Did you Question Those ‘Declining’ Teen-Mother Birth Rates?

Posted on January 3, 2011 by Steve Mac Donald

The day after we celebrated the birth of Christ the Nashua Telegraph treated us to a report that birth rates among teens had declined. If you poked around beyond the confines of the Telegraph piece you would discover that New Hampshire was one of the states leading the way.  And there were some very amusing thoughts on the decline, but no one even suggested an increase in chemical or surgical abortions as a cause.

Perhaps abortion was an unsuitable topic for the local print media the day after Christmas.  Or was it that the abortion lobby in New Hampshire (and in general) has gone to such great lengths to make that kind of information so impossible to gather that it could not be accurately collected?  Not that the Telegraph or the media as a whole would offer due diligence on such matters and spoil the good news.

Continue reading: Did you Question Those ‘Declining’ Teen-Mother Birth Rates?

Posted in Local NH Politics, National Politics & Policy, New Hampshire News, Political Thought | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Blog Round Up 1-1-2011

Posted on January 1, 2011 by Steve Mac Donald

Here are a few posts from the past week to take a peek at…

 

Ancient Chinese Secret

In an amusing week for Carol Shea-Porter, in which she almost sounded McCarthyesque in her suspicions of Chinese communist cash infiltrations into the campaigns of domestic candidates, how long can it be before she blames her 2010 election loss on Global Warming?You heard me right.

Keep Reading “Ancient Chinese Secret”

 

What’s In You Narrative?

Plenty of people who think they are quite attuned to the echo chamber are spending a good deal of time doing the progressives and RINO’s dirty work.  These are people on the right, so-called insiders who get how the game is played.  Yet again (and again) I find the chorus repeating the message which the left and the media have ingrained in them…every time they hear the bell ring.

Keep Reading “What’s In You Narrative”

 

Hasbro Capitalizes On Beer Pong

“The Greatest Name in Games” has paved the pathway to future Beer Pong excellence with a series of “games” called Cuponk.  The object of Cuponk, a creation of Hasbro, is to get a ping-pong ball in a cup doing any number of special moves or trick shots using whatever surfaces are available.  The cup makes noise to reward you for your talents and if you actually use the cards provided, and complete the trick called for, you can get points and keep score.

Keep Reading “Hasbro Capitalizes On Beer Pong”

 

I Tried It At Home

Fergus Cullen has some advice in his Union Leader column this morning.(print or e-edition) Resolutions that do not include exercise or dieting, to quote the author.  They are all of course political, the most entertaining of which is a suggestion that Carol Shea-Porter run for President.

Keep Reading “I Tried It At Home”

 

Whose Green Is It Really?

When considered without emotion while ignoring the green-industrial-complex and its capitalistic and political desires, the idea that carbon dioxide is a significant driver of warming is absurd.

Keep Reading “Whose Green Is It Really?”

 

Brunelle’s Road To Damascus Moment?

After four years of defending the democrat budgeting strategy of spend first tax later (during what any democrat worth his donkeys-ass referred to endlessly as the ‘worst recession in history’), NHDP executive director and NH House rep from Manchester Mike Brunelle shows us his new conservative streak

Keep Reading ‘Brunelle’s Road To Damascus Moment?’

Posted in Debt/Spending, Education, Energy, Jobs/Unemployment, Local NH Politics, National Politics & Policy, New Hampshire News, Political Thought, taxes | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

What Would We Do Without Studies Like These?

Posted on December 30, 2010 by Steve Mac Donald

Riding in on the heels of the UNH/Hirshberg cow fart research we have other news from the research front that is just begging to be made fun of.

Someone has discovered that oral sex is a gateway drug to intercourse among teenagers.  A three year study determined that teens who have oral sex are more likley to have intercourse than teens who do not.  And if you ask the Baptists they will tell you that intercourse leads to dancing, or was that the other way around?

