Lost Treasure

It's not often I will write or link to something emotional, something that brings tears to the eyes of even the most hard-hearted person. But I am this time.

It never ceases to amaze me how much effect our four-footed family members can have on us. It's also surprising how much we hurt when they hurt...and how much we grieve when they are taken from us.

And so it has been with Shawn Mallow and his cat, Treasure.

Go read their story.

Keep a hanky nearby.

ObamaCare/PelosiCare - Another Preview

If you want a preview of what ObamaCare/PelosiCare is going to be like, take a look at this:



The only problem we'll have is that we'll have no place to go to get the care we want, unlike our Canadian brethren do now. Hmm, maybe some of the more enterprising physicians in the US will move their practices offshore to one of the Caribbean islands in order to give the care we Americans will soon be deprived of by the oh-so-caring US Government.

(H/T Instapundit)

Thoughts On A Sunday

It's been 'let's cut the brush out back' time here at the Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Manse this weekend.

While BeezleBub tackled the brush out back I took care of cleaning out the more noxious and tenacious brush that have invaded the front. While we could have done this during the summer months, it has turned out to be easier and more efficacious after the leaves have fallen. It's easier to remove the vegetation when we can actually see what we're working on.

While we haven't gotten it all done, we did make a major dent in our task. I figure we'll be at it for another couple of weekends before we can declare success.

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It was a nice warm day here in central New Hampshire today, with temps in the low 60's. It's supposed to be even warmer tomorrow and Tuesday. I'll take it. While we have been running at below normal temperatures since mid September, we are being graced with a few days of above normal temps. Then we'll be back into the colder than normal temperatures. But at least we won't need to run the Official Weekend Pundit Woodstove during the day until Wednesday. That works for me.

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Late last night I saw Nancy Pelosi crowing her success in extorting and strong-arming enough Democrats to vote for her 1990+ page “Destruction of the American Health Care System and Daunting Deficit Spending To Pay For It All” bill. In my opinion it shows her delight in sending the US down the path of economic ruin for our health care system. The Speaker obviously has no understanding of economics and what motivates and demotivates people to do what they do when it comes to economic activity.

We know her intentions are good (after all, she says so), but we all know the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. Unfortunately she will be dragging 300+ million Americans to Health Care Hell with her.

Now all we can hope for is the bill's failure to pass in the Senate. I'd like to think there will be enough opposition to kill it despite Harry Reid's arm twisting.

Obama praised this soul-killing bill as one “desperately needed by the American people.” Unfortunately he's wrong (or disingenuous). This isn't what was needed by anyone but him. What the American desperately need is for him to stop screwing around with the economy and to stop spending money we don't have.

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Sarah Palin makes known her thoughts about the just passed Pelosi health care bill:

Despite Americans’ decisive message last Tuesday that they reject the troubling path this country has been taking, Speaker Pelosi has broken her own promises of transparency to ram a health “care” bill through the House of Representatives just before midnight. Why did she push the 2,000 page bill this weekend? Was she perhaps afraid to give her peers and the constituents for whom she works the chance to actually read this monstrous bill carefully, if at all? Was she concerned that Americans might really digest the details of a bill that the Wall Street Journal has called “the worst piece of post-New Deal legislation ever introduced”?

I've turned manure piles at the farm that did't stink anywhere near as much as this socialist piece-of-crap legislation.

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You know it's bad for Obama when even the Chicago press is criticizing him for his reaction (or lack thereof) to the shootings in Fort Hood. Some have even called this his “My Pet Goat” moment. (For those of you out there not familiar with the reference, President George W. Bush was reading “My Pet Goat” to a bunch of elementary school students Down South when he received word of the first attack on the World Trade Center on September 11th. Some criticized him for not leaving immediately, possibly scaring the hell out of the kids, even though there was no definitive information about what had happened at that time.)

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But wait! It gets even worse for Obama!

It's not good for the President when even Democrats state they miss George W. Bush.

In a sign that the Obama honeymoon truly is over, I began to hear this week the first stirrings of a wistfulness about Mr Bush. "I never thought I'd hear myself say it," one Democrat told me. "But Obama makes you feel that at least with Bush you knew where he was on something."

This makes me want to buy one of these.

You know Obama's luster has indeed faded when the cool demeanor he displayed during the presidential campaign is now being criticized because he's seen as too cool, too passionless.

