The two wings of the Republican Party

On one side we have the Regular Republicans, present office holders, older voters, conservatives.  These guys are not crusaders, they don't want to change the rules.  The know the rules, they know what can be done under the rules, they know that they need votes, a majority of votes, to get anything done.  They don't badmouth their political opponents, they know they might need their support someday.  They don't believe in feuds and vendettas, they view them as counterproductive.  They view the Tea Party as a bunch of rabid boat rockers who may well capsize the boat.

On the other side we have the Tea Party.  They want serious changes in the rules, income tax reform, perhaps a flat tax, abolition of dead weight like Dept of Education, and IRS.  They want scalps, starting with Lois Lerner's.  They want to keep the EPA from shutting down all American industry, the FCC from taking over the Internet, the TSA from groping them in airports, and the cops from shooting them.  They distrust all government regulators.  They care about getting the economy growing again.  Many of them are parents, worried about keeping their jobs, their kids finding jobs, buying houses, paying for college.  They call the Regular Republicans RINOs.

Both sides need to bear in mind that the Independents are the key to winning elections.  Only about 35% of voters are registered Republicans.  40% are registered Democrats.  Registered Democrats (yellow dog democrats) will vote democratic no matter what.  It's a matter of political faith with them.  They voted to re elect Obama.
 But 25% of voters  are registered Independents. These people will vote for either party depending upon the goodness of the candidates and the badness of incumbents.  Put the registered Republicans together with the Independents and you have 60%, a land slide. 
  Both wings of the Republican party should remember that their beloved wedge issues (abortion, war on drugs, gay marriage) offend Independents. 

Internet Crapped out today

Both computers, Blackbox and Flatbeast complained that they could to connect to the internet this morning. I decided to wait a while and see if the Internet would come back of it's own accord.  No such luck.  So some hours later I called Time Warner Cable's help number.  They were actually very helpful and with a bit of troubleshooting we decided that the router had croaked.  So, off to Staples to buy another $50 wifi router.  The dead Belkin router was only three years old, but I guess they don't make 'em like they used to.  So all I have to show for the old dead Belkin is a 12 volt wallwart that I can use on the HO train layout.  All I had to do was introduce the computers t o the new Netgear router with a new WEP password.  I even got my LG cell phone to recognize the new Netgear router. Now all I have to do is get a test photo off the LG cell phone and onto a computer. 

Pioneer Science Fiction Authors

Jules Verne is probably the first author of what we would consider science fiction.  He wrote in the late 19th century, sometime after the US civil war.  His best was "20,000 leagues Under the Sea".  Verne wrote in French, and I still remember the kinda shabby English translation I took to summer camp one year.  Verne's prose was probably only mediocre in French, and was down right miserable in English translation.  But the story was gripping enough to overcome weaknesses in the writing.  Disney made a good live action movie in the 50's, with James Mason as Captain Nemo and Kirk Douglas as Ned Land.  Technicolor, with a fine Nautilus and great underwater shots.  Not for nothing did the US Navy name their first nuclear sub Nautilus.
   Next in line was Edgar Rice Burroughs, the creator of Tarzan.  ERB's first published story was "A Princess of Mars" back in 1912.  John Carter's derring do, deadly sword play and beautiful Martian princess set the style for space opera that lasted up thru Star Wars.  Princess Leia inherited a lot from Dejah Thoris.  The sand people riding their Bantha's look pretty much like Green Martians riding their Thoats.  Burroughs followed up with about ten more Martian stories over the next 30 years.  The first three are the best, the later ones are pot boilers.  
   Edward Elmer Smith (EE Doc Smith) first story "Skylark of Space" was published in the 1920's.  It was "super science".  Lots of high tech (for the 1920's) stuff, powerful space ships, resourceful scientist/engineer heroes, pretty girls, evil drug runner bad guys.  EE Smith kept publishing right up to his death in 1965.  I'd rate his stuff good for kids but a little corny for today's grownups.  I encountered Doc Smith as a kid and still like him. 
   There were plenty of other science fiction writers back in the day, but these three are my favorites from the era before John W. Campbell.

Bills vs Begs

The mail man (oops she is letter carrier) brings a lot of both.  I throw them in a pile on my desk and once a month a I sit down and pay the bills, and send a check to the beggars if I feel like it.  This month the pile was of scary height, so I sorted out the bills from the begs and paid the bills.  The beg pile was taller than the bill pile.  And it isn't even an election year.  Lord preserve us next year. 

Thunder Storm went right over the house

Must mean spring.  We don't get thunder and lightening with snow storms.  Maybe spring is not a myth.

How deep can the penetrator bombs go?

Can they go deep enough to take out Iran's nuclear facilities?  Ordinary iron bombs in reasonable sizes (750 to 1000 pounds) punch down 30-35 feet in plain dirt.  Out of a six bomb rack load, we would put a long delay time fuse on just one bomb.  The other five would get instantaneous fuses.  Those bombs would blow up the target.  The long delay fuze would get the repair crews the next day.  After a while the comrades wised up and would wait 24 hours after the raid before starting work to fix the damage.
  Back in WWII, Barnes Wallis in England devised the first deep penetrator bomb.  He called it Tallboy, it weighed 12000 pounds, had a tough steel case with a pointy nose, and it would go down 80 or 90 feet and then explode.    It took out a number of German targets, and was used to sink the Tirpitz in Alta Fiord.  Even Tallboy couldn't deal with all targets.  The British built a bigger penetrator for the harder targets that they called Grand Slam.  Grand Slam was 20000 pounds, which was so heavy that the wings of the Lancaster bomber carrying it could be seen to bow upwards under the load.  Grand Slam seems to be the limit for WWII aircraft to hoist off the ground.
   Twenty first century aircraft can hoist a good deal more than their WWII ancestors.  Little has been published, but Aviation Week once described new penetrator bomb casings  made out of old 16 inch cannon barrels.  Those ought to go down quite a ways. 
  But, little has been published on how deep the Iranians have dug in.  And what they have bug into, plain dirt? sedimentary rock? granite?  NORAD HQ in Colorado was dug under a solid granite mountain and was considered proof against nukes. 
   So, mission planners either IAF or USAF, the question is, will your penetrator bombs penetrate deep enough?  Will even a nuclear penetrator bomb go that deep? 
   One clue, the Israelis have not already bombed out the Iranians.  If they thought it would work, they probably would have done it by now. 