“I see most of the health policies out there and guidelines for preventive services talking about sex generally, but they do not specify oral sex. That is an important distinction because teens don’t consider oral sex to be sex, and many are not aware of the risks involved,” Halpern-Felsher said.

So oral sex leads to intercourse and intercourse leads to unwanted pregnancy.  Who is surprised?  The experts, of course.

 

We must assume that none of the ‘experts’ was paying much attention to the risks of oral sex on the matter of teen pregnancy, which explains why they needed to do a study–it never occurred to them.  What that suggests about the experts is at the very least amusing.  But it also creates one hell of a conundrum.  The only way to achieve the stated goal of fewer pregnancies, given the conclusion of this report, would be to suggest that teenagers abstain from oral sex, which to the progressive mind is as difficult as suggesting that congress and universities abstain from funding stupid research.  How do you tell teens to abstain from oral sex when geniuses like Paul Hodes (here and here) and the entire democrat majority unfunded all the sex education money to teach kids to abstain from actual intercourse?

Such is the brilliant confluence of social engineering and academia. But why stop there?

Thanks to UNH we are also the recipients of some related academic wisdom; continuing to use your cell phone while in class affects your academic performance, and knowing this is not necessarily a deterrent to the activity.

So why we are not funding a study on the effects of oral sex on driving (which we now “know” leads to an increased incidence of intercourse and pregnancy) seeing as everyone knew texting was dangerous but they did it anyway (and still do even though it is now illegal); or perhaps we need a law banning texting in class; or better yet–let’s fund a research project relating to the money wasted on research projects whose painfully obvious conclusions never align to suggest that the problem is not oral sex or cell phone use but people of a certain age who engage in behaviors because they are more obsessed with immediate gratification than the complex negative outcomes that behavior might later produce–regardless of the number of well funded research projects to point this out?

We could pillage the next round of cow-fart funding to pay for it because they really have the same goal–a world with not just fewer people, (which the research claims will save the planet) but fewer people who question the thinking behind funding research projects.

 

Cross Posted

Posted in Culture, National Politics & Policy, New Hampshire News | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

He Hasn’t Paid His Dues

Posted on December 26, 2010 by Steve Mac Donald

It has come to my attention that sometimes having the qualities necessary to get the job done are irrelevant.  And that seems to be the opinion of some establishment republicans who have admitted that while Jack Kimball would probably be a great party Chairmen, this sliver of old-guard regulars can’t cast a vote for him because he has not paid his dues.

This is the kind of narrow thinking that got us into trouble and put progressives back in power.  And it is in direct contradiction to the movement that has put Republicans back in power (In New Hampshire) and in control of the US House in DC.  That means “paying your dues” puts you on the wrong side of the only reason you have any power now at all.

So this isn’t your fathers GOP.

What we have here is the GNP, the Grand New Party, and there is nothing better to stoke the youthful fire of a reinvigorated movement than new leadership that understands not just how best to utilize that energy but which understands that making decisions about leadership cannot be based just on who paid their dues.  Let’s be honest.  If we wanted people who have been milling around the dying fires of a disconnected party apparatus we’d still be in the minority.  And if that is the pivot on which your vote turns for Chairman, Committeeman, or much else, perhaps you can do your party a favor and find something better to do on January 22nd than show to up at the convention.



Cross Posted

Posted in Local NH Politics, New Hampshire News | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Breaking The Addiction To Government

Posted on December 24, 2010 by Steve Mac Donald

Image: thesassyminx.comThe December New Hampshire labor report, period ending October 2010, is not all that remarkable.  Coos county is still suffering while overall the state is hanging in at 5.4%.  This number is still reflective of issues with the size of the labor force versus mid 2009 numbers.  We have to watch that as we head through the November and December reports into January, where holiday hiring will add to the labor force, and then most likley drop off.

What may have been the most interesting aspect of the new report however, was this paragraph from the first page.

