each agrees to take responsibility for the other in both the short and long term. At the same time and at every moment it should be understood that a government is made of people and it is inherently inferior to fulfill the exact fullness of the virtues to which it sets itself. Virtues that are goodly inspired will always be wanting of human ability to achieve them in their totality. We are imperfect when measured against ourselves, and we are far from perfect when measured against goodly, and yes, Godly virtues, particularly when tied to any bureaucracy. Holding each of these three separate ideas as their own truth, a person who does believe in them faces a challenge. We have spoke for a brief time, and though this language is "lofty", the nature and ramifications of all these thoughts, feelings, and internal forces lead an American of simple good conscience to think that perhaps those who go to the battlefield in our name are not singularly the responsibility of the government to help when help is needed. "Take care of those who take care of you."

The Thirsty Crows Pub is excited to host the Liberty House for a spaghetti benefit dinner. On Thursday July the 21st there will be an all you can eat spaghetti (and meatballs and meat sauce and garlic bread) dinner for $8.99, of which $5 for every plate goes toward the endeavors of Liberty House. Liberty House is a program dedicated to help homeless veterans of any age or war with temporary shelter and one on one personal aide. The Thirsty Crows encourages them to take any additional donations beyond our dinner proceeds. The benefit dinner runs from 5 pm to 8pm, those that have bought the special dinner previous to 8 pm can continue to receive more portions as long as The Thirsty Crows is open (within reason). The spaghetti benefit dinner is basically a portion of spaghetti and garlic bread either by itself or with marinara sauce, meatballs and sauce, meat marinara sauce, or both.

On Wednesday an important vote takes place in the New Hampshire House, one that may well change the course the Granite State been following the previous 4 years.

Some time tomorrow the House is supposed to vote on overriding Governor John Lynch's veto of House Bill 474, the Right To Work bill. The bill originally passed in both the House and the Senate with overwhelming majorities, though the original House vote was just 14 votes shy of a veto-proof majority.

However, House Majority leader William O'Brien may delay Wednesday's vote long enough to lock in the last votes he'll need to override the veto.

HB 474 supporters say the state will see a burst of job growth if the bill becomes law, and point to other right-to-work states as proof. Critics say right-to-work brings lower-paying jobs with fewer benefits, and that it sticks the nose of government into contract talks between labor and management.

If HB 474 becomes law, New Hampshire would be the 23rd state, and the first in the Northeast, to adopt the principle.

A lot of pro-union folks point to the "lower-paying jobs with fewer benefits" canard as if that explains everything and no further discussion is required. However, most of the 22 Right To Work states have a lower cost of living, so unless that factor is taken into account, which union supporters choose to ignore, the comparison is meaningless. As I've mentioned before, a perfect example of this factor can be seen in the battle between the NLRB and the state of South Carolina and Boeing.

The unions in Washington State claim Boeing's new plant is denying the working men and women a living wage. While the pay for those employees in South Carolina is less than the pay of the union workers in Washington, the cost of living in South Carolina is also lower (as is the cost of doing business), which implies that taken as a whole, the workers in South Carolina are receiving comparable pay to those in Washington State.

And so it might be here in New Hampshire as well. If it helps lower the cost of doing business, then Right To Work will help lure more businesses from high cost states like Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, just to name a few. (It doesn't hurt that New Hampshire also has no sales or income tax.)

The days of forced financial support of unions by those not wishing to do so must come to an end. As the reasons for the existence of unions no longer exist, maybe it's time for them to fade away into history.

I must admit to an oversight. I didn't post last night because I forgot. I had plenty to write about, but I was sidetracked by another event - BeezleBub's prom night.

Deb, the WP Mom-In-Law, her mother-in-law (BeezleBub's great-grandmother), and I went to the high school for the Grand March, where the couples attending the prom were presented to the public. After that they departed the school and arrived at Weirs Beach to board the M/S Mount Washington cruise ship, host to their prom.

Deb returned to work and the WP Mom-In-Law, her mother-in-law, and I went out to eat. After dinner we returned to The Manse and the next few hours were spent in conversation. I didn't realize how late it was until BeezleBub returned home (about a half hour before midnight). I have no idea where the time went. The chances of writing anything meaningful had disappeared, particularly since it was so late and bed beckoned.

I did manage to snag one quick picture of BeezleBub and his date, Hobbit. Ain't they cute?


Click on image to enlarge

Our cable company has done something kind of cool, something I noticed almost immediately.

They've cranked up the download speeds for their Internet service!

Download speeds for the level of service we pay for here at The Manse are now 10Mbps, up from 6Mbps. The upper residential service tier provides 18Mbps (requires a DOCSIS 3.0 cable modem).

I ran a number of tests over the past few days and the slowest download speed I measured was 8.6Mbps which occurred during a nominally heavy usage time of the day. Average speeds somewhere north of 9.6Mbps.

Unfortunately the upload speed hasn't changed at all, with 500Kbps being the norm, but it isn't often that we're uploading big files from The Manse.

I will admit to some suspicion about the reasons for the bump up in speed. Might it have something to do with upcoming franchise contract renewal negotiations for a number of towns within the cable company's service area? Maybe that's just me being paranoid...or not.

Two bits of news aren't helping the economic situation here in New Hampshire.

First, state revenues for the month of April were below projections by about $30 million. That's certainly not going to help with the budget deficit, making this fiscal year's shortfall about $47 million for this fiscal year. That's on top of the existing $800 million deficit from the previous fiscal year. Needless to say, state legislators aren't happy.

"The governor had an opportunity to use responsible and realistic revenue figures like the House budget used, but instead he chose to use numbers that were nearly $300 million higher to hide his greater spending," said Republican State Committee Chairman Jack Kimball.

