TV newsies say the election is close, everywhere.

So, tomorrow I vote, I poll stand, and then I go home and watch the results on TV.  From what the newsies are saying, anything could happen. 

Everybody ought to go out and vote on Tuesday

It is the duty of all citizens of a democracy to vote.  Voting sets the course the country will follow. We need all our rational citizens to vote to keep our country on a rational course of action.  Even  if you don't like either candidate, one candidate will be better than the other.  Your duty as a citizen  is to vote for the lesser of two evils.   And your vote counts. 
   I remember dragging youngest son to a school board meeting at which the vote was to pass a serious (big bucks) bond issue to construct a new building for the school youngest son had just graduated from.  That bond issue passed by ONE vote.  On the way home I told youngest son that I never wanted to hear him bitch that his vote would not count.  It was his vote that got us a new school building.  

Micro$oft breaks Win 10, Again

Back in Windows XP, you were protected against accidentally copying a old version of a file over the latest version of the file.  Wind 10 no longer protects against this.  There I am backing up Trusty Desktop onto Flatbeast my laptop.  On Trusty Desktop I copy my recent files, such as my checkbook, my list of books, my medications, a bunch of photos, and other stuff onto a flash drive.  I carry the flash drive over to Flatbeast  and start copying the latest versions of the files off the flash drive onto Flatbeast's hard drive.  Of course,  I have done this in the past, and Flatbeast's hard drive already contains old versions of these files.
  Back in the good old days of Win XP, you would get a message box saking "Do you  REALLY want to overwrite file such-and-such date such and such with  same file name, date somthingelse?"   And you would look at the file dates, and most often you would say "Go for it" if you were overwriting an older file with a newer one.
   Now we are stuck with Win 10 and we get a similar message box, EXCEPT,   one of the file dates comes up as "Unknown".  So the question now reads "Do you REALLY want of overwrite file such-and-such date such-and-such with same file name, file date UNKNOWN?  
   Of course you don't want to do that.  Do you?  So maybe you don't back up your files, maybe you say "Press on regardless", maybe you do some double checking.  But on Win 10 you have a lotta ways of messing up in file back up which good old Win XP handled correctly.
   Looks like the  Micro$sofies have been spending programming effort in breaking things that used to work.

Birth right Citizenship

Amendment 14.  Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the Stte wherein they reside."    I am not a lawyer, my degrees are in history and electrical engineering.  Lawyers have odd ways of reading and writing.  "Subject to the jurisdiction thereof" in ordinary English means citizen, legal alien, green card holder, and at a stretch, tourist visa holder.
  So to an ordinary reading of the 14th Amendment, there is no requirement to grant citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants, they are not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.  Newsies who claim that a constitutional amendment is needed are just plain wrong.
   Trump could stop Birth Right Citizenship by executive order.  Politically it would be better to get an act of Congress on the matter.  Any such change will be opposed in court, and the courts give a lot more deference to acts of Congress than they do to executive orders.
   In all the talk about process and legality and constitutional change, we haven't heard much about the real issue here, namely does our current policy of birthright citizenship cause real harm to us.  And what might that harm be?  As it is, travel agencies in China make arrangements for Chinese mothers to fly to the US to give birth here so that their children will have US citizenship.   Which is kinda flattering to us that people would spend all that money, and be away from friends and family for the birth of a child.  They really care about having US citizenship.  And the Chinese are already citizens of China, an important country, which speaks their language and embodies Chinese culture.  We Americans have created a good thing here if so many people want to come here.

   

Keep it Simple Stupid (KISS)

The Wall St Journal floated a trial balloon today.  The plan would have Uncle Sam calculate a "fair" price for drugs, based on overseas drug prices, and then tell Medicare, Medicaid, and the rest of 'em to only pay the drug companies the computed fair price.
   The price of American made drugs sold overseas is a lot lower, like half the price, of the same drug sold in the US.  This happens because  the US health agencies are forbidden to bargain over drug prices.  Overseas the health agencies do bargain over prices and generally get a price one half the US price, or better.  
   I have a better fix for the problem.  America passes a law permitting duty free drug imports from all reasonable first world countries (Canada, Britain, the EU, Japan, maybe a few more).  This is a free market fix, no bureau crats computing prices, Health agencies just go out for bids and buy from the lowest bidder.  No flimflam over "list" prices, discount prices, special prices, what ever.  Lowest bidder gets the sale. 
   This would have to be a federal government fix, the state of New Hampshire doesn't get to set US import duties. Peaking as a candidate for the NH legislature I won't have much to say about this issue, other than to root for it, should I be elected.