If the radar cannot see you, the fighters cannot find you.

Looks like our air defenses are about as good, or as bad, as the Soviets used to have.  Back some years ago a German teenager flew a Cessna all the way into Russia and landed it in Red Square, right in front of the Kremlin.  The Russians freaked, this was back in the cold war, and they figured if a German kid could make it thru,  SAC could as well.  Some Russian heads were rolled over the affair.
   Yesterday we had a guy land a Gyrocopter (very small one man autogyro) right on the Capitol lawn.  He flew it down from Gettysburg PA.  He probably never exceeded a couple of hundred feet altitude, and the radar cross section of a little, largely wood, autogyro is SMALL.  The radar never saw him, and even  if it had, he would have looked like any other light plane.  The restricted airspace around DC ain't that big, and it was probably only minutes from the time he crossed into the DC no-fly zone and he landed at the Capitol. 
   So, if it can happen to the old Soviet Union, it can happen to us.  The Gyrocopter is too small to carry much in the way of munitions.   You could do more damage ramming an SUV thru the Capitol gates.  It's given us a lot of amusing TV news.  I hope the guy that did it gets off with a scolding.

Defending Middle Earth Patrick Currey

I am a long term Tolkien fan.   My parents gave me the first volume of Lord of the Rings for Christmas back when I was in grade school.  I  read and reread the entire trilogy several times.  I read it aloud to my children years later.  I saw all the Peter Jackson movies. 
   So when I saw this title down at the Littleton Village Bookstore I bought it.  I read it.  Somehow, Currey manages to let the words roll out but never gets around to saying anything that I didn't know before I read it.  "Shoveling" is what my high school English teachers called this style. 
   English teachers, and literary critics have never liked Tolkien, despite or perhaps because of, its enormous popularity.  Tolkien has little "hidden meaning" of the sort that literary types enjoy searching out.  Tolkien doesn't hide any meanings.  He lets his love of trees, the countryside, Anglo Saxon myth and legend  , courage, Elvish languages, and endurance stand right out in plain English.  There isn't all that much that needs teaching in Tolkien.  This might account for the disdain for Tolkien shown by teachers and critics.
   Tolkien creates a wealth of truly wonderful characters.  Frodo, Sam, Aragorn, Gandalf, Theoden, Faramir, Barliman Butterbur, Treebeard, Galadriel, Merry, Eowyn, and Pippin.  Tolkien's bad guys are really bad, the baddest ever.  Sauron is more evil, more dangerous than any other villain in literature.  Saruman and Denethor are not far behind in the practice of villainy.  This is in contrast to modern literary style of a single character coping with his psychological hangups.  Sauron doesn't have psychological hangups.  He knows exactly what he wants and he moves directly toward getting it and crushing his enemies.
   Lord of the Rings follows the classic formula for story telling.  The protagonist (a unisex word for hero) is faced with a challenge.  He rises to his challenge, and makes a first attempt to deal with it, and it doesn't work.  At the climax of the story he makes a final do or die attempt to surmount the challenge and either wins or looses.  All the rest of the story is anti-climax.  In chapter 2, The Shadow of The Past, Gandalf explains to Frodo about the ring and shows him what he must do.  From there on thruout the rest of the book, we readers are perfectly clear about the Quest's objective, although we have no idea how Frodo is going to cope with it. At the climax, Frodo fails, he takes the ring for himself, and is saved by Gollum of all people.
   One reason for Tolkien's popularity is the Middle Earth setting.   It's beautiful, it's comfortable, it has dangers lurking in the darker spots that heroes can overcome with courage and cold steel.  It's the sort of place many of us would like to retire to, or perhaps move to tomorrow.  It is solid in our imaginations, so solid that Peter Jackson's movie sets looked just right, first time I saw the movie.  Tolkien's prose is so vivid that Jackson, Jackson's set builders, and I, an old reader, had the very same image of what the Shire and Bag End should look like.
    Since Tolkien, numerous authors have attempted to write fantasy.  I've read some of it and it's not Tolkien, in fact most of it is dreadful.  Somehow Tolkien did it, and nobody else has been able to.  I'm nor sure why, but that's the way it is.

IRS, crying for funding.

They have 85,000 employees.  Put every single one of 'em on the help desk.  That ought to answer the taxpayers calls.  What do they have to do before the tax returns come in on April 15 (today!!).  Put 'em on the help desk, every single one of 'em, including that snooty commissioner.  After April 15 put 'em to work processing tax returns.
   And, while we are at it, Congress ought to outlaw all those damn worksheets the IRS has socked us with.  Being unable or unwilling to state what the tax is in the instructions for Form 1040, the IRS gives us all these crazy 20-30 step work sheets to calculate this or that.  By the time you have fought your way thru all the steps, you head is so turned around that you have no idea whether you got it right or not.  If they cannot state the basis of the tax, and how to compute it, in plain English in a sentence or two, it's too damn complicated. 
  And, personal income tax would be fairer and easier to compute if we had a rule, income is income, no matter where it comes from.  Wages, dividends, qualified dividends, rents, royalties, capital gains, company cars, social security, pensions, bank interest, company health care, gambling winnings, you name it, it's all income, it all pays the same tax rate. 

Pictures on the Tracfone

OK, I got the phone to take a still picture.  It's grainier and more pixelated than what my Canon point-n-shoot can do, but fair.  The test photo is still in the phone.  I tried plugging the USB cable into my computers, one an antique running XP, the other an up to date laptop running Win 8.  The computers noticed the USB plug in of the phone.  Neither of them had a device driver to talk to the LG phone.  Google did not turn up any LG device drivers on the net.  Best I found was a site that promised to download a driver checker, inspect ALL my drivers and replace any that it pleased.  That was too scary for me.  The drivers presently on the machines work, new drivers sometime don't work. 
  So then I thought I would introduce cell phone to my wifi router.  That did not go well.  The phone asked for the router's password but would not show the alpha key board to allow me to type in "Ridgecut".  All the other magic numbers from the router, which I had faithfully logged,  were mixed alpha-numeric, which I could not type in from the telephone style keypad offered. 
  So, the photo is still in the cell.

Majoring in those other things

Colleges offer a lot of stuff that is neither liberal arts, nor STEM. 
First there is sociology, which wants to be considered a science, but you cannot do experiments, and the observations are all debatable as to what they mean.  Then we have political science, another wannabe science with no experimental basis and debatable observations.  Neither subject is much use in the job market.  You have to question the value of going into debt for either of them. 
  The gender studies, black studies, in fact anything with "studies" in its name, are of little to no use in the real world. 
   Economics is another  wannabe science with at least a little use in finance.  It's a better deal than sociology or poly sci when you go job hunting.
   And the education major.  This at least is a real job course, with an ed major degree you can teach in the public schools.  Too bad the course material is utterly boring and useless.  The teacher's unions have made an ed degree mandatory as a way of limiting entrance to the teaching field.  You gotta truly want to teach to suffer thru the ed major.  

Majoring in the Liberal Arts

The liberal arts are English, modern languages, music, art, history, philosophy, and mathematics.  Even though mathematics is the M in STEM, all colleges I know place the math department in the college of liberal arts. 
   One thing to bear in mind, all the liberal arts departments see their mission as the training of new college professors to carry on the teaching of liberal arts.  You want to do some thinking about that career path.  Although a tenured college professor gets paid reasonably well and the work is interesting and you get to work with students, the openings are few and far between.  Most colleges hire "adjunct" part time professors to do the bulk of the teaching.  The pay is poor, no health care, no benefits, and the competition is fierce, and the chance to make tenure is slim to none.  The pay is barely enough to keep a single guy or gal alive.  The thinking student looks to a job outside of academia, the pay is MUCH better.
   The English major centers about the study of great books, Shakespeare and the like.  The good English writers write about the human condition and people's reaction to difficult/terrible circumstances.  Knowing the literature gives good insight into real people in the real world.  With luck, you can get in some real writing courses, where you write, hand in the writing and the professor grades it and comments on it. 
   Avoid the unreal writing courses where the professor just talks about writing.    Aside from the obvious teaching career, industry needs zillions of words written for advertising copy, instruction manuals, proposals, website text, you name it.  Magazines, newspapers, e-zines always need copy.  Don't plan on a career writing novels.  The publishing business is only buying from  agented writers.  Newbies have to self publish ebooks, which can be fun, but there is little money in it. 
   Modern languages lead to jobs with US corporations operating overseas.  They would much rather have their overseas operations run by a dependable American who speaks the language rather than local hires, who might be Al Quada for all anyone in New  York knows. 
    Music is  good, but you ought to have a little musical talent before you major in it.  Performers do hit it big, but for every Elvis there are ten thousand wannabes who never get beyond doing gigs in nightclubs.
   Same goes for art.  You ought to have some artistic talent before you major in it.  If you can draw there are a zillion people needing artwork for every thing under the sun.  If you cannot draw, employment options are VERY limited.  
   A history major is similar to an English major, except the field of discourse is broader, all of human history, rather than just books written in English in the last thousand years.  You do get some very useful training in the separation of fact from fiction.
   Philosophy is fun, but I cannot think of any career that wants, or even would benefit from a philosophy major. 
   Math is very useful, although you should be aware of the tendency of math departments to concentrate upon the proving of pure mathematical theorems rather than the application of mathematics to solving real world problems.   If you like math, you should look at going for an engineering degree.  At my school the math department was so removed from the real world that the engineering departments all taught their own math courses.

That Iranian nuclear deal

Funny thing, we don't seem to have anything in writing.  Just a "framework" what ever that may be. Last time the cookie pushers talked about "framework" was dealing with the Norks, who now have the bomb. The Americans say sanctions will stay on until the Iranians comply with the deal. The Iranians say sanctions stop right now.  The Americans say there will be inspections.  The Iranians say there won't be.  This kind of public bickering doesn't sound like much agreement has been reached. 
  Obama says the deal will block all Iranian paths to a bomb.  Great.  Do we get to remove all their centrifuges and enriched uranium from the country?  Do we likewise remove Iranian nuclear reactors?  Obama hasn't said. All he talks about is "paths to the bomb". 
   Assuming we get to inspect, what happens when we catch them cheating?  Do we bomb the cheating facility?  Arrest the cheaters and put them on trial in the US? or Geneva?  Do we "snapback" the sanctions?  Or do we merely send the Iranians a nasty diplomatic note? And who declares Iran to be cheating? Us, them, the IAEA, the inspection force?  Does it have to be unanimous or will majority vote suffice?
  Is sanction "snapback" even possible?  To really bite, sanctions have to be international, which means the Europeans, the Russians and the Chinese have to join in and refuse to sell to Iran.  Will they?  Iran has oil, which is saleable for dollars, which gives them money to buy stuff.  The Europeans, Russians, Chinese and everybody else would like to make a buck or two selling to Iran.  If only the Americans refuse to sell to Iran it won't hurt them much, Iran can buy from other places.  Money talks. 
  Will Obama cut a deal that just keeps the Iranians from getting the bomb before he leaves office?
  And the $64000 question.  What will we do when the Iranians test their first bomb?

Windows 8 more gripes

Lacking anything useful to do, the Microsofties have degraded Explorer, the navigate and operate tool from its XP days.  First they invented a new undocumented concept of "libraries"  which as far as I can see merely mess things up by displaying the same file icon in multiple places at the same time, making you wonder if you have multiple copies of the same file. 
   The XP explorer would display two windows,  file directories on the left, files within a selected directory on the right, and you could drag the window separator left or right to make room for deep directory structures or long filenames.  Well, the draggable window bar was too much trouble, so the Micorsofties dropped it.  The fixed width directory pane only shows the first two levels of directories.  If you have anything deeper, finding it is a pain. 
   And "Magnifier" has activated itself and I cannot kill it.  Dunno how that happened. 
   Lord preserve us from Windows 10. 

Are computer models scientific?

