So what is Boko Haram?

Well, since they been kidnapping school girls by the hundred, I'd call them terrorists.  Hillary's State Department is taking flack 'cause they failed to put Boko Haram on the official terrorist list two years ago.  But I heard Fox News call them "rebels" the other day, and NPR called them "militants" just this morning.  Newsies need to wake up and smell the coffee. 

Free Air

They used to offer it at gas stations.  In the old days they would provide a neat little stand with a regulator.  Just dial in the desired tire pressure, jam the air hose onto the tire valve, and kaching, kaching, you were pumped up.  Even worked on my bicycle tires, before I got my driver's license.
  So the other day I noticed trusty Mercury Grand Marquis getting a little soft and squirrelly on I93, going into Littleton.  I eyeballed all the tires, and none of 'em looked soft.  So I rummaged in the glove compartment for the tire pressure gauge that should have been there.  No soap, gauge was gone into that great toolbox in the sky. So, I buy a new gauge at Walmart and go looking for a gas station with air, free or expensive, just air.  I'm at the intersection of I93 and US 302 in Littleton, pretty active place with three gas stations.  Only one of them has air.  Seventy five cents a shot.  Wimpy wimpy.  I put it on the right rear which was 10 pounds low.  The hang-on-the-outside-wall compressor racketed away but it wasn't putting much air in the tire.  The seventy five cents ran out, it stopped racketing, but the tire still hadn't reached 35 psi.  I had to fed it another seventy five cents to get pumped up. 

A lotta things to learn about Benghazi

Democrats on TV have been deriding the new Trey Gowdy Benghazi investigating committee.  They say we know everything there is to know, there have been eight previous investigations, and everything is out on the table. 
  I beg to differ.  Things we don't know.
1. Why were no troops or aircraft dispatched to rescue the people in Benghazi?  We had time to get a drone (200 mph) over the consulate, why were jet fighters (1000 mph) not sent?  Why were troops not dispatched, by helicopter or fixed wing?  Who was responsible?
2.  Why did Obama relieve two general officers in the theater of their commands that night?
3.  Who turned down the requests for extra security that were made BEFORE the attack?
4.  Who sent Susan Rice out on the talk shows peddling the internet video story.  She didn't think that fairy tale up all by her self. 
5. Why did acting CIA director Mike Morrel take the Washington analyst's internet video story over the story from the CIA station chief in Benghazi?
6.  What was that massive CIA operation doing in Benghazi anyhow?
7.  What orders did Obama issue that night?  Were they in writing?  If so let's see them.

I'm sure there's more, but these will do for starters.

The A-10

Aka the Warthog.  A ground attack plane, a jet powered version of the Russian WWII Sturmovic.  It can fly low and slow, just what you need for tank plinking, has a honking big 30 mm Gatling gun, and lots of bombs and missiles.  Nice straight wing, top speed around 400 mph.  Twin engines so you can get home if one takes a hit.  Came into service after Viet Nam, did a fantastic job in the first Gulf War.  Best plane out there for ground attack.  On the other hand, if you are flying an A10 and you get bounced by enemy jet fighters, you are in deep trouble. 
  The Air Force officer corps is pretty much all fighter pilots now that SAC has been disbanded.  And fighter pilots want to fly fighters and do air to air combat.  They like the white silk scarf fluttering in the slip stream and they all want to be the Red Baron.  The idea of getting down into the ground fire and shooting up tanks has no appeal to fighter pilots. 
  This year Congress laid a heavy duty funding cut on all the armed services.  It's actually a real cut, the services get less money than than they did last year.  So, the Air Force looked around for things they could shut down or sell off, to keep the little money left them going into the F35 program.  What to cut?  How about that ugly old A10?  None of us fighter pilots like it, if we get rid of  it we can use the money saved to buy that hot F35 that we do like.
   There has been some squawking from the Army and the Marine Corps, both of which like the A10.  Nobody who saw A10s blowing Saddam Hussein's tanks away in the Gulf Wars is going to feel happy about doing without them.
   The issue probably needs to be resolved in Congress, if Congress still has the ability to resolve anything. 

Politics is getting mean up here.

It's Wednesday night, the North Grafton Republican Committee is meeting, in the downstairs of the Gold House, Littleton's best pizza place.  Gary Lambert, running for the US House of Representatives, has stopped in to speak to us, do a little campaigning.  Gary is an old New Hampshire political hand, served in the NH senate, served in the Marines for 35 years, a nice guy.
   About this time a young brunette, with a heavy camera bag slips into the room.  I've never seen her before.  But Mike Gilman and Gary do know her, address her as Morgan.  She is a democratic party tracker, assigned to follow Gary Lambert and film any gaffe's he might make.  Morgan is working with or for Annie Kuster's campaign.  We ask her to leave, which she does.
   Discussion turns on how Morgan found us.  Apparently Gary had posted something to his facebook page from his smart phone that evening, and Morgan turned up about an hour after the post.
   Wow.  Pretty big time stuff.  Gary Lambert isn't even the Republican candidate yet, he has yet to win the primary.  That the democrats have the money, or the dedicated people with time on their hands, to track a fairly low level guy like Gary Lambert, suggests a lot of outside money is coming into the state.  It's also probably a waste of resources by the Democrats.  Annie Kuster has done little to nothing in office and is probably toast in November. 

A History of the English Speaking Peoples

Written by Winston Churchill.  The first volume, The Birth of Britain, was started in 1939, seventy five years ago. Finally published in 1956.  As most of you know, Winston Churchill had some other things to attend to between 1940 and 1945.  I started to read it again yesterday. 
   The first volume starts with Caesar's invasion in 55 BC and goes up thru the Norman Conquest and the Plantagenet kings.  Reading a history book this old, I was pleasantly surprised to find that Churchill's writing is pretty much up to date.  I have read more modern histories of the period, specifically, Leslie Alcock's Arthur's Britain, and despite another thirty years of archaeology,  the story stands pretty much the way Churchill wrote of it in 1939. 
   Partly of course, the few written records of the period, Caesar, Gildas, Bede, and Nennius, were well known to Churchill. The contributions of archaeology, although interesting, don't change the story much.
  And Churchill writes well.  This, probably the last book Churchill published, has his best writing.  All writers of history  always feel compelled to comment upon the history and the historical figures.  Churchill's comments are the informed thought of an highly experienced man of affairs.  He understands the need for economic growth, even during the Roman Empire.  He knows of the need for effective military force to repel invasions and maintain civil order.  He knows the importance of Christianity in history.  He lovingly describes the growth of political institutions, especially Parliament, of which he was a member for better than fifty years.  His viewpoint is balanced and insightful. 
   It's a good read.  Check it out. 

Money for Milfoil prevention

Op ed in the Onion Leader today.  Milfoil is a lake weed, grows rapidly and can choke a lake to the point where you cannot swim in it, canoe in it, or fish in it.  They described it as "invasive species" which is evil.  The writer was pleading for more state money for Milfoil control.  
   Trouble is, the control measures amount to hiring divers to go down and pull up the weed by hand.  Ow.  My aching back.  That sounds worse than pulling up dandelions by hand, only under water.  And divers don't come cheap.  I can see why the anti Milfoil crusaders are begging for more funding.  There ain't enough money in the entire state of New Hampshire to pull up lakeweed by hand from underwater.  
   Somebody has to find an animal that eats Milfoil, or a herbicide, or a disease that attacks it, or something practical.  Until then, forget it.

