The Jungle Book 1942

 I found this in the cheap DVD bin at Wallymart some time ago.  Just got around to watching it this afternoon.  It's pretty good.  It is in Technicolor, which was state of the art in 1942.  Sabu stars as Mowgli.  No other names in the cast mean anything to me.  It was shot in India.   The animals are real animals, with training that is to be admired.  Shere Khan is particularly wild and dangerous looking.  The plot does not follow any Kipling story that I remember.  Sabu is a good looking beefy teenager, which is older than most of the later Jungle Book movies which show Mowgli as a kid about 12 years old.  Mowgli has a thing going with a cute girl from the village.  Anyhow if you are looking for a new flick to show the children, this will do the trick. 

So what is the real story about Texas power failure??

 Lotsa people blame the power failure on the windmills going off line.  The greenies blame the natural gas suppliers failing to provide gas causing the gas plants to drop off line.  Me, I suspect the windmills did it, but I don't have any solid evidence.  All I know is what I see on the 'net and on TV.  And I have not seen anything convincing there.

Some questions for the intrepid newsies the answer.

What is this talk about the windmills freezing up?  Do they use water for something?  What might that be?  Do they mean ice buildup is blocking their rotation?  How can that be, the windmill blades produce enough torque to turn an alternator under load, surely that is enough torque to break any amount of ice, anywhere?  

What is this talk about natural gas wells and pipelines freezing?  Natural gas does not freeze at any temperature a hard winter freeze can reach.  Is it water freezing somewhere??  What is water needed for in a gas pipeline??  

What is this talk about failure to winterize power plants?  What does winterization do for a power plant?  

Boy, that governor Cuomo gets a lot of TV airtime, on Fox no less

 Cuomo is getting sued and worse over his grannie killing policy of putting Corona virus victims back into nursing homes where they infected the rest of the residents,  and lying about nursing home Corona virus deaths.  And they will think up more stuff to lay on him as time goes on.  

But Fox gives him a lot of airtime to give his side of it, uninterrupted by fact checkers. 

Free up 9 Gigs of disk space.

 I discovered that my desktop had a folder Windows AND a second folder Windows.old, both folders being 9 gigs.  I started out working on 5 megabyte DEC RK05 disks on PDP-11s.  I still think in terms of conserving disk space.  9 Gigs seems like a lot of disk space.  

Anyhow Windows.old pops up when the machine gets upgraded, in this case upgraded from Win 8 to Win 10.  The upgrade routine simply renames the old version of windows to windows.old and then puts the new version of windows into a new windows folder.  This allows you to go back to the previous version of windows should you want to.  In my case Win 10 has been working just fine, all my programs run properly, and I would never want to go back to Win 8, it was flaky.  So, I decided to recover 9 Gigs by zapping windows.old.  

  You cannot just delete windows.old from Explorer.  It is big enough to choke a hog, and it still carries protections against deletion that it enjoyed when it was the active Windows.  Not a problem.  Windows can fix it all.  In Explorer find the master folder C:.  Right click on the C: folder and select Properties.  In Properties select "Disk Cleanup".  In Disk Cleanup select "Clean up System Files".  This will display a number of different files you can clean.  Select the "previous versions" and let her rip.  It takes a while but I gained 9 Gig of free disk space. 

Farewell Rush Limbaugh

 Good man.  He will be missed.  Rush understood where a lot a Americans were coming from.  He spoke for them and to them.  Pax vobiscum.  My condolences to Rush's family.

Real electric plants vs fake electric plants.

 

We expect the electricity to stay on, 24-7.  We count on it in fact.  My heating plant, an oil burner, won’t heat when the juice goes off.  We depend upon electric hot water heaters, electric stoves, electric lights, electric well pumps.  If the power fails in winter my pipes will freeze in a matter of hours. 

   To keep the lights burning on a cold winter night takes conventional power plants, coal fired or natural gas fired, nuclear plants, hydro plants, the kind of generator that will put out power anytime it is needed.  We call these sorts of electric plants real electric plants.  Others call them baseload plants

  “Alternate energy”, beloved by greenies, cannot be depended upon when you need it.  Solar stops working at sundown, which happens every day.  Wind stops working when the wind stops blowing, something that happens fairly often even up here in the White Mountains.  In fact right now as I write this, it is a dead calm.  And we call undependable electric plants fake electric plants.  All the fake electric plants do is raise my electric bill as the power companies are required by law to purchase power from the fake electric plants at outrageous prices. 