Over the past four years the governor and the then Democrat majority legislature went on a spending spree, increasing state spending by over 30% over that time, using inflated revenue projections to justify the high spending levels. When revenues fell well below the overly optimistic projections, the governor and legislature failed to address the expenditure problems, instead focusing on trying to increase fees and taxes at a time when most businesses and individuals were struggling to make ends meet. Even with the increases, the state revenues failed to meet projections.

At least the budget for the next two fiscal years are likely to be in balance as the GOP in both the House and Senate cut the proposed 2-year budget by over $700 million, basing it on far more conservative (and realistic) revenue projections.

The second bit of bad news concerns hiring, with over half the businesses in the state planning not to hire any new employees either this year or next year. That doesn't sound like an economic recovery to me.

A number of factors are driving this trend. One New Hampshire businessman explained why he's holding off.

At a meeting attended by about two dozen businessmen and women at the 1st District Congressman's Manchester District Office off Lowell Street, Gary Brown of Raymond-based www.WebPageDesignUSA.com and The Image Factory said he can't afford to hire any more staff and is fighting to keep his current 12 employees working.

"I'm at tipping point, where if I hire any more folks, I will have to pay for national health care," Brown said.

"How an I going to survive? I'm not going to hire," he said.

This is yet another of the unintended consequences of ObamaCare affecting employment, not just here in New Hampshire, but across the nation.

Other businesses will make do with their present staffing levels, even if work does pick up, preferring to pay for overtime rather than benefits for new hires, or hiring temps on those occasions where they need the extra help.

Other factors influencing hiring include energy prices, something some businesses cannot easily pass on to their customers. So to keep their costs low they won't add staff, offsetting their higher energy costs.

Neither bodes well for the employment picture in New Hampshire. I have a feeling this is also true for many other states as well.

We've watched as gas prices have climbed rapidly over the past three months. While we here in New Hampshire aren't seeing the highest prices in the nation (or New England) they are approaching the highs seen in 2008. Yesterday I filled up the trusty F150 for $3.69 per gallon. The highest price I saw today here in central New Hampshire for 87-octane gas was $3.75. Highs elsewhere in the nation top $4. Some are expecting gas to hit as much as $6 this summer.

As painful as the rising gas prices are, some side effects are being felt elsewhere in the economy.

Deb and I went grocery shopping at our local chain supermarket today. One of the first things Deb noticed was many food prices were higher than only two weeks ago. Much higher. Most of that can be directly attributable to higher transportation costs because of rising fuel prices.

The higher gas prices are also expected to have a negative effect on the summer tourist season. The last time prices were this high a lot of families changed vacation plans, staying closer to home. In 2008 we saw a lot more 'local' folks vacationing here rather than the usual people from elsewhere in the US and Canada. Boat traffic on the lake was down considerably because marine gas prices approached $5 per gallon. I have no doubt we'll see the same thing this summer, only worse.

As the higher gas prices have hit everyone in the wallet, people have been cutting back in other areas to make up for it. One of the biggest areas where people are cutting back is eating out. It's one of the 'luxuries' most of us can do without and one of the first thing people cut out when money is tight. Other than some of the ice cream stands, most restaurants will be taking a double hit of higher prices for the food they prepare and fewer customers to fill their tables.

It's not going to be a good summer for most of us.

UPDATE 4/23/11: Apparently I'm not the only one seeing this.

CNBC believes the "killer combo" of high gas and food prices are at the key tipping point that will drop us back into a recession.

Sarah Gilbert gives us a list of 11 things that will be adversely affected by higher fuel prices. The biggest three on her list that have me pissed off: chocolate, beef, and bacon.

You start messing with my bacon and it means WAR!!

Despite all the other news and events happening across this great nation, there is one bit of news that overshadows all other:

Ice Out on Lake Winnipesaukee was declared Tuesday morning!

That means preparations to ready the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout will commence this weekend (weather permitting).

Woo hoo!!

There was a huge demonstration outside the New Hampshire State House yesterday. As the Republican majority House voted on two budget bills, one which does away with so-called "evergreen" clauses in public employee contracts, many of those same public employees were protesting against the move (and the budget), saying the budget cuts went too far and that their collective bargaining rights were being taken away.

The House passed a $10.2 billion biennial budget (New Hampshire state budgets run for two years), a decrease of $742 million from the present budget. This move was made to address an estimated $800 million shortfall within the present budget.

It was no surprise the Democrats in the legislature wanted to increase spending rather than cutting it, tried to revise the revenue estimates upwards to allow for more spending (something they did for the previous two budgets, which is how the state came to be $800 million in the hole to begin with), and raise taxes and fees again to pay for more spending (something they also did during the previous two budgets with the result of less revenue being collected than projected).

Some of the budget cuts will hit services hard, but many of those services were boosted beyond all reason during the previous 4 years. Some see these cuts as a return to more reasonable and sustainable levels until the economy recovers. During those 4 years the Democrat majority House and Senate increased state spending 30%, well above the rate of inflation or population growth over that time. The frugality usually seen in the State House was nowhere to be seen during those 4 years. Now it's time for the state to live within its means.

The public employees unions were not pleased with the move to strip evergreen clauses from contracts. Those clauses allow an expired union contract to remain in force until a new contract is agreed upon and ratified by the union members. With the removal of evergreen clauses public employees would become employees-at-will (like most of the rest of us) if the old contract expires before a new contract is ratified.

I have a question I must ask of those public employees protesting inside and outside the State House: How many of you took paid time off from work to be there?

While there were supporters of the bills also at the State House, they weren't nearly as numerous as those protesting against them. It wasn't that there weren't more supporters of the legislature's efforts. It's that most of us were at work, making the money taxed to pay the public employees salaries and benefits.

Talk about irony.