The gravitational constant is increasing

Gravitational Force F = G * (m1 * m2) / r squared.   In plain English, gravitational force is equal to the gravitational constant times the product of the two masses involved divided by the square of the distance between the two masses.
  When G increases, gravitational force increases. 
   Which is the only explanation I have for the increased number of thing I drop.  Must be the increased gravity is sucking them right out of my hands to crash on the floor.  Couldn't be that I am loosing my grip.

US House changes rules of debate on every single bill

The "Rules Committee" is doing the great impeachment show on Fox today.  The voice over explains the rules committee make up a new and different rule for every bill going to the floor of the House.  This ain't right.  Every bill ought to be treated the same, which means the same "rule" on every single House bill.  No Rules Committee greasing the skids for or against a bill.  Treat them all the same, that's fair.  This special-rule-for-every-bill scheme is clearly unfair. 

Representatives are supposed to vote their district

Discussion on Fox TV of all places about some 17 odd democratic reps elected from districts that Trump carried in 2016.  The tone of the anchor person implied that any true blue democrat ought to vote with the party, to impeach Trump.  Heaven forbid that they ignore the Congressional party and vote for what their district wants.  This from a Fox anchor person.  In case you are not following the great impeachment show closely, 17 House votes is probably enough to defeat impeachment in the House. 
   Speaking as an elected NH senator, I under stand my job to be voting for what my constituents want.  And if I don't vote my district, I expect my voters will vote me out of office, with the election just a year away.  Fortunately, in most cases, my own views match the views of my constituents.  That must have something to do with my getting elected in the first place. 
   Anyhow, the great impeachment show will probably run thru Christmas and into next year.

Democrats release 659 page "Impeach Trump" document

Ayup.  I am really going to read all 659 pages.  And should I do so (not likely), what will I know after reading that much lawyer gobble-de-gook.  I think the Democrats have missed something here. 

FISA court[s] is/are rubberstamps

The the cops, the FBI and the intelligence agencies submit thousands of requests to snoop on citizens and foreigners every year.  The FISA court[s] approve all but a half dozen or so.  In short, the cops and intel agencies get to snoop anyone they please, anytime they please.  And a FISA snooping license allows them to tap your phone, intercept your email,  see your Facebook page, and do other  stuff that we don't even know about.
   Since the FISA court[s] approve nearly all snooping requests why have them at all.  Just let the cops and the intel agencies get on with it.  The results are the same as we have right  now.
   What we really ought to do is require the cops and the agencies submit their snooping requests to real courts, the kind that do business five days a week and try real criminal cases, in front of real juries, and sentence real criminals.

I'm not impressed. Is anyone impressed???

The Democrats invented a new one "Obstruction of Congress" to throw at Trump.  First time I ever heard of this what-cha-may-callit.  They asked the administration for pounds of paperwork and live witnesses to grill in front of the TV cameras.  The administration refused the requests, probably citing executive privilege.  I did not catch just what reasons the administration gave for refusals.    For the other count they are going for "Abuse of power".  They cite the famous Ukraine telephone call. 
   No real crime (like breaking and entering) was cited.  Both counts are essentially government infighting counts.   When the US is passing out foreign aid we often ask the lucky recipient to do a few things.  If you want a handout from US taxpayers you need to be responsive.  The Congress always asks for a ton of documents, it's easier than doing their own investigating.  The administration always refuses to deliver papers except under court order.  Things have worked this way in the federal government for a long time.  I don't think we have enough here to impeach a president.  I'm thinking there are a lot of people out there who feel the same way.  I wonder if there are enough to stop it. 

Do-Nothing US House claims "Progress" on USMCA

The Democrats are saying they have made progress on the USMCA agreement. This is a NAFTA enhancement or replacement that the Trump administration managed to negotiate with Canada and Mexico last year.  It has been sitting in the US House for a year while the House plays around with fun and games and impeachment.  Everyone, even AFL-CIO, thinks it ought to pass. 

