And another thing

Traffic on I-95 has gone up by 20 to 30 percent on much of the route since 1990, according to a recent story in The New York Times, and it jumped from 139,00 vehicles per day to 292,000 just south of Washington, D.C. But at Medway, it rose only from 6,135 to 6,220 vehicles per day. Does that say something about economic growth up our way?

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W.V. Quine, a logician and Harvard philosophy professor who died last week, once commended the state lottery as “a public subsidy of intelligence,” because “it yields public income that is calculated to lighten the tax burden of us prudent abstainers at the expense of the benighted masses of wishful thinkers.” Got your scratch-off ticket yet?

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A New Hampshire lawmaker wants his state to do away with a survey of teen-agers that asks them about social issues, including drug use and sex. Rep. Russell Albert says the Teen Assessment Program, which describes various lifestyles, promotes homo_______y because, by mentioning the word to teens, “It stimulates their curiosity.” We would spell out of the word but young people might be reading.

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Another New Hampshire lawmaker in the news is Rep. Tom Alciere, who waited until after Election Day to inform the public he celebrates the killing of police officers and considers those who voted for him “a bunch of fat, stupid, ugly old ladies.” While most constituents are outraged, a few say he merely had his curiosity stimulated by a Teen Assessment Program description of the _aving _unatic lifestyle.

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With the state facing a revenue shortfall of some $250 million. Gov. King says filling the gap in large part with an increase in the cigarette tax and the use of tobacco settlement money is fair because it accurately reflects smoking’s true cost to society. Or, in the spirit of the late Professor Quine, if there’s going to be a subsidy at all, it should go to the prudent abstainers.