Science is a way of thinking about the world.  The ancients (Greeks and Romans) didn't have it.  It was invented during the middle ages, and put into words by Roger Bacon.  The key notion in science is that facts come from observation and experiment in the real world, and theories have to agree with facts.  For instance the ancient Greeks developed geometry, but it was entirely a construction of the mind.  Theorems were proved by mustering postulates and previously proven theorems into a neat array, never by actually measuring the geometric figure under consideration with a ruler.  Geometry, useful as it is, is not a science, it is pure mathematics, it's truth comes from thought alone, unburdened by any connection with the real world. 
   Science has been incredably powerful since its invention.  Science brought Western civilization from the dark ages to it's current position in the world.  You have to respect the scientific method, it has been enormously successful. 
   And now, we have people, claiming to be scientific, putting forth theories based on nothing but computer models.  These people are active in the "global warming" controversy, claiming that "global warming" is happening because they have programmed a "computer model" that predicts "global warming".  They imply that computer model results have the strength of real world observations and experiment. 
   A computer model is merely an ordinary computer program that calculates what might happen, given rules that relate the effect of inputs to the model to the output.  I have myself written computer models to predict the action of electronic circuits and mechanical systems.  All a model does is calculate answers based upon formulas and equations from the model writer. 
   If the model writer's formulas and equations are wrong, or incomplete, the models predictions will be wrong.  Surely everyone in these days has had some experience with the unreliability of computer programs.
   One test for completeness and accuracy of computer models is to set the inputs equal to some time in the past, run the model forward thru time, and see if the model's predictions match the actual real world situation. 
   The global warmer's models all pretty much fail that test.  None of them come any where close to matching today's weather when started in the past.  And, none of them predicted the past 19 years cessation of global warming.
   So when someone starts in on "global warming" ask them where they get their data.  When they say "computer models", beware.   
  

More Tracfone

Progress.  I got a few contacts successfully entered into the contact list.  A bunch of random button pushes finally brought up the alpha touch keyboard.  You hit an unlabeled, undocumented button in the upper right hand corner of the dinky little touchscreen and the alpha keyboard appears.  Why it doesn't appear when you hit "Name" is clearly a case of the software guru's deciding to make life difficult for users.  I'm a retired software guru myself and I know contempt for customers when I see it. 

Tracfone

Under pressure from my children I went out and bought a cell phone.  The kids wanted to be able to reach me on the road to see when I might be getting in.  So, on advice of my brother, who has one, I bought a Tracfone from Walmart.  Cheap, phone was only $28 for a phone with a screen, a 60 minute card was only $19.88 getting me on the air for only $47.88.  It has a touch screen, built in camera, and a bunch of other stuff I haven't figured out yet.  No contract, no monthly bill, just buy more minutes when ever you run low.  Minutes are good for 150 days then they evaporate unless you buy more. 
   Shoplifting appears to be a problem.  Walmart had the hanger upon which the Tracfones hung locked, I had to get a clerk to unlock the rack so I could buy it.  Packaging is the ultra tough transparent stuff that required my Swiss Army knife to open.  Package contained the phone, battery, and charger/USB cable.  Following instructions I inserted the battery and plugged it in to charge the battery.  Phone refused to do anything else until it was fully charged.  
  Then it wanted to be "activated".  I logged into a website www.tracfone.com and answered a buncha questions, and after a couple of tries, the phone activated.  I placed a test call and it went thru.  I have cell phone coverage in Mittersill. Yeh!  Wasn't too sure about that since all the children's cell phones had had trouble connecting from here.  Progress. 
  Then I started thru the on-line instruction manual.  Step one was to identify which of 50 different models of phone I had.  I looked on the phone, and all it said with "LG"  A Korean outfit with a pretty good rep that used to call itself Lucky Goldstar, back when it got going making VCRs.  They changed their name to LG when they hit the big time and decided that Lucky Goldstar sounded too frivolous to American customers. But, LG had neglected to put the model number on the product, a major marketing goof in my book.  You always mark your company name and the product name or model number on the product.  Fortunately the model number was on the cover of the instruction booklet.
  Next trick is to enter important phone numbers into the phone's memory.  I'm stuck on that step as of now.  The only way to enter letters involved a telephone style keypad with three letters on each key.  Just hitting keys gives a gibberish name field, which doesn't work for me.  I'm researching this hiccup right now.
  And, more research required.  It rang, but I couldn't find my way to the "answer the call" button.   

Plastic corks, This is progress??

They got everything now.  Plastic corks for champagne bottles.  They appear to work, the Andre (real quality brand that) champagne held pressure.  They come off with just fingers.  They go back on and the champagne holds its fizz over night in the fridge. 
  Gone is the loud POP and the flying cork which yielded so much entertainment at Christmas and Thanksgiving dinners.
  The price of progress can be heavy.

Game of Thrones Season 4

Just came in from Netflix.  Episode 1, Two Swords.  Time Warner cable  doesn't carry HBO so I see everything a year later.  It's still good.  The sets and costumes are elaborate, expensive looking, and convincing.  The multiple story arcs (Jon Snow in the Black Watch. Arya on the lam, Sansa Stark married to Tyrion Lannister, Jaime Lannister and Brienne fumbling along, Bran struggling to get beyond the Wall, Theon Grayjoy getting tortured, Joffrey Baratheon/Lannister being obnoxious) can get confusing.  It's surprising that we can have so many story arcs after killing off so many likeable major characters (Lord Ned Stark, Rob Stark, Cat Stark)  However each surviving story arc still retains its interest. 
   They have improved the sound track.  I could understand everything that was said.  Last season they had some really bad episodes where I could not understand a word.  One of them with Jaime Lannister and Brienne sharing a hot tub would have been more fun to watch if I could have understood what they were saying to each other. 
  I liked the scene toward the end where Arya has somehow fallen in with big, old, and ugly Sir Gregor Clegane ("The Hound").  It opens with Clegane and Arya riding double and Arya is chewing out Clegane 'cause she lacks a horse of her own and has to ride double with him.  They come upon a tavern, with five bad guys inside  it. Arya drags Clegane inside, whereupon the bad guy leader tries to get Clegane to join his gang.  The conversation gets frostier and frostier until swords come out and Arya and the Hound wipe up the tavern floor with the bad guys. Arya gets two of them.  She has done some growing over four seasons and is bigger and taller than she was in season one.  Anyhow we see the unlikely pair riding away from the scene of the carnage, Arya has her own horse now, having slain its previous rider in a hand to hand sword fight.  Good scene all the way. 

Rand Paul is mean to media says WashPost.

My heart bleeds for the poor innocent abused media.  Bunch of ignorant, biased, back stabbing trolls. 