   The Democratic claim to have amended the bill and made it better sounds like fake news to me.  This is an international treaty, agreed to by Canada and Mexico.  I don’t think the US house has the power to modify a treaty without getting Canada and Mexico to say OK.  Which they probably won’t.  Any changes dreamed up by Democrats in the US House will make things better for the US and worse for our trading partners. 

   So to show that the do-nothing House is actually doing something, the Democrats now say they are "making progress".  I say they are do-nothings until they actually vote to pass the USMCA.  Which they should have done a year ago.

Origin of Species. House cats are a species.

Those small furry carnivores who chase mice really ought to be classified into two distinct species.  House cats have taken up with humans and get food and shelter from the humans, and alley cats who live out of doors.  Anyone can see that the house cats are doing better than the alley cats.  House cats are well fed, fur is nice and clean, they stay indoors, warm and dry during bad weather.  Alley cats are skinny and ill fed, their coats are in terrible condition, and they have to survive out of doors in snow storms. 
   We used to think that house cats adopted their first humans back in ancient Egyptian times, say 5 to 6  thousand years ago.  Lately a grave was excavated on Cyprus with a cat buried along with its human.  This site was dated to 9000 years ago.  But  either date is not all that long ago, compared to dogs who have been domesticated for 50,000 years. 
   House cats, in addition to having the right attitude about people, have a couple of things that endear them to us humans.  First of all, purring.  We find  a purring cat, sitting in our laps, creates a wonderful feeling of peace and warmth.  And cats have the finest, silkiest coats of any common animal.  It is a pleasure to stroke a cat, far more so than to stroke a dog which has a much coarser coat.  Just how cats managed to evolve both purring and their silky coats, thousands of years before they adopted their first human, is a mystery that evolutionary theory fails to explain. 

Pearl Harbor was a massive Japanese screw up

The United States was solidly isolationist in the 1940's.  We were determined not to get sucked into overseas wars, ever again.  Even Franklin Roosevelt, perhaps the strongest US president of the 20th century, could not move the country toward intervention.  He tried, and he could not do it. 
   Nothing the Japanese were doing in China and Southeast Asia could have caused America to do more than send them diplomatic nastygrams.  No way were we going to do anything of a military nature about Japanese aggression in China.  After the Germans defeated and occupied  the Netherlands and France in 1940, the French and Dutch colonies were pretty much up for grabs.  Japan could have kept on going after the American oil embargo by getting oil from the Dutch East Indies where the crude oil was so pure that it could be pumped into the tanks of warships without any refining. 
   Type 1 less provocative method, send a fleet of tankers with a strong (like really strong) naval escort and some bank guys with a good strong checkbook.  Send the bankers ashore to negotiate a sale of oil. 
   Type 2 more provocative method, send a fleet and land marines and take over the place.  We would have screamed and cried and threatened to hold our breath, but we would not have intervened militarily to save a Dutch colony.  We did not approve of colonies.  We still don't.
   As long as the Japanese did not mess with American possessions like the Philippines or the US Navy, they could have done pretty much anything they liked in China and Indonesia.  Japan's diplomats and intel people failed to clue the Japanese government into the real state of affairs in America at the time.  (Or the government failed to listen to their diplomats and intel people.)
   As it was, Pearl Harbor total destroyed American isolationism, we got good and mad, smashed the Nazis, and nuked Japan, after sending her fleet to the bottom.  Total defeat and occupation.  War outcomes don't get much worse than that.

"Identity Politics" is divisive and destructive of liberty.

A Democratic party speciality.  Appeal to any kind of minority group you can think of (or invent). Do pitches aimed at blacks, Hispanics, gays, men, women, union workers, Indians, non-union workers, anybody.  The essence of these tailored pitches is always "We will do nice things for you, at the expense of everybody else."  and "You deserve some nice things to make up for past inequities."  Identity politics violates Jefferson's statement "All men are created equal".  Identity politicians are advocating unequal treatment of each little identity group.
   Proper politicians advocate for things that improve life for everyone, not just some identity group.  "We are all Americans together" is a better thing to say. 

