Land lines are not what they used to be

 The phone rings.  I get out of my chair and answer it.  Sometimes I get dead air.  Sometimes I get a sales pitch so broken up by flaky caller's phone as to not be understandable.  Sometimes I get a foreign accent so thick that I cannot under stand it.  Sometimes I get a weak voice that mumbles and I hang up. 

   You would think the buyers of this advertising would do a little quality control and shape up the worst offenders.  They are paying for each call placed, not whether the call sells any product for them. 

What happens in Ukraine?

On the Russian side we have

1. A whacking big Russian army, and some Russian navy, camped out, in the snow, on Ukraine’s borders.  It would just take a telephone call from Putin to get them moving into Ukraine.  That’s at least twice, maybe more, the size of the Ukrainian army. 
2. Putin has the Germans, and plenty of other European countries almost hooked up to enough Russian natural gas to heat all their homes and run all their electric plants.  Putin knows (or he ought to know) that the Germans need that gas and will do a lot to keep the pipeline deal going, even if the Americans want to shut it down.
3. He knows Biden is mostly out of it, and even in his better days was not very brave, and will do nearly anything to avoid conflict.
4. It’s probably up to Putin alone, if he thinks invasion of Ukraine won’t cost too much he will do it.  If he thinks it will hurt Russia he won’t do it.  Unless we have another Oleg Penkovski (legendary sleeper mole in the Kremlin), we won’t know until it happens.

On the American side we have:

1. NATO and other treaties that give us a lot of support all over Europe.
2. Serious economic strength, far greater than the Russians have.  This strength would be better used if Biden made some straight forward threats of economic sanctions.    

Explorers 1985 Ethan Hawke, River Phoenix, Jason Presson

Cute movie.  The three actors are playing young boys, let’s guess 14 years old.  Young enough to be very cute, old enough to be able to do stuff.  They invent a spaceship, it moves by clean thoughts and righteous living, nothing as crude as rockets.  They evade a suspicious cop, they find off world creatures who know about earth music and flicks.  It’s fun to watch.  The young actors mumble a bit so I didn’t catch all the dialogue, but it could have been worse.  Naturally after adventures in outer space they all make it home safely.  Ethan Hawke gets the nicest role of a good kid, who has a girl friend, and stays out of trouble.  River Phoenix gets the role of super nerd scientist who creates the spacecraft.  Jason Presson gets a decent role as the kid who knows stuff, like welding and finding the more or less ready to go hull of the space craft.   Good watch for children in the vicinity of 10 years old.  But the time they reach 18, forget it. 

 

Russian tanks with wimpy guns?

 The Russians have been showing a lot of newsreel stuff of their army on maneuvers just outside of Ukraine.  Assuming this footage is recent, and not left over from WWII, I see some strange stuff.  A bunch of tanks with tiny cannon, like 1 inch (20mm)  bore.  The lesson from WWII is that any decent tank needs a three inch (75mm) gun.  Modern main battle tanks have moved up to 4 inch (100 mm) and 5 inch guns (120mm).  I wonder what the Russians are doing buzzing around in 1 inch gun tanks?  And I saw a number of Russian tanks with really narrow treads.  Another lesson from WWII is tanks want the widest tread possible to prevent them getting stuck in snow or mud.   

   Have the Russians forgotten their lessons from WWII?  Or are the Russian newsreels showing obsolete or training versions of their equipment? 

Biden is talking about leaving US citizens to sink of swim in Ukraine.

 He said that confrontation between Russian troops and US troops would touch off WWIII.  Not so.  We tell the Russians that were are getting our people out.  If they get in our way we will kill them. 

Brits claim break even nuclear fusion.

It was in the Wall St Journal today.  The achieved 60 Megajoules for 5 minutes.  That's enough fusion power output to cover the energy required to run the fusion reactor.  In more familiar units, a watt is one joule per second, so I read 60 megajoules as 60 megawatts, enough juice to do a lot.  Keep this up and we might be able to fuel our cars and keep our houses warm without drilling for more oil. 

Drug Rehab programs.

 Just the other day, as outrage flared up over Biden’s plan to issue free, taxpayer paid for crack pipes to druggies, several TV newsies suggested we put the druggies into a drug rehab program.  Good idea.  Question:  Anyone know how to run a drug rehab program that works?  Does 50% of the entering class graduate on time?  What percent of graduates are still off drugs one year later?  Two years later?  How many graduates are holding jobs, like right now, like one year after graduation?   Can we get any graduates to join a church?  How many graduates have hooked up with a friend?  With a friend of the opposite sex? Can we get program graduates hired into the private economy?  I have never seen any numbers on any of these questions.  