Dried, State of California that is

I heard that Jerry Brown wants to put a limit on the length of showers Californians can take.  That oughta be a hoot.  First I want to see the official state policy on how long a shower oughta be.  Then I want to see the enforcement mechanism.  Do they station state troopers in every home with a stop watch?  Or just in the homes of Jerry's political enemies? 
    Not a problem in NH.  We are just entering mud season, and will have plenty of water for a long time.

Isolationism and Rand Paul

In America, isolationism grew up in the years between the wars, 1919 to 1939.  People who were horrified by the casualties of WWI or dissatisfied with the outcome of the Versailles Treaty began to preach that America should  stay at home, build up business, and let the rest of the world sink or swim. A luxury permitted to a continental power with abundant domestic natural resources. Isolationism prevented the US from joining the League of Nations, allowed Hitler to do what he liked, and prevented the US from entering WWII until the Pearl Harbor attack
   WWII discredited isolationism, and the Anglosphere, led by America, set up the post war world and has run it ever since.  It's been a fairly decent world, far more decent than a world run by the Communists or Islam would be.  We have insisted upon the sanctity of international borders, free trade, freedom of the seas, liberating colonies, reasonable stability in international currency exchange, self determination, i.e. no messing around in the internal politics of other states, and human rights.  The Pax Americana has been successful, it outlasted the Soviets, avoided WWIII, and has not been unduly expensive for us to maintain.  The bulk of the world has been happy with it.  They trust the Americans to uphold international order and not take them over. 
   Counterexamples, Putin in Ukraine, ISIS, and others serve as horrible examples of what could happen without the Americans. 
   And now we have Rand Paul running for President and preaching a return to isolationism.  Let us hope the American voters have a better grasp of modern history than Mr. Paul has. 

More Polarization

In addition to the vast democratic majorities in the "good old days"  (50s-60s) the United States faced an existential enemy, a communist, nuclear armed, superpower bent on world domination.  "We will bury you" quoth Nikita Khrushchev.  Communism is about as left as politics can get.  Communism stood for ownership of the means of production (companies) by the state.  In practice that meant liquidation of company shareholders, owners, and for good measure anyone else who stood in the way. 
   This was opposed by all the targeted groups in the US, and by American labor.  Coming out of the 1930's, American workers had organized strong unions and collectively bargained some pretty decent contracts.  The rank and file figured that they had things under control, and any move toward state ownership of the means of production would break their contracts and leave them worse off.  The Democratic party was (and perhaps still is) the party of organized labor,  the Republicans were (and still are) the party of businessmen, who were as hostile to communism as the union men were.
   Which meant that the lefty impulses in the body politic could not move too far from center if they wanted to win an election.  In fact both Democrats and Republicans supported the Cold War, with such effect that the existential enemy suffered political collapse by 1991.
    Now, with communism being pretty dead for the last 25 years,  it becomes possible for American lefties to say things and do things that would have gotten them tossed out of the party in the old days.  "You want to share the wealth don't you," would have branded Obama as a commie back in the day.   In short, the fall of Soviet Communism allows the modern US democrats to go way farther to the left than would have been possible during the Cold War, when communist sympathizers were branded as traitors.  The Republicans have pretty much stayed in place, ideologically.  You don't hear any modern Republican going farther right than good old Barry Goldwater did in 1964. 
   In short, defeat of Soviet Communism has allowed the lefties out of the box and into the body politic where they attract flak.  
  

Polarization of US politics.

I've seen countless whines on this subject.  No bipartisanship, too much bickering, gridlock, yada yada.  Usually by democrats.  And, I gotta agree with them.  Over my memory span, the Congresscritters have grown meaner and nastier, far more likely to do ad hominem attacks upon the other party. 
  How come?
  Well, back in the good old days (50s,60s) the Democrats had an overwhelming majority just about everywhere, Congress, state houses, city halls.  You don't squabble with members of your own party.  And if you are a real small Republican minority party you know you have to get along with the majority Democrats if you ever want to get any of your stuff passed.  So things ran a bit smoother, and with more politeness under a one and a half party system. 
  Starting with Newt Gingrich's Contract with America in 1994, the Republicans finally gained enough strength nationwide to draw level with, or even ahead of,  the Democrats.  When you have the votes to push thru your program, you don't have to be polite to the opposition, you just vote it thru.  The opposition hates that, but that's democracy for you. 
   So, the "polarization" so decried by the democrats is actually a sign of the return of two party politics. 

Inspections.

Obama's murky deal with Iran does some talking about inspections of Iranian nuclear facilities to report when Iran starts building an atomic bomb.  Apparently we don't get to do no knock inspections. 
But, the question is, should the inspectors catch the Iranian cheating and bomb building, do we, the US, have the stones to do anything about it?  Obama probably doesn't. 
   I have been reading Winston Churchill's "The Gathering Storm".  After WWI the victors disarmed Germany and set up an inspection regime to make sure the Germans didn't cheat.  Well, the Germans did cheat, and when they created a new Army and new Air Force, completely in defiance of the Treaty of Versailles, the French and the British lacked the stones to do anything about it.  The Americans were into isolationism and coping with the Great Depression.  And WWII happened. 
   I fear that only military action will keep the Iranians from the bomb. 

Pease Flap

NHPR ran a story this morning about pollution at Pease Tradeport (the former Pease Air Force Base).  I never heard of this pollutant before (PFC's I think they were talking about).  NHPR did admit that there were no human studies proving that the stuff was harmful.  Actually, running such a study has severe ethical problems but never mind. 
   The stuff had been detected in the water of test wells drilled to look for it.  NHPR, continuing its tradition of innumeracy, didn't mention how much had been detected.  Modern laboratory technique is sensitive enough to detect a little bit of anything just about anywhere.  No mention was made about tests on tapwater.  They were hot to trot to test the blood of residents, workers, and former workers, but nobody had volunteered to pay for all this medical work. 
   Could it be that the greenies are out to shut down Pease by inventing a new hazard?  I mean the greenies invented Bicknell's Thrush just to prevent skiing on the Mittersill trails. 

Retail Politics in the North country.