When Mr Bush's Republicans were defeated in the 2006 mid-term elections, it was the President himself who stepped up and declared that his party had received "a thumpin'". The Democratic defeats on Tuesday were not on anything like the same scale but Mr Obama acted as if nothing at all had happened.

This sounds like denial, where someone will ignore an event or events in the hope that it will all go away all by itself.

I don't think that's going to work in this case.

(H/T Instapundit)

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Glenn Reynolds has a series of links decrying the Department of Homeland Security's focus on Tea Party protesters while ignoring online posts and rants of those glorifying suicide bombings and jihadist attacks against US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Says Instapundit reader C.J. Burch, “Ah, but those middle class protesters are a threat to politicians’ power. Terrorists are just a threat to their constituents’ lives. See the difference?”

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One must wonder what the heck the Obama Administration thinks the First Amendment – and particularly Free Speech – means. From what I've been reading lately I get the impression they see it as something that should be greatly curtailed...unless someone is speaking in favor of something the Administration wants.

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If this were really the case:



I've always liked the VW's.

(H/T Maggie's Farm)

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This is how President Obama should have handled the shootings at Ft. Hood.

Are we missing Dubya and Laura yet?

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The New England Patriots played the Miami Dolphins in Foxboro today, beating them 27-17. While still not perfect, the Patriots have shaped up nicely after a few stumbles at the beginning of the season.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where above normal temps are visiting for a few days, the depression over PelosiCare is setting in, and where ammo is still in short supply.

How's That "Smart Diplomacy" Workin' For You?

It appears the Obama Administration has finally figured out that the Hondurans did have the legal right to oust former President Zelaya.

After making all kinds of noise about the supposed “coup” and how the Honduran Congress and Supreme Court removing Zelaya under their own constitution and laws were somehow wrong, the Obama Administration now concedes their actions were lawful and will magnanimously allow them some say in their own affairs.

Gee, isn't that just swell?

So much for “smart diplomacy.”

An Accidental Stimulus

From the November 5th issue of Machine Design comes this eye opening observation about our economy, specifically in regards to the Law of Unintended Consequences.

As the official unemployment rate tops 10% in more than one quarter of all states, the hot topic of the day increasingly moves toward how to stimulate more hiring. This is particularly true in states hit the hardest in the economic downturn.

With this in mind, consider the annual trade show put on by the Packaging Machinery Manufacturers Institute last month. Despite the punk economy, show attendance was healthy. Many exhibitors reported a lot of interest in the packaging and food-processing equipment they had on the show floor.

One might wonder why, with manufacturing companies in such terrible shape, makers of food-processing and food-packaging equipment seemed to be doing relatively well. Part of the answer, according to a longtime PMMI board member, is that makers of automation equipment for the food industry are being helped along by recent legislation, but not in the way you might think.

This board member, who has held management positions in the foodprocessing-
equipment industry for many years, wasn’t referring to stimulus spending. He was alluding to the rise in the minimum wage which took effect this past summer. The food industry is characterized by a significant number of low-wage workers, he points out. In the past, he’d noticed that every increase in the minimum wage resulted in an up-tick of orders for automation equipment designed to eliminate a few more jobs. He figures this past summer’s wage hike is shaping up to be no different. Of course, you’ll likely never read this explanation for economic activity in newspaper headlines. One suspects that machinery manufacturers asked to publicly explain their improving business conditions tend to avoid giving politically incorrect answers. It is generally unwise to point out that your own good fortunes are partly due to missteps by politicians that have brought misery to others.

(emphasis added – ed.)

Of course it was the politicians in Congress that pushed through the raise in the minimum wage, using the excuse that no one could support a family making the minimum wage as it was before they took action. However, it is rare that anyone making minimum wage is also supporting a family. Such jobs are usually entry level positions for people taking their first jobs. But with the increase of the minimum wage over the past couple of years many of those jobs have disappeared. As illustrated above, when the costs go up employers find ways of cutting costs. Whether that means trimming jobs or replacing personnel with machinery, the end result is the number of jobs at minimum wage shrink.

I have no doubt the members of Congress that ramrodded this change will now claim the decrease in the number of minimum wage jobs is solely the fault of the greedy business owners. But the one thing they constantly overlook is that businesses, particularly small businesses, are not charities. If they don't remain profitable they go out of business, and those working for them will be out of jobs. This is something that seems to have escaped the notice of the Congresscritters when they passed the minimum wage increase legislation.