In New Hampshire private industry GDP growth was below that of government. The current dollar change in private industry between 2008 and 2009 was almost non-existent. less than a $1 million dollar difference.  When adjusted for inflation private GDP saw a 1.5% percent decrease.  Government however (this is New Hampshire State Government) saw a 4.6% increase in current dollars.

This is how democrat controlled states feign growth.

So is John Lynch’s ‘recovery’ built on a foundation of one time money from Washington to expand the role of government?  That would be a yes.  The Norelli/Larsen/Lynch combine took the company credit card, bought a bunch of goods and services from themselves in the form of more government, and are now left with more mouths to feed and a huge recurring annual bill for which there is no revenue.

This would not only create a false sense of growth on the GDP side, it produces an employment picture that is also something of a lie.  A lie that is no different than the ‘surplus’ lie that was regurgitated by the local media, the democrats, the little governor that could (not) and his RINO Republican’s whose bridge-drug addiction to spending makes them no better than the liberal-progressives whose binge-spending got us into this mess.  The truth of the structural deficit was clouded over by democrat deceit and a false surplus, until the left got hammered–now, there is no surplus and we have a looming 600 million dollar deficit.  (Suckley–Sullivan and Buckley–are probably already at work prodding the historical revisionists in their Concord offices so the media will have the right messaging to regurgitate through the echo chamber moving into the 2012 cycle)

Mental note to electorate. These democrats are lying bastards.

On a bright note, we (New Hampshire) seem to have asked the grown-ups to step in, cut up the credit cards, and set things right.  But like any withdrawal from addiction, (cigarettes, video-games, gambling, alcohol, facebook, cocaine, heroin, pornography, government spending) it will not be a pleasant experience.  We may wake up some days feeling less than happy with ourselves or our decision to get ‘clean.’  Throughout our real recovery, the democrat ‘whinery’ will be producing the same old vintage–screaming for another ‘hit’ to make the pain go away like a daemon on our shoulder trying to drag us further into dependence.

But we have to ignore them.  This is New Hampshire.  We are independent, self responsible, hard working people, who like our government small and local.  We can do better and we will.

Just remember; the left used government to create the lie of growth and stability, charging you more for less when jobs and income were in decline, based on a model whose glue would eventually mean less and less money in your pocket to keep the parts stuck together.  A model that adds parts and needs more of your glue with every passing year.  The same model that is collapsing in California, New York, Michigan, and other former great states that have been (or are being) reduced to the pathetic ash heap of history by years of democrat rule and chronic migration away from their crumbling government edifices who cannot stand on their own.

New Hampshire does not have to go out that way.  We can break the addiction.  And the voters have asked for that change.  It is a change that will eventually bring more companies, more jobs, and real growth–not the false “more government kind.’  And while the journey to recovery could be a rough road, we may never have a better opportunity that the next two years to get this done.

And once we get out, we have to make sure we never go back.

Image Source: thesassyminx.com

Cross Posted

Posted in Debt/Spending, Jobs/Unemployment, Local NH Politics, New Hampshire News, taxes | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Day 50

Posted on December 22, 2010 by Steve Mac Donald

As the sun rises over New England on December 22nd, 2010, we will have begun the fiftieth day since the November 2nd Election.  As it comes to a close, fifty full days will have passed.  Fifty sunrises and sunsets.  Fifty breakfasts, lunches, and dinners.  And by some estimates, as many as 250 billion phone calls will have been made in that time period, and not one of them (to the best of my knowledge) was from Carol Shea-Porter to congratulate Frank Guinta on his victory over her in the the NH first congressional district race.

Fifty days.  Still no phone call.

There are just so many words to choose from to describe Carol on this point.  But you know what, I’ll leave it to your imaginations, dear readers.  You can pick and choose any word, or words you like to describe it.

I’m just going to keep counting the days.

Cross Posted

Posted in New Hampshire News | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Four Years All For Naught?

