Our Friends and Neighbors: Primary Preparations in New Hampshire

New Hampshire has been feeling the rays of national media attention thanks to numerous announcements from aspiring presidential candidates.

The state is already getting ready for the politicians, the journalists, and Wolf Blitzer. New Hampshire has announced upcoming debates at Saint Anselm College on April 4 and April 5. The eminent Mr. Blitzer will moderate the fray. Not to be overshadowed by CNN, Fox News is also planning a Republican debate.

Newly declared candidate Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton is getting there early by visiting the state sometime on February 3 and February 4, and she'll be speaking at a fundraiser on March 10.

As for the Republicans, Rudy Giuliani hasn't declared, but he's already stopped by, and probably not just to say howdy.

Moving from primaries to pot, New Hampshire and marijuana are the new peanut-butter-and-jelly. After last week's call to legalize pot, police made a major bust. How major? The Globe reports:

[Police] turned up what the New Hampshire State Police calls "the largest and most sophisticated indoor marijuana growing operation" in the state's history. Police seized 10,318 plants, worth an estimated $42 million on the street.

Now that's a lot of Miracle Gro. No wonder the NH law referred to the bust as "Operation Green Thumb." At least these big-time growers were more ambitious than the dude from Derry who shoved pot in his mouth when faced with the law.

In other New Hampshire news of the morbid, a 1959 Cadillac called the "Death Car" sold for $165,000. Its owner was found dead inside, but the guy who sold seems more impressed with the mileage. Apparently it's harder to take long road trips when a ghost is riding with you.