    The electric companies, to keep the lights burning, need to own enough real power plants to handle full system load all the time.   The plants are expensive, several billion dollars, and the electric company has to take out a mortgage from a bank to pay for their construction.  And making the monthly mortgage payments is the electric company’s biggest expense.  Things like fuel and personnel costs are way smaller undependable wind and solar suppliers.  .  As long as they are paying the mortgage, the electric companies would just as soon operate the plants, sell the juice, and pay the mortgage with the proceeds.  They don’t need expensive and undependable "alternate energy".

We want to make sure the electric companies put in enough real power plants to keep the lights burning on a cold windless winter night.  We don't want them to fritter away money of fake electric plants.  Looks like Texas has put in a lot of fake electric plants that don't work when they need them and not enough real electric plants.  

 

Ventilation systems in schools???

The teachers and their unions are claiming the "ventilation systems" need upgrading.  The school I went to didn't have a "ventilation system".  It had big double hung sash windows all down the outside wall of the class rooms, that opened.  Open them up and we got a lotta fresh air. 

Are we at a significant turning point right now?

 Mark Levin, Fox news commentator, thinks we are, that future historians will point out January 2021 as an important turning point.  Things get a little vague when he talked about what we were turning from and to.  

I am not sure we are are a real turning point, you don't know until the turn has happened.  But, if we are, then it is a matter for turning away from Jeffersonian democracy, American exceptionalism, free market capitalism, and Christianity.  Turning toward political correctness, Critical race theory, and Marxism, and atheism.  

It is certainly time for those of us that still believe in the traditional American ideas to speak up for them.  And elect representatives who believe in them. 

They acquitted Trump after only a week

 The article of impeachment basically said Trump was responsible for the January 6 invasion of the Capitol building.  All they really presented in support of this idea was a lot of Trump speeches where he called the election rigged, and where he called for a demonstration in DC on that day.  Even so, we had seven RINOs vote in favor of impeachment.  They need to be primaried next year. 

   We have not heard much out of Trump in recent days.  He might just be taking a well earned rest after four years of open combat with the MSM.  Of the 75 million people who voted for Trump, a lot of them did it because they liked, believed in, and appreciated Trump.  And they are Trump's to lead.  Without Trump they are gone.  That makes Trump the most important Republican in the land.  I hope the rest of the party understands this. 

Spring must be coming

 Just bought a box of fresh strawberries, ONLY $3.99 for a box.  Last week they were asking $7.99 a box for fresh strawberries from who knows where.  They were all the giant berries, big as lemons, but they tasted OK.  Sweet, an improvement in strawberry breeding from a few years ago when the giant berries tasted more of straw than a sweet berry did.

Impeachment hearings. Jan 6 was terrible terrible and all Trump's fault.

 Been a lotta Democrat  speakers saying how horrible the Jan 6 riot at the Capitol building was.  Worst thing that ever happened and it's all Trump's fault.  Trump egged on the rioters, and we ought to impeach him for it.  Un spoken agreement, if we can impeach him we can forbid him from ever running for dog catcher, let along President of the US, for the rest of his life.  

I hear all this.  But after a summer where BLM and Antifa burned down Milwaukee and Seattle, and some other places, a few broken doors and windows, a few screwballs sitting in Nancy Pelosi's office, and a lot of trash dumped all over the Capitol building doesn't seem all that bad to me.  They could have set the place on fire, but they didn't.

How to open the schools.

 To get the schools open again is very simple.  Unlock the schoolhouse door in the morning.  Inform students and parents that school is open.  They will be there, no question about it.  Inform the teachers that school is open.  If they don't show up for work, their paychecks will stop.  

I know that the teachers want all sorts of stuff, remodeling, protective equipment, vaccine, ventilation, new heating plants, all sorts of stuff.  Well, we might do some of it, when we come up with the money, but, school will open NOW, and if they don't show, they don't get paid. 

Florida town's water system gets hacked

Wanna bet that water system's computer was on the public internet?  And was running Windows, world's most vulnerable operating system?  The public internet allows hackers from all over the world to try their luck on your computers.  If you just have to have remote control of something, do it over a private fiber optic link.  To hack that, they have to climb a pole, and splice an optical splitter into the fiber link.  Few people know how to splice fiber.  Few hackers climb poles.  And your system will be far more secure if it runs Linux, or Apple, or anything but Windows.

Join the National Rifle Association.