Posted on December 21, 2010 by Steve Mac Donald

ABC news has it here.  A quote from Carol Shea “Che” “SEIU” Porter.

“I have listened to people on television say things like, ‘Well, everybody’s on the take in Washington,’ as if that’s a given fact.  And I think it just makes people more cynical about the whole process,”  Shea-Porter said.  “That’s not true.  That’s not true at all.”

Really Carol?

“It’s been just awful watching this over the past four years. I think it’s strangling us. I think that when the American public feels cynical about that, they’re right. The special interests — you see them — they’re in the halls of Congress everywhere. We need to clean Washington up. We desperately need to clean them out.

I have just three thoughts to share for the moment (out of dozens); Carol had four years in a democrat majority congress–which promised to clean up the swamp, two of them with a democrat president, and I do not see any attempt by her party or by Carol herself (she is defined legislatively as a follower not a leader) to address this or anything else outside the big blue box of liberal progressive agenda items.

The second thought?  Carol is in hock to unions, and unions are a special interest. Her party spent the past two years dumping billions of our dollars into their hands to help elect their majority and advance their agenda–which as noted above was not remotely concerned with the problem of special interests.

My final thought.  What Carol really means is that there is a problem in Washington that her special interest money could not overcome and the answer is to regulate their opponents and the opposition’s supporters.  That is what is strangling…..Carol and the democrat party.

 

Cross Posted

Posted in New Hampshire News | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Jack Kimball Is Running For NH GOP Chairman

Posted on December 20, 2010 by Steve Mac Donald

Granite Grok just broke the news here

Posted in Local NH Politics, New Hampshire News | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

For Quite Some Time

Posted on December 20, 2010 by Steve Mac Donald

For Quite Some Time

For quite some time more than a few of us out here in the private sector have been paying into our own retirement plans–if we can–for years.  After the Housing bubble burst many of us began reducing the amount we contributed as a lousy economy consumed opportunities, wage growth and jobs–our neighbors or even our own.

Companies, small businesses in particular, that were once able to provide some benefits and 401K matching dollars shifted gears, re-directing that revenue (if they had it) to keeping the business afloat so they could pay enough remaining core employees to keep the company a company–with desks, paperclips, post it notes, and a space to keep them in.  We paid for our own retirement plans, owners and managers paid for theirs, took pay cuts, employees took pay cuts, millions accepted reduced hours, part time status, or were overcome by the recession and had to be let go.

At the same time various levels of government were handing out (or handed) Billions and Billions of dollars that did not exist, to prop up the public sector unions.  These unions, collective bargaining groups (emphasis on collective) were the primary benefactors of the past two years accumulation of debt.  Government rules favored them in opposition to all else and in contradiction to common sense, not just for cash handouts but the hand out of jobs as well.  And even at the local level, the public sectors union handlers, who are really nothing more than fat cat capitalists selling shares in human flesh for a profit in the from of a dues check each pay period, have fought against the tide to raise salaries, benefits, and keep jobs that must be paid for by the people going the opposite direction.

So the public sector unions, operating as nothing more than a private business whose goal is to grow revenue, continued to do so at taxpayers expense while whining about the private sectors greed and malfeasance.

Why can’t we call them out for this?  Why are taxpayers not afforded the same kind of consumer protections from the fat cat, union boss, price gougers who hold us hostage with fears of neglected children, and declining public safety if we don’t pony up the extortion money we don’t have to fund wage and pension schemes so far out of parity with our own?

November 2010 was as much a reaction to this addiction to taxpayer money as anything.  But the union bosses persist.  And many of the employees in their care, stewed in a culture of entitlement, ride along on the tide, while supporting a corrupt and unholy alliance with the democrat party to protect and defend the unions and their monopoly as the legalized money launderers of choice to convert extorted taxpayer dollars into democrat party campaign contributions.