Bills and Blegs

I still pay my bills by check, largely 'cause I don't really trust electronic payment.  Witness the Target data breach disaster.  So the mail comes in, and the bills and the blegs (letters begging money) pile up on my desk.  Once a month I haul out the check book and pay them. 
  This month, I paid 9 bills and still had a huge stack of envelopes to open.  So I counted.
Twenty one blegs total.  Most aggressive blegger, the Republican party.  with seven.  Followed by the Tea Party and the NRA with 3 each.  My old colleges, my old high school, Scott Brown, John McCain, and four local charities came in with one each. 
   To a certain extent I ask for this, I have in fact contributed to each of them in the past, so it's natural for them to come back to the well. Not that I give all that much, $35 is about my utmost.  But I was surprised to find more blegs than bills. 

$20 Billion for new presidential helicopters?

Marine One is getting a little old.  There was a program to replace it about 10 years ago, but terrible cost overruns led to program cancellation.  The replacement was going to have electronic systems good enough to conduct a nuclear war from on board the chopper.  And they kept on gold plating it until the project sank.
   Well, they are at it again.  The new program will get a new design from Sikorsky in Connecticut.  For $20 billion overall, we get 23 gold plated presidential helicopters,  That's nearly $1 billion per aircraft.  That's totally rediculous.
   All we need for a presidential chopper is one of what ever the service is flying.  Give it a nice new paint job and maybe a couple of cushy seats in back.  Take the aircraft from an operational squadron, something that has been flown long enough to get a good feeling about it.  No fancy electronics.  If the president just has to communicate in flight let him use his cell phone.  And we don't need 23 of them,  two, a primary and a backup is plenty. 
   $20 billion for special design, special build gold plated choppers, when the country is as broke as it is, just doesn't make sense. 

Gumshoes and REMF's won't help.

The TV news is playing up the dispatch of a dozen American "experts" to Nigeria to "help" recover the kidnapped Nigerian girls.  Sorry O, that won't help.  Makes you look wimpy on TV.
  What's needed is about a hundred good soldiers, and the helicopters to lift them.  And a location.  The location the girls are held at.  The choppers land the troops just out of gun shot of the location, the troops move in and shoot anyone who fails to put their hands up in the air.  Choppers provide fire support as needed.  Then fly the girls out to safety.   Repeat as necessary until all the girls are freed.
   So why don't we do this? Do we secretly support Boko Haram?  Lack of guts?  Too many REMF's and not enough soldiers?  Multiculturalism? 
   You don't know what REMF means?  Old service acronym for Rear Echelon M_____ F_____.

Lick 'em or join 'em?

The Democrats are choosing between two options.  The House of Representatives is forming a committee to investigate Benghazi, with Rep Trey Gowdy as chairman.  Option 1 for Democrats.  Refuse to participate, make it an all Republican deal, and then trash it as political witchhunting.  Option 2.  Put some Democrats on the committee who can slow things down, waste time, give the witnesses softball questions that make them look good, raise procedural objections, and in general water down the proceedings. 
  Which option to take?  Option 1, abstention, only works if the public can be persuaded that there is nothing in the Benghazi story.  Polls suggest that this won't work, they show a majority thinks Benghazi is a shameful scandal, being hushed up by the administration.  Certainly the failure to send troops to the rescue, the firing of general officers who refused to call back rescue missions, the mysterious CIA operation set up in this sinkhole, the attempt to call it a political demonstration sparked by an obscure internet video, and the denial of security assets requested before hand by officials on the scene, go together to make an ugly and shameful story. 
Option 2  only looks good for Democrats only if they decide Option 1 won't work. 
Good Luck Democrats. 
 

Reform the Congress

As the November election approaches everyone is looking to see the Republicans take "control" of the Senate.  Should that happen, Obama will have to warm up that famous pen, and veto stuff.  And sign his own name to it.  Right now, one man, Harry Reid, does the veto for Obama, in secrecy.
  That should not be allowed in a democracy.  Every Congressman ought to be able to submit a bill and have it voted upon.  This business of the Congressional leadership's ability to silently trashcan bills they don't like ought to stop.  For that matter, each house ought to be required to vote on every bill the other house passes. 
  And this business in the Senate where it takes two votes to do anything ought to stop.  Right now they hold one vote one whether they will vote on it and a second one to actually pass it.  This is ridiculous, wastes time, and obscures each senator's real actions.  Plenty of slimy senators vote one way of the first vote and the other way on the second vote.  You gotta be a real political junkie to figure out just what senator so-and-so is really doing up there in DC, out of sight of his district. Most voters don't pay that close attention, they have lives to life after all.
   Then we ought to demand that each bill be read aloud on the floor before the vote on it.  That will cut down on those 1000 page bills that no one understands.  Any bill too long to read aloud is a bad bill. And any bill must be printed (letterpress on paper) and distributed to the press, the public and all Congressmen BEFORE it comes up for a vote. 
   Then we ought to adopt the Confederate States of America practice of demanding each bill laid before Congress must address a single topic, that topic to be announced in the title of the bill.  No more riders.  The Supreme Court ought to hold bills violating that rule are un Constitutional. 
   And English is the language of the United States, plain English.  Fancy Latin words will invalidate any bill. Sentences must be active voice, subject-verb-object.  No compound sentences. No outside references, clauses that read "in accordance with such-an-such" , where such and such is some other document.  A bill ought to stand on its own, no external references, which nobody has the time to find and read.

Scratch one university, Rutgers

Dis inviting Condolezza Rice as a graduation speaker shows a university locked in the grip of crazies.  Condolezza Rice is an inspiring figure, a black woman, born into modest circumstances, who by pure ability rose to become US secretary of state, the third highest office in the land (after the President and the chairman of the federal reserve, and above the vice president).  This is an amazing story, any university student  should be inspired to emulate.   Graduation speeches tend to stick with you, I can still remember some lines from my own graduation speech and that was a long time ago.  I'm sure Condolezza Rice would have been memorable graduation speaker.  And Rutgers drove her away. 
   Ringleader in the anti-Rice crusade is Rutgers professor Deepa Kumar.  She "teaches" journalism and "media studies" what ever that might be.  She writes about Islamophobia, imperialism, anti muslim racism.  She appeared on Russia Today, a Russian government sponsored propaganda show bragging about her "victory" in driving Condolezza Rice off campus.  
   That Rutgers would have this kind of fruitcake on the faculty says a lot of things, all bad, about Rutgers.

What would America fight for?