George Pataki came to Littleton this morning.  Despite a couple a hundred emails announcing the event, turnout was light.  We had nearly as many people from the local papers as we did voters.  George Pataki was looking and sounding good.  His hair hasn't turned gray yet, he is tall, erect carriage, looks good speaking.  In reply to my question "What should we do to get GNP growth up from 2-2.5 percent to 3.5-4 percent, the governor mentioned income tax reform to bring off shore corporate money home, scrapping Obamacare, and reducing government regulation.  He asked the audience how they felt about the future of America, received equivocal answers, and then went on to say that that government meddling was the cause of universal American pessimism.  He is against Common Core.   He wants stronger American armed forces.  He wants to control the borders, but expressed pride in his own immigrant roots.

Crowd was sparce.   Judy Clews and Silvia Smith in the front row.

Bob Menendez, Senator, DOJ target

All I know is what I see on TV.  But the charges against Menendez sound like constituent service to me.  You take care of your constituents, your voters, your donors, your friends.  People only donate money to your campaign 'cause they want something from you.  There is little difference between campaign contributions and bribes.
   Anyhow, the Obama administration has decided to prosecute a democratic senator on shaky grounds.  Maybe they want to silence a critic.  Maybe some DOJ people have a grudge.  Who knows?  But life in the United States is becoming dangerous when even US Senators can be attacked by their government.  

Iran and Nukes and Obama

With out getting into how many centrifuges,  what kind of inpections,  years to breakout, etc, we need to recognized a few basic facts. 
The Iranian want their own nukes.  They want them so badly that they will do anything to get them.  Flim flamming inspectors, lying, breaking their sworn treaty, is small change to them. 
   Their first and greatest desire for nukes is to deter  the Americans from doing a regime change on them, just the way they did to Saddam Hussein.  Even the hardest of hard core American hawks will be deterred by a threat to nuke Tel Aviv, or Riyadh or Cairo or New York.  Without nukes, the Americans could do Iran down as easily as they did Saddam.  One division, 3rd Infantry Division, (although it had enough tanks to be called an armored division) crushed the Iraqi army in a matter of weeks.  The Ayatollahs know that right now, the Americans could do the same thing to them.  Only Iranian nukes give them a chance of survival. 
  Secondary desires for nukes are the prestige they would bring Iran, very helpful in asserting control of the middle east.  And the really hard core Ayatollahs dream of nuking Israel. 
  We don't want the Iranians to get nukes.  Soon as Iran gets a nuke, everyone else in the middle east (Saudi, Iraq, Egypt, Turkey, even Jordan, will get them too.  The Pakis have nukes now, and would probably sell bombs or technology to fellow Muslim powers.  So would the Norks.  Soon as everyone has nukes, someone will use them.  Leadership in that part of the world is full of crazies.   
   So we ought to be telling the Iranians, you don't get nukes.  If you try, we will bomb your nuclear sites. And tighten the economic sanctions even more.  Cooperate and we will lift sanctions.  Cooperation means turning over all enriched fissionables and destroying all the centrifuges, and no you don't get a nuclear reactor. 
   Obama doesn't understand this.  But the voters do.  Even the Congressman do.

Religious Freedom Restoration Act

After all the chatter on TV about Indiana's new RFRA act I took the trouble of googling for the text of this controversial act.  For all the sound and fury about it, the written text is unimpressive.  It's only a couple of pages long.  Divided into 11 sections.  The first seven sections are definitions of terms.  They bother to define well known phrases such as "establishment clause".  They give some really far out definitions such as "person" to mean churches and corporations.  In proper English, person means a human being, either male or female.  In lawyer's gobbledegook  person can mean any sort of organization that wants to sue.  The last three sections are quibbles and unbelievable stuff such as "  not intended to, and shall not be construed or interpreted to, create a claim or private cause of action against any private employer by any applicant, employee, or former employee."  Yeah right. 
   Section 8 seems to be the working part of the law.  "a governmental entity may not substantially burden a person's exercise of religion, even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability."   Sounds nice, but it's terribly vague and courts could stretch this to forbid or require damn near anything of anybody.   This sort of obfuscation just provides welfare for lawyers.  The legislature, unable or unwilling to write a real law, has tossed the entire matter into the lap of the courts. Me, I don't like to live in a judge ruled country. 
   Nor does this "law"  say anything about the division between burdening a person's exercise of religion and plain oldfashioned discrimination.  We have laws that forbid discrimination in public accommodations, hiring, housing, lending, and probably more stuff that I don't know about.  Discrimination against blacks is forbidden everywhere.  Discrimination against LGBT persons is forbidden in many states but not all.   
  Although I don't like the courts beating up on mom and pop bakeries and photographers for refusing to serve gay weddings, neither do I like discriminating against blacks in hiring, housing, and public accommodations. 

One World, Divisible by David Reynolds

"A global history since 1945".  An irritating read.  The author, a British college professor, is totally left, likes everything socialist and dislikes everything capitalist.  His text is full of flattery for the left and dissing of the right.  And he throws out amazing statements, like "French communists were forced out of government in 1947" with no backup, no elaboration, no quotes, no names.  From what I heard, the communists were on a roll right after WWII (Poland, Czechoslovakia,Romania, Hungary, Albania, Yugoslavia, Greece, East Germany, China) and I never did hear how that roll got stopped.  Here is Reynolds devoting just one sentence to a fascinating topic that deserves elaboration. 
   Much of his treatment of the second half of the twentieth century is superficial, a mere reciting of headlines from the era, many of which I remember, just from a casual reading of newsmagazines and newspapers.  Little background to the headlines, like who was on which side, and why, and what gave victory to the winning side. 