But this isn’t like some business that you can claim (right or wrong) is stockpiling cash to weather a long and uncertain fiscal winter.  The evil capitalist fat cats on the other side of the public sector equation (you and I) are the people who have paying into their own retirement, giving up wages and advancement, and losing jobs in the million, while the cost of government–that would be the cost to keep and maintain public sector workers–continues to climb.  And there is no magic pot of money to fill the pension and benefit holes.  Obama and the 111th congress have spent it all.

All we have left is debt, and no one in the world can pay it off for us.  So something has to give.

It is time to put government on a diet. It is time for equality and fairness in the workplace and if that means forcing public employees to prop up their own pensions then so be it.  If it requires us to ask them to pay significantly more for their benefits, then that is how it has to be.  If it requires eliminating pensions, benefits, and jobs then that is how it will go down, and there is no time like now to do it.

Never in recent history has there been a more diverse and qualified pool of willing and able bodied persons who would be more than happy just to have a job than there is now.   These are people who just want a pay check, and they will work long and hard to get it.  They will be dedicated, fast learners, looking for a reliable opportunity, and they are out there in the millions.

So labor is cheap at a time when income for public sector costs and debt service to sustain it is at an all time high.  How simple a problem is this to solve?

The taxpayer need to step up and put the public sector union fat cats out of work.  When that happens, people who have to work for the taxpayers again may rethink how valuable having a job is in this economy, when there are probably 1000 people who would gladly work longer and harder and do their job for less.

The cats can’t eat better than the masters.  The money is just not there, and there are no more bailouts to soften the blow.   It is time for a public sector union reckoning.  And that has to go for non-union government employees as well.

We cannot afford you.  If you would like to soul search over how this came to be, feel free to do so.  If you would like to play the “can’t cut services, then explain why you would let them be cut rather than provide them for less.  We’ve been doing it ourselves for quite sometime.  Now it’s your turn.

 

Image Source: Newsreel Blog

Cross Posted

Posted in Public Sector Unions, Unions | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Government As God

Posted on December 20, 2010 by Steve Mac Donald

credit: 123fr.comFor as long as I can recall the New Hampshire Democrat Party has been using the “Press Release” to make up crap about people, misrepresent the words they use, change the meaning of their words, or in some cases creating out of whole cloth whatever perception they think will advance their clawing obsession with accumulating political power by damaging anyone or anything that stands between them and their Pinky and The Brain like nightly quest (minus the Brain) to take over the world.

This week, the mouthpiece of the democrats Department of Orwellian Plots Irrelevant and Evil (DOPIE), Harrell “it depends on what the definition of “is” is” Kirstien, thought he could get some much needed traction from the Christian haters in the party choir, by implying that the religions thoughts of one NH State House Republican (out of 400), was a call to establish the great American theocracy that the liberals are always warning us about.

As with most of their brain drool, this was perhaps more about poking a sleeping rabid donkey with a hot iron to get it up, angry and moving.  But Kirstein is to press releases what a five year old is to breakfast in bed.  He aint no Betty Crocker.

What was meant to be an off hand jibe for cheap political points about the need to fear anyone who believes in something more powerful than government, turned into a national news story about religious intolerance and bigotry against Christians.  And since we have to play by their rules, we have to take them at their words.

Well done.

Nothing pleases us more than seeing the bearers of the PC fire getting burned by their own creation but to have this incompetence demonstrated so close to home, aside from providing great blogging material, reminds us that democrats cannot separate anything from politics, nor are they able to view the power of government as outside any aspects of human existence.  In their heads government is essentially a secular theocracy absent any power greater than themselves where government is God and politicians are the arbiters of its will.  It is therefore incumbent on them to destroy any and all competition for that power, regardless of risk or relevance, no matter where they find it.

Those of you keeping score at home take heed.  There is not one part of your life they will not at some point try to affect with political power and influence, meaning that whenever they are in power you will be a government with a country and never the other way around.

 

Cross Posted

Posted in Constitution, National Politics & Policy | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment