Conservative, Smervative

The Republican candidates are on TV bashing each other.  Favorite bash, "He's not a true conservative".  Well, I don't really care if he is, or ain't, conservative.  I want a candidate who will make an effective president.  For openers we need someone who can win the general election. Which means getting the independents to vote for him.  Independents are centrist in their thinking, the ones who are lefties join the Democrats, the righties join the Republicans, what is left (43% of the electorate) is middle of the road.  Come out too strong for some favorite conservative causes, the gold standard, pro life, isolationism, tax relief for the 1%, and others,  you loose the independents. 
   We need someone who can lead, i.e. present a program and convince a majority of the citizens (and their Congresscritters) to support the program.  A candidate who insults the other side is going to have trouble getting the other side to go along with his program.  
   We need someone willing and able to accept advice.  As a subset, we need someone who can judge which advisers know what they are talking about and which ones don't.   Nobody knows everything, any president needs to accept good advice from qualified experts.  And ignore bad advice from know-it-alls.

The Economist thinks low oil prices are bad

It's the cover story.  Cute cover cartoon showing a pumpjack with a demon's head, all in black.  They do admit that low oil prices are good for consumers, but then they go on and on about the hardships visited upon oil producers, and banks who financed oil production.  Woe to banks, woe to producers.
Well, sorry about that banks and producers, there are a whole lot more people benefiting from low fuel prices than there are producers.  As to banks who may not get their loans paid back, time to wise up.  Don't loan money unless you (and your own figures) can show that the borrower will make enough to pay you back.  And don't expect any more government bailouts. 

Faster than light

I think I heard this story before.  Like last year.  If memory serves, the faster-than-light results went away after some cables on the apparatus were reseated. 

So how much snow is everyone getting really?

TV newsies have been ranting about snow all day.  How bad is it where you are?  Up here we don't have a flake and the forecasts are for no snow on Cannon. 

US classification system is changing

Back when I was in the service, there were just three levels of classification, confidential, secret, and top secret.  The story I was told, goes like this. Congress passed this into law with the intent of preventing bureaucrats from refusing to show classified to Congressmen on the excuse that the stuff was classified too high for Congressmen to see.  Congressmen don't like being told they cannot see stuff and took steps to insure that they would not be locked out of juicy stuff. 
    Well, even way back then, three levels of classification wasn't enough.  We had all sorts of top-secret nimbus, and top secret nuclear, and so on.  This was done to implement need-to-know.  Set up a classification with a weird name, and then restrict access to those holding a weird name clearance.  This worked, and everyone understood that you didn't want to ruffle any Congressional feathers by being stuffy about their clearances. 
   Fast forward to now.  They are raking Hillary over the coals for possessing "Top Secret SAP" classified on her server.  And the TV newsies are claiming that Top Secret SAP is so secret that Congressmen are not allowed to see it.  Ohh.  We never would have said that back in the day.  USAF policy used to be, treat Congressmen right, and that includes showing them anything they want to see.  Most we would do is try to impress them with the need for keeping their lips buttoned.

Low oil prices are good

Most of us consume oil and the lower the price the better for us.  I'll grant that people in the oil business, and who have loaned money to oil companies are hurting.  But there are a lot more oil consumers than oil producers.  And low prices are good for consumers.  Greatest good for the greatest number. 

Sarah Palin endorses The Donald

This is going to help The Donald.  Sarah has nearly universal name recognition, everybody knows who she is.  She is controversial and polarizing.   Lotta women detest her.  But a lotta plain ordinary people like her and find her progress from soccer mom to state governor to vice presidential candidate inspiring.  If she can do it, I can do it.   Anyhow, Sarah's endorsement counts for a lot, in fact it's hard to think of anyone except perhaps the Pope whose endorsement carries as much weight as Sarah's.
   I wish Sarah had endorsed Ted Cruz, but she didn't. 

99 Restaurant decorates with local photos

The good old 99 restaurant in Littleton went to the trouble of taking and framing and hanging in the dining room, a bunch of good local photographs, things like Littleton Main St, the Opera House, the Pollyanna stature at the library. 
   Nice touch for a chain restaurant. 

Over Processing of food

You can barely find whole chickens in the market anymore.  Lots of chicken parts, breasts, drumsticks, thighs, tenders, and such, all of which require someone to cut up whole chickens, where as a whole chicken, good for stuffing and roasting, and also can be readily cut up into parts by any halfway cook, are scare.  Why do the foodstores go to all this cutting up?
   For that matter, whole fresh mushrooms are loosing out to fresh sliced mushrooms.  Why?  the whole mushrooms last longer than they do after slicing. 

Is your router finking on you?