They caught them alive. They are both nutcases

And the evidence against them looks strong from here.  The Florida mail bomber left a fingerprint on one of the bombs which is pretty solid evidence against him.  The synagogue shooter was taken alive, gun in hand, at the scene of the crime. From what I see on TV (highly reliable source that) both criminals are nut cases, with social media postings and vehicle stickers to prove it.  Various TV newsies have blamed President Trump or Democrat politicians for inciting them to violence.  I don't buy that.  These two guys are nutcases.  We allow nutcases to run around loose until they kill someone.  We ought to change that policy.
  Let's hope our legal profession has the stones to convict and execute these two murderers, and do it within a year. 

Driving people out of restaurants is disgusting

And trying to kill them with pipe bombs in the mail is worse.  I hope law enforcement will catch the bombers and do it quickly. 

Canceling nuclear disarmament treaties

Trump and John Bolton are talking about doing it.  I don't remember just what the Intermediate Range Forces agreement called for.  There has been some vague talk on TV about restrictions on short range nuclear missiles.  Consider the fact that long range missiles can hit short range targets.  About all I can think of is that short range missiles are small enough to be road mobile, which makes it easier to disperse them and make it hard for counterforce strikes to take them out.
   There hasn't been much talk about disarmament treaties in many years, actually since the Soviet Union collapsed in way back in 1989.  And, what's in it for us?  Do we, owners of the largest air force in the world, really want or need yet another nuclear missile system?  Especially one that has to be based in the EU in order to hit the Russians?  Do we believe that the Russians really want to nuke the EU?  As opposed to taking it over piece by piece?
   And, just what have the dead broke Russians been doing that we think is against the treaty?
   In short, I don't understand why the Trump administration is threatening to pull out of an international treaty that has been around for like 30 years, and doesn't seem to be doing any harm.  Unless they think they can browbeat the Russians into signing a better (in our view) treaty, just to keep the disarmament thing running. 

Bye Bye local politics

Every day this election season I get mail from congressmen and governors from all the 50 states, you know the usual "dear voter please make a campaign contribution" sort of letter.  Also robo calls.  For me, I will support my local NH candidates, my state wide NH candidates, and presidential candidates.  I don't have either the money or the inclination to support candidates running for office in the Carolina's, California, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Montana, or any other state.  But I still get the out of state letters.  Many of them franked (send for free by congressmen who enjoy free mailing privileges). 
   How do the rest of you feel?

The Saudi's are an important American ally

Saudi Arabia is Sunni, contains the two holy cities of Mecca and Medina, has the respect of its Arab neighbors, has a working relationship (abet under the table) with Israel, and has both oil and oil money running out its ears.  All good Moslems are supposed to make a journey to Mecca (the Hadj) in Saudi at least once in a lifetime.  All in all, having the Saudi's on our side helps us dealing with all the other players in the middle east. 
   The disappearance, most likely murder, of Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey, may well break up our good relations with Saudi.  The TV news is saying that Khashoggi was killed by Saudi agents inside the Saudi consulate at Istanbul.  I'm never all the sure that the TV news has it right, but today it's all I have to go on.  If the TV newsies have it right, we have a problem.  Much as we might like to continue our good relationships with the Saudi's, it will become politically difficult-to-impossible to ignore the outrage among the American electorate and Congressmen.  This outrage will likely force us to take action against the Saudi's.  And things will go down hill from there. 
  I have to think that the Saudi's have really botched this one.  Offing a political enemy, on foreign soil, is so provocative as to make me wonder it the Saudi's have there heads screwed on right.