Cover story from The Economist, a London based weekly news magazine.  Written from the point of view of Europeans, terrified that the Americans will let the Russki's eat them up.  The article reaches no worthwhile conclusions.  They don't know what the Americans might do.  For that matter I don't think we Americans know what we might do. 
   With the exception of the Brits, the rest of Europe has disarmed, and can offer no more effective military resistance to a Russian invasion than the Ukrainians have.  Plus, the Russians can turn off the heat all over Europe if they please, so the Europeans are timid about economic sanctions.  In actual fact the Russians have more sanctions to lay on the Europeans  than the Europeans have to lay on the Russians.
   So far, the Russians are attacking an non NATO member, and are going to some trouble to disguise their land grab as another Anschluss, (the people really want to become part of Russia).  After the Ukraine aggression has cooled off, say in a year or two, the Russians may try the same thing on a NATO member.  Would the US live up to its treaty obligations and defend NATO members?  The Europeans fear that we won't. 
   And if we don't, the Russians will move on Europe, country by country, and in a few years control everything up to the English Channel. 
   

So what is he guilty of?

  A Florida high school student (I didn't catch his name off the TV) is in the dock for hacking into his high school's computer and changing other kids grades, for money.  The TV showed him in orange coveralls and handcuffs.  Clearly the prosecutor is preparing to throw the book at this teenage boy.  Nice looking boy too, thick dark hair, combed neatly, regular features, slender, should have no trouble getting dates at school.  Dates will be harder come by in the clink.  
   Clearly this is a practice to be discouraged.   Changing people's grades, transcripts, medical records, land ownership records,  bank account records, driving records, and you name it, should not be allowed.  No way, No how.
   But,  what crime is this kid guilty of?  It isn't robbery or burglary.  It isn't murder, manslaughter, arson, barratry, assault, perjury, embezzlement, income tax evasion.  Forgery perhaps?  Traditionally forgery is printing false paper money, or creating other false documents.  But we could expand it.
   For once, I'm thinking we need to pass a law, criminalizing this sort of thing.  Broaden the law to include altering records of any kind for profit.  Give this crime a name,  say fackery, for forging by hacking,  Spell out the test of the crime, and the penalties.  Give the judge some discretion to let first time offenders off with something less than prison, say probation or even a slap on the wrist   
   And let's have some penalties for officials who fail to take obvious security measures, such as requiring passwords to access sensitive  records, demanding a password change every six months, keeping computers with sensitive records OFF the internet. 

         

340,000 layoffs equals 288,000 "new" jobs?

The Obama administration keeps touting figures for "new" jobs.  They never did spell out what makes a job "new".  I'm thinking that every single hire is counted as a "new" job.  In the same week they claimed 288,000 "new" jobs, they also announced 340,000 new claims for unemployment benefits, i.e. 340,000 people got laid off.  First thing anyone does after getting laid off is go right down and file for unemployment.  Put the two numbers together and we lost about 52,000 jobs last month.  They don't say that on the evening TV news.
   They do say that GNP growth has dropped to just about nothing.  0.1% is the number given, which is so low it might as well be zero. 
  Obama doesn't talk about that either.  At least he isn't blaming it on George Bush any more.

White House Coorespondent's dinner

Getting a lot of press coverage this morning.  Obama has a fancy dinner for all his lovers in the press.  How is this news?  We know the press loves him and covers for him. 

Up here trees are the enemy

Damn things keep growing, spreading, reseeding, putting up shoots, dropping leaves on the grass.  Around the edge of my lawn,  the brush and the saplings try to move in on the grass.  Shade it, bury it in dead leaves,  emit hostile pheromones.  The trees were staking a claim to 4-5 feet into the lawn.
   Can't have that, they will be tearing down the house next.
   Hedge clippers, very good against the pricker bushes, the saplings, the low hanging branches.  And lopping shears for the stuff too thick for the hedge clippers.  And a rake, a metal leaf rake.  I used to use a big bamboo rake but it isn't strong enough to tangle with the brush.  Any how,  I pushed the woods back a good 5 feet.  Long live the grass.
   Gotta wait for the grass to green up this year.  At least I got it all raked and looking better before the trees leafed.    

Meet and Greet Jim Rubins, running for US Senate

I'm doing a meet and greet at my place for Jim Rubins next Thursday 8 May 6 PM.  Jim is a Republican running for US Senator for New Hampshire.  My place is up at the top of Franconia Notch.
22 Ridge Cut Road
Mittersill
Franconia, NH 03580

The Mittersill driveway is a couple of hundred yards down the road from the Peabody Slopes parking lot at Cannon.  You can get off I93 at the Peabody Slopes/Echo Lake/ State Rt 18 exit.  It's one exit north of the Cannon Mt Tramway exit.

Obama fired general officers on the night of Benghazi

With the new Ben Rhodes email the Benghazi story is coming back to life.  As was obvious at the time, Obama spun the story, from a terrorist attack to a political demonstration.  The consulate held out under attack for seven hours that night.  Plenty of time to send reinforcements.  Commanders on the scene, General Carter Ham, and Admiral Charles M Gaouette were fired by Obama that night.  No explanation has ever been given.  Rumor has it that Obama fired them when they refused to recall rescue missions en route to Benghazi. 
   I noticed that while Bret Baier was roasting Tommy Vietor medium rare last night, he didn't ask about the firings of general officers with distinguished service records. 
   Put this together with retired Air Force general Robert Lovell, who testified before Congress that "We should have gone in."
  I think the real untold story of Benghazi is that the armed forces  attempted rescue missions but Obama ordered them to stop and return to base.  I think Obama sacrificed four brave Americans to prevent an incident that would have made him look bad, and demanded some serious US intervention in Libya, which he did not want to cope with. 

Microsoft does one more XP patch.

Despite months of XP whines about Microsoft cutting off upgrades and patches, a new "zero day exploit" (hole in Windows just discovered today) is so bad that M$ cranked out a patch for it.  Actually the hole seems to be in Internet Exploder Version 8, rather than in Windows proper, not that it mkes much difference to us users.  We don't care where the bug lives, we just want it squashed.  Anyhow, if you fire up Windows Update, and wait, the Exploder patch will download and install.

Sexual Orientation

We have a push to amend the New Hampshire constitution to guarantee equality (or something) for "sexual orientation".  Not sure just what sexual orientation means.  Is it a new word for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered?  Actually I, and everyone else, assumes that anti discrimination laws already on the books covers them.  Or is it a term that just covers boys who want to be girls and girls who want to be boys?  And what equality does it offer?  I can understand requiring equality in things like college admissions, apartment rental, hiring.  But what about more intimate jobs such as live in house keeper, day care provider, or nanny?
Apparently the NH senate has passed the amendment (dubbed CACR 17) and it's now over at the House. 
   I'm dubious about the value of this one. 

Citizen's ID cards

They used to be a characteristic feature of police states.  Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, North Korea, Red China, the Soviet Union, all issued ID cards, and woe betide the citizen who failed to produce his ID when stopped by the police.  In America we have always taken pride in an open society,  we don't have citizen's ID cards.  When social security cards first came out they were marked "Not for Identification Purposes" just to emphasize that they were for social security benefits only.
   Well that's faded out.  Driver's licenses now have color photos.  You better have yours on you should you get stopped on the road.  You need to show ID to board an aircraft. You have to show ID to get a job.  And now, we are moving toward demanding ID in order to vote.  The democrats are pushing back against this, claiming that many citizens lack photo ID.  This I doubt, everyone has a driver's license.  The majority feels voter ID is a good idea to prevent voter fraud.  Which it probably is.
   But, I kinda like the old ways, when we didn't have to show our papers all the time.  When we put in voter ID we are telling citizens, get ID if you want to vote.   It's a step toward a police state.     

