In week 5 Skip has pulled ahead, coming off his plateau and continuing his trek towards our goal 195 pounds. I've got some catching up to do!



Click on image to enlarge

New England dodged the storm that buried the mid-Atlantic states with over 2^1/2 feet of snow. All we got was a high, thin cloud layer that barely dimmed the sun. Beezlebub spent the day working at the farm, making use of the good weather.

Today's semi-nice weather (sunny, but cold with a nasty wind chill to deal with) allowed Beezlebub and I to move some more firewood into the garage. This batch has been seasoning for two years so it should burn quite nicely.

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"If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine."

Yup. I'd say that pretty well sums it up.

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From a comment made to the post linked above:

Progressives, despite claiming to be the party representing the "working man" have created a virtual social caste system, where if you didn't go to the right schools, or don't live in the right cities, or if religion is more than something you do on holidays, then your opinion can safely be discounted. They might pat you on the head, but ultimately they believe that you should be ruled by your betters. Lest we forget "Joe the Plumber". And Palin is tapping into that. During the Presidential campaign, there were a lot of Teamsters in PA asking why they should vote for two lawyers over the ticket where one of the candidates was married to a "brother member". When people throw out "right wing" and "fundie" they seem to lose sight of the fact that America remains a center right, deeply religious country, and given time to become comfortable with her negatives, a lot of the Democratic base will culturally self identify closer to someone like Palin than Obama. And at a certain point, the insults will make someone say "hey, they're basically talking about me." Especially if the "smart people" continue to demonstrate that even with massive majorities they still can't govern. I honestly don't think the average coastal/college town progressive understands the view on the ground in the hinterland.

To quote...umm... me, "Yup. I'd say that pretty well sums it up."

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I'll bet the Obama Administration didn't do it's math when it came to the "Cash for Clunkers" program. If they had they would have found they spent $8.57 for every dollar 'saved'.

I'd call that a major 'fail', wouldn't you?

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Skip at GraniteGrok delves more into Town Meeting and how it is democracy writ small. He also points out where the process can be used to deprive citizens of their property rights in favor of others. What's particularly disturbing is when the petitioner for change is the one that will benefit, while working to put a long standing family-owned family-oriented resort out of business.

This past Wednesday was our Town's Deliberative Session and an example of one of the topics that is most likely able to torque me up - that of using the force of Government for personal benefit used against your fellow neighbors or citizens.

There is a long standing animus between a business entity called the Ames Farm and a lawyer by the name of Stephen Nix here in my hamlet. For years now, the latter has tried to shut down parts of the operation of this 120 year cottage/restaurant/boat launch resort by using a number of legal maneuvers. In essence, he is trying to take away one of our basic Rights, that of Private Property, from this family so as to enhance the value of his property.

We have a term for folks like that borrowed from the South: carpetbaggers. That's even worse than being a flatlander. What makes this issue even more hurtful is that Attorney Nix grew up in our town, and as such, should know better.

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Apparently Obama's lack of understanding about economics also extends to Einstein's Theory of Relativity and freedom of speech.

Not only does Obama refuse to read physics textbooks before lecturing us on physics, he also refuses to read Supreme Court decisions before lecturing the Supreme Court on Supreme Court decisions. Justice Samuel Alito correctly mouthed "not true" when Obama made false statements about the Citizens United Supreme Court decision. Obama and Tribe's claims about physics are equally "not true."

Color me shocked!

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Ronald Reagan had the right of it.

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Beezlebub and I watched Super Bowl XLIV, rooting for the Saints.

I can safely say I've never seen an onside kick to open a half! The Saints' second-half gamble paid off, turning it into a touchdown and putting them ahead of the Colts for the first time.

In the end the Saints pulled it off, winning 31-17.

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Bogie's already getting ready for spring, placing her orders for seeds.

It's hard to believe planting will start in only three months (at least in greenhouses and indoors).

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where winter still holds sway, the firewood pile is getting smaller, and where Daylight Saving Time will return in a month.