List Of Accomplishments

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(No) Power To The People

Things are not going well in the socialist paradise of Venezuela. Apparently Hugo Chávez and his minions are having trouble keeping the lights on and the water running. Is it really any surprise?

Venezuelans in the capital are bracing themselves for drastic rationing as public services in the oil-rich nation sink ever deeper into crisis, threatening to undermine President Hugo Chávez's support.

Water is to be cut off in Caracas for up to 48 hours a week from Monday, possibly lasting until next May or June. Power rationing is also starting this week, aiming to reduce national useage by 20 per cent.

Venezuela's populist leader says the water shortages are a result of the driest weather in 40 years, which has also intensified the problem of blackouts. The country relies on hydroelectricity for about three-quarters of its power and reservoirs are at record lows. Increased consumption due to high economic growth has exacerbated the problem, he says.

“High economic growth”? Really? In Venezuela?

Hmm. Somehow I find it difficult to believe there is economic growth of any kind in Venezuela, particularly when price controls for various commodities (like food) have made them very scarce. Graft, corruption, and incompetence have severely limited or destroyed various segments of the economy. Even Venezuela's oil reserves, claimed by Chávez to be greater than that even of Saudi Arabia, have been unable to support the government's growing social and economic engineering programs. Of course it doesn't help that their petroleum infrastructure has been decaying since Chávez took power and nationalized the oil companies. Most of the personnel that used to run and maintain the infrastructure have either quit, been fired, or fled Venezuela. The missing workers have been replaced by many of Chávez's political cronies, few of which know anything about running or maintaining the wells and equipment needed to keep the oil flowing.

I wonder how long it will take their wells, pipelines, oil terminals, and other equipment to deteriorate to the point where it doesn't work? All one need do is look at how Iran's once profitable oil infrastructure has crumbled to the point where they can't even refine enough of their own oil to meet their domestic needs.

His fellow Venezuelans haven't been buying his line about the causes of the various shortages, knowing many of the problems they are suffering are due entirely to his actions.

Government critics say that, despite Venezuela being flooded by oil wealth in recent years as energy prices rose, persistent under-investment in maintaining and expanding water and electricity networks lies at the root of the problem. They also point to chronic mismanagement, poor planning and even corruption. Furthermore, frozen tariffs have provided no incentive to conserve water or electricity.

Many remain unconvinced by Mr Chávez's attempts to brush off responsibility for the shortages by attributing problems to the climatic phenomenon known as El Niño .

"It's not the root of the problem," says Norberto Bausson, director of the Municipal Institute for Water and Aqueducts of Sucre, an opposition-controlled municipality in eastern Caracas. He says the rationing is caused by rising demand due to population growth and increased consumption per capita, while an absence of infrastructure investment has caused supply to be lower now than a decade ago.

Eventually Chávez will run out of excuses. He won't be able to blame the rich because there won't be any left, except for his cronies (he'll have made sure of that). He won't be able to blame a drought if the electrical and water systems finally break down and provide neither to the populace even though there's plenty of water available to drink and generate electricity. He won't be able to blame the farmers for the shortage of food if he's driven them all out of business due to his fixing prices at such a low level that the farmers go bankrupt.

The time will come (if it hasn't already) when the only one left to blame will be Chávez himself. But he won't (or can't) admit he's been the cause of Venezuela's economic ills because when it comes to economics he's a total moron. But then most dictators are when it comes to understanding how economies work.

Thoughts On A Sunday

We knew it had to come to an end, but Beezlebub was devastated by the fact that his regular employment at the farm has ended for the year. It left him a bit directionless as he really didn't know what to do with his free time. He will be helping with building a roof over the outdoor coolers sometime later this month, but it isn't quite the same thing as working in the fields or running one of the tractors.

To help with his feelings of loss, we ended up making a trip to the WP In-Laws for the day, something that always makes him feel better.

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Speaking of yesterday, the weather was definitely schizophrenic, with the day looking like it should have been a cool, windy, rainy day. Instead it was a very warm, windy, rainy day. Coats and sweaters were not required because it was in the upper 60's/lower 70's. The Official Weekend Pundit Woodstove was allowed to go cold and wasn't restarted until late today. The brief reprieve from the cool temperatures lasted until today, when things returned to normal.