 The Democrats, currently controlling the US federal government, want to forbid private ownership of firearms and in fact take all of our guns away.  If you are a gun owner, you really need to join the NRA if you want to remain a gun owner.   It is the most effective organization defending our right to keep and bear arms.  Right now there are around 5 million NRA members, enough to give NRA leaders some clout when they negotiate with lawmakers.  They are a lot more than 5 million gun owners in the country.  If all of us joined the NRA it would give the NRA enormous clout. 

    NRA runs a big website, at which you can join up.  It’s www.NRAila.org. Or just Google for NRA, that will get you there.  Dues are modest, and they will cut special deals for needy folk.

Whither the Republican Party?

 There are some internal strains, differences, factions, and infighting inside the Grand Old Party.  Of the 75 million people who voted for Trump, a lot of them did so because of Trump.  They liked his attitude, they liked his style, they trusted his word, they liked the economy he created, and they liked the taxes he cut.  They showed up at Trump’s rallies in vast numbers.  I am guessing that about half of them, say 37 million, are there for Donald Trump, and without Trump, they are gone.   In short, the Republican Party needs Trump because he brings in the votes better than anyone else in the party.

   Then we have the RINOs.  These guys are Democrats at heart, they believe that hiking taxes let’s them spend money on pet programs, and they don’t worry about tax hikes messing up the economy.  They don’t like private enterprise very much.  For example, given a choice between contracting with SpaceX and doing it in-house in NASA, RINOs will go for giving the work to NASA civil servant people every time.  RINOs don’t like Trump.  We ought to vote out as many RINOs as we can. 

   And we have the old line upper crust of the Republican Party.  They don’t like Trump much because he is too rude and crude for them.  Trump tends to hang out with, and hire, working class and ex military folk that the old line upper crust cannot stand.  They think Trump’s habit of tweeting every day is silly. 

   And finally we have the professionals, guys who hold elective office, party officials, and community organizers, appointed officials.  These guys just want to win the next election.  I think they are smart enough to recognize that the Republican Party needs Donald Trump and the 37 million voters that he can bring into the party.                  

  I cannot tell how the various Republican factions will sort things out.  They could screw themselves up and hand the next election to the Democrats.                  

VAMS comes to life

 Being well over 65 years old, I make it into Corona virus vaccine phase 1b, eligible right now.  I visited the NH web site back on the first day it was open, 22 Jan.  I got a nice reply saying a link the the "VAMS" website would be coming in 3 to five days.  Nothing showed.  I revisited the NH website 2 more times.  Each time a link to "VAMS" was promised but never showed.  Couple of days ago governor Sununu said that "VAMS" was seriously broken and NH would junk it and create a replacement.  I saw somewhere on the web the "VAMS" had been created by the feds with a sole source contract for $16 mil, and later had a cost overrun of $28 mil.  Lesson for dumb as rocks government types, never do sole source contracts for anything.  Get three bids every time.  Anyhow,  the long promised link to "VAMS" came finally came thru yesterday.  I managed to get an appointment up in Whitefield for early May.  Littleton was not accepting appointments at all.  

   Haverill is working on starting up a vaccination site.  I told them if I could get vaccinated before early May, I would be right there. 

Yet Another Robin Hood movie

 This one is just titled "Robin Hood", filmed in 2018, with Robin played by Taron Edgerton, of whom I had never heard of before watching this DVD from Netflix.  It is a very different take, in fact a strange take, on the Robin Hood legend.  They didn't pay much attention to medieval looking costumes, they have repeating crossbows as dangerous as modern light machine guns, they use a lot of 21st century cliches.  We start off with Robin of Loxley (a young noblemen) meeting and marrying Marian.  After some blissful time together at the Loxley castle, Robin receives a draft notice to the Third Crusade from the Sheriff of Nottingham.  First I heard of medieval draft notices.  Anyway, Robin sets off on Crusade, and we see a good bit of derring do in the course of which, Robin frees an enemy prisoner of war, name TBSL, who becomes loyal side kick and hard core trainer.  When Robin gets back to England he finds the Sheriff has foreclosed on the Loxly castle and has declared him dead, Marian is now into some kind of relationship (marriage? courting? flirting?) with a Will somebody or other, which tightens Robin's jaws a lot.  The movie presses on with Robin and trusty sidekick getting into stealing from the rich (Sheriff and the Church) and finally organizing a massive peasant revolt.  

Just barely OK.  Most of the other Robin Hood movies are better. 