Shopping around for Cosequin for my cat

In was $30 for a white plastic bottle of 60 doses from a big pet store down in Concord.  It is $18  for an envelope of 84 doses of a product called Dasuquin from my vet in Whitefield.  Whitefield Animal Hospital on Rt 3, right on the steep grade on Rt 3 going north out of town.  It is still doing my cat good, she goes outside more often, can jump up on furniture that she hasn't been able to manage for years, less limping as she slinks around the house. 

Talking Politics at Thanksgiving dinner

NHPR has been running a piece on why you should not talk politics.  Polarization is mentioned.  And, the Number 1 political subject, impeachment of Trump, is all the MSM has been covering.  Fox news runs the Adam Shifty hearings live all day long.
   Watergate this is not.  Watergate started out with the arrest of burglars inside the DNC headquarters.  That was clearly a crime and ought to be investigated, everybody understood that.  And one thing lead to another until Nixon resigned before the House impeached him.  Now all we have is an unknown whistle blower claiming that Trump pressured the president of Ukraine to investigate Hunter Biden and both Trump and the Ukrainian president deny it.  Most of us voters out in the real world don't see a real crime here.
   So what's to discuss?  Lot of people want to impeach Trump, and a lot of people don't want to impeach him, but what's to discuss?   Adam Shifty hasn't given us any real evidence of anything so what can you say?  And what else is there to discuss?  As far as the MSM is concerned, the Trump impeachment is the only thing happening all over the world.  

Electoral College.

  What it is and why we care.   Back when the Founders were setting up our constitution they made a number of decisions to even things out between big states and small states.  They had to; otherwise the small states would not join up.  The concept of the Senate where each state got two votes was intended to put the smaller states on a level with Virginia and Massachusetts.  When the Constitutional Convention met in Philadelphia, the big states were all in favor of a legislature where big states got more votes than small states.  The small states came to Philadelphia planning on a legislature where each state gets the same number of votes.  After a lot of dickering back and forth they adopted our current bi-cameral (two house) legislature.  Neither side was completely happy, but the compromise was enough to prevent anyone from walking out.  

   The Electoral College was another such big state-small state compromise.  Direct popular vote would have made it impossible for anyone to win the presidency who was not a citizen of a big state.  In those days Virginia and Massachusetts were the big states, every other state was small.  The thinking was that any candidate from a big state (a native son) would of course take all the votes from his home state, which would be enough to win the election.  It was believed that candidates from small states would not stand a chance under a direct popular vote system. 

    So they set up the Electoral College system.  The college consists of electors, chosen by the states. Each state gets as many electors as it gets representatives plus senators in Congress.  We have 100 US senators, 435 US house members, and they give the District of Columbia three electors.  Which makes an electoral college of 538 electors.  Of which New Hampshire gets four, or ¾ of one percent.  Not much, but better than what we get in a direct popular vote.  New Hampshire’s population is 1.35 million.  The population of the entire country is 330 million, so New Hampshire’s popular vote is only 0.41 of 1 percent.  In short, the Electoral College system gives New Hampshire a bigger slice of the presidential vote than we would get under direct popular election.  As a resident of New Hampshire, I like the Electoral College system just the way it is. It’s been there since the Founding.  It makes the New Hampshire first in the nation primary work.  Every presidential candidate has to come to New Hampshire and pass muster with the New Hampshire voters, who are a conscientious, well informed, and fair minded bunch.  I like that.  Under a direct popular vote for president system only the primaries in the big states would matter. 