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As often happens during family trips, discussions about various topics take place. During our trip home from the WP In-Laws I made mention that I was having trouble seeing because of the dark and rain. At first I thought it was just me and my aging eyes. But both Deb and BeezleBub said they were also having a tough time seeing as well. The recently painted markings on the roads were barely visible (the rain deflecting the reflections from the markings), the winds causing the rain to wash across the windshield in ways that made it difficult for the wipers to keep it clear. It quickly became apparent we weren't the only ones having that problem as more than one car or truck we encountered on our trip home were driving slower and more carefully that they otherwise might have.

New pavement was more difficult to see because it is darker than older pavement, making it tougher to see the edges of the road. There was lots of new pavement along our route of travel (so maybe it's Obama's fault we couldn't see because of all the ARRA funds made available for road construction/reconstruction!).

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Oh, yeah, like this bodes well for the state of California.

Starting Sunday, cash-strapped California will dig deeper into the pocketbooks of wage earners -- holding back 10% more than it already does in state income taxes just as the biggest shopping season of the year kicks into gear.

Technically, it's not a tax increase, even though it may feel like one when your next paycheck arrives.

Think of it as a forced, interest-free loan: You'll be repaid any extra withholding in April. Those who would receive a refund anyway will receive a larger one, and those who owe taxes will owe less.

Yeah, like that will happen. Knowing California's deep budget deficit, I doubt they'll have the means of paying that money back any time soon, if ever.

(H/T Instapundit)

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Tammy Bruce confirms a prediction I made way back when that the Cash For Clunkers program would end up screwing both the taxpayers and the used car market.

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I just upgraded our Linux computers to Ubuntu 9.10. The laptop had no problems and sailed through the upgrade with no problems. BeezleBub's computer, on the other hand, is now reporting a number of bad sectors on its primary hard drive. It also freezes when he tries to start an application. Ironically, it only happens on his account. When I log onto his computer on my account, everything seems to work just fine.

And people wonder why I hate and love computers at the same time.

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First, there was Bush Derangement Syndrome. Then came Palin Derangement Syndrome (an ongoing affliction). Now there's (Liz) Cheney Derangement Syndrome.

Those hate-filled misogynists at MSNBC just can't handle it when a conservative woman dares utter an opinion. After Liz Cheney rightfully criticized Barack Obama's cheesy photo-op at Dover AFB the other night, MSNBC clown Lawrence O'Donnell, filling in for the insane Keith Olbermann, goes on this lame rant last night. O'Donnell is technically correct on one point: Yes, neither George W. Bush nor Dick Cheney ever pulled a stunt like Obama's. Likely because they realized buffoons like O'Donnell would have gone wild about "monsters" like Bush and Cheney showing up to greet the soldiers "they killed" in their "illegal war for oil" or some such nonsense.

'Nuff said.

(H/T Pirate's Cove)

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The White House has claimed a large number of jobs have been 'saved' by the stimulus bill. What they don't tell you is that most of them were government jobs.

It sounds like they've been taking a page from the book of New Jersey governor John Corzine.

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Speaking of John Corzine, the gubernatorial race in New Jersey is a close one.

Corzine has ponied up over $30 million of his own money, while Republican challenger Chris Christie has been using public funding. Ironically, in a state with a 2-1 advantage of registered Democrats to Republicans, Christie is giving Corzine a run for his money. It all comes down to who the voters believe can turn New Jersey around and help the state economy recover. If Corzine's record in that regard were the only criteria for deciding who to vote for, he'd lose by a landslide. Unfortunately this race is about more than that...and that's the problem.

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Has anyone else other than me and Don Surber noticed the White House really doesn't like criticism?

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Ford Motor Company managed to avoid bankruptcy, managed to stay in business, and is making and selling cars consumers want to buy. So what happens?

The UAW figures Ford must be punished for its success.

With the rank and file voting down a contract negotiated between the unions and Ford, I would not be surprised to see demands for high pay, a wider swath of benefits, and more crippling work rules. The UAW played its part in bringing down Chrysler and GM, now they want to do the same thing to Ford.

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Bruce points out the greed of Massachusetts shoppers crossing the border into New Hampshire to do their shopping, depriving their beloved Commonwealth of much needed revenue required “For The Children!”