Shutting down the armed forces for attitude adjustment

 That's what Lloyd Austin, Biden's new secretary of defense, said he would do.  He called it a "stand down" during which time commanders would discuss "extremism" with the troops.  Who knows what "extremism" means.  Could mean membership in the KKK or it could mean just voting for Trump. No mention of what would be done about troops deemed extremist.  

Back when I was on active duty, during the Viet Nam war, we all understood that we were in the service to defend the country and follow lawful orders from the commander in chief.  In the Air Force most of us were volunteers.  We all understood that we were not supposed to get into politics, other than voting.  I hope the same attitude prevails today.  

This shutdown indicates the secretary Austin has his doubts about the loyalty of the troops.  He is a long service Army general, he ought to have a better feel for what is going on that I do.  At least I hope so. 

Lessons from the 737-MAX crashes.

 

Aviation Week has a long (4 page) piece about lessons learned from the Boeing 737-MAX crashes and subsequent grounding. I was expecting to read of some clear general principles that everyone (Boeing and the world wide aviation safety organizations) accepted and would follow in the future.  Dream on. They listed some petty quibbles.  They said company tech reps should have less input on regulators deliberations.  Europe and Canada and pilots unions were OK with 737-Max aircrew shutting down the stick shaker by pulling a circuit breaker.  Brazil and FAA didn’t say anything on this issue.   It was pointed out that pilot training was aimed at experienced US pilots.  They said they would aim it more toward in experienced third world pilots.  FAA made some changes in the way they do paperwork and the way they organize technical expert committees. 

   All in all, an underwhelming list of achievements. 

SB 61 Right to Work, Passed Committee today

 We ought to pass right to work.  Companies won't invest in states that lack a right to work law.  New Hampshire needs more investment, creating factories, warehouses, distribution centers, call centers, just about everything, for the jobs they create.  If we go right to work, we will be the ONLY right to work state for about 500 miles in every direction.  That will attract some investment, there has gotta be a lot of companies needing new facilities in the northeast.

I know that right to work is hard on unions.  But only 7% of the New Hampshire labor force is union, and half of that is public employee unions.  The other 93% of the non union workers would benefit from more company investment.  I think the greater good for the greater number ought to prevail. 

Last time right to work came up, it passed both the house and the senate, but Governor Flynch vetoed it.  We didn't quite have the two thirds majorities required to override the veto.  Too bad.  Lets hope it fairs better this time.  I know Governor Sununu will sign it. 

Cancelling Abraham Lincoln

San Francisco school board voted to rename a bunch of schools to remove the names of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, and more.  Abraham Lincoln??  The man who signed the Emancipation Proclamation that freed the slaves.  And followed up by winning the Civil War to make the Emancipation Proclamation stick?  George Washington who beat the Redcoats in the Revolutionary War, chaired the Constitutional Convention, and served as our first president.  Without Washington we would still be a bunch of British colonies.  Jefferson, the man who wrote the Declaration of Independence, " all men are created equal".  They want to cancel all these heroes of American history??  What kind of education do these crazies offer to the children of San Francisco??

Ten worst Crime Neighborhoods in US

 Seven of them are in Los Angeles and San Francisco. So much for California.  Two are in Kansas City and one in Portland Oregon.  From Forbes Magazine.

Undercounting NewYork Covid 19 deaths???

 The TV is carrying the story today.  I wonder just what they are talking about.  Surly they could not conceal the fact of a death occurring.  I mean you have a body to bury or otherwise dispose of, you need a death certificate.  I cannot imagine concealing the occurrence of the deaths.  So are we talking about deaths from Corona virus being recorded as from other causes?   More easily done, as most of the deaths were of elderly people who suffer from a number of problems as well as from Corona virus.  In a case like this, where there are a lot of things present, what to blame the death upon is up the the judgement of the doctor.  The odd part about the situation is doctors have been widely accused of attributing every death to Corona virus.  Apparently hospitals get more reimbursement for Corona virus cases than other things and place great pressure upon the doctors to call all the questionable cases to be corona virus cases.  

   The TV is not talking about that angle.  

  Later TV input, About 8000 New Yorkers died in nursing homes from Corona virus.  Another 4000 came down with Corona virus and were transferred to hospitals and then they died.  Those 4000 deaths were not counted against nursing homes. 