Inferno, World at War 1939-1945, Max Hastings 2011

A worm's eye view of WWII.  It's 700 pages.  It covers the European War and the far eastern war.  It dwells on killings, casualties, cruelties, concentration camps, civilian hardships, prisoners of war, Gestapo atrocities, anti semetism,  ship sinkings, the holocaust, and every other horrible event the occured in the period.  Little discussion of the causes of the war, the failing of the west to stand up to Hitler, the reasons for the astonishing German victories of 1940, the means the allies used to finally crush Hitler.  In short, a lot of colorful, if miserable, stories of little people getting stomped on, little discussion of how the war was fought and won, little discussion of the future effects of WWII.
   The author, Max Hastings, has written a fair number of other books on politics and military history.  Some of them are less down beat than this one.   

Annie the Kuster has a new TV ad

The ad claims that Annie passed a new law to reduce opioid smuggling into New Hampshire.  Since she is a US congressional rep presumably this was a federal law.  Strange, I don't remember ever hearing or reading about this before Annie started running this election commercial just the other day.  I wonder what the number of her bill was.  I wonder what her bill really says. 

New Hampshire Greenies release a new state energy plan

I heard about this on NHPR yesterday.  The greenie's plan calls for 100% renewable energy state wide by 2040.  Sounds great, but...  They did not describe just what they mean by "renewable".  At a guess they are talking about wind and solar.  Usually the greenies don't consider hydro to be renewable, even though it rains a lot and refills the reservoirs.
   They did not explain how we keep the lights on since solar doesn't produce any electricity after the sun goes down.  Even up here in the White Mountains, we have long calm spells of no wind.  How do the greenies plan to keep the lights on after dark on a calm night?  This is important.  My furnace doesn't work when the power goes out.  That means my pipes freeze in winter.  I am not the only electricity user who needs dependable 24/7 electricity. 

Some advice for Google Maps software weenies

1. Fix the bug that causes a blank sheet of expensive paper wasted before getting down to the business of printing the real map. 
2.  Remember that white is free, other colors consume expensive inkjet ink.  Make the background of the printed map white.  The road map people had this figured out long ago.  Don't make the roads white, they don't show up against the grey background.  Roads should be bright primary colors.  Color ought to indicate the quality of the  road, from interstate down to dirt. 
3.  Make the printed map fill the page.  Most of us have inkjet or laser printers that handle A size paper (8 1/2 by 11).  That gives you a target to shoot for. 
4.  Once you get it working, if you are smart enough to program it, don't change it.  Remember, in software there are NO HARMLESS CHANGES. 

Archiving all the TV newsbroadcasts

I listened to this piece on NPR yesterday.  There is an organization that has been archiving all TV news broadcasts going back to he 1960s.  Cool.  They went on to describe various obsolete technologies, used on the older archive, videotape, VHS, and how they had transcribed everything to DVD's.  And, they plan to move the entire archive to "the cloud" real soon now. 
  Me, I have serious doubts about the reliability of "the cloud", especially after natural disasters or war.  I'd feel better with racks of tapes or DVD's, and the machines to play them, in a nice deep underground site that I owned, outright.  A site on high ground and away from city centers. 
   For that matter, I have never read anything about the life of a home burned DVD.  Are they truly permanent? Or does the data fade away after ten years or so?  The old floppy disks would become unreadable after a few years in a desk drawer. 

Kavanaugh squeaks by the Senate. TV Newsies still talking about it

I was hoping, after the full Senate voted to approve Justice Kavanaugh yesterday that the newsies would move on.  Surely there are other things of interest  happening somewhere in the wider USA or the wider world.   The TV newsies are still talking about the Kavanaugh appointment.  Is that all they know about? 