  In short, has anyone run a successful drug rehab program?  I expect such a program to have failures.  But I also want to see some successes.  If we don’t have any successes we are just pouring money down the drain.  If we can run drug rehab programs that work,  it is a better use of tax payer money than passing out free crack pipes.

I am sympathetic to the Canadian truckers

 They have certainly made Justin Trudeau (prime minister of Canada) look foolish and weak.  I agree with their idea that nobody should be forced to get vaccinated.  Those that refuse the vaccine are taking a risk, but it is a risk with their own lives.  If you fear infection, get yourself vaccinated.  

   The video is fun the watch.  I never saw so many red maple leaf flags in all my life.  The pix of flag waving crowds waving the trucks on are impressive. 

The other good thing, this demo is in Canada.  All the inconveniences, like Ottawa all parked up with 18 wheelers, is in Canada.  I'm in New Hampshire and it doesn't effect me. 

Booze or Pot safer than street drugs

Fentanyl is a super potent synthetic narcotic, about 80 times more potent than morphine.  Two milligrams can kill.  It is cheap.  Street drugs, good looking pills, are often souped up with fentanyl to make them hit harder.  Checks on street drugs show that 2 out of 5 contain a lethal dose of fentanyl.  Many of the current over dose deaths come from taking just one pill of a street drug. 

   If you are a parent, guardian, relative, or other person connected with the young, you want to make sure that the kids you talk to know that street drugs will kill them.  Encourage them to find a girl friend or boy friend instead of doing street drugs.  They will have more fun and live longer. 

   If the kid just has to take something, they will live longer drinking alcohol or smoking pot. 

   And have a word with the doctors.  According to the Wall St Journal, 70% of patients come away from a doctor’s appointment with a prescription for an opioid.  This is ridiculous.  And leads to opioid addiction.  After the prescription runs out, the kid will start buying street drugs until they kill him.  I cannot believe that 70% of patients need an opioid prescription.  I have lived a long life, and just once, after a very difficult tooth extraction, was I prescribed an opioid.  I would ask any doctor my kid was seeing how often he prescribed opioids.  The proper answer to this question is in 1% of cases.

Climate Scientists Encounter Computer Models' Limits.

 Front page headline in Monday's Wall St Journal.  I could have told them that 20 years ago.  I used to write computer models.  A computer model is just a computer program written to predict what will happen in the future.  If the model fails to give the answer the model writers want, they change the model code until they get the answer they like.  

This is not really science, not as Roger Bacon described science back in the high middle ages.  Science makes observations and preforms experiments.  The results are used to suggest or back up general theories.  When enough good scientists deem the theories true and the evidence sufficient, the theory becomes part of generally accepted science.   The models don't do experiments, and they tend to "correct" the observations they get fed.  I cannot call a model's results scientific.  They are more like science fiction. 

Newsies finally asking about that Nordsteam 2 pipeline to Russia

 Less that two weeks ago I posted a question here.  What gives the US a veto power over a Russian German project running under international waters (Baltic sea).  I never got an answer.  Just now I heard a TV newsie ask the same question.  Took the newsies almost two weeks to catch on.  The administration spokes weenie gave a baffle gab answer.  Clearly he did not know the answer.  Wanna bet the entire administration does not know the answer.  I believe the real answer is, "We Germans and Russians can build this pipeline.  We Germans don't want to offend the Americans by saying as much, so we don't say anything about it." 

What do masks do for Covid? Really?

 Any kind of mask will catch that cloud of muckiness’ from sneezing of coughing.  So the mask protects other people if you wear it.  Some fringe TV people have been claiming that you are infectious even after getting all your shots.  I don’t believe these people yet.  They never name the experimenter who gathered this alarming data, they never tell about the methodology.  So far the people spreading this rumor lack credibility. 

   Virus particles are small; you need an electronic microscope to see them.  That’s so small that the gaps in the weave of cloth look humungeous to a virus.  When you sneeze a virus particle out your nose, it is buried in a droplet of “water” (there is a ruder name for the stuff) which is plenty big enough to be caught be ordinary cloth.  After floating around in the air of the room, the “water” evaporates, leaving just the super small virus particle which can go thru a plain cloth mask.  Dunno about those blue paper throwaway masks.  The paper looks to have a much closer weave than cloth, I don’t know if it is enough closer to make a difference. 

   Then we have the “N95” masks.  The TV people say they will stop anything.  They don’t give test results.   I have never seen one.  I never heard of them before this Corona virus thing got started.  So I have no solid information to offer.