In the photo included in his post, you see the owner of the vehicle is a proud member of a union, an Obama supporter, and definitely not a fan of George W. Bush. To me it illustrates their hypocrisy, apparently being for all kinds of liberal spending (and the taxes that go with them), yet stiffing their own home state of tax revenues to benefit themselves.

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Bogie and her WS are making preparations for the coming winter, getting their firewood supply stacked and under cover. As she says, “This is stuff of warm and cozy winters!”

Here at The Manse we have two-thirds of our firewood supply stacked and ready to go, with the last third being delivered sometime in the next week or so.

Unlike last winter, we will be doing almost all our heating using the Official Weekend Pundit Woodstove. About the only time we'll turn up the thermostat is when it is below zero outside (the woodstove can't quite keep up when it's that cold) and when we leave The Manse for more than a day, like over Christmas Eve and Christmas Day (we'll be at the WP In-Laws). We plan to limit our use of our propane supply to the water heater and the clothes drier. If this winter's usage holds to previous winters when we used only wood to heat, we won't go through more than 200 gallons of propane between our last fill up in September and our next one in late April/early May next year.

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Are this week's elections in Virginia, New Jersey, and upstate New York a prelude to 2010? They will certainly be an indicator of whether President Obama still has any pull with the electorate. If Republicans win in all three races it would show the luster has begun to fade from Obama and that independents and moderates are abandoning in large numbers the left-center shift they showed last November. If Republicans win in two of the three races (figure Virginia and upstate New York) it points to the growing problem the Democrats have been having with independent and moderate voters. If a Republican wins only one of the races (likely Virginia), then it means Obama still has some pull, Corzine's millions spent on his own campaign notwithstanding.

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One of the aforementioned races – New York's 23rd Congressional District - has had a number of twist and turns, one being the GOP candidate Dede Scozzafava dropping out of the race, leaving the way open for Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman. A lot of people thought Scozzafava was more of a RINO (Republican In Name Only), so her backing by the state GOP and RNC was puzzling (the county GOP endorsed Hoffman).

The latest twist: Scozzafava has endorsed the Democrat candidate. Scozzafava made fools of the GOP, and particularly Newt Gingrich, who endorsed her over Hoffman.

I'd say this shows the RNC is seriously out of touch with the rank and file.

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One thing I must admit: I hate having to change clocks twice a year, particularly from Daylight Savings Time to Standard Time. I'd rather keep the extra hour of daylight in the afternoon and deal with the extra morning darkness. The shift from DST is always the most difficult one for me, the family, and particularly the feline members of the household. (Dinnertime is very important to them, but with the change to Standard Time their dinnertime has been delayed an hour because no one is home to feed them. They aren't happy about that at all.)

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where Standard Time has returned, the weather has been kind of weird, and where our firewood stacks are getting bigger.

Obama Surrenders Honduras To His Leftist Pals

Now that Obama has gotten his way in regards to Honduras and the return of Chavez protege Zelaya to the presidency, I have to wonder what he will do should Zelaya impose a Chavez-like socialist dictatorship, abolish the Congress, eliminate freedom of speech, muzzle the press, tear up the Honduran constitution, and 'disappear' his political opponents?

I have no doubt our own Chavez fan will praise Zelaya's actions and make some kind of noise about “correcting past American wrongs” by allowing a representative democracy to fall into the hands of his socialist brethren.

It Can't Get Much Worse, Can It?

Here's yet another non-surprise in regards to FairPoint Communications and their ongoing financial and operations difficulties: The New York Stock Exchange delisted FairPoint today. Their stock fell to a little over 10¢ per share after the NYSE's action.

And the hits keep on coming.

Let this be a lesson for Frontier Communications, a firm that spent far too much money for some more of Verizon's rural wireline assets. That's what caused FairPoint's problems. I have a feeling Frontier end up in the same boat.

Don't Blame Wall Street - Blame Congress

Professor Russ Roberts of George Mason University gave the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform an earful earlier today when he testified in front of the committee about executive compensation and the serious imbalance that exists in regards to over-the-top compensation given to high level executives of failing or failed firms.

While I have a problem with the government setting the pay scales and other compensations for corporations and financial institutions, Roberts does make a case for reining in giving incompetent or corrupt executives excessive pay and perks while everyone else takes it in the wallet.

Americans are angry about executive compensation.

Rightfully so.

The executives at General Motors and Chrysler don’t deserve to make a lot of money. They made bad products that people didn’t want to buy.