Down with Toll Roads

After 60 years of a no-toll-road federal policy, the Obama administration is backsliding.  They have been making noises that would allow states to put up toll booths on the interstate highways.  Obviously the attraction of squeezing more money out of the people overcame the very sensible principle of freeways rather than toll roads. 
   Travel means business, sales, and money.  It's good public policy to encourage travel and shipping.  Tourists bring money, and spend it, all along the way and at their destination.  Trucks bring every sort of good, which gets sold, for money.  The more goods shipped the more money everyone makes.  It was federal policy that freeways paid for themselves thru the increased business and economic activity.  Discouraging travel and shipping thru road tolls costs us more in lost business than it returns in tolls.
  Despite crying and wailing from the road contractors, US roads are in good shape, much better shape than say Canada.  I drove around the Gaspe peninsula in Quebec once.  It was a major road, a two lane provincial highway along the St Lawrence River.  Only it had washed away to the point that only one lane was left.  You don't see that in the US.  Except for some really beat up roads around New York City,  American roads are better than anywhere in Europe.  We do not have an "infrastructure crisis" except in the minds of state highway departments and road contractors.  Which has been used as an excuse to call for more money for "infrastructure".  Road tolls might provide this extra revenue.  So says the highway lobby.
  I say we ought to stick to the freeways rather than toll roads policy.           

B17 fighter plane?

That's what Fox News called it this morning.  They were covering a decoration ceremony for some WWII Army Air Corps survivors.  On missions over Germany their B17's got shot up and had to crash land in Switzerland.  The Swiss "interned" them in conditions as harsh as a German POW camp.  But since it was Switzerland, not Germany, the airmen were denied prisoner of war medals when WWII was over.  Relatives worked long and hard to reverse this, and this morning the few airmen still alive were presented with their medals. 
   Aside from the Fox voiceover calling the B17 a fighter, all went well.  How anyone could mistake the most famous American warplane, hero of movies such as Twelve o'Clock High, The War Lover, and Memphis Belle, as a fighter plane, reveals much about the shallowness of TV newsies.  And this was on Fox, the best of 'em.  Saints preserve us from what the bottom feeders like MSNBC are polluting the airwaves with.

Get the Feds out of the Mortgage Business

The housing industry, realtors, builders, mortgage lenders, appliance makers, and others, back in Great Depression 1.0 persuaded Congress to give them a handout.  They claimed a shortage of mortgage money was crimping the industry's wings, and housing  was needed to provide jobs and "home ownership".  And so our tax money was channeled into mortgages thru Fannie Mae.  Actually, Fannie Mae made good money for many years.  It borrowed at the low Federal T-bill rate because everyone believed that the US government would back up Fannie's bonds, and it loaned at the commercial mortgage rate, leaving a comfy profit margin.  Fannie Mae even sold stock to private investors, with dividends paid out of the juicy profits.  Fannie Mae (and its younger brother Freddie Mac) offered cushy jobs for retired politicians, and nice profits to investors. 
  In the 1980's Fannie got into, or started up, the "secondary mortgage market".  In this deal, they would buy existing mortgages from the "primary" lenders, mostly banks.  For a while this made money, but the side effects gave us Great Depression 2.0.  The primary lenders found that they could make money on anything, do the mortgage, sock the buyer with hefty paperwork fees to do the deal, then sell the mortgage to Fannie. If the mortgage went bad, borrower skipped town,  property wasn't worth the money in the mortgage, the primary lender didn't care.  He made his money the minute Fannie bought the mortgage off him.  And so the quality of the mortgages went down hill.  Suddenly investors stopped loaning money to Fannie, and shortly after Great Depression 2.0 stalked the land, Fannie got taken over by the US treasury.  $188 billion of your tax money was poured into Fannie to meet it's obligations.
   With this sorry history, we ought to get the Federal government out of the mortgage business.  There is plenty of private money to finance home buying.  Remember, a mortgage is a VERY desirable deal for the lender.  His loan is secured by real property, something tangible and salable.  If the borrower defaults the bank gets the house.  And, the borrower is highly motivated to make his payments.  No spouse wants to explain to his partner why they and their children are getting pitched out into the street.  
   If private investors will buy US T-bills that only pay 3%, they will be happy to make an equally safe mortgage loan at 4.5%.  They will be plenty of mortgage money if we give the mortgage business back to private banks.  And we ought to forbid the selling of mortgages.  When you make a mortgage you will own it til it's paid off.  This will discourage doing mortgages that are bound to fail. 

Just one more thing for Republicans

Stop the NSA snooping of cell phones, all phones for that matter. 
   "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probably cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." Article IV.  The "oath or affirmation" was language acceptable to the Quakers, who refused to take oaths as a matter of religious principle.  Quakers would "affirm" their testimony, but would not testify under oath. 
  NSA is violating every clause of Article IV.  They have no Warrant.  They have no probably cause. Snooping every cell phone in the country is not "particularly describing the place to be searched".
  It's creepy to know that government can check every person I ever telephoned, and probably where I was when I placed the call.  Your (or my) political enemies could troll thru this record looking for dirt.  Just accepting a phone call from some scum bag could do your rep, and your chances of winning an election, a lot of harm.  How often have you picked up your phone and found some slimey robocaller on the line?

But they won't vote Republican

The Washington Examiner has a story about the Laborers International union, which naturally favors Keystone XL.  The Examiner cites union outrage over the Obama administrations latest stall on the pipeline.  But, despite outrage, the 557,000 member union never says to its membership "Vote a straight Republican ticket, that will get us Keystone XL and keep us off unemployment."   Here is a clear cut case where Republicans can help the union but the union people cannot drop their lifelong loyalty to the democrats.  These are clearly instinct voters, not thinking voters. 
  The Examiner goes on to explain the role of hedge fund billionaire Tom Steyer, who gave $50 million to Obama, and promised to raise another $50 million.  Obama clearly values the $100 million more than he values 557,000 live and voting union members.  I guess he figures they are all dumb enough to vote democratic no matter what. 

The Big Enchilada, jobs, jobs, and more jobs.