$2295.50 for a Z-scale briefcase layout

The Lilliput catalog come in amidst the usual shower of catalogs for Christmas.  Full of neat toys with scary prices.  The Z-scale (as small as they make) layout, nicely scenicked, Alpine setting, your choice of winter snow or summer leaf, is 22 inches by 17 inches.  You can close the brief case and take it with you, to work, to a party, whatever.
   It is EXPENSIVE.  I have a round the walls HO layout, and a collection of rolling stock that will not quit, but I didn't put anything close to $2295.50 into my entire HO layout and rolling stock collection.   

Regulating Facebook

There is talk about doing something about Facebook.  They complain that Facebook is canceling posts, and closing accounts of posters they object to.  I dunno what to make of this. Both right wingers and left wingers are calling out to do something. 
   Me, I am a medium speed Republican New Hampshire politician.  I created a Facebook page to support my campaign for NH Senate.  It was very useful, every post I made got read by nearly 100 people.  I got elected.  Facebook never interfered.  I did try to be fair in everything I posted, largely because I believe my voters want a fair minded representative.  It may be that my fairness kept Facebook from interfering.  Anyhow, I consider my Facebook page to have contributed my election.
   Should we decide to "do something" about Facebook, (I am not convinced that this is necessary, but you never know what CongressCritters may do) the only effective thing we can do is use the anti trust laws to break Facebook up.  What actually happens at Facebook is controlled by software.  Only a very few people who write the software really know what is happening, and these people are Zuckerburg's people.  Doesn't matter what a regulator might demand, the software programmers control what really happens, they work for Zuckerburg and will do what he tells them to.  And the regulator's people cannot read the code to know what is really going on.  For instance Facebook recently promised to stop logging some users data and selling that data.  I bet that somewhere in the software that data is still being logged out to some obscure disk file.  And I am sure they back up all their data onto CD-ROMs or flashdrives and store them off site, just in case of fire or flood. 
    A breakup would create two companies to compete with each other for advertisers and users.  We divvy up Facebook's computer centers, users, advertisers, workers, stock, office buildings 50-50.  Then users and advertisers would migrate to the company with the policies they like best.  Assuming both managements were competent,  both companies would adopt policies about privacy and political correctness and other things that the users and advertisers like.  Because if they did not, they would dwindle down and go out of business.  Like Yahoo did.

Lotta talk about thinking and feelz, little about doing anything of substance

I had the house impeachment hearings on all day.  A lot of yak.  Talk about influencing people's (mostly Trump's) thinking.  Emails and discussions and talk and yak.  Little to no talk about doing anything of substance.  Like sending rations or weapons or US advisors to the Ukrainian army,  broadcasting pro Ukrainian propaganda to Russian occupied Ukraine,  jamming Russian newscasts, you know real actions to tip matters against the Russians and in favor of the Ukraine.  In sort, a whole day of nothing burger on TV.  

Still Not Impressed

I caught the impeachment hearings on  the radio while driving up to Berlin, and back from Berlin this Friday.  About an hour each way, so I heard maybe two hours of chit chat.  The committee had Marie Yavonovitch, former US ambassador to Ukraine, on deck.  She never said anything of substance.  Every statement was bland, and qualified, heavily.  She spoke in a voice so wimpy and indecisive that I judge her unfit to be an ambassador to anywhere, in fact unfit to push a broom.  Don't understand how she ever got appointed ambassador.  She felt (never said directly) that Trump forced her out of her ambassadorship.  For which I say, good work, badly needed housecleaning.  We don't need anyone that wimpy and indecisive representing the United States of America. 
   Bottom line, in two hours I never heard the witness said anything about Trump doing anything bad at all, other than getting her fired that is.

I watched the public impeachment hearing today. Not Impressed

They did a lot of talking, about process and procedures, and secret diplomatic back channels.  The diplomatic witnesses were questioned about their backgrounds, and they were impressive.  Top 1% of his class at West Point, infantry company commander in Viet Nam.  And a good deal of other stuff all good sounding. 
   They never got down to brass tacks.  Like reading the transcript of the famous telephone call aloud.  Or discussing other matters that might convince me, or others, that Trump has got to go.   Or testimony from the famous whistleblower (Eric Ciaramella???).   Chairman Adam Shifty was fairly objectionable.
   I'm thinking that the Democrats don't have anything on Trump, at least not anything that is all that serious.  Watergate this is not. 