It's all about compression ratio

Compression ratio is the number that sets fuel economy and power output for internal combustion engines.  More is better.   Inside the engine, the fuel air mixture lights off at top dead center.  The piston goes down, expanding the hot combustion gases, cooling them, and converting the heat energy from the burning fuel into mechanical work.  Ideally we would keep the piston moving down, expanding the cylinder volumn until the combustion gases had been cooled down to room temperature, extracting all possible mechanical work from the fuel burn. 
   In real engines, the piston cannot keep going down forever.  The piston gets to bottom dead center.  Which is about 4 inches in a typical car engine.  At which point the exhaust valve opens and the still blazing hot combustion gases go out the tailpipe.  At night, running a short straight exhaust pipe, no muffler, you can see the exhaust gas glowing blue-white.  That's a lot of heat energy that didn't get converted into useful work. 
   Compression ratio is the ratio of cylinder volume with the piston at top dead center (as small as it gets) to the cylinder volume with the piston at bottom dead center (as big as it gets).  The higher the compression ratio, the more of the heat energy of the fuel gets converted into mechanical work.  Gasoline engines in cars have compression ratios as low as 8:1, 10:1 in good engines like the Cadillac Northstar, and 13:1 in outright racing engines. 
   Why not use a higher compression ratio and get more efficiency?  In gasoline engines we put a combustable fuel air mixture into the cylinder at bottom dead center and compress it as the piston goes up to top dead center.  As the mixture is compressed, it gets hotter.  When it gets too hot,  it catches fire and burns before the piston is at top dead center, and tries to drive the engine backwards.  You can hear this happening, it is a pinging noise (knocking) from the engine.  Good fuel  (high octane rating fuel) will suppress knocking for a while, but there is a limit.  Call it 10:1 for a "street" engine. 
   And this is the benefit of the diesel engine.  Diesels have just pure air in the cylinder for the compression stroke.  Fuel is injected into the cylinder at top dead center. Diesels cannot knock.  Which means that diesels can run compression ratios as high as 20:1.  Which is why diesels have better gas mileage than gasoline engines.

US Senate votes to have a vote on Kavanaugh

Which is plain stalling, Senate style.  They should not be voting to take a vote.  That is a pure waste of time, and offers senators a way to vote both yes and no to confuse their constituents.  Senate ought to just have a vote on confirming Kavanaugh, and have it right now, not tomorrow. 

Representatives should represent their districts

The ancient Greeks invented democracy, some 2500 years ago.  They did direct democracy, all the citizens gathered in the Agora and voted on such issues as going to war over Corcyra (which kicked off the Peloponnesian War) or the disastrous expedition to conquer Syracuse on Sicily.   Direct democracy is great in principle, but it doesn't scale well (you cannot gather all the citizens of the Roman empire together in one place) and is liable to make poor (disastrous) decisions.
   The British invented representative democracy with the institution of Parliament.  Each member of Parliament represented all the British subjects of his district.  We Americans picked up the idea in colonial times.  All the thirteen colonies had representative legislatures by the time of the revolution.  So long as the representatives are honest, and truly represent their districts it is a fair system.  If the chosen representatives fail to vote in accordance with their district's wishes, it is a corrupt system.
   I am running for a seat in the New Hampshire senate.  Should I be elected, I will vote the way my district wants, and not the way I may want.  As a senator, my duty and my honor call for me to truly represent my district, rather than my personal desires.  

More features that Detroit should offer

My 2005 Buick has a feature.  After dark, it keeps the headlights on long enough for you to reach your front door.  At least that's what it is supposed to do.  In real life it either turns the headlights off before you even get out of the car, or it leaves them on too long, causing me to stand out in the rain, watching, to make sure the car does actually turn the headlights off before it runs down the battery.  They ought to reprogram the computer so that the headlight timeout does not start until the last car door is closed.  This way I could take the groceries out of the back seat and still have some light to climb the front steps and find my door key. 
  Second feature, a fold down back seat.  Folded down, you could fit long stuff like skis and two by fours in from the trunk lid and get them all the way inside the car, and close and latch the trunk lid. 