Massive journalistic failure? Yep. Just like the 1992 Boston Fed Study showing widespread racism in home mortgage lending. That was a crock, too.

The January unemployment numbers are out and at first look the fall in the 'official' unemployment rate - 9.7% - appears to be a signal that things may be getting better. But the fly in the ointment is the loss of an additional 20,000 jobs.

So how is it that even though more jobs have been lost, the unemployment rate has fallen? Businesses haven't been hiring, so it isn't that the unemployed have necessarily found new jobs (though 11,000 new jobs were reported). Could some of the reason for the fall in the jobless rate be because a number of unemployed have stopped looking for work that isn't there, dropping off the unemployment rolls? They are no longer counted but they're still unemployed. Others have taken part-time or temporary jobs outside their usual professions, further distorting the numbers.

Some tout the lower unemployment rate as proof the economy is improving, but there are others saying the numbers aren't reflecting the real job situation.

John Silvia, chief economist at Wells Fargo, said the drop in the unemployment rate wasn't a result of a shrinking labor force, which has held the rate down in previous months.

"It simply was, people found jobs," he said. The report is "consistent with continued improvement in the labor market."

But Paul Ashworth, an economist at Capital Economics, noted that the economy has been growing for six months, yet company payrolls are still shrinking.

"Based on what we've seen so far, we think it is fair to characterize this as another jobless recovery," Ashworth said.

Left behind are people like Aimee Brittain, 31, who said she can't get employers to return her calls. She's hunting for work as a secretary after being laid off from a commercial real estate firm near her home in suburban Atlanta.

"I'm fighting against people with master's degrees for receptionist jobs," Brittain said. "I can't compete."

How many of the 11,000 new jobs were taken by people in the same position as Brittain? How many will be relegated to jobs outside their areas of expertise, with wages well below what they made before? Unless those questions are answered then the state of the economy will not be accurately reflected by the unemployment rate.

I hiked Mt. Israel today. Very nice. I was alone until I made it back to the parking area. Great views of the Sandwich Range. As a unique happenstance, the summit of that small mountain is exactly the same elevation of the holiest city in the world--a place I most want to visit outside the States--Jerusalem. Two thousand six hundred and thirty-three. With my two dogs: Ruby, the dumb blonde (golden retriever) and loyal Beau, the chocolate lab. I should give you pictures.

I thought how Obama sucks.

I thought how lucky it is I have my health. It has given me wealth, working at UPS, which requires a tough physical effort every day.

I hope the Saints win tomorrow, but I wouldn't bet money on it.

I think our greatest threat is the entitlement crunch happening before our eyes.

I drink too much alcohol. If I don't watch it... It's not as though I need help. At least not yet.

I'm listening to the opera. I love the opera. I want to take my daughter to it. No one else in my family likes it. It's really a miracle I do. When I was in junior high in the Lansing, Michigan, area, all the schools were carted off to listen to Don Giovanni by Mozart in some big playhouse where Deep Purple played a little later. I developed a migraine headache. So for years, decades really, I associated the opera with a horrible pain in my head.

But gradually I guess that's dissipated. I heard of something like this happening before. For example, my favorite talk show host threw up after eating cantaloupe. And drinking way too much. But eventually David Brudnoy was able to eat cantaloupe once again. So it happens.

Speaking of talk show hosts, the one who stands head and shoulders above everyone else talent-wise is clearly Michael Savage. He doesn't sound crazy anymore like he use to when I first got interested in 1999. Here he is being very effective about the issue which liberals ignore. It's an outrage we allow so many unborn babies to be aborted. It's a much bigger problem than racism, poverty, or hunger in the United States. You should check out the five-  or six-minute episode on Patrick Madrid's blog.

One doesn't have to look far to find academics with a distorted view of America and its people. A local example: Prof. Leo R. Sandy a professor of Counselor Education and School Psychology at Plymouth State University.