  But, wearing a mask protects people around you.  Cashiers, waitresses, cabbies, members of your congregation, and others will feel better if they see you wearing a mask.  I don’t believe that wearing a mask protects you, just others.  The “N95” masks might be better but I have never seen one.  You are on you own about their effectiveness.

How about a couple of squadrons of A10s??

 A10 is slow for a fighter but plenty fast enough for a tank buster.  I think a couple of squadrons of A10's could clean out a few hundred Russian tanks no sweat.  The A10's could fly from stateside to eastern Europe in a day.  Transports bringing mechanics, flight line crews, spare parts, ordinance, whatever would only be a day later.  

Then send a couple of squadrons of F16s and F35s to provide fighter escort again MIGs .  Send the F35s so we can see if they really work against MIGs.  Send the F16s in case the F35s don't work.  F16s can go up against anything that flies.  There was an air-to-air exercise a year or so ago where an F16 repeatedly beat an F35 in mock dog fights.  This was in Aviation Week.  

All this force could be in eastern Europe in time to deter or stop the Russian invasion of Ukraine.  The newsies don't talk about this.  Few newsies have ever been on a flight line. 

Facebook now pushing global warming

 We must all have seen those Facebook add-ons/comments pushing Covid vaccinations.  Those get tacked onto any post that mentioned vaccines, natural immunity, or a anti vax attitude.  I just noticed a new add-on/comment "See how world temperature is changing".  Seems like the pro vax push is running down or some thing, maybe their software weenies are looking for something to do, so now they are pushing climate change, just for fun.

GETTR is up and running.

Big Pharma has ad money to burn

 Just on Fox News, they run ads for drugs a couple of times an hour.  They seldom mention the ailment the drug is supposed to help or cure. Or they mention something I have never heard of, in small print toward the end of the ad.  As a consumer how am I supposed to know which of these new hi tech miracle drugs might help me?  

Effective advertising. 

More Cannon Mountain Ski Weather

 It did a bit of snowing overnight.  Getting out trusty yardstick shows that we got at least 14 inches of nice powder snow, all over the mountain.  Skiing ought to be superb tomorrow (Sunday) .  It was cold today, starting off at 10F in the morning and never getting about 15F in the afternoon.  Cannon had some lift failures today.  Brother John only managed to get in three good runs in four hours.  Should be fixed by tomorrow. 

Cannon Mountrain Ski Weather

 

It's 3:30 and I have 13 inches of new snow down. It is still coming down, but it looks like we are getting to the end. It's 22 F up here in the Notch. Not bad for February.

Crack down on guns. Guns don't protest

 New York's new mayor, Eric Adams, an ex cop who ought to know better, is calling for a crackdown on guns.  Guns are not his problem, criminals are his problem.  But he doesn't have to put up with DA Alvin Bragg whining in favor of criminals, and there are plenty of democrats in New York city who were dumb enough to elect De Blasio and to believe in anything they read in the New York Times.  

  I say every politician who calls for more gun control is a politician who lacks to stones to go after criminals. 

We need to do more than alert homebased units.

 The Biden administration is breaking their arms patting themselves on their backs for putting 8500 state side troops on alert for movement to eastern Europe.  We should have deployed them already.  The Russians have 100,000 of their soldiers on the Ukraine border, camping out in the snow.  Compared to that 8500 men in the US doesn't seem like much.  The Russians ought to know that unprovoked attacks on US forces can make the American's go wild and crazy.  Ask the Japanese about this.  Korea and 9-11 are other examples. 

  If we stationed a full US armored division in Ukraine, the Russians would not dare attack.

 

Tom Brady.

Farewell Tom Brady.  I am a casual Boston football fan, but I always watch the Superbowl when the New England Patriots are playing.  I clearly remember those Superbowl games where you got the ball and made a pass.  Connected, made another pass and another pass and marched the Patriots down the field to a goal.  Again and again in the same game.  Wonderful. 

  You are entitled to retire.  I wish you and your family all the best.  You gave us New England fans a wonderful show. 

No American should vote for democrats.

 The Democrats brought us Joe Biden.  The nominated him, they voted for him.  Democrats gave us Kamala Harris, who is so bad that nobody wants to impeach Biden, because that would give us Kamala as president.  Biden gave us the shameful cut and run from Afghanistan.  He gave us $3.50 gasoline.  He gave us the worst inflation in forty years.   He has promised to nominate a black woman for the Supreme Court, which sounds both racist and sexist to me.  