How the Brits won the Battle of Britain

The time is 1940, early in WWII.  The Germans have just crushed the French, now the Third Reich owns all of Western Europe, except Britain.  The Brits managed to get the bulk of their army back from Belgium at Dunkirk.  They evacuated better than 300,000 men.  But they had to abandon all the army's heavy stuff, tanks, artillery, trucks, ammunition, supplies, yuge  amounts of stuff.  When Operation Dynamo ended, the British army, although back in England, was in no condition to fight. 
   If Hitler had managed to get even a small army across the channel and onto English soil, he would have owned the place.  The Channel is only 20 some miles wide at Dover and Pas de Calais.  Trouble is, the Channel is deep enough to float real warships, and the Brits had plenty of them.  If the Germans had loaded the troops onto Rhine River barges and attempted a crossing, the British would have steamed up along side with destroyers, and a few rounds would put the river barge and all its troops on the bottom.  At this time the Germans had only a hand full warships, less than a tenth of what the Royal Navy had. 
   Air power, the Luftwaffe, could have countered the Royal Navy.  To do this, the Germans had to wipe out the RAF.  They could not  sink or drive off the Royal Navy when they had Spitfires on their tails.  And so, the Luftwaffe attacked all that late summer and early fall of 1940.  Both sides had good pilots and good planes, qualitywise it was a draw between them.  The Germans had somewhat more aircraft but not a decisive margin.
    Fighter units can only generate so many sorties a day.  For instance my fighter wing in the Viet Nam war could do about 110 sorties a day from an assigned strength of 90 F105 Thunderchief fighter bombers.  We would launch 60 aircraft on the morning strike which got off at first light.  They would return around 11 AM.  We had until 2 PM to turn as many birds as possible , finish fixing broken birds from yesterday, and put together the afternoon strike of 60 aircraft.  I dare say RAF fighter squadrons could do a little better, the sorties being shorted and the aircraft had less high tech stuff to break and demand fixing.  (No doppler, no toss bomb computer, no radar, no TACAN, no gyro compass)  But I am sure they had a fixed number of sorties they could generate in a day. 
   The battle winning weapon the Brits had was radar, and a command and control system (the sector centers they were called)  that guaranteed that nearly all RAF fighter sorties would engage the enemy.  No sorties wasted patrolling, looking for the enemy, few or no sorties wasted when the enemy was not found.  Each sortie flow under radar control would find the enemy and score some kills.  This gave the RAF the winning edge in the summer of 1940. 

Communism is Different from Socialism.

So said NHPR today.  A woman, (I think she was the moderator on the talk show) said repeatedly and with emphasis that Communism was not the same as Socialism.  Talking about classical socialism and communism, as was the breed up thru the 1950's, there was little difference.  Both parties read their Karl Marx and believed in government ownership of the means of production, so that government could set everyone's wages to the same low level. Eliminate "wage disparity" at a stroke.  And set up a command economy where the politbureau sets production targets for everything.  And collectivise farming.  The only different between Communists and Socialists was how the party would obtain the power to push thru their program.  Communists believed in seizing power thru revolution and force of arms.  Socialists advocated political action and the ballot box.  Once in power there wasn't much difference from the viewpoint of citizens, kulaks, business people, and nearly everybody else. 
   Today's "democratic socialism"  is probably a little different.  I doubt that many of them have read their Marx, know much about socialism's history, and their party platform is "more free stuff".  None of them talk about how all that free stuff will be paid for.  At least very few of them claim to be Communists, the decades long Cold War blackened the name of Communism too much for anyone to claim it today.
   Anyhow I am glad that tax payer funded NHPR feels there is a critical and important different between Communism and Socialism.

Can we trust the FBI anymore?

An organization run by James Coomey, with Peter Strvok, Lisa Page, Andy whats-his-face and who knows what other men of questionable judgement in charge.  An outfit that stonewalls the US Congress.  Can this outfit conduct a reasonable investigation of the hottest potato in DC, the Dr Basely Ford story? 

The crankshaft is the heaviest part of a piston engine

Which is why V8s and V6s are so popular for car engines.  A V engine crank shaft is only one half as long and half as heavy as a straight 8 or straight 6 engine of the same displacement  (size).  Back before the jets took over, there were two kinds of aircraft piston engines.  There was the radial engine with the cylinders arranged in a circle.  This design offered the shortest possible crankshaft, hence light weight.  And all the cylinders were right up front allowing air cooling.  All the cylinders in a radial engine got equal amounts cooling air.  The competing aircraft engine design was an inline V pattern which required water cooling, because the rear cylinders were far removed from free air flow.  For WWII warplanes both types of engines were popular.  The water cooled inline design offered lower air resistance (drag) and claimed higher power output.  It was vulnerable to any bullet holes in the radiator, coolant hoses, or engine block, which allowed the coolant the run out and the engine overheat and seize up.  The air cooled radial engine was more rugged, there are stories of radial engines continuing to work after an entire cylinder was shot off.  The later radial engines were as powerful as the best in line engines by the end of WWII. 
   But the shortest crankshaft in the radial engine made it lighter than the equivalent in line engine. 