The professor spouts the liberal/socialist line at every opportunity, in a weekly newspaper column and regular letters to the local papers. One of his latest pronouncements came in a letter to the editor (Laconia Daily Sun, Tuesday February 2, 2010), commenting upon Republican reactions to Obama's State of the Union address. (No direct link available.)

The Republicans had an oppositional air to them that causes me to question their commitment to the progress of this country. As regressives, they have been very effective in moving the Democrats so far to the right that nothing can be accomplished.

Excuse me? They've been moving the Democrats to the right? Not from what I and most of the rest of America have seen. With cap-and-trade, health care reform, stimulus, and a $1.6 trillion+ (and growing) budget deficit, I don't see how any of that can be considered moving the leftist Dems to the right.

Professor Sandy has never been shy about his political beliefs, espousing the leftist point of view for some time. Never mind that socialism in all its forms has failed miserably and done nothing but cause misery, poverty, and widespread diminishment or destruction of economic systems, supposedly 'for the good of the people'. He chooses to be blind to the downside of his political beliefs.

But then, he doesn't have to compete in the real world, worrying about meeting a payroll, filling out endless state and federal government reporting forms, ensuring compliance with US and foreign regulations, paying state and federal business taxes, and paying insurance premiums for a host of business policies (workman's comp, health insurance, liability insurance, etc). He doesn't have to worry about being laid off (if he has tenure), or paying for his health insurance (he's a state employee), so he's insulated from the effects of all the socialist policies and laws he supports. Then again, that's true of most academics in the soft sciences and liberal arts. They rarely have to deal with the real world. That's their biggest problem. With little or no connection to the real world, it is easy for them to support socialist ideals and policies abhorrent to average Americans.

UPDATE: Bird Dog asks the question "Why are Liberals so condescending?"

It is laudable when individuals or businesses deploy alternative energy generation systems, be they small or large. It's great...as long as they work.

In Minnesota, the Minnesota Municipal Power Authority erected 11 wind turbines in a number of cities around Minneapolis/St. Paul this past fall. The plan was to have all of them up and running by Christmas. The turbines were refurbished units originally used at a California wind farm. After reconditioning they were shipped from California to Minnesota and erected.

In southern California it's warm, even in winter. In Minnesota, it's cold from late fall through spring. In fact it's more than just cold, it's freakin' cold. Apparently the folks in California weren't aware of this fact.

The turbines sit idly in Anoka, North St. Paul, Chaska, Shakopee, Buffalo and six other cities, all members of the Minnesota Municipal Power Agency (MMPA). The refurbished, 115-foot towers had operated on a California wind farm, where they didn't have to worry about cold hydraulic fluid turning to gel and oil lubricants getting too sluggish.

Fluids and lubricants that worked well in California didn't work at all in below freezing temperatures, gumming up the works and bringing the turbines to a halt until spring. That turned them into expensive monuments to facts overlooked.

Oops.

I always try to showcase unpublished writers, specifically those with political or philosophical outlooks similar to the WP team.

Without further ado, I present guest blogger William Johnson:

A very simple truth about humans, human systems, and humanities development is...that there is no system that can be exercised or imposed from any outside source or structure, no matter the theme, onto humans or any human population that can rival the effectiveness and resulting productivity of any human construct that is created from within. Humans, and Nature, are dynamic and sometimes random beings. To exercise and focus the commonality from within is of greater respect and utility of that same nature, than it is to attempt to overwhelm it and rigidly orchestrate it. In hubris or lust of power, to rend that which is Natural into something that it is not, demands an all consuming endeavor to try to compensate for its inherent frailty.