STEMing it

Lots of praise these days for Science Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM),  a few despairing wails for preservation of the classical liberal education.  What's a student to do?  Especially a student of ordinary means who has to get a job to support him/her/self upon graduation? 
   You want to think about what you want to be when you grow up.  Most of us would settle for well paid.  Boys often think of jobs like railroad engineer, fireman, policeman, soldier, pilot, sailor, musician, athlete, doctor, and so on.  Girls can have all those dreams (except maybe railroad engineer) and others besides.  Getting a job that you like doing leads to a happier life. 
   In the STEM world, an engineering degree (electrical, chemical,civil, mechanical) is the top of the hierarchy  for a career that is fun to do, well paid, and in demand.  Engineers design new stuff, buildings, bridges, products, ipads, cell phones, space craft.  Design is fun, it deals with new ideas, processes.  Engineers are the key people in real world industries, the industries that make stuff, rather than just push paper.  When the grave yard shift cannot made the new product go together, they call the design engineer at home.  They don't call the lawyer or the accountant or the manager, they call the engineer. 
  To do engineering, and the other STEM subjects, you need mathematics thru calculus.  Mathematics ain't hard, but you have to start early, high school.  High school has to give you algebra, Euclidean (plane) geometry, trigonometry.  With that you can take calculus freshman year in college.  Which is a pre requisite for most of the sophomore and up STEM courses.  If you get to college without the math, you can take it in college, but by the time you get the algebra, trig, geometry and calc courses in, you will be a junior, and that pretty much locks you out of a STEM major. 
  So about the time you finish up middle school, you want to do some serious thinking about what you want to be when you grow up.  Most likely, you won't have a clue at that age.  I didn't.  But think about it.  You don't want to lock yourself out of an engineering degree at the age of 15.  The smart student makes sure they get the necessary math courses in high school just in case they want to go on to engineering in college. If you skip the math in high school, you are forced into a liberal arts degree in college. 

Budget Cuts, Real vs Fake

A real budget cut is when an agency gets less money than it did the previous year.  Republicans like real budget cuts.  A fake budget cut is when the agency gets less money than it asked for.  Democrats like fake budget cuts, either to tell the taxpayers that they are not getting ripped off, or to lambast Republicans who appropriate less money than the agency asked for, even when the agency gets more money than it did the previous year.
   This was on display on WMUR's Sunday pundit show with Josh Mcelvane this morning.  The house finance committee has been whacking Maggie's budget down to size.  Josh had two finance committee reps, one Democrat, one Republican, both new faces to me, on the show.  Both talked about cuts, whether there was one or was not one.  Apparently the cuts are fake cuts,  the final trimmed down budget is still bigger than last year's budget.  Maggie didn't get as much money as she asked for and that is terrible.  It might even mean layoffs in Concord.  Oh the horror! 
   Neither off them spoke of dollar amounts, of how much is going where, of substantial things like finishing up widening I93,  providing somewhere to put violent insanity cases other than hospital emergency rooms, or attracting new industry to NH.  They just talked about cuts, this is a cut, this is not a cut. 

I think I have a right

to shoot down drones harassing me on my own property.   Suppose I'm having a cookout on my deck and a drone buzzes over taking pictures of me and my friends.  I think a 12 gauge shotgun is an appropriate response.  Likewise for peeping tom drones taking pictures in my windows. 

How big is the defense budget? Really?

And how much defense is it buying?  How much money goes to real combat units, Army battalions, Navy warships, Air Force fighters, and how much money goes to non combat things, defense contractors, administrators, lawyers, paper pushers, logistics, gold plate, and strange R&D projects.  Like that giant laser in a 747 project that finally got cancelled after sucking down billions. 
I suppose one could go thru the federal budget, which is probably on line these days, but  I just lack the energy to wade thru 10,000 pages of gobble-de-gook.  And the msm is too ignorant and too lazy to do it. 
As it is, we know the US spends a lot on defense, and we have a huge military establishment, bigger than any other nation in the world.  Yet to put troops into Iraq we had to call up reserves and put the active duty soldiers on repeated combat tours.  And as soon as Obama pulled our troops out of Iraq, ISIS took over. 

Cannon Mountain Ski Weather

We have had some warm, and some melting, but no rain yet.  There is plenty of snow left on the trails.  Should be good this weekend. 

Train Wrecks

Fox did a short piece on the recent rash of oil tanker train wrecks, the ones that burst into flames and burn for days.  Fox was selling the Federal Rail Administration (FRA) story that all we need is tougher tank cars.  Not a word about condition of the track.  The FRA story is all we need to do is replace every tank car in the country with new ones featuring thicker, tougher tanks that will resist bursting in a wreck and spilling oil.    Trouble is, a train of all new cars derailed last month, and the new tougher cars burst open just like the old standard cars.  Lotta money spent at the behest of Federal bureaucrats, to no avail. 
   With the exception of the Quebec wreck last year, all the other wrecks have started off with a derailment.  And, derailments mean the track is old, the ties are rotten, the spikes loose, and the rail falls over on its side under the weight of the train.  We need to fix the track, not replace the tank cars.   Fox  doesn't understand this yet.

Nothing like doing my taxes

To make me wish for a straight flat tax.  No special treatment for anything.  Income is income, be it salary, interest, dividends, capital gains.   Nothing is deductible.  Rate is lower. 

Upgrading Adobe Flash Player

And it installed McAfee something or other.  I never got a chance to nix the McAfee installation.  It just happened.  I have not zapped McAfee yet, but I probably will shortly.  In my experience McAfee slows the computer by an annoying amount.  McAfee must be having trouble selling its product to download it free on users who don't want it. 

Neutering the Power of the Purse

   To keep the executive in check, the founders decreed that money to pay the executive's army (and every thing else) had to be appropriated by Congress.  If Congress didn't like what the executive was doing, it could simple refuse to fund it.  Worked in England, back in Cromwell's time. 
Doesn't work so well in the modern USA.  When Congress cuts off funding, the Democrats wail that they are shutting down the government, the msm takes up the story, and all the takers whoop it up.  Today, the Congress doesn't dare cut off funding for anything, lest they be accused of "shutting down the government":. 
And the purse looses its power.   One more check and balance bites the dust.

Boeing keeps the 777 competitive

The 777 is Boeing's big twin jet wide body airliner.  It's been flying for 20 years.  Boeing plans to keep it flying for quite a bit longer.  They have announced a series of upgrades, each one minor in itself, that will cut fuel burn by 2%.  And they plan to pack in another 14 seats, so the fuel burn per seat might go down by 5%.  Which doesn't seem earth shaking, but  every little bit adds up.  The 777 can hold 40,000 gallons of fuel, about four 18 wheeler tank truck loads.  Saving 2% on a long flight might be 800 gallons.  At $2.50 a gallon, that's $2000.  Per flight.   
   One improvement is to remove the tail skid, and take out some beef in the aft fuselage designed to carry the loads from the tail skid, should the tail drag on the runway during landing or takeoff.  They souped up the autopilot to absolutely prevent tail dragging.  Boeing of course claims the improved autopilot will be infallible. 
   There are a bunch of other things, to numerous to list, and not all that interesting, unless you are out shopping for wide bodied airliners. 