And everyone likes this one.  Turn the economy around, get hiring people, have jobs for everyone, enough jobs that workers can quit companies they don't like and be able to find another job.  That will bring wages up. 
   But to win the election, the GOP has to spell out HOW it is going to achieve this nirvana.  Voters want specifics.  Such as:
1.  Start the Keystone XL pipeline.  It will get crude oil shipments off the rails and into a pipe.  It brings oil in from one of our closest allies.  It will lower the price of gasoline and furnace oil.  It will allow US export of fuels to our friends around the world.
2. Repeal Sarbanes Oxley.  This 1000 page law is welfare for lawyers, an intolerable burden on companies, and has driven merger and acquisition business out of New York.  Getting rid of Sarbanes Oxley will make it easier to run a business, and business is what employs people. 
3.  Repeal Dodd Frank.  Another 1000 page law, welfare for lawyers.  Dodd Frank sets up ways for taxpayers to bail out firms "too big to fail".  Replace Dodd Frank with some anti trust action, any company too big to fail is clearly a trust, and needs to be busted.  Dodd Frank tells Wall St speculators that they can take any sort of risk, when things go bad Uncle will bail you out. 
4.  Reform corporate income tax.  For instance, money earned overseas should not be subject to US income tax.  Companies that make money overseas should be free to bring the money back to the US and spend it.  Right now Uncle takes 35% of every dollar brought home from overseas.  At this rate, it makes sense to leave the money in overseas banks earning a couple a percent rather than investing it back here at home.  And, that 35% corporate tax rate is the highest in the industrial world.  No wonder companies are sending jobs overseas, the taxes are lower. 
 5.  Reform the US patent system.  Right now no one can bring any new product to market without some patent troll suing for patent infringement as soon as the product makes a little money.  Look are the $600 million award against Blackberry some years ago.  Blackberry is filing for bankruptcy today.  Patents are granted for ridiculous things, like whether it takes one click or two clicks to place something in an internet shopping basket.  This constant threat of mickey mouse lawsuits makes getting a start up company off the ground harder.  It's the start ups  that employ people. 
6.  Remind every one that a $10 minimum wage doesn't put more money in worker's pockets, instead  it throws them out of work.
7.  Repeal the "Corporate Average Fuel Economy" (CAFE) requirements.  Four dollar a gallon gasoline is all the incentive anyone needs to build fuel efficient vehicles.  The current CAFE requirement of nearly 50 mpg makes new cars ridiculously expensive, leading to lower car sales and people refurbishing old cars to keep them running longer. 

And, the GOP needs a platform for young people

The young voters are heavy internet users.  They all believe that everything should be free.  They want to download music, movies, ebooks, you name it, for free.   There are some things we could do to make interneting  more harmonious.
   First, rewrite copy right law.  Current copyright runs for the life of the author plus seventy years.  We ought to cut that back to fourteen or seventeen years, like it used to be.  That would take all the good pop music off copyright and allow downloading legally.  My children's ipads are stocked with the great songs I remember fondly from my college years.  That was more than seventeen years ago.  The kids would love this.  The labels hate the idea.  Labels don't vote.
  Then repeal the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which permits all sorts of legal bullying by Hollywood and the labels. The kids would love this.  Hollywood and the labels hate it.  They don't vote.
  Then repeal the age 21 drinking law that MADD rod rodded thru Congress twenty years ago.  Make drinking age a matter of state law.  The kids would love this.  And, it would increase safety.  Colleges ought to operate on-campus pubs.  Students would prefer sipping a few, at a place where their friends might be.  After having a few, they can walk back to dorm.  Much safer than driving back to campus after a party.   Not sure just who is against this idea, but someone is.
   Social security and medicare reform.  Most young people figure these programs will be gone long before they get eligible for them.  They would be fine with some modest trim backs of benefits.  They see FICA taking a big whack out of their paychecks, and they don't see any payback for themselves.  They see it as a tax on them to support the elderly. 

Republicans need a platform to win this year

Despite all the pundits claiming this is a Republican year due to misteps by the Obama Adminstration, I am worried.  In 2012 Obama carried the women's vote by 10%.  That was enough to win the election coast to coast.  Women are half the voters.   Republicans do poorly with young voters, and that can be fatal.  As the seniors die off, the young voters take their places and if they are all democrats, we can kiss the GOP goodby.
   Let's talk about women voters first.  The Republicans need to get off the pro-life thing.  For every pro-life voter we gain, we lose a young woman who fears getting pregnant and not being able to stop it.  The party needs to stop backing all those little laws that chip away at abortion.  The party doesn't need to switch over to a pro-choice stance, it just needs to stop talking about it.  The ardent pro-life people will whine and cry, but in the end they will vote Republican.  And a lot of younger women will too.
   Health Care is a top issue with women, they are the caregivers who take the children to the pediatrician.  Unlike men, women are more likely to go to the doctor when something hurts.  Men are more apt to just tough it out, not wanting to loose pay or appear soft.  So healthcare counts, big time with women.  Obamacare is disliked by the majority of voters.  But the Republicans have not offered an Obamacare replacement, probably because they cannot agree on what it ought to be.  And Republican leadership has failed to get the party together on a plan, probably fearing that whatever they propose the media will savage them on it. 
   We ought to propose freedom for insurance companies.  Any insurance company licensed to do business by any state in the union, is free to sell insurance in all fifty states.  Right now, to sell insurance you have to get a license from the state you are selling in.  To jump thru fifty sets of paperwork hoops  to get licensed in fifty different states is beyond any company.  So a lot of states, like New Hampshire, only have ONE insurance company doing business in the state.   And, monopoly leads to price gouging.   Voters would love the idea.  Insurance companies hate it.  Insurance companies don't vote. 
   We ought to propose freedom to import drugs.  Any drug approved by the health authorities of decent first world countries (Canada, England, France, Germany, and some others) may be imported duty free and sold by drug stores.  This would drop the price of prescription drugs a lot.  Voters would love the idea.  Drug companies hate the idea.  Drug companies don't vote. 
   We need to clamp down on malpractice suits.  Right now every doctor has to pay $100,000 a year for malpractice insurance, unless he wants to be sued into poverty.  This is largely a matter of state law.  Up here in New Hampshire we did something about malpractice which cut the rate in half.  Other states could do likewise.  Voters are OK with this idea.  Lawyers hate it.  Although lawyers can vote, there aren't all that many of them. 
   We need to scrap the regulations that force gold plating of medical facilities.  For instance at  Dartmouth Hitchkok the main building is topped by a gigantic row of air conditioners.  Turns out, regulations require the hospital to hold temperature to 72 degrees plus or minus ONE degree. which is ridiculous, in addition to ridiculously expensive.   

Pitch ball? Spit ball? This is news?

All over the TV news.  A Yankee's pitcher had pine pitch on his neck.  Strictly verbotten in baseball. Making the ball sticky is all kinds of against the rules.  It's like pitching a spitball.  News coverage is INTENSE.  Must be a slow news day.

Long Island town has massive SWAT team

Been watching this on TV.  A prank call brought out a 60-70 man SWAT team, all in black uniforms and black helmets, toting machine guns, equipped with armored Humvees.  All this to a suburban home in Nassau county NY?  Who/what did they expect to oppose them?  Al Quada in New York?  The Symbionese Liberation Army?  The Suprano's?  Sure looks like over kill to me.  Lucky nobody got shot.
   Could it be that once the town cops got funding for a SWAT team they wanted to use it for something?  
   For that matter, did the BLM send all those armed men to the Bundy ranch because they were on the payroll and had nothing better to do?  Should federal bureaus (except the FBI) have armed agents at all?  The proper procedure for a bureaucracy to apply force to citizens is to obtain a court order, and have local law enforcement carry it out.  Not to dispatch their own private pug uglies to bust heads. 

Time to ante up. 600 US soldiers vs 40,000 Russians

It's on the TV news.  Despite the superior combat skills of US forces, somehow I don't think 600 guys have a chance against 40,000.  

Do you believe in powdered alcohol?