In this knowledge, when the Natural order is subjected to an unrealistic ideology, the seed of the tyrant is found. In this knowledge is part of the why they need to be invariably inevitably cruel, murderous, and despotic despite its propaganda or original beneficial intent. When healthy systems are forced, from within or without, to be something different, or distanced from what makes them healthy, it will first be stressed and eventually decay into nothingness. If the cause for the distress is ideologically driven, if the cause for the distress is linked to mans pursuit of some goal then the injected disease will be progressive. Because unrealistic/unnatural ideologies are dependent on people that are compulsive/obsessive to only a small collections of ideas, though developed to a great degree, when challenged, they will not react dynamically, they will react by concentrating on their core beliefs. By trying to regroup to this small unhealthy collection of beliefs, they will continue to distill this internal dysfunctional. When these people are in positions of political power, they will, when challenged, react with a continuation of a distillation of an incomplete, incompetent, unsustainable, and overly rigid mindset, which in turn will lead to ever increasing aggression, irrationality, suspicion, desperation, misuse of language and facts, lying, propaganda, and manipulation by multiple means to achieve fewer and fewer ends.

The ongoing pursuit of an unsustainable, ideologically driven social order will demand an ever increasing amount and breadth of brutality to sustain its power structure.

"Do the ends justify the means?" is a question debated for centuries. A battleground of moral equivocation and effectiveness. There exists a number of seductive groupings of ideas and belief systems that claim to be able to cure all of mankind's failings if only they could be fully manifested. Yet, when an ideology claims to be able to dispel some injustice or all tales of woe but is not actually capable of curing the problems despite its propaganda's assurance, then the "ends", being unattainable, are proven to be no longer the point. It's the Means that are the point. The Means to pretend to fix some problem, while never genuinely fixing or even trying. No utopia of any Socialist or Communist regime has ever conquered poverty, or given decent health care to its citizenry, or given justice to those needing it. Nor were they ever able to dissuade human greed or lust for power. But they continued to expound their virtue to do so "at any cost" and continued the requisite absorption of power and wealth to fulfill the illusion to do so. So the question is forced to be "Do the means justify the means?"

One can only respond with "....wait, what?....no..."

And unless we all answer the question the same way we will suffer the same fate so many others have suffered before us.

It's time once again for us to exercise our rights in the annual expression of small town democracy. It's time for town meeting.

Town meeting in our fair town is tonight and I will attend, as I always have.

As the saying around here, "If you don't attend town meeting you have no right to complain about town spending or property taxes."

The political ideology shares with feminism a devotion to Marxist thought, analysis, and terms. Check this Boston Globe story on the fact the Emerson College has been found to be "too white."

This is offensive:

The Emerson report concluded that the college has done a poor job of nurturing and promoting black faculty, and said it should focus in the next five years on hiring black academics who are tenured elsewhere.

"There are to be found at Emerson unexamined and powerful assumptions and biases about the superiority, preferability, and normativeness of European-American culture, intellectual pursuits, academic discourse, leadership, and so on,'' the report said.

Left unexamined, the biases result in the "disproportionate undervaluing of African-Americans and the disproportionate overvaluing of European-Americans,'' it said.

If people only knew how many Trotskyites there are on American campuses, they'd be truly shocked.

There's a link to a newspaper saying that Massachusetts may liberalize its extremely arbitrary "may-issue" gun permits. My dad's hometown of West Boylston, Mass., just north of Worcester, is quite easy to have the required police chief signing off on a citizen's request for a concealed carry permit. But my good friend Mike, from North Andover, isn't so lucky. His police chief is notoriously niggardly about signing off on it.

The Worcester Telegram & Gazette reads:

I have to admit to feeling frustration with the "tax-'em-'til-they-bleed/leave" bunch. It has become quite apparent they lack two things: an understanding of economics and history.

It is this lack that drives the Obama Administration and a good portion of Congress. With history making budget deficits and plans to raise taxes to economy draining levels, it's quite clear they have unrealistic expectations of the revenues they'll collect, which in turn will drive them to raise taxes even higher, causing a further drop in revenues.

Whether it is a revolt of the kulaks, or mere tax avoidance, there is economic distortion from high rates of taxation.

The British are seeing this effect in their current budget, as wealthy Brits engage in tax avoidance (structuring their financial lives so as to legally avoid taxes) in anticipation of a rise from a 40% to a 50% rate.