Jerry Brown goes on Meet the Press

And manages to say nothing of substance in 10 minutes of airtime.  They started him off on the California drought.  He talked about "progress" and " programs" and "Urgency".  Nothing about dams, canals, wells, and allocation.  The biggest water users in CA are farms, and you could turn off their water, let 'em go broke, and have enough water to supply everyone's homes.  Not a word about any of this.  We did learn that Jerry believes global warming is causing the CA drought.  And he doesn't like Ted Cruz, they played a clip of Cruz saying that the globe hasn't warmed at all in the last 17 years (which is true, according to GISS data).  Jerry doesn't believe that, and called Cruz "totally unfit to run for president". 
   Well, we know where Jerry's heart is.  And where is head is too. 

Hitchhiking. Anyone seen any lately?

Back before I had my own wheels, hitchhiking is how I got around.  I can remember some amazing trips, like up to Cape Ann, to NYC from Lancaster PA, back to boarding school after missing the bus back from a sporting event.  My parents did not approve, lectured me on the dangers, but never flat out forbid my hitchhiking.   Later on, when I got my wheels, I can remember picking up a bunch of different hitchhikers, pretty much all guys, all young, all scruffy looking. Some of 'em had signs., some didn't.  There would be clusters of hitchhikers at key thruway exits. 
   Not any more.  I haven't seen a hitchhiker on a thru entrance in twenty years or more.   My kids never hitchhiked.  Nobody else's kids did it either.  I think it has died out. 
   I assume the missing children on milk cartons campaign scared parents and kids enough that kids quit hitching. 

Market place winners and losers

Loser: Windows.  Only 56% of the hits on my blog were from Windows machines.  Used to be Windows had 90+% market share.  Runner up Linux!  29%.  Hard to believe.  Linux works good but the multiple suppliers haven't convinced the market that all Linux programs will run on all flavors of Linux.  The rest of the hits were  from various cell phone OS like Android.

Winner:  Firefox.  Top browser, 57% of hits here. Beat out Chrome. Internet Exploder way down at 11%.  This after some net buzz about how Firefox was all washed up. 

He thinks they would vote Democratic

Obama just came out in favor of mandatory voting, everyone would be required to get out and vote.  He doubtless thinks the non voters would vote Democratic if you got them to the polls. 

The Two State Solution

We think this means a state of Israel for the Jews and a state of Palestine for the Palestinians.  US State Department is all in favor. Has been for years.  Israel has given the idea a test run, in Gaza, and it hasn't worked out well.  Israel removed the Jewish residents of Gaza, and turned the area over to the Palestinians.  Since then, Gaza has been firing rockets over the border, which is an act of war in the real world.  It got so bad the Israeli Army had to intervene last year, causing and taking casualties.  I think they did stop the rockets. 
   With that background,  Bebi said he would not favor the "two state solution" just before the Israeli election, which he won on Tuesday.  Our State Dept went ballistic, and after the election, Bebi softened his words about the two state solution.  I haven't bothered to look up just exactly what Bebi said each time.  But I can understand where he is coming from.  Gaza shows how bad the two state solution can be and surely plenty of Israelis don't want to have anything to do with it.  Backing off a bit to mollify the American State Dept is also understandable. 

How many boots on the ground does it take?

Depends.  Just a couple of guys, with laser designators and radios, and a BUFF full of smart bombs overhead, and great things can be accomplished.  Ask the Northern Alliance.  The Taliban had nearly wiped them out when 9/11 happened.  A few days later, they got their couple a guys, and their BUFF, and that turned everything around.  The Northern Alliance drove the Taliban clean out of Afghanistan and into hiding over the border in Pakistan within a matter of weeks. 
  Of course it can be pretty dangerous for the couple of guys.  They have to be right up on the front line, where bullets fly, and bad things happen.  But it can be fun, especially for guys who like making things go boom.
  But you would think just a thin stiffening of American soldiers, and a mob of locals, Peshmerga perhaps, and plenty of air support, and ISIS could become toast. Say a few tank companies to show the way, a plentiful supply of guns and ammunition for the locals, supplies flown in by air, some decent intel from the locals, and  a bit of luck and problem solved. 
   The way the newsies tell it, doing ISIS is as bad as doing WWI trench warfare over again.  I don't think it's that hard. 
   With luck, in 2016, we could elect a president who understands these things. 

Saving money on health care

Bring back "hospitalization only" insurance policies.  Back before I became eligible for Medicare, there were two kinds of insurance policies.  The pricey, $12K a year, covers everything, no deductibles policy.  It would pay for doctor's office visits, yearly physicals, pills, everything.  Or, the $3K "hospitalization only" policy which only paid for things serious enough to put you in the hospital.  Everything else, doctor's office visits, pills, physicals, MRI's, you name it, you paid for it out of pocket.  On the other hand, the $9K saving on the policy would pay for a lot of incidentals.  If you were in decent health, and had some ready cash, the "hospitalization only" policy could save you a LOT of money. 
   Plus, since you were paying out of pocket, you tended to shop around, for good prices on pills, MRI's and the like.  I even talked my doctor into changing some of my prescriptions to the $4 a month Walmart pills.  You can cut costs noticeably when you have to pay them yourself.
    Then came Obamacare, which wiped out the "hospitalization only" policies.  Obamacare policies have to cover everything, chiropractic, maternity even for guys, eyeglasses, drug rehab, MRI's, CAT scans, head shrinking, you name it.  The medics loved that part.  So do the drug companies and the hospitals. 

Cannon Mountain Ski Weather. It's snowing again

A couple of inches of snow to day.  Better that than rain.  It is warm, pushing up to 32F, but it's still coming down as snow. 

Words of the Newsies: Coronate.

Coronate.  After talking about the upcoming "coronation" of Hillary Clinton, the newsies are using "coronate" as a verb, presumably meaning the act of placing a crown on a king, or a presidential candidate.  Actually, the word they are looking for is "crown".  To place the crown upon the head of the king. 
My older 1969 American Heritage Dictionary does not list "coronate" as a word.  Unfortunately, my newer, trendier, 1997 Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary does list "coronate" as a verb.  I hold with the older useage "crown" as opposed to the wordier, newer, Latin  "coronate".