Kasich, Trump and Cruz address AIPAC

AIPAC, American Israeli Political Action Committee.  I watched Kasich, followed by Trump, followed by Cruz address this Jewish pro Israel group.  All three of 'em said all the right things, and received lots of applause.  This is an important group, they represent most American Jews, who can be a decisive factor in American elections.  Most Jews back the state of Israel all the way, although they tend to vote democratic.  After 8 years of Obama trashing Israel, they might b ready to vote Republican.   

Parts per trillion

Apparently some chemical that I never heard of was detected is some water wells in some obscure NH towns whose names mean nothing to me.   They finally got a guy on from state Dept of Environmental Services who actually knew a few things.  Apparently the contamination is no worse than 100 parts per trillion.  Wow.  First time I have heard things quoted as parts per trillion.  Used to be one part per million was about the limit of lab work. 
   Then he said that the EPA limit for magic chemical (SFRA? something strange) was 400 parts per trillion.  In short the detected levels are still way below the limit. 
   Could the newsies be looking for something they can blow up into a Flint Michigan type scandal?

New Hampshire un employment rate down to 2.7%

Wow.  Best in the nation.  Labor utilization rate is 78%, best in the nation.  The NPR commentators were talking about business leaving the state 'cause they cannot find workers.
   Talk about a quick turnaround.  Things were so bad up here a couple of years ago  my youngest son had to go out the North Dakota to find work.   I'm sorta wondering if the unemployment rate is low because all the able bodied workers have already left NH to find work out of state.
   Then the NPR pundits started talking magic talk, like how commuter rail to Manchester would attract workers from out of state.  And how NH needs to do something (unspecified) to the NH schools to produce more "trained" workers. 

National Progressive Radio wants to give Gitmo back to Cuba

NPR ran a medium length piece about this this morning.  They dwelt on the history, Gitmo was war booty to us after the Spanish American war of 1898.  Which was a long time ago.  According to NPR the Cubans are still all hot and bothered about it, and we could make peace and goodness and light flow by giving it back to Cuba.
    Wanna bet The Donald could cut a better deal than that? 

So why is Obama making nice to Cuba?

Well, it looks good to the lefties in the Democratic party, but do ordinary Americans  approve? Or care?  I think most Cubans in the country are refugees from Castro, and would be happier to nuke Cuba than to recognize Cuba.  I suppose Obama will get some "legacy" out of it, but does the US as a whole, not just Obama and his cronies, get anything out of it? 

Where is Tom Clancy (and Jack Ryan) when we need them?

Say what you will about Tom Clancy's books, they were good action adventure, where the Americans are the good guys, and American ingenuity, courage, and advanced technology win the day in the end.  Clancy's hero, Jack Ryan, starting as a CIA operative in Hunt for Red October, works his way up to President of the US by the final stories.  Compared to the current flock of presidential wannabees, Jack Ryan looks pretty good, well read, well educated, brave, intelligent, a good shot, able to lead a team of top flight people, and able to take advice. In contrast to today's crop. 
   In Clancy's literary universe, America is a special country, faced with numerous low life overseas enemies.  And America manages to come out on top of them in every story.  Good fun reads.  Back in his heighday, Tom Clancy was selling more hardbacks than every other author, all put together.  Makes you feel good about being an American.  Too bad Clancy died a little while ago. 

Whither the Republican party?

Lotta handwringing going on.  The Donald is leading in pledged delegates right now.  He seems to pick up 35% of the primary vote every time.  Right now he has 600 and some delegates, only half what is needed to clinch the Republican nomination.  Ted Cruz is behind, but not impossibly far behind,  with maybe 400 and some delegates.  Maybe The Donald will pick up another 600 delegates by convention time, which will give him 1237, the amount needed to win out right.  And maybe he won't.  No body knows, and nobody really believes the polls.
   If The Donald gets enough delegates by convention time, he still has a problem.  Although 35% of the party likes him enough to vote for him, that leaves 65% of the party that doesn't like him, plus all the democrats don't like him.  Does not look good for The Donald to beat Hilliary.  The Republican establishment is scared out of their socks by these odds.  If The Donald leads the party to a resounding defeat in November, they will most likely get voted out of office themselves.  So they are going all out to get anyone besides The Donald nominated.  At this point, the only likely alternative is Ted Cruz.  All the other candidates have dropped out (except Kasich who doesn't have much in the way of delegates).  The Trump voters will be outraged by a convention that doesn't nominate their man and might do all sorts of bad things. 
   If  The Donald lacks the delegates by convention time, all sorts of things might happen.  Ted Cruz might be able to pull all the non Trump delegates behind him and get the nomination on a later ballot.  The establishment might try to slip in Romney or McCain, or some body, anybody else.  If they succeed they will outrage all the voters, which is a bad thing.  Some charismatic nobody might arise and sweep thru the convention on a wave of applause.  That happened, once, Wendell Wilkie back in 1940.  Hasn't happened since. 
   Or something else might happen.  Stay tuned.