DACA, Why didn't Congress deal with this years ago???

DACA, I forget just how the acronym works, but it was/is an Obama policy of leniency toward young adults brought into the US as small children, by parents who are/were illegal immigrants.  Obama asked Congress to do something but Congress doesn't pass laws anymore and the DACA bill never happened. 
  Me, I feel for kids brought into and raised in the US from early childhood.  They are now old enough for high school and college, old enough to enlist, and they are on Mr. Migra's hit list because they are not citizens, don't even hold a green card.  For the vast majority of them, who have stayed out of trouble with the law, are gainfully employed, paying taxes, married, raising children, hold honorable discharges from the armed forces,  they sound like solid desirable citizens to me.  Let's naturalize them.  We need more good solid citizens to keep the country running.  It takes many tax paying citizens to pay for just one druggie drawing welfare. 
   Anyhow, the Trump administration isn't behind DACA, and revoked much, maybe all of the Obama executive orders that created DACA.  And the matter is now going to the Supremes. 
    This should not be happening.  We should have insisted on the CongressCritters passing a DACA bill.  This kind of policy ought to be set in law by Congress, it should not set by presidential say-so (executive orders) or by the Supremes.  We need to get on the CongressCritter's cases and insist that they stop messing around, and pass a reasonable DACA bill. 

Let's hear it for paper ballots. Down with voting machines.

I have been saying this for years.  Here we have a computer scientist saying the same.  Voting machines are merely ordinary desktop computers running a "Look-at-me-I'm-a-ballot" program.  They are vulnerable to all the hacks and malware that Windows computers are vulnerable to.  Plus, since voting machines are all stored together at city hall in between elections,  a determined agent can get his hands on them and always crack them.  A patched ballot program that discards say 10% of the votes for one party can tip any election.  They don't leave a paper record, all the votes are recorded in their internal memory and can be erased.  There is no way to do a recount.
   Whereas the good old paper ballot is secure against hackers coming over the internet, or carried on thumb drives.  They can be saved and recounted.  If the poll workers whine about the effort to hand count them all, they can buy ballot reading machines that work like the test grading machines used in schools.  I remember the teachers using test grading machines back when I did elementary school, and that was a long time ago. 

Capitalism makes us all rich.

  America runs (mostly) on free market capitalist principles.  And it works.  We have plenty of food, fuel, clothing, new cars, electronics, housing, electricity, clean running water, movies, schools, roads, every material thing imaginable.  We have it.  The socialist countries go hungry. 

   Part of our plenty comes from the free market regulating how much of each thing should be produced.  If we don’t have enough of something, the price goes up, and people produce more of it.  If we have too much of something, the price goes down, and people produce less of it.  This works, and we have just the right amount of everything.  The Russians used to have a bureau in Moscow that set production quotas for the entire country.  They never got it right, and the Russians were constantly plagued with shortages or surpluses.  There are so many different things needed by a modern industrial economy, nuts and bolts, gasoline, corn, spark plugs, broccoli, automobiles, etc, etc,) that no bureau can keep track of all of them, let alone figure out how much of each to produce.  The free market system, working on supply and demand gets it right automatically, no central bureau required (or wanted).

    The second thing about capitalism is that it puts its money into the right things.  Society only has a limited amount of capital.  Just operating a business, let along starting one up from scratch, requires capital.  Here we raise that capital by borrowing from banks or selling stocks and bonds.  Investors and banks put their capital (money) into things that look like they will turn a profit, and refuse to loan to things that look like losers.  Being that we have a lot of banks, and a lot of investors, they mostly get it right.  Capital is available for successful enterprises like Apple and Amazon.  Losers like Sears cannot get any.  We direct our limited capital into the right things and don’t waste it on boondoggles. 