Fox news has been running short pieces on this new product every hour or so during the day.  This concept first appeared in a Harry Harrison science fiction story, one of the Stainless Steel Rat stories, many years ago.  I'm not the world's greatest chemist, but I do know that alcohol is a liquid, and it will freeze, it will boil, but it won't turn into a powder.  Could it be that gullible newsies, who never studied even high school chemistry, have fallen for an April Fools story? 

Space-X lands a rocket booster, on land

The video is fascinating, a big rocket hovering on engine power and carefully backing down to the ground.  Landing upright, all in one piece.  Space-X hopes to lower the cost of spaceflight by soft landing and reusing the booster.   Amusingly, the Fox News commentator keep referring to the rocket engines as "afterburners".  Sorry Fox, an afterburner is a power boosting device applied to jet engines, not rockets.  Afterburners can double your thrust, at the cost of horrible fuel consumption.  Only military fighter planes are equipped with afterburners due to their ability to suck down fuel like a sewer pipe.  To call the rocket engines of a booster afterburners reveals the depth of ignorance of the newsies. 

Majoring in the Liberal Arts.

Major hand wringing article, The Liberal Arts are in Trouble.  Enrollment is down, students are opting for majors that will get them a job after graduation.  A lotta talk about the politicization of  the liberal arts leading to self destruction.  Departments where all the art and literature of the past is examined for sexism, racism, political uncorrectness and condemned for it.  It doesn't take much of this kinda talk for students to get the point, and change majors.  Who wants to major in something politically incorrect?
   All is probably not lost.  A liberal arts major is still appealing to vast numbers of students who cannot hack the math required for a STEM major.  Not everyone can learn integral calculus, and with out calculus you aren't going anywhere in science or engineering.  So if you are one of those mathematics "challenged" college students what are you gonna do?
  First,  understand that the liberal arts are English, foreign languages, history, art, philosophy, and music  Know that gender studies, minority studies, physical education, theater arts, and journalism are not liberal arts, and have little to no prospect of landing any kind of job better than waiting tables after graduation. 
  Second, figure out what kind of job you can turn a liberal arts degree to.  The college faculty see the mission of their department as training more college faculty.  Which is a dead end jobwise.  Typical college teaching jobs are "adjunct" professors, part timers, paid by the course taught, no health insurance, miserable pay, no chance of tenure.  As a single guy or girl you can just barely get by on adjunct's pay. You will never pay off your college loans, afford a down payment, or marriage.  Don't go there.
   Think about an English major for careers in writing, sales, acting, computer programming, business.  Foreign language can get you a job in any company that does business overseas.  A company would rather rely upon  American agents staffing their overseas offices than local nationals of questionable loyalty.  History can lead into a teaching position, or  the writing of history books.  Check out a book store.  You will find the history books given as much shelf space as anything else.  Art or music majors are good for artists or musicians.  Note, it takes some natural born talent to be a successful artist or musician.  If you don't have any talent, best look elsewhere.  Positions as art experts or music critics, like Pru Hallowell on the old Charmed TV show are few and far between.
    Think over carefully before signing for those humungous college loans.  

Greatest Religious Movie of all Time

I saw a list of 'em on the Web the other day.  Naturally, at the top was Cecil B. DeMille's Ten Commandments.  It came out in the 50's.  It's still going strong, they ran it on Channel 9 (WMUR) just last night.  Then there was Ben Hur, Samson and Delilah, the Robe, and the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
   Oh really?  I know everyone talks about what a cool Christian C.S. Lewis was, but I never thought of the Narnia stories as particularly religious.  They were kid's books, and as kid's books used to do, they advocated good and disparaged evil.  But evil in Narnia was vanquished by force of arms, and the Lion takes on the the Witch directly in the last chapter.  I'm not sure if this is quite in accordance with Christian doctrine. 

Easter Skiing

It's Easter, it's warm and sunny. Cannon is open for skiing.  Parking lot is full, chairlifts and tramway are running.  New England skiing is best in March they used to say.  It's April in case you hadn't noticed.

Amunoosuc Valley Railway Assn does the Spring Show

So we engaged the Haverill Middle School gym.  We invited 30 vendors, sold them tables.  Trailered the club modular layout up and unloaded it.  We gotta recruit some younger members for this club.  We had a good turnout for setup, but the bulk of the membership is getting too old and infirm to jackass the heavy modules out of the trailer and set them up.  Let alone grovel around on the floor adjusting leveling jacks and hooking up electrical connections.  In fact the entire model railroading hobby is suffering from a lack of new blood.  When the doors opened on Saturday, the bulk of the attendees were elderly.  A few grandchildren who loved every minute of the show.  Very few young guys (or girls).
   So I  checked out the vendors and bought the makings of three new fun projects.  I found a heavy freight steamer to pull my freight trains, a baggage car for my baggage and mail train, and a tank care for my tank train.  For not much meney, I have the makings of hours of pleasant shop time. 

Looking for a Republican Presidential Candidate for 16

Unless we want four more years of Hillary, the Republicans need to win the presidency in two years.  To get the country moving again, the economy growing again, people back to work again, we need to pass some legislation that Democrat presidents would never sign.  We need to repeal most, perhaps all of Obamacare.  We need to build the Keystone XL pipeline.  We need to explore for oil and gas offshore and on federal land.  We need to curb the EPA.  We need to stop wasting money on pork and crony capitalism, the Highway bills, the farm bills, the green energy boondoggles.  We need to start rolling back endless job killing regulations.  We need to fire the endless federal SWAT teams. 
   To do any of this Republicans need to win the presidency.  Hillary would veto ever one of this projects.  To win, Republicans need a candidate.  So far, the guys who make the evening news don't look very electable.
   Start with Rand Paul.  Nice guy, would enjoy having him over for drinks.  But, he is an isolationist.  Believes that American should withdraw to the continental US,  and  incur no expense, bear no burdens, and let the rest of the world take care of itself.  Nice ideas, but the last time isolationism gave us WWII.  If the US had joined the League of Nations, and exerted itself, Hitler could have been stopped, anytime up to 1938.  We could have laid down the law to the Germans, even removed Hitler from office.  The French and the British would have backed us up.  But we didn't, and Hitler went on to set the entire world on fire.  Look what Putin is doing to Ukraine right today.  We ought to stop him.  Rand Paul won't.
   And, Rand Paul probably shares his father's fetish for a gold standard currency.  I heard the elder Paul, ight up here in the Littleton Opera House, explaining how he would go back to a gold back currency.  And throw the economy into a worse tailspin than it is now.  To be fair, I haven't heard the younger Paul making goldbug talk, but I haven't heard him reject it either. 
   Chris Christy took a solid hit over the George Washington bridge lane closings.  Too bad, but that's American politics, a blood sport.  He's gotta do a whole bunch of recovery to be in the running.
   Ted Cruz might be a possibility.  He has a pretty good record.  But I don't know enough about him and I suspect a lot of people outside of Texas feel the same way.  He has two years to make himself better known.
   Condi Rice anyone?  I like her, but I suspect she will not run.
   Jeb Bush?  Nice guy, good family, but his father and his brother have held the presidency and giving it to a third member of the same family seems awfully like a hereditary monarchy. 
   We need someone....