The Wall St Journal ran a cover story yesterday claiming that many of our routers, those little $50 boxes that allow more than one computer to use a single internet modem, have unfixed security bugs in their firmware.  Bug that allow hackers to get into your computer, suck everything off the hard drive, get all your passwords, and turn your machine into a zombie that follows secret orders from bot net masters. 
   Me, I didn't even realize that I could update or patch the code running in my router.  Things to do, dig into the closet under the stairs where my router is stashed, find the model number of my router, and Google for software updates.   And figure out how to insert said software update into the router.

Job Growth

Every so often, the Commerce Dept reports the number of new jobs "created" in the US.  Last time they were claiming 292,000 "new" jobs. 
  I wonder where that "new jobs" number comes from.  Probably the bigger companies report the number of new hires to the guvmint.  Do they likewise report layoffs?  Suppose a company lays off 292,000 employees and replaces them by hiring 292,000 troubled teenagers.  Does this count as 292,000 "new jobs"? 
   Is the "new jobs" number any more realistic than the "unemployment rate" which only counts people drawing unemployment benefits?  As unemployment benefits run out, the unemployment rate drops. 

My condolences to Space-X

They had a perfect launch, inserted the payload of satellites into orbit, and almost managed to softland the booster for reuse.  They came very very close to success, the booster autopilot managed to slow the booster assent,  fly it back to the designated landing spot, keep the booster upright, engines pointed down, and land within 1.3 meters, call it four feet, of the desired landed spot.  But every little thing has to be just right.   One of three landing legs failed under load (or failed to lock into the down position), and with only two legs to stand upon, the booster toppled over and burst into flames. 
   Which all the newsies are treating as a failure to Space-X.  I see it as a good launch and a near miss on landing the booster.  Next time, I bet all three legs work perfectly.
   Ad Astra. 

Feeling the Bern, Bernie on gun control

Bernie was on Meet the Press yesterday morning.  He came right out in favor of an "assault weapons" ban and a ban on "armor piercing bullets".   This isn't going to improve his vote in NH, where  most of us believe you ought to have a piece in the house, just in case.  He must think his lead in NH is strong enough to beat Hillary and it's worth it to gain support among the lefties in the larger democratic party.
  Amusingly enough, the Bern is raving against imaginary objects.  "Assault rifles" are the same as deer rifles in anyway that you can measure.  Except deer rifles are usually chambered for more powerful cartridges.  My ancient Marlin 30-30 lever action hits harder than the 223 round of the AR15. 
   Any bullet will pierce armor if it is going fast enough.  Real rifles (say 30-06) will pierce any armor light enough for a man to carry.  For that matter 223 assault rifles will pierce quarter inch mild steel, although they won't pierce a quarter inch of armor steel.  Standard bullets come with a full copper jacket over the lead slug which holds the bullet together as it hits the target.  Standard full jacketed bullets are the right choice to defeat body armor.  The other type of bullet has a soft nose and is supposed to expand when it hits, making a bigger wound.  These are sold for hunting, although a Geneva convention from the 19th century outlaws their use in warfare.  All US military ammunition is full jacketed to be in compliance with that convention. 
  So when Bernie comes out  against "armor piercing bullets" he is really talking about all standard ammunition.   Which might be his point. 

Cannon Mountain Ski Weather

It's snowing right now.  Started last night and I have 4 inches down already (8:30). It's still falling.  Temperature is good, 20F.  It ought to keep on snowing for a while.  The weathermen think it will last until 1 PM, another 4 hours  or so.

Election Predictions from the NRA

Ya gotta hand it to the NRA, they are effective.  They have a large and committed membership that votes, and the national organization is very effective at getting out the word to the member ship.  They are good at what they do. 
   Yesterday a piece of election "information" drifted into my mailbox.  It has a map of the US, with the states colored red or blue.  The old confederacy, the mid west and west are solid red.  The coasts are solid blue.  The few tossup states are left white.  They count 206 electoral votes for the Repuyblican who ever that may be, 217 electoral votes for Hillary, and 115 tossup electoral votes.  Who ever wins the tossup votes wins the election. 
    BTW, they show New England and New York solid blue EXCEPT New Hampshire.  We are a tossup.

The Thursday night Republican debate

I didn't watch it live, 9 o'clock is my  bedtime these days.  Plus I figured I would get plenty of instant replay and bloviation on TV over the next few days or weeks.  So far  I have not been disappointed.  All the TV people (New Yorkers all) have decried Cruz's slam on New York.  They think it is dreadful. I'm not so sure, certainly a lot of unpleasant and destructive thoughts and words come out of New York.  Dunno about how they feel about New York out in Iowa, but up here in NH there is no love lost on New York City.
   The pundits all think the Republican field has narrowed to Trump, Cruz, and Rubio.  I wonder about that.  Christy still has a good standing in the NH polls.  And the results from Iowa and NH will change everything.  And I don't think the polls are really telling us anything we can trust about Iowa and NH.  Up here lotta people just haven't made up their minds.  Enough people to tip the primary any old which way.