Obviously the Brits are on a path to return to the bad old days of their 1970's economic malaise, when confiscatory tax rates drove the wealthy (and their wealth) out of the UK. The result was a moribund economy, high unemployment, falling tax revenues, and the failure of a number of long-standing British corporate icons (British Leyland, MG, and British Steel, just to name a few).

Two things to remember when it comes to taxes and government (from the comments):

The raising of T(axes) has the effect of decreasing I(nvestment) which in turn has the effect of decreasing Employment (N).

The larger the share of G(overnment) as a part of GDP, the worse off..the economy in the long run.

Turning this into an equation, we get the following: T=1/Ix → G=1/GPDy
(x and y are multipliers used to generate the correct ratio between the left and right side of the equation.)

But as we've already seen, those pushing for the ever higher taxes don't really understand math.

I'm selfish--I want them to be in a position to take care of me when I'm decrepit, which is now less than half a lifetime away. How'd it happen so fast?

Well, thanks to John Derbyshire's link from The Corner--ahem, have you read his new book? I loved it--we get the 13 careers for the next decade. Care to guess which is number one?

It took $833.69, a total of 15 hours 50 minutes, four trips to the Metropolitan Police Department, two background checks, a set of fingerprints, a five-hour class and a 20-question multiple-choice exam.

What a joke. It's a Washington Post reporter; the story is linked to here.

It's week 4 of the Weight Loss Challenge and Skip is still out in front. But as he posted today he's hit a plateau, just like I did last week. Hopefully I'll be able to catch up a bit as he marks time.

Here's the latest results:


Click on image to embiggen it.

While the South has been suffering from heavy snowfalls and freezing rain we up here in New England ave been enjoying sub-zero wind chills and below zero night time temperatures. That's worked out well for us here at Lake Winnipesaukee because this is the weekend of the Rotary Ice Fishing Derby. It's also been a problem because it requires a lot more firewood to keep The Manse above 60°F when the temperature outside is -10°F with a wind chill of -35°F.

It was cold enough that last night BeezleBub's boss, Farmer Andy, messaged him to let him know it was going to be too cold to spend the day outside splitting wood. (It might have also had something to with the difficulty of getting the diesel on the John Deere 5510 started when it's below zero in the barn.)

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With the thaw/freeze/thaw/freeze cycle we've been though the last couple of weeks the frost heaves have appeared in large numbers, making traveling down roads and side streets an exercise in preservation. In this case I'm talking about the preservation of automotive suspension parts and front end alignments.

We usually don't see frost heaves quite this early, which bodes ill for the 'regular' frost heave season in March.

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If you think the TEA parties are nothing more than a tool of the GOP, you're wrong. Instead it's the TEA parties taking over the GOP, replacing the faux fiscal conservatives with the real thing.

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If anyone should know whether the US is moving towards socialism, it's Lech Walesa. After all, he lived it and was one of the driving forces overthrowing it in Poland.

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Bogie's had her new Jeep for a month now ans she's still loving it. There were a few minor things she found wanting, with the worst being the air vents won't work unless the blower is on. That's been one of my pet peeves about Chrysler products since I had my trusty '95 Neon.

As Bogie says, "If the vents are the worst thing I have to complain about in the next 5 years...then I will consider myself truly lucky."

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And the hits keep on coming....

It appears the IPCC quoted an article in a mountaineering magazine and a master's dissertation, calling both of them 'papers' proving another facet of global warming. The only problem with them is that neither were based upon scientific study. Instead they both quoted anecdotal evidence from mountain guides in the Andes, Alps, and Africa.

The case for AGW is falling apart, as is the apparent severity of global warming in general.

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Robert Mitchell points out an important point which far too many Americans are ignorant: The US Constitution does not grant rights to anyone.

As recent events have clearly amplified, the average American's grasp of the content and purpose of the U.S. Constitution is woefully inadequate and too often inaccurate.