   
 

Federal HIghway Trust Fund going dry

This comes from Neil Cavuto on Fox.  He had a couple of guests, one who called to close it down for good and one who called for pumping it up with more of my tax money. 
   Me, I think we ought to shut it down, cancel the federal gasoline tax that goes into the fund, and let the states take care of roads and bridges.  The states do most of this already.  The Federal Highway Trust Fund was started up under the Eisenhower administration.  It earmarked all the federal gasoline tax money to building the interstate highway system.  Well, the interstates are all built, have been for 30 years.  So Congress critters dole out trust fund money to their districts whether it's needed or not.  Congress critters love that part. And, surprise, the districts always find a way to spend it, all of it.  When good old Tip O'Neill retired, his numerous friends in Congress decided do something nice for good old Tip.  They funded the Big Dig in Boston, a $14 billion dollar tunnel under the center of town.  The Big Dig was still being dug years after good old Tip died.  It didn't do much to improve Boston traffic, but it did open up a lot of prime real estate in the center of town.  Contractors all over Massachusetts loved the Big Dig. 
   The states have the resources to keep the country's roads and bridges in repair.  Thrifty New Hampshire, with out either a state income tax or a state sales tax, keeps it's roads in better shape  than bigger richer New York does.  And, when the state government has to raise the money for road work, it tends to stick to necessary work and skip the frills.  You can save a lot of money that way.  And, state funded projects don't have to pay the inflated Davis-Bacon wage rates that federal projects do. 

Old Winter Driving Trick

Broom the snow off your car in the morning.  Shining on bare car metal and glass, the sun will make the whole car warm to the touch, even when it's below freezing.  The warmth will melt all the frost off the windows, make the car interior warm and cozy, and make the motor warm and happy to start.  Much easier than chipping ice off the wind shield.  If your battery is getting old and weak or your motor needs new plugs, the extra warm might just be the difference between getting started, and calling for a jump start.

Captain America, Winter Soldier

So I saw it at the Jax last night.  It's a Marvel comic book movie.  If you liked your Marvel comic books you will like this one.  There are a few plot holes, but not too bad.  It's right in tune with the times.  Everything, Shield, the World Security Council, the DC cops, you name it, is secretly infiltrated by bad guys, (Hydra?) and turns on Nick Fury  and Steve Rogers.  Shades of NSA, CIA, and BLM.
   Technically superb.  Lighting and color first rate.  No under lit dark interior shots. Non of that irritating fade-to-black-and-white post processing.  Good camera work, they use tripods, they skip the "shake-the-camera" shots.  Decent sound man, I could hear and understand all the dialogue.  Special effects utterly convincing.  Even Shield's vast flying aircraft carriers look real.  The textures of the huge machines is right, like painted metal, flat paint, no gloss, a touch of weathering.    The carrier's huge lift engines really look powerful enough to boost the massive thing into the air. 
   Incredible amount of hand to hand fighting.  Gymnastics, back flips, leaps up and over things.  Any of these fights would have taken gold at Olympic gymnastic competition.  Capt America's shield gets a fine workout.  Mixed martial arts, or is that mixed movie martial?  It goes fast and furious right up to the last reel.  The girl friend, Natasha, is as fast and deadly a fighter as Capt America.  Car chases and car crashes better than I have seen before.  The scene where the DC cops, driving Ford  Crown Vic's, try to take Nick Fury, driving a black Chevy Suburban, in DC traffic, is good, lotta seriously bent Fords. Every car chase involves fender-to-fender contact, and visibly mangled body and fender work.  And lots of bullet holes. If this is CGI work, it's very well done.
  A few goofs.  Nick Fury, reminiscing about his childhood, mentions his old man's "22 Magnum".  Not cool.  Back then, .22 anything was a kid's gun.  Everyone carried at least a .32.  Cops and serious guys carried .38 Special or .45. 
    Actors were run of the mill, except for Robert Redford, who played a treacherous senior bureaucrat.  Chris Evans and Scarlett Johanssen are competent leads playing comic book hero and heroine parts.  They both have the looks and the figures the parts call for.  Scarlett flaunted real cool shoulder length red hair, I still wonder if it was her own, or a wig.  Although they are together for most of the scenes, they don't real seem to be girlfriend and boyfriend. Scarlett (Natasha) gives off some vibs that she likes Steve Rogers, Steve doesn't seem all that interested.
   Anyhow, a fun flick, worth the price of admission.  Fine for older (say age six and up) children.  No bad language, no nudity, lots of slam bang violence, little to no blood, the good guys win in the end.      

It's Snowing, Again

On the 15th of April, it's snowing.  What ever happened to that worthless groundhog? 

Update, next morning.  We got four inches, I just measured it.  It's 20 F.  I see flocks of unhappy birds looking for food, shelter, warm, anything.  

Who's in charge here?

This morning the TV news announced that the IRS would be publishing new rules for non profit organizations, such as Tea Parties. 
   Where does a bunch of pure democratic civil servants get the right to set that kind of policy?  By rights, Congress should pass a law.  In real life, Congress is so split, and so partisan that it is incapable of passing anything.
   Especially on something like this.  First Amendment freedom of speech and press, means organizations can say and publish anything they like.  IRS  and FEC want to change that rule, into "You cannot say anything political, any time.  This led to the famous Heller decision, the Supreme court ruled that corporations and labor unions could politick as much as they like. 
  Anyhow the IRS wants to make a rule, defining just about everything as political activity and therefore forbidden to nearly every organization in the country.  We are talking about Tea Parties, Sierra Club, Boy Scouts, Red Cross, NRA, NMRA, Elks, Chamber of Commerce,  Shriners, Republican Party, Democratic Party, Consumers Union, Campfire Girls, Masons, VFW, churches, AMA, ABA, SAE, Salvation Army, USO and on and on.
   These "non governmental organizations" do immense amounts of charitable work  They bring Americans together, they set up civic events, and they form the civic glue that holds the country together.  And, they lobby for their political interests.  Wise Congressmen listen to them, laws they support get passed, laws they oppose don't pass.  Much of the work of democracy is guided by these non governmental organizations. 
  And now the IRS is trying to take them all over. 

Why we cannot simplify federal income tax

What makes federal income tax such a bear to fill out?  It's all the special interest benefits built in thru out the law.   Mortgage interest deduction, the darling of realtors, home builders, and mortgage banksters.  Special deduction for school teachers who buy their kids pencils.  Capital gains to benefit stock holders.  Medical expenses deductions, favorite of the ill, and the medical industry.  A 12% tax break for manufacturing inside the United States.  And the liberal's favorite ploy, the variable tax loophole,  the wealthy have to pay more.  For instance social security benefits used to be non taxable.  Then some slippery democrats  added stuff making them taxable to the wealthy.  The incomprehensible Earned Income Tax Credit.  And on and on and on.
  And we are doomed.  Each special interest will fight to the death to keep their special tax benefit.  Us ordinary tax payers have to wade thru the special little worksheets, the gobble-de-gook instructions, and the never ending new tax forms.  We never get up on our hind feet and demand "Drop all this malarkey, give me one straight percentage to pay and be done with it".
 We should not have to purchase $80 software packages to do our taxes.   It didn't used to be this bad.  I can remember a time BC (before computers) when I did my own taxes with a ball point pen.  I couldn't do that now.
  Those special interests ought to to be hunted down and tarred and feathered. 