   Democrats brought us De Blasio for mayor of New York.  And Alvin Bragg for DA in Manhattan.  And Nasty Pelosi and Chuckie the Schumer and AOC and the Squad in Congress.

   All Americans should vote a straight Republican ticket.   

Outlaw gas stoves.

Just read something about the greenies wanting to outlaw gas stoves.  They think gas stoves emit too much carbon dioxide.  Typical greenie idea.  They don’t realize that the electricity for an electric stove has to be generated.  Power plants are only 40% efficient.  Only 40% of the heat energy goes into making electricity, the other 60% goes into the electric plant cooling system.  Whereas 100% of the heat energy of the natural gas going into a gas stove winds up heating the meal.  With electric stoves the power plant has to burn 1.6 times as much fuel to put the same amount of heat into the meal than a gas stove uses.

    As a rule of thumb, appliances that heat something, your home, your hot water, your kitchen stove all are more efficient (burn less fuel) if they work by burning a fuel in your house.  Electric appliances have to take a 60% fuel loss back at the power plant.

   I think the greenies are just looking for something else to do.  Something else to make life more difficult and expensive for us regular citizens.  Many greenies want to force all of us to live the Hiawatha life style, no central heating, cook over a wood fire in a tepee.  Camping out is fun in the summer.  Winter up here is different. 

Cannon Mountain Ski Weather

 We got 6 3/4 inches of snow from yesterday's snow storm.  Nice fluffy powder.  It's cold, I have 1F up here in Mittersill. Ski is clear and blue, sun is out.  TV weatherman promises some warming over the week, getting up to 40F on Friday. 

Federal Reserve ought to raise US interest rates tomorrow. Don’t wait til March.

 The Fed’s primary job ought to be keeping the economy growing.  Making money available to buy inventory, build new factories, hire more workers, raise their pay, finance building new aircraft, new cars and trucks, new ships, new railroad rolling stock.  Part of this is keeping prices stable.  If companies and people get the idea that the dollar will be worth less tomorrow, they will buy stuff today, before the price goes up.  Resulting demand will raise prices because the supply side isn’t big enough to supply everybody’s wants today.

 

Unfortunately the Fed usually sees it’s job as to keep the stock market speculators speculating.  They borrow money to buy stocks, running up the price of the stock.  Then they sell.  For this to work, the Fed has to make borrowing money reasonable cheap.  And stock speculation does not grow companies or hire more workers.  We don’t need it.

 

Better would be a Fed policy to keep prices stable, and money for real economic purposes available.  If this means interest rates so high that stock speculation becomes a loser, tough. 

I don’t know if we would do things like that today.

Way back in the 1950’s USAF had Convair design the “ultimate interceptor” for homeland air defense.  In those days the big worry was Russian bombers flying over the North Pole and nuking our cities.  ICBM's were still experimental in those days. In the search for an interceptor to stop the Russians,  Convair had already struck out once with the F102, which was nowhere near fast enough.  The best the poor old Deuce could do was Mach 1.2.  Convair’s political connections were excellent in those days, and USAF gave them a second chance.  Hughes Aircraft got the contract for the radar fire control in the F106 project.  When the red tape unwound, Convair got paid $8 million apiece for the airframe and engine, and Hughes got paid $8 million apiece for MA-1 radar fire control. 

   At this time, everyone wanted a missile armament, 50 cal machine guns were considered old school, WWII stuff.  Years later Viet Nam would change minds on this issue and guns came back into style.  Anyhow, the F106 carried two heat seeking guided missiles, two radar seeking guided missiles, and a single MB-1 Genie nuclear war headed unguided missile.  No guns of any kind. The nuclear warhead was of about the same yield as the one we used on Hiroshima only ten years earlier and the tremendous blast would make up for any minor errors in aim.  In actual fact, the blast from an MB-1 warhead would have done serious damage to anything on the ground as well.  Nobody talked about that.  Today, with the voters far more sensitive to issues of radiation, fallout, and blast damage, I don’t think the nuclear idea would fly.  I never heard that any of the later USAF fighters carried nukes. The F106’s in my squadron were built between 1957 and 1960.  They remained in service into the 1980’s.

 

Open mouth, Insert Foot.

 I just heard Lloyd Austin, Biden's defense secretary say "Biden has ordered that no US troops will be deployed to Ukraine".  Stupid thing to say.  Biden should not have said it.  Austen should not announce it on TV.  You don't want to tell an adversary what you will or will not do.  Let the adversary guess.  Maybe it will deter him.  Maybe he will guess wrong.  You don't tell adversaries what you plan to do.  Lets go Brandon.