Ask a friend, a family member or a co-worker about the Constitution and what it does. You are likely to be told it grants Americans their rights and assures democratic elections and fair trials, or something along those lines. You'll also learn these things belong only to individual Americans. Foreigners and corporations are not covered. The Constitution does not permit. It does not dispense rights. It grants limited powers to the various branches of government and then provides checks and balances. Such as Article 1, Section 8: "The Congress shall have power to ..."

The Bill of Rights does not grant rights, either. Those 10 amendments limit the power of government to encroach on the rights presumed to belong to all of us. (Emphasis added.)

I am constantly amazed at the ignorance of our citizens when it comes to the Constitution and our rights.

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It appears Obama has solidified his newest political strategy: blame the other guy if he doesn't get his way.

Unfortunately his call for bipartisanship still sounds too much like his original definition of bipartisanship: Sit down, shut up, and vote the way we tell you to vote.

It sounds like he still doesn't understand that compromise means that both sides end up giving up something to get something they want. Over the past three years the Democrats have seemed unwilling to compromise on key issues, making the Republicans the only ones needing to compromise. And that means it isn't a compromise.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the ice fishing hasn't been great, the temps have been really cold, and where the fire in the woodstove is keeping us warm.

Daniel Hannan, who received Internet fame for his impassioned upbraiding of Prime Minister Gordon Brown last year, has a brilliant sentence in his dissection on Michael Moore and his new attack film on capitalism:

The trouble with the Michael Moore view of the world is that it elevates motive over outcome.

Robert Heilbronner, a lifelong socialiist, was able to admit that capitalism is a success where socialism has every where proved to be a failure. He famously wrote in 1989 that "Mises (the ardent free market economist whose books form an intellectual bulwark against socialism) was right." He even admitted the following:

Capitalism has been as unmistakable a success as socialism has been a failure. Here is the part that's hard to swallow. It has been the Friedmans, Hayeks, and von Miseses who have maintained that capitalism would flourish and that socialism would develop incurable ailments. All three have regarded capitalism as the 'natural' system of free men; all have maintained that left to its own devices capitalism would achieve material growth more successfully than any other system. From [my samplings] I draw the following discomforting generalization: The farther to the right one looks, the more prescient has been the historical foresight; the farther to the left, the less so.

He also noted then that "democratic liberties have not yet appeared, except fleetingly, in any nation that has declared itself to be fundamentally anticapitalist."

As I mentioned in my regular Sunday post, ClimateGate is the gift that keeps on giving.

The type of data and computer code manipulation committed by climate scientists at the CRU apparently has also been committed by NASA and NOAA as well, with non-global warming supporting temperature readings being eliminated, in turn showing a false increase in temperatures.

We don't dispute the fact that there has been some cyclical warming in recent decades -- most notably from 1979 to 1998 -- but cooling took place from the 1940s to the late 1970s, again after 1998, and especially after 2001, all while CO2 rose. This fact alone questions the primary role in climate change attributed to CO₂ by the IPCC, environmental groups, and others.

However, the global surface station data is seriously compromised.

There was a major station dropout -- and an increase in missing data from remaining stations -- which occurred suddenly around 1990. Just about the time the global warming issue was being elevated to importance in political and environmental circles.

A clear bias was found towards removing higher elevation, higher latitude, and rural stations -- the cooler stations -- during this culling process, though that data was not also removed from the base periods from which "averages," and then anomalies, were computed.

The data also suffers contamination by urbanization and other local factors, such as land-use/land-cover changes and improper siting.

There are also uncertainties in ocean temperatures. This is no small issue, as oceans cover 71% of Earth's surface.

These factors all lead to significant uncertainty and a tendency for overestimation of century-scale temperature trends. A conclusion from all findings suggests that global databases are seriously flawed and can no longer be trusted to assess climate trends, or rankings, or to validate model forecasts. Consequently, such surface data should be ignored for political decision-making.