   And finally we offer incentives for hard work.  Starting up a new business is a lot of hard work.  The entrepreneur has to put in 60 and 70 hour work weeks for years and years before it pays off.  He has to work so hard that he endangers his marriage, looses touch with his children and his friends, develops ulcers.  People, guys mostly, only put themselves thru this sort of ordeal because they can see a handsome reward, maybe not as handsome as Bill Gates, but at least enough to put all their kids thru college.  And without all these entrepreneurs working their hearts out we would be much poorer. 

    I am hearing that the youngest generation wants to convert to socialism, which is just a nicer name for communism.  Those kids are either misinformed, or just plain stupid.

Good old daylight savings time. Set all the clocks, watches, VCR's, car clocks, clock radios, back one hour. I don't dare turn the hands backward on my 100 year old Tiffany mantle clock that was a wedding present to my grandmother. I stop the pendulum and wait one hour and then start it up again. Cable box set himself back all automatically. So did the clock radio. Laptop running Win 10 set himself back all automatically. Desktop, also running Win 10 did not. I had to set him back by hand. I wonder what made that happen.
   We ought to stay on daylight savings all year round.  Up here, in winter, there is not enough daylight to drive to work, work an 8 hour shift, and drive home all by daylight.  You either drive to work in the dark, or drive home in the dark.  Of the two, I would might rather drive to work in the dark, I am more awake in the morning, it gives me a good virtuous feeling being up before the sun. Driving home in the dark is a drag.  

New York has gotta be crazy

Donald Trump announced that he was changing his residency to Mar a Largo in Florida so he doesn't have to pay New York taxes.  And the New York governor AND the mayor of New York city got on TV to say "good riddance Donald Trump".  Dumb move.  Donald Trump was a maga tax payer. I haven't seen his tax returns, but he must have been putting serious money into New York, both state and city. 
   Say goodby to some serious tax money New York.  You ought to be sad to lose a prominent citizen who has a lot of money.  Even if you don't like his politics.

Congressional Democrats are bungling impeachment

Impeaching a president is very unusual and requires really strong evidence, shared with all the voters to succeed.  In all the long history of the American Republic we only tried impeachment three times, Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton.  Only the Nixon impeachment succeeded.  Nixon resigned the presidency before the Senate acted, but I will count that as a successful impeachment.  I surely do remember the build up to Nixon's resignation, hours and hours of Congressional testimony on TV, the Saturday night massacre, John Dean, the tapes, Judge Maximum John, and many more.  All this had me, and the rest of the country convinced that Nixon had to go.
   Let is look at today's impeachment against Trump.  Congressional hearing conducted in secret.  Unnamed witnesses, a highly unreliable committee chairman, no House vote to impeach or even to investigate.  Nothing that is gonna convince the average voter that Trump has to go.
   The voters need the strongest and clearest evidence of "high crimes and misdemeanors" before they will go along with impeachment.  If the voters are not onboard, they will remember in November, and vote stupid Congresscritters out of office.  The more intelligent Congresscritters know this.
    The democrats ought to be doing Trump's impeachment like Watergate, lots of TV, lots of public testimony, lots of publicity everywhere.  All I can figure is that they really  don't have anything on Trump.  

Al-Bagdadi snuffed last night. Good show.

Actually, it is too bad that we didn't take him alive.  He doubtless knew a lot of things that we would like to know.  According to the TV news this morning Bagdadi wore a suicide vest which he detonated before he could be captured.  But the plan was good, helicopter in some troops to take him alive is better than using a Predator drone to snuff him with a Hellfire anti tank missile.   
   I like taking out the enemy higher ups.  Strikes me as more civilized than killing a lot of plain foot soldiers just because we can. 