Captain Obvious does a "research" project

Heard this one on NHPR this morning.  Recent research shows that well dressed men do better in business deals than slobs.  The research had some "test" candidates, one dressed in a business suit and the dressed in a sweatsuit, negotiate a real estate deal.  The guys in business suits got the better deal every time.   They interviewed a software guy who said he felt better and wrote better code wearing a good shirt with a collar, rather than a grubby T-shirt.  Highly objective a repeatable evidence that is. 
   They need to do research on this?
   Fifty years ago, Air Force ROTC trained us officer cadets to look sharp, always wear a clean pressed uniform, keep our hair cut, and keep our shoes shined.  The troops are more likely to listen to a sharply uniformed officer than to a slob. A principle of leadership it was called.  For that matter, everybody knows that you always wear coat and tie on a job interview. 
   Sounds like those "researchers" were looking for something to blow their grant money on.

Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs by Lisa Randall

Lisa Randall, a Harvard professor of science, attempts to link up the dinosaur killer meteor strike of 65 million years ago with dark matter.  It's an interesting read.   Dark matter is mysterious, but it's existence is generally accepted.  Observation of the rotation of galaxies, shows them rotating so fast that they ought to fly apart.  The equations for speed of rotation of a satellite about it's primary go back to Isaac Newton, and are taught in sophomore physics, which makes them well known and universally accepted.  Essentially, if a satellite rotates too fast, centrifugal force makes it fly off into outer space and stop being a satellite.  If it moves too slowly, the primary's gravity sucks it down and it stops being a satellite and becomes a crater.
   The only reasonable answer to the high rotation speed of the galaxies it to assume they contain more matter than you can account for by counting up the stars in the galaxy and estimating their masses.  In fact the galaxies come up way short on visible (light emitting) matter, like short by a factor of two or more.  So, it's generally accepted that galaxies, including our own Milky Way galaxy, contain a lot of dark matter that does not show up as stars.  Just what form this dark matter takes, is unknown at the moment.  Lotta people are working on it, and we may have an answer any time now.
   Now the author turns to the great dinosaur killer meteor.  She wants to show that the Yucatan impact of 65 million years ago is a cyclical event, reoccurring at intervals of 30 million years or so.  She cites studies of meteor craters and plots the number and/or size of known craters vs age.  These plots give a wavery line on graph paper, and just eyeballing the line doesn't show any apparent periodicity.   She goes into a long discussion about just how much periodicity, as opposed to pure random chance, you need to detect it in a graph.  Surprise, she never mentioned the standard mathematical method of determining periodicity in any kind of line, the Fourier transform.  Apparently she, a Harvard professor, has never heard of Fourier transforms.  Well perhaps that's understandable, Fourier transforms are only taught in electrical engineering, no other branch of science has much need for them.  Anyhow, without performing the definitive test for periodicity, the author assumes the giant meteor strikes reoccur every 30 million years and then presses on to explain how the Milky Way has a thin disc of dark matter at it's center, and the solar system passes back and forth thru this dark matter disc as it rotates around the galactic core on a 30 million year cycle.  Somehow, passage thru the dark matter disk upsets objects in the Kuiper Belt, dragging them out of their nice circular orbits and tossing them down toward the sun in narrow elliptical orbits.   Every so often one of them hits the earth, giving us a dino killer event. 
   It's an interesting read.  I also think it's a long stretch.  
   
   

NORKS give US student Otto Warmbier 15 years at hard labor

It's tough, I feel for the kid.  But he is terminally stupid to travel to North Korea in the first place, and even stupider doing ANYTHING not 100% legit while up there.  Think of it as evolution in action.