The executives on Wall Street don’t deserve to make a lot of money. They were reckless with other people’s money. They made bad bets that didn’t pay off. And they wasted trillions of dollars of precious capital, funneling it into housing instead of... a thousand investments more valuable than bigger houses.

Everyday folks who are out of work through no fault of their own want to know why people who made bad decisions not only have a job but a big salary to go with it.

No wonder they’re angry at Wall Street.

But if we keep getting angry at Wall Street, we’ll miss the real source of the problem. It’s right here. In Washington.

We are what we do. Not what we wish to be. Not what we say we are. But what we do. And what we do here in Washington is rescue big companies and rich people from the consequences of their mistakes. When mistakes don’t cost you anything, you do more of them.

(Emphasis added – ed.)

For far too long we have taken a path that privatized profits but socialized risks, meaning the risks businesses were willing to take became greater because they knew they really wouldn't have to pay the price if things didn't work out. All we need to do is look at the housing crash, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the string of failed banks holding non-performing loans, mortgages, and mortgage backed securities. And we have Congress to thank for that, Barney Frank's protestations to the contrary notwithstanding.

The question is, have we learned anything from this? Probably not.

Capitalism is a profit and loss system. The profits encourage risk-taking. The losses encourage prudence. Is it a surprise that when the government takes the losses, instead of the investors, that investing gets less prudent? If you always bail out lenders, is it surprising that firms can borrow enormous amounts of money living on the edge of insolvency?

I’m mad at Wall Street. But I’m a lot madder at the people who gave them the keys to drive our economy off the cliff. I’m mad at the people who have taken hundreds of billions of taxpayer money and given it to some of the richest people in human history. I’m mad at Bush and Obama and Paulson and Geithner and Bernanke. And I’m mad at Congress. You made sure that risk-takers continue to expect that the rules that apply to the rest of us don’t apply to people with the right connections.

You have saved the system, but it’s not a system worth saving. It’s not capitalism but crony capitalism.

And therein lies the problem. If we were truly a capitalistic economy, the meltdown we experienced never would have happened because the banks, investment firms, and mortgage lenders would never have floated the amount of tainted paper that caused it all. They would have been prudent because they knew no one would bail them out, would get canned (without the golden parachute), and possibly go to prison. But the government intervened with “incentives”and gave them a license to be foolish, to push the edge of the envelope, and to waste money that wasn't theirs to begin with. They knew that if they lost it the government would bail them out, which means that we – the taxpayers – would ultimately foot the bill.

While a “pay” czar may sound like it would stop the insanity, it is merely window dressing that does nothing to solve the problem. Dictating what salaries and other perks high level executives will receive may be a sop to those calling for the government to “Do something!”, but it doesn't address the underlying cause of the problem: the government itself.

The regulations and laws passed by Congress that forced lending institutions to make loans to people unlikely to pay them back was merely one aspect of what led to the economy into a deep recession. Changes in lending practices at the behest of the government and government guarantees for sub-optimal loans merely added fuel to the fire that was the banking/credit and housing market collapse.

From what I've been hearing, seeing, and reading, Congress seems disinclined to actually do something substantive about it. They will make the appropriate noises, tell the media that they'll be tackling the issue(s), pass some legislation that sounds like it will take care of it but in the end will do very little to actually fix the problem, and then they'll move on to making sure they get re-elected in 2010.

Thus endeth the lesson.

Michael Jackson Tribute Medley

I saw this Michael Jackson tribute medley on ABC News and checked it out. This guy is talented.



All but one of the guys on stage is him. The fellow off to the left beat-boxing is a fellow student at Yale and the producer of the video.

Who Is John Galt?

Who indeed?

(H/T Instapundit)

Color Me Surprised...NOT.

The question was only in the timing: How long until FairPoint Communications files for bankruptcy?

Now we know.

FairPoint filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, citing its $2.7 billion (that's billion with a 'b') debt. It hopes to reduce that debt by $1 billion.

The three states most affected, Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, are likely to seek protection as well. New Hampshire has already said it will intervene in the reorganization of FairPoint to protect New Hampshire's interests.

On more than one occasion I and others have warned that the deal that sold Verizon's wireline assets in northern New England to FairPoint was a bad idea. Even the three state's utility regulators had doubts. But the deal went through and now we'll all be paying for it.

Can you hear me now?