Many of the warmists say it doesn't matter if the data was cooked because they 'know' we're all doomed unless we impoverish the world and return to agrarian level energy usage. They believe no more debate or study is needed, only action.

But with more respected and credentialed scientists calling AGW into question and pointing to the fraudulent data and the incomprehensible and questionable computer code, neither the debate or the science is settled. Before we spend trillions of dollars on a theory of questionable validity, shouldn't we go back over all the data and modeling software and verify it's accuracy?

To add to the debate, it appears that if we look at just rural US MSS station data going back to 1900, there is no evidence of global warming.

Using data downloaded from NASA GISS and picking rural sites near, but not too near, to urban sites, a comparison has been made of the temperature trend over time of the rural sites compared to those of the urban sites. 28 pairs of sites across the U.S. were compared. The paired rural site is from 31 to 91 km from the urban site in each pair. The result is that urban and rural sites were similar in 1900, with the urban sites slightly higher. The urban sites have shown an increase in temperatures since then. The rural sites show no such temperature increase and appear to be generally unchanging with only ups and downs localized in time. Over a 111 year time span, the urban sites temperatures have risen to be about 1.5C warmer than the rural sites. So, the much touted rising temperatures in the U.S. are due to the urban heat island effect and not due to a global warming such as has been proposed to be caused by human emissions of CO2 due to the combustion of fossil fuels.

It's not just rural US stations seeing this non-trend. Canadian ground station in Ontario are seeing the same thing. If global warming were happening to the extent the warmists claim, wouldn't rural weather stations data show it as well? Or might we make the assumption that global warming is only an urban phenomenon? By positing such a hypothesis, might we also state the cure would be to do away with all urban areas (cities) and move everyone back into the countryside? (Yes, it is a ridiculous hypothesis and equally ridiculous 'cure', but both have as much validity as the present AGW theory and proposed cure.)

It appears that for once in a long while, the New Hampshire Supreme Court got it right in the case of the Georgia Tuttle, MD et al vs. the New Hampshire Medical Malpractice Joint Underwriters Association et al, where the state legislature tried to raid $110 million of JUA premium surpluses to fill a budget deficit.

The state failed to make its case during its first attempt, the Belknap County Court deciding in favor of the plaintiffs, clients of the JUA, stating the State of New Hampshire had no rights to those funds even though the state created the JUA to begin with because the JUA is not a state agency. The state provided no tax monies, no state personnel, and no facilities to the JUA. The JUA was a state sanctioned private entity created in 1975 to ensure malpractice insurance was available to all physicians and other medical personnel in New Hampshire. All funding came through premium payments to the JUA. The law that created the JUA clearly states that surplus premiums balances must be returned to the policy holders past and present or used to reduce premiums to those it served.

The New Hampshire Supreme Court decided 3-2 that the state could make no claim and had no rights to the JUA funds, upholding the lower court decision and denying the state the right to take the funds. (The complete text of NHSC decision can be found here.)

The basis of the decision dealt more with the Legislature's passage of the bill that would have 'acquired' over two-thirds of the JUA's surplus funds in violation of the contracts the JUA entered into with their policyholders, stripping from them the disbursements of surplus funds as guaranteed in their policies. And since both the lower court and the Supreme Court agreed the JUA is not a state agency, the state had no rights to the proceeds of judicious investment and policy disbursements by the JUA, particularly in light of the fact that even state agencies cannot violate contracts with private individuals at the behest of the Legislative or Executive branches of government.

While the dissenting opinion was strongly worded, I believe the Supreme Court made the right decision. Had the decision gone the other way it would have possibly opened the door for other state seizures of surplus finds from insurance companies (they are all licensed by the state) or other state licensed businesses without due compensation as guaranteed in both the New Hampshire and US constitutions. And don't believe for a minute the Democrat-controlled Legislature wouldn't do exactly that if they thought they could get away with it. After all, they have ever more profligate and wasteful spending to fund.