Middle of the Market (MOM) airliner

Boeing is talking about doing a new airliner to be a MOM airliner.  Airbus is competing furiously, and Boeing wants a magic product to take market share away from Airbus.  Unfortunately, just what the MOM airliner might be is vague, they don't talk about how many passengers it would carry, or the range it could fly.  And some people feel there is no such MOM design.
   Obviously Boeing is still feeling good about their new 787, which although smaller than the Airbus A380, is selling better.  When they started the 787 they knew that Airbus was doing something much bigger, but Boeing figured that the 787 was about the right size and would sell better, and they were right. 
   The other thing that clouds the issue is that Boeing makes some many different sizes of airliners already that you would think one of them would be the MOM airliner.  They have the smallish single aisle 737 which is still selling every one that comes off the production line.  They have the 757 and 767 models, larger than the 737 and maybe to be dropped.  They have the brand new sizable 787,  the older but large 777, and finally the big old 747.  They are still making a few 747's but it is clearly on the way out.  Given this wealth of Boeing airliner types, it is hard to see a market segment for which they don't have a product. 
   For future growth, Boeing has the 737MAX project to put new and more efficient engines on the 737.  This project is going head to head with a similar project at Airbus putting the new Pratt & Whitney geared turbofan engine onto the tried and true A320 airliner.  Boeing has the 777-X project to create an updated version of the big 777 twinjet.  They have the USAF tanker project inhouse which something like 200 aircraft. 
   There has got to be some pressure inside Boeing to do another clean sheet design, using carbon fiber structure, and the latest of everything to create a follow on to the 737.  But the last clean sheet design, the 787, encountered delays, supply chain hangups, cost over runs, battery fires, and it's gonna take years and years of production to recover the money sunk into it.  The 787 has made it thru the development pitfalls and is now in production and making money.  But it was so late that Airbus was able to get the directly competitive A350 to market only a year after the 787.  Anyhow, there must be a lot of people at Boeing who have sworn "Never again" to the concept of advanced clean sheet designs. 
  

So what is The Donald guilty of? Really?

When you set up a political event, you gotta expect some unruly troublemakers to show up and cause trouble.  That's what cops are for.  As part of setting up the event, you get with local law enforcement, and  ask 'em to show up, in uniform, and keep order.  And if  trouble does break out, you blame the cops for not doing their duty.
   So The Donald had some sort of trouble, type and size unspecified, somewhere around Chicago, and everyone is blaming The Donald for it.  I don't get it.  I don't like The Donald much, and hope something happens to keep him from becoming the Republican nominee, but lets hang him for something that he done, not something that ain't his fault.
   Troublemaker's showing up at an event ain't his fault.  If trouble breaks out, it's the cops fault for not stopping it.  
 

Battery powered airliners.

NASA is funding research into them.  The idea is to carry batteries and an electric motor to drive (or assist driving) the fan section of a turbofan engine to produce thrust.  The greenies love the idea because it sounds so green, which is why NASA is spending money on the paper studies.  I wouldn't care to ride on one. 
   The artist's conception sketches show a fairly ordinary looking airliner with two big jet engines slung under the wings. 
    The article does admit that the idea doesn't really work until the batteries get about five times better than they are today.  Current lithium batteries store 150-200 watt hours per kilogram.  Everyone admits that the idea needs  batteries that can do 1000 watt hours per kilogram, five times better than today.  That is gonna take a while. It took 50 years to go from NiCad batteries to lithium for a maybe three times improvement.  At that rate of  progress it will take another fifty years to get to 1000 watt hours per Kg.
  Same issue of Aviation Week carries an article explaining that the International Civil Aviation Organization banning the shipment of lithium batteries on passenger airliners because of the fire hazard. 
   Your tax money at work.

Paul of Dune by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson

This turned up in hardback, good dust cover, in a second hand shop for a couple of bucks, so I bought it.  And read it.  It is 15th sequel to Frank Herbert's fantastically good 1965 novel Dune.  The sequels have been lesser works, pot boilers some would call them.  This one is no exception.  All though 512 pages long, it isn't really a novel in my view.  It's a bunch of  events, each event having little to tie it to it's sisters.  The book does have a protagonist, or perhaps better explained as a view point character, namely Paul Atriedes (Muad'Dib).  But Paul never does much, he is present in most of the events, but as a passive observer.  Even in the final event, an attempt on his life,  Paul does not even sentence the assassin to death.  This is a far cry from Dune, where Paul escapes Harkonnen assassins, rallies the Fremen. overthrows the Galactic Emperor, and slays a couple of enemies hand to hand in formal duels with knives. 
   In a real novel, the protagonist is faced with some kind of challenge.  He will make several attempts to overcome his challenge, in the last attempt, the climax of the novel, the protagonist will do or die, either triumph over his challenge or die from it.  That doesn't happen here.  There is no challenge to Paul Muad'Dib, he encounters a flock of bitter enemies, but nothing especial, nothing worthy of the attention of the new Galactic Emperor. 
   In short, after slogging thru 512 pages, bupkis. 