Beans and Franks Harmful??

 I was doing a little websurfing and I run across a site "25 Foods you should never eat".  Having a little time on my hands I clicked on it.  They listed a whole bunch of junk food that I never buy.  But, they blackballed hot dogs  and then baked beans.  Picture of a can of Bush's baked beans.  Arrg.  I do beans and franks now and then.  My mother used to serve beans and franks and brown bread for family dinner, oh once or twice a month.  She baked the brown bread at home.  She liked raisins in the brown bread.  Dad detested raisins in anything.  So she put the raisins in one end and left the other end raisinless for Dad.  Then came the night a trouble making raisin escaped from detention and popped up in Dad's slice of raisin bread.  Dad didn't say anything, but his grumbles carried to all us kids. 

Biden wants to bring the "living Constitution" back to life

 Now that Justice Breyer has announced his retirement, Biden gets to nominate a supreme.  Back during his campaign he promised to nominate a black woman.  The Wall St Journal showed five leading candidates, all black women.  None of their names meant anything to me.  At least all five had "Judge" in front of their names.   

The doctrine of a "living Constitution" means that a lot of changes have occured since the Constitution was ratified way back in 1789.  And it is the duty of judges and courts to change the Constitution to support their view of the proper course of modern events, leftie, greenie, and worse.  I don't believe this.  It is the duty of elected legislatures, both Federal and state, to pass new laws or amend the constitution if necessary.  If the voters are in favor, the changes will happen.  If the voters are not in favor, or just don't care, changes won't happen.  That is representative democracy.  When unelected judges change the law it is tyranny. 

I wonder how those five leading candidates feel about living constitutions.  Someone ought to ask them during the confirmation hearings.  Courts should enforce the law as written, not the law they wish was written.

 

That gas pipeline from Germany to Russia

 Nordstream 2 they call it.  TV news is saying that the US will do something to kill the project if the Russians invade Ukraine.  Question.  How come the US has a veto power over a European project?  The pipeline will run underneath the Baltic sea, which was international waters last time I looked.  The Germans have plenty of money to finance the job, which will bring Russian natural gas to heat German homes and fire German power plants.  The Russians like the idea of earning German money for the sale of their gas.  

   What gives the US any kind of control of Nordstream 2?

SR71 Blackbird

 The TV has William Devane giving the pitch to invest in gold and silver. He is standing in front of an SR1 Blackbird in some aviation museum.  Plane looks good.  Devane says "Just as this plane evaded radar...:   Fun fact, the Blackbird was not radar stealthy.  It was designed before the stealth technology had been discovered, and it (and its crews) did not really care if the plane showed on Russian radar.  It was faster than anything the Russians were flying and it could fly higher than anything the Russians were flying.  If a Russian fighter showed up while the Blackbird was photographing inside Russia, or anywhere else for that matter, the Blackbird could just out run it. 

Russian army trucks travel by rail.

 I am looking at a picture in the New York Post showing a long railroad train of flatcars, loaded with Russian army trucks bound for Belarus to beef up the Russian forces on the Ukraine border.  Hmm, shipping trucks by rail?  Does this say something bad about the condition of roads between Moscow and Belarus?  Or something bad about the reliability of Russian army trucks operating off road?  Or on road?  The US army was practicing up for WWII in the 1930’s with large road movements by tanks and trucks.  You need the trucks to allow the infantry to keep up with the tanks, and to bring up rations, ammunition, and fuel.

Give heat'n eats 40 minutes and 300F

 The heat'n eat makers are down on conventional (real) ovens.  More and more of the heat'n eats in the food store only have instructions for microwaving them.  Me, I don't have a microwave, my kitchen is too small to fit one in.  But I have found, the the heat'n eats come out tasty if I pop them in the oven at 300F for 40 minutes.  Use a fork to stab a few vent holes in the plastic top cover. 

How many people do we have in that Ukraine embassy??

The State Dept has put out the word for 7000 dependents  at the Ukraine embassy to leave the country ASAP (before the Russians invade).  That's a lot of dependents.  Assume dependents for one embassy employee to be a wife and two kids.  That gives an embassy headcount of 2333 workers.  That is a lot of State Dept weenies all in one place.  Do we really need that many workers to handle affairs with a smallish European country?  

  For that matter the state dept put out the word to all US citizens in Ukraine to leave the country, ASAP.  TV mentioned that we have 30,000 US citizens in the country.  If we use our biggest jet liner, the Boeing 747, which seats 500 passengers, we are talking about 60 flights to get everyone out.  Will the Russians give us that much time?