The Kavanaugh hearing yesterday

Judge Kavanaugh got to testify in his own behalf about 3 PM yesterday.  He came on strong, calling it a witch hunt, denying all accusations, displaying sorry and anger.  He was as convincing, perhaps more convincing than Dr Basley-Ford's testimony in the morning.

   At the end of the day, I would call it a draw.  Both of them were convincing.  Neither was tripped up by what little cross examination took place.  Little to no evidence, save a calendar from Judge Kavanaugh was introduced.  The calendar suggested (but did not prove) that back in 1982 Kavanaugh was too busy to have attended that infamous party.
  Me, I tend to believe Kavanaugh based on his long federal service, many female friends testifying in his favor, and convincing manner.   Dr. Basley-Ford has no friends backing up her story. 

Words of the Weasel. Part 48

"Prioritize".  New word from Democrats.  I think they are trying to say "increase funding"   If that is what they mean, they ought to just say "increase funding" out loud. 
"Close tax loopholes"  is a Democrat phrase that means "Hike taxes". 

The Dr Blasey-Ford hearing

It got off on time, 10 AM, and ran until 2 PM.  I watched it all.  Dr Blasey-Ford was clearly uneasy about the whole thing.  Her voice was husky, on the verge of tears thru out.  Her hairdo was unbecoming, and served to hide her face behind  long locks of blonde hair.  I had to wonder if she, a senior college professor, looked and sounded that bad in front of a class.  She repeated the story about Brett Kavanaugh groping her and attempting (but failing) to rape her at a teen age house party in Maryland 35 years ago.  She didn't offer any new details.  I do think she believed what she was saying.  Cross examination did not expose any contradictions.  She made no goofs in testimony.
   On the other hand, the incident is 35 years old.  Everyone's memory is unreliable going that far back.
   A lot of Democratic senators were still calling for an FBI investigation.  I don't think that would prove anything.  No  physical evidence  has survived that long.  I would have my doubts about any witness testimony after all these years.
   Senator Diane Feinstein  did not offer any explanation as to why she sat on Dr. Blasey-Ford's letter until just two weeks ago.
   All of the witnesses Dr Blasey-Ford mentioned refused to back up her story.
   Judge Kavanaugh is next up.  We will see how he does.  

Investigation of a 35 year old party cannot prove anything.

Christine Blasely Ford's accusations against Brett Kavanaugh are 35 years old.  No investigation at this late date will prove anything.  Witness memory after 35 years is suspect.  Many of us have firm memories of things that never happened.  For instance for years I remembered graduating high school out of doors, in the Greenwood theater.  At my 25th reunion, my classmates all told me that it had rained that day and graduation had been held indoors.  How many other firm, but false, memories do witnesses have after 35 years?  And how much does anyone remember about 35 years ago?  I am not sure even where I was living 35 years ago.  It doesn't matter what an investigation turns up in the way of witness stories, I will have suspicions of all  of them.  
  Which makes the calls for an FBI investigation stalls.

The US Constitution does not require separation of church and state.

First Amendment says "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;  
Establishment is an old fashioned word that we don't use hardly at all anymore in America.  Back in 1789 establishment was enjoyed by the Church of England in England.  You had to be a member of the Church of England to receive a commission in the Royal Army or the Royal Navy.  Catholics, Quakers and others were banned.  You had to be a Church of England member to be crowned as king, or ruling queen.  And a number of other goodies were reserved for Church of England members only.  In the Commonwealth of Massachusetts the Congregational Church (Puritan's they had been called for many years) was established.  I'm not exactly sure just what bennies were reserved for Congregationalists in colonial Massachusetts, but Massachusetts did not "disestablish" the Congregational church until maybe 1808 if memory serves. 
   At Constitution time there were a number of large and influential churches doing business in North America.  Congregational, Quaker, Episcopal, Methodist, Catholic, and others.  It was an easy decision on the Founder's part to prevent endless lobbying, back stabbing, and wheeling and dealing by saying that no church will get the bennies of being established.  Massashusetts was required to disestablish the Congregational Church. 
   In short, the establishment clause merely puts all churches on equal ground, no church gets special bennies for their members.  It does not call for separation of church and state, it calls for treating all churches alike. 