Wood chip electric power plants in New Hampshire

The State of New Hampshire published “Study Pursuant to New Hampshire Chaptered Law 156:228 (2017), subtitled “Study on the economic viability of renewable portfolio standard Class III biomass electric generation resources in New Hampshire”.  Good lawyerly title to obfusticate understanding.  Dated 21/1/2018. 

  The executive summary contains a couple of just plain weird statements.  “these resources are less flexible than intermittent renewables.”  This is foolishness.  The biomass plants can come on line when needed, say after dark, or on calm windless days.  That’s flexible in my book.  Solar goes away at sundown, which is when most of us need our electricity, to run the lights, cook dinner, run the TV.  Wind goes away when the wind stops blowing, something that happens pretty regularly up here.

   “While biomass is a major market for low grade wood, it is not the only end use.”  Oh really?  And what might be another volume use for wood chips now that the paper mills are gone?  

  Interesting figures provided.  Each of the 6 bio mass plants used nearly a quarter million tons of wood chips a year, 1.36 million tons altogether.  That’s a lot of wood.   At 50 tons per truck load, that’s like 5000 truckloads per plant over the year.  Pretty heavy truck traffic for most places.

    Discussion of hit to the NH economy from killing off the biomass plants.  They only count the plant workers, say 500 men, as losing their jobs.  No mention of all the loggers who cut the wood chips.  I would expect at least as many loggers as electric plant workers to loose their jobs too.  Jumps the 500 job losses to at least 1000. 

   The report shows the New Hampshire wholesale price of electricity at $35 a Megawatt Hour.  Or $35 per 1000 kilowatt hours, or 3.5 cents per kilowatt hour.  I have to pay 20 cents a kilowatt hour at my home.  Somebody is making a killing.  I’m getting robbed.  It also drives industry out of New Hampshire.  Companies always check electric rates before moving to anywhere. 

Crapware comes back to life

I have been trying to speed up my Win 10 laptop.  I believe most software is evil and the machine will run better if unnecessary software is removed.  Unfortunately, good old Windows Update keeps reloading stuff I kill.  I keep a log of things I have done to Flatbeast, the laptop, just incase I need to do them again.  Couple of years ago I  killed of IaStorDataSvc, a RAID drive support some-thing-or-other.  Flatbeast is a laptop, doesn't have RAID drives and never will.  And I zapped Bonjour, an Apple network thingie the Itunes wants.  I don't have an Ipod, don't plan to get one, don't run Itunes and so it was adieu to Bonjour.
   Well, this morning I noticed that both of these turkeys were back and running.  Must have been Windows Update.  Thanks Micro$ofties. You make my day.  Fortunately both turkeys are easy to kill, Add/Remove Programs does them nicely.

The great debate.

  I caught it on CNN.  The democrats didn’t do themselves as much damage as they did last time.   The all came out for square for impeaching Trump.  None of ‘em gave any reasons, they just called him names.  They are all in favor of hiking taxes.  No discussion of why they might need the extra money, but they all want to hike taxes.  They all claimed only “the rich” would have to pay more.  They are all in favor of an “assault weapons” ban.  None of ‘em bothered to tell us what makes “assault weapons” so much more dangerous than deer rifles, or how one might tell the difference between deer rifles and “assault weapons” or why all this “assault weapons” ban talk when most shootings are done with handguns.  More talk about mandatory buybacks, voluntary buybacks, and mandatory background checks with out any discussion as to what these things might be.  Most of ‘em are in favor of “Medicare for all”.  None of ‘em talked about eliminating company and union (private) health insurance.  They all thought Trump did wrong by letting the Turks into Syria and abandoning the Kurds.  There was no talk about DACA immigration reform, border walls, or driver's licenses for illegal immigrants

   In short, I didn’t see much difference between any of them.  I think if Trump fails of re election, any one ‘em as president would put the economy back in the tank, outlaw private ownership of firearms, and stir up more domestic racial tension. 

   The TV moderators were fairly rude to the candidates.  They need to have a name sign on each of the podiums so we can tell who is speaking. 

Vote a straight Republican ticket.