Inventions of the Dark Age

History books, at least those that cover the period, shed lots of tears about the fall of Rome, and call the next 1000 years the Dark Ages.  Starting with Gibbon (Decline and Fall)  most historians treat the medieval period as a huge setback to civilization with no redeeming features.  Perhaps.
   Dark they might have been, but the medievals were inventive.  In the thousand years we call medieval, they invented a lotta good stuff.  What they didn't invent they imported from elsewhere and placed it into service.

1.  Trebuchet.  Weight driven catapult, powerful enough to break a masonry wall, something which the spring driven catapults of the Greeks and Romans could not do.
2.  Wooden barrels.  Shipping container that completely replaced the heavy and fragile pottery amphora used in antiquity.  Stronger and lighter than pottery
3.  Magnetic Compass.  The odds of your ship returning safely are much better if she carries a compass.
4.  Stern rudder.   Much stronger and less likely to break in heavy weather than the steering oar.  Moderns who have sailed replica vessels of antiquity (Thor Heyerdahl and Hodding Carter) always write about their steering oar breaking at sea.
5.  Spectacles (eye glasses)
6. Stirrups.  Without stirrups, it's like riding bareback.  You can do it, but you have to pay all your attention to staying on the horse.  With stirrups the horseman's seat is firm enough to fight effectively.  With stirrups the mounted knight, who dominated European warfare, becomes possible.
7. Heavy plow.  A big strong plow, often wheeled, with an eight ox team, which could turn the heavy bottomland soil, which the lighter "ard" used in antiquity could not.
8.  Three field rotation.  Let only one third of the land lie fallow, as opposed to the two field rotation practiced in antiquity.  Increases cropland by one sixth (17%)
9. Water mills.  Although a Roman invention, the Romans never built very many of them.  Whereas the Domesday book records 5 to 6 thousand water mills in England by 1087
10.  Blast furnace.  Water wheel powered bellows made a fire hot enough to actually melt iron, so that it could be poured and cast in molds.
11. Printing.  Gutenburg and all that.
12. Gunpowder. and firearms.
13. The University.
14. Crossbow.  Although known to the Romans (there is an engraving of one on a Roman tomb) it wasn't used much.  Major advantage of the crossbow; it is as simple to shoot as a modern rifle.  Any recruit could be trained to shoot well enough to be useful in a few weeks.  The long bow took a lifetime of practice to make an archer. 
15. Spinning Wheel
16.  Mechanical clock.
17.  Gothic  cathedral
18.  Horse collar.  Before the horse collar, law limited the load horses could pull to 500 pounds.  With horse collars medieval wagoneers could move 2500 pound loads of building stone.
19. Windmill
20. Arabic numerals
21. Double entry book keeping.
22. Scientific method  (Roger Bacon)
23. Wheel barrow.  Simple, but highly useful.

Washing Windows, Taking out the Trash

Doing a little housecleaning on Antique Laptop the other day.  Ran WinDirStat, a cute program that shows you where all your hard disk space has gone.  Lists all the directories in order of size and draws a neat little map of the disk, with each directory in a different color.  WinDirStat is on the web, Google can find it. 
   Anyhow, WinDirStat showed this big plump directory Windows/SoftwareDistribution.  It was plump, nearly 500 Mb.  Question, can I zap it and have my XP system survive the event?  Google drew a lot of hits on this one, ranging from don't touch it, your system will melt, to blow it away, it's worthless.  Sorting thru the answers it turns out that Windows Update is busily finding and downloading patches behind your back.  The patches come over the net in a compressed form.  Windows update decompresses the patch, applies it, and leaves the compressed version and some stuff needed if you ever want to back the patch out, in Software Distribution.  Lets be real here, nobody ever backs out a patch, unless it is killing their system.  Assuming your system is working well, you don't need the stuff in SoftwareDistribution. 
   So how do you get rid of it?  It's a little more complicated than just deleting it from Explorer.  Windows Update is a "service" a privileged piece of code that is always in RAM, and gets control of your machine when ever it likes, for as long as it likes.   Windows Update puts some kind of unbreakable protection on SoftwareDistribution so you cannot zap it in the ordinary way. How to cope?
Open a DOS window.  You do this from the start menu, hit the run box and type in "cmd".  For those of you who never had the pleasure of running DOS, it can be a little awkward.  The mouse doesn't work in DOS. Your first job is to navigate to the c:/windows directory using the CHDIR (CD for short) command. 
Do CD .. until you reach the c: root directory. 
Do CD windows and you should be there.
Do NET STOP wuauserv   to turn off windows update and unprotect the SoftwareDistribution directory.
Do RENAME (Ren for short) softwaredistribution  anynameyoulike (I used softtrash) .
Do NET START wuauserv to turn windows update back on. 

Exit DOS and check your system to make sure it still works.  Run a program or two.  Visit a website.  Then reboot to be sure that still works.   When you are satisfied, go back and zap the old softwaredistribution and recover quite a chuck of disk. You will notice that Windows Update has created a new, and smaller SoftwareDistribution  all by itself. The RENAME trick is a way to let you back out.  If something should go wrong, you can put things pack the way they were. 
   Not only does this trick recover a lotta disk, it speeds things up.  Antique Laptop boots faster, fast enogh to notice.  I think Windows Update had been wasting time riffling thru 500 Mb of patches going back to the year 2000.
   I did this trick on XP, but a lot of the net rumor I read tells me Vista, 7, and 8  has the same problem only worse.  There is a tool, DISM, in the newer Windows to deal with the ever growing Windows trash directories.  I'm still on XP so I cannot tell you much about that.

SEC bigwig blasts the agency at his retirement party

This was on NHPR this morning, although a quickly Google did not confirm it.  I missed the guy's name (NHPR is bad on names, they only  use them once and go with pronouns for the rest of the piece). 
Anyhow they had him in the studio and he used some fairly tough language to condemn the SEC for not prosecuting the biggies on Wall Street, and going after the small fry.  Which is true enough.  Nobody of consequence has been prosecuted over the 2007 crash that kicked off Great Depression 2.0.
   This guy totally didn't understand what te SEC is supposed to be doing.  He thinks the agency's mission is to prosecute Wall Streeters.  Not so.  The SEC was created after the 1929 crash with a mission to prevent another crash.  The 1929 crash caused 10 years of misery (the Great Depression) and was a major factor in kicking off WWII.  The Great Depression traveled to Germany and had a lot to do with bringing Hitler to power in 1933.  The 2007 crash was as bad as the 1929 one.  The SEC failed to prevent it.  That's total mission failure.  We ought to disband the SEC, fire all the employees, burn all their files.  And start up something new.
   Prevention, means regulations forbidding risky practices such as mortgage backed securities, credit default swaps, derivatives, high speed trading,  excessive leverage, and banks playing the stock market with FDIC insured money.  Wall Street is supposed to be a place where companies go to raise money for expansion.  It is not supposed to be a casino. 
   Any how, all this retiring SEC big wig can find to complain about is a lack of high profile scalps.  This is a man who doesn't understand his job.