The Rise of Skywalker: Star Wars Episode 9 2019

 I  got to watch this, on a Netflix disc, the other day.  We have from the old days, Carrie Fisher as Leia Organa, looking kinda over the hill, especially since she died before filming started and her presence is from film shot on the last Star Wars movie.  Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker, Daisy Ridley as Rey, Darth Vader Jr, Harrison Ford as Han Solo, R2D2, C3PIO, and a bunch of new faces that didn’t make much of an impression on me.  It’s long,  better than two hours.  Not much of a plot.  Lots of light saber duels, star ship shoot outs, crashes and smashes.  Darth Vader Jr has some kind of teleportation link with Rey, and keeps popping up, no matter where Rey is, and doing a light saber duel with her. 

   Rey’s outfit, white, is cute.  But the arrangement of a gauzy skirt, split in the front, and clam digger shorts could be improved. Either cut her shorts shorter and make the skirt more opaque, or cut the clam diggers as long slacks going down to the ankle. And skip the gauzy skirt.  

Overall:  meh. 

American funding created Corona virus in China

Steve Hilton, host of Fox News show The Next Revolution said this evening that the corona virus came from the Chinese Institute of Virology in Wuhan China.  It was the result of genetic manipulation of viruses harvested from wild animals, like bats.  The genetic manipulation was “gain of function” work intended to give the virus functions it lacked, such as the ability to go aerosol, and infect after a short or long period of floating around in the air. 

    This sort of research was deemed extremely dangerous.  The Obama administration forbade gain of function research in 2014.  The Trump administration added to the ban.

    Hilton revealed that the work at Wuhan was funded by an AMERICAN grant of $3.5 million.  The funding was set up by Dr Fauci, scientific advisor on Corona virus to both the Tramp administration and the new Biden administration.   The funding was granted AFTER the ban on gain of function research was announced.  In short Dr. Fauci created the Corona virus using US taxpayer money. 

   Steve Hilton did not know how the mutated virus got out of the Wuhan lab.  Might have been an accident, might have been deliberate.  The Wuhan lab has a poor safety record.

   This is the first time I have seen this story.  I thought I would pass it on.  My only source is Steve Hilton of Fox News.

Donald Trump's acheivements

Way back in the winter of 2007 and 2008, bone headed Wall Street banks managed to crash the global economy with too many "credit default swaps".  The resulting recession knocked our GNP growth down from 3.5% a year to zilch.  And Obama took office.  For the next 8 years Obama manage to hold GNP growth down below 2%.  He even got financial commentators to write that 2% was the right growth rate.  Then Trump took office.  He got our GNP growth back up to 3.5% where it belongs.  He brought the stock market up to new highs.  He brought unemployment down to 3%.  And when the Corona virus struck in 2020 he spearheaded operation Warp Speed that brought a vaccine into production in only a few months.  

  Not too shabby.

What do Democrats have against Winston Churchill?

 Barack Obama removed the bust of Churchill from the oval office upon his election victory.  This gained him a good deal of hostile commentary.  Donald Trump restored the Churchill bust in 2016.  Now we have Joe Biden removing the Churchill bust again. 

Churchill was the man who did more than anyone else to win World War II.  First he kept Britain in the fight.  Had Churchill not been Prime Minister it is very likely that Britain would have made a deal with Hitler.  Hitler offered such a deal, and it wasn’t totally unattractive.  Churchill refused to have anything to do with Hitler’s deal and instead inspired British resistance to Hitler. 

   Churchill convinced Franklin Roosevelt to do Operation Torch, the North African landings.  Torch resulted in an allied victory over the Germans nearly as big and the Russian victory at Stalingrad a few months before.  Churchill traveled to Moscow and negotiated with Joseph Stalin.  Churchill was instrumental in setting up the United Nations and NATO.  President John F. Kennedy bestowed honorary US citizenship upon Churchill.  The US Navy named a vessel after Churchill.  Churchill wrote a six volume history of World War II which was widely read in both Britain and America.

    It has been 75 years since World War II and memories have faded.  But I still admire Churchill.  Without Churchill Hitler might have won World War II.  We might still be coping with a Nazi government ruling all of Europe.

Putting the troops in a parking garage is awful.

 Governor Sununu has ordered the our troops home to New Hampshire.  We ought to meet them at the Manchester airport.  Assuming they will be flying home.  Let's hope they are, making the 11 hour drive from DC in Army trucks sounds unpleasant.  

  At least the concrete floor was fairly clean in the video I have seen.  Usually parking garages have big black oil and grease spots in each parking space.  The videos showed fairly clean floor.  But still, a garage is a garage and we ought to be treating our troops better than a garage floor, especially in our national capital.  I had more comfortable quarters during a combat tour in Southeast Asia during the Viet Nam war.  We had hootches, with insect screens and a decent latrine.