Cars and features that Detroit ought to offer.

Firstly, Detroit should not be abandoning the market for sedans.  That's just turning a huge slice of the market over to Japanese and Korean companies.  Granted, there is more mark up in big SUV's and pickup trucks, which makes it easier to turn a profit.  But there are a helova lotta people who just want something to drive to work.  Most families have both husband and wife working outside the home, which means they need two cars.  One car only needs to get a single individual to and from work.  A small four door econobox is plenty.   The other car can be a SUV big enough to hold the entire family, kids, luggage, skis, lunch.  One key to a competitive sedan is distinctive styling.  The old VW Beetle was distinctive , not especially handsome, but nobody would ever confuse it with a Toyota.  
   Another small sedan that would sell is one that could bring sheet goods home from the lumber yard and furniture home from the auction.  Perhaps a lift off top?  A really stout factory roof rack?  A hatchback with a lift off top?  As a hauler, it only needs to work in good weather and short range, on secondary roads.  Interstate performance with a load is not required.
   Features I would like to see:  Power windows with a master "Close them all" switch.  Switch to just work, and not require putting the key in the ignition.  Even better would be a button on the key remote that would close all the windows while you are sitting on the deck.  In summer I like to leave the car windows open to prevent the car from becoming an oven when the sun shines on it.  It would be nice not to have to put one shoes, find the keys and go out to the driveway to roll the windows up in the evening. 
  An outside thermometer.  Up here we want to know if that black patch up ahead on the road is just a puddle or black ice. 
  A plug to let your Ipod play back on the car's speakers. 

Bathing Suit. At a teen age house party?

Kinda strange, but that's what Dr. Christine Ford said she was wearing at that infamous party 35 years ago.  I can remember a goodly number of parties back in my teen age years.  I don't ever remember a girl showing up in a bathing suit, other than summertime beach parties.  They wore jeans, tight fitting jeans, even low cut tight fitting stretch jeans.  Short shorts.  Short skirts.  Tight sweaters.  Halter tops.  No bathing suits. 
   Makes me wonder. 

AVG Antivirus. Thumbs Down

The Microsoft Scammer called again.  This time he claimed my computer was issuing improper messages over the internet.  I recognized his voice, he calls regularly, and I had some fun calling him names.  After the scammer went away, it did occur to me that it had been a while since I ran a virus scan on Trusty Desktop.  Next I found that good old Malwarebytes, my anti virus of choice, no longer supports Windows XP.  Arghh.  Some net cruising brought me to AVG antivirus.  It downloaded, it scanned, it didn't find anything.  After the scan run, things seemed a little slower.  Task Manager showed three or four new tasks, sucking up RAM and CPU time. 
   Worse was to come.  I booted up next morning and clicking on desktop icons no longer  worked.  Task manager showed some AVG component hogging all the CPU time. Task Manager could no kill the offending AVG process.
Install and Remove Programs from Control Panel didn't work.  Deleting the AVG file directory in Program Files didn't work.  Deleting from MS-DOS didn't work either. 
    A little web searching with Duck Duck Go showed me that I was not alone.  It did point me to a special AVG remover program, written by AVG themselves.  That worked.  Good riddance to AVG.  It is a RAM hog and a CPU hog that is active and slowing my machine all the time.  At times slowing to the point I thought it was broken. 

He said She said

The last minute smear on Judge Kavanaugh is showing legs, at least for the TV newsies.  There ought to be a statute of limitations, 35 years ago is a long time.  Me, I cannot even remember where I was living in 1983, or was it 1984.  The accusation of attempted rape comes from a lefty California college professor, of whom I never heard of before.  Kavanaugh has been in public life for 30 years, he has been back ground checked and found clean, he has a lot of testimonials from women who worked for him or went to high school with him.  So when Kavanaugh denies the attempted rape ever happened, I find him believable.