Baltimore wants to demolish 7000 city houses

But why?  I've been to Baltimore.  The city houses are all solid brick two story row houses.  Decent city living.  Don't demolish them, sell them.  Somebody will buy if the price is right.  And fix 'em up.  And pay taxes on them. 
   Probably democrats behind this.

Cannon Mountain Ski Weather

It just started to snow.  No much down yet, but it's still falling.  Temperature is high, 32F.  Up to 8 inches is FORECAST.  We will see what we get.  No use of the R-word on the forecasts.

Obama wants to spend $4 billion on self-driving cars??

Why?  Private industry has already developed self driving cars using private money.  Why throw in taxpayer money?  What do we taxpayers get out of it?  According to the Union Leader, Obama thinks self driving cars will eliminate traffic accidents.  Let's hear it for the microprocessors.  They never screw up.  Right. 
   The only role I can see for guvmint in the self driving car thing is establishing uniform nation wide rules for how capable a self driving car has to be in order to be allowed to drive on the public roads.  Say a driving test, the self driving car has to negotiate the test with out bending any fenders or hitting anything.  Such a test would have to have some real traffic to avoid, some ice and snow, some cross winds, potholes, soft shoulders, some night driving, and what else?

Glass-Steagall

After the Great Depression was kicked off by the 1929 stock market crash Congress passed some laws intended to prevent a recurrance, ever again.  One of the contributing factors to the 1929 crash was big banks playing the stock market, with depositors money.   And in the 1930's Congress passed a law preventing banks for buying and selling stocks.  This was the Glass-Steagall act and it remained the law of the land for 60 years. Banks hated Glass-Steagall 'cause there is a lot of easy money to be made in the stock market, particularly if you have a lot of money to invest. It took the banks 60 years of solid lobbying and "campaign contributions" to finally repeal Glass-Steagall some time during the Clinton administration. 
   And now after Great Depression 2.0, kicked off by banks making dumb ass mortgages, people are calling for some regulation to curb big and brain dead banks from crashing the economy.  Bernie Sanders is calling for reinstatement of Glass-Steagall.   Actually this is a fairly good idea.  Banks primary purpose is to finance construction and house sales, and finance business activity.  Buying and selling stocks just soaks up bank assets and does not contribute to economic growth. 
   The other thing banking needs is some incentives to write decent mortgages.  The "Ninja" mortgages (No income, No job or assets)  caused the crash of 2007.  A mortgage must not exceed the real market value of the property, in fact the buyer ought to put up 10% or so of his own money to buy the place.  And the bank needs to see that the borrower is gainfully employed and is making enough to make his monthly mortgage payments.
   One way to make this happen is to require that the bank that issues the mortgage must hold that mortgage to maturity.  If the bank knows that it will b holding the bad should the borrower default, they will be fairly careful not to write mortgages for untrustworthy borrowers. 

Where was their air cover??

Two US Navy small craft some where in the Persian Gulf (the Obama administration won't say exactly where) where captured by the Iranians.  Where was US air cover?  There were two boats, each one ought to have had a working radio.  The Gulf isn't very big.  Jet aircraft can be anywhere in the Gulf in a matter of minutes.  Some aircraft ought to be on five minute alert in such a near-to-war zone.  My fighter unit kept two fighters on five minute alert 24/7, and that was back in heart of the US, namely the state of Minnesota. 
   Those two boats should have radioed for air cover as soon as the Iranians hove into sight, and they should have had air cover within 15-20 minutes of making the radio call. 
   Let's guess, Obama didn't want to upset the Iranians and he refused to allow the jets to take off. 

Nevada wises up

Nevada state government decided to cut back on the goodies offered to the home solar cell freeloaders.  About time, and NH ought to follow suit.  The current deal offers to buy all the electricity the home owner produces, at full retail rate, for ever.  Home owners use their sales earning to pay their electric bills.  Since solar cells produce no electricity after sunset, all solar cell owners are connected to the regular electric grid and use utility provided juice to keep their lights on, their TV's playing, and their oil burners burning.   Up here a practical sized home solar panel can reduce the home owner's electric bill to zero in the summer, and make a worthwhile dent in it in the winter. 
   Net result, solar cell owners get a free ride from the ordinary rate payers.  The cost of providing grid power is mostly in paying off the generators, the transmission lines, the local wires and poles.  The  utility workers spend most of their time fixing stuff that storms tear down. Very little money goes to fuel.  Compared to paying off the enormous loans that built the system, the cost of fuel is negligible.  All the home solar cells do for the utility is save a little bit of fuel.  The utility still has to build and maintain a physical plant big enough to serve all the customers at night and on cloudy days.  Home solar cells don't save the utility a nickel when it comes to their major costs. 
Which is why all solar installations require subsidy from rate payers and tax payers.
   Anyhow, the two solar cell companies operating in Nevada are crying and threatening to hold their breath (actually to stop selling solar in Nevada).