The Future of Computing

Title of cover story in the Economist.  They are quoting some Silicon Valley pundits on the end of Moore's Law.  Gordon Moore, one of the founders of Intel, stated that the number of transistors in integrated circuits doubled every year, later revisions said every 2 years.  The observation was based on steady improvements in silicon lithography, which yielded smaller transistors, and hence more salable chips per silicon wafer.  Back when I started in the business, chips were made with 100 micron design rules.  Now we are down to 19 microns.  Sooner or later we will get to a size that cannot be shrunk anymore.  Silicon Valley pundits have been talking about this for twenty years that I can remember, and probably longer.
  The Economist been listening to the doomsayers, and ran a cover story and a special technology section worrying about the end of Moore's law.  They make it sound like computers will stop getting smarter. 
  Not to worry, the microprocessors are plenty smart enough, and if one chip won't do the job, buy five or ten of 'em, they only cost $10 or so, and get on with it. 
   The real effect of the end of Moore's law is that chips will stop getting cheaper every year.  Back when, Analog Devices introduced their nice new ADSP2181 chip.  The first year, they lost money on every chip they sold.  But after the first die shrink reduced the size of the part, and hence it's cost, it became profitable, and after three or four more die shrinks it became really cheap and profitable. 
   And since chips or now so cheap, I think the world will keep on rotating if they stop getting even cheaper. 

Trump comes out against H1B visas

First good idea I have heard out of The Donald.  H1B visa's are a deal where companies find skilled high tech workers overseas and sponsor them for temporary (a couple of years) entry to the US on the condition that they remain employed.  Should there be a falling out between the H1B employee and his employer, employee must find a new sponsor ASAP lest he get deported. 
   Companies like this, 'cause overseas employees will work cheaper than native Americans.  Take an engineer from say India.  A salary that an American engineer would find insulting, looks like more money than he has ever seen in his life. 
  And after a few years we tell this guy his H1B has expired and he needs to return home.
  This seems kinda dumb, and hard on the employee.  I knew a bunch of these guys over the years working in high tech.  Most of 'em are well educated, smart, hard working, decent people who would make excellent US citizens.  And, we need more young smart hardworking people (makers) to keep the US economy running, and produce the stuff that  50% of the population (the takers) is drawing thru our generous welfare programs. 
   We ought to run immigration to build the US with good decent citizens.  Every year we ought to have one big entrance exam.  We admit the best people to the country and tell the others to re apply next year.  Best people are the engineers, the scientists, the doctors, the young, the married, the educated and the intelligent.  Admit the best and offer them permanent citizenship. 

British Industry is against Brexit.

According to Aviation Week, British aerospace and defense companies  are speaking out against Brexit.  Airbus, airlines RyanAir and Easy Jet, and the company operating Heathrow airport  have all decried Brexit.  A report compiled by accountants KPMG suggested that three quarters of British aerospace and defense companies would vote to remain in the EU.
  Too bad companies don't get to vote.
  Good to hear that a few Brits have their heads screwed on nose to the front.

Open and Closed Primaries

States like NH hold open primaries, anyone can vote in either party's primary.  Other states like Massachusetts hold closed primaries, you have to be a registered party member to vote in the party primary. 
   Arguments for closed primaries are thus.  An American political party is more than just a bunch of voters.  The party stands for things and politicians who campaign under the party banner are expected to support their party on all levels.  Elected politicians are expected to vote the way the party leadership calls for, even if they themselves are against the party position.  In which case, it makes sense for the selection of nominees be limited to party members, in order to insure that the nominee thinks the way the party rank and file do.  Allowing independents and opposition party people to vote in party primaries dilutes the party members vote and allows the election of wishywashy or even hostile thinking nominees.
   The strongest argument for open primaries occurs in one party states.  In a solid red or solid blue state, winning the primary is equivalent to winning the general election.  In solid blue Massachusetts, winning the democratic primary means you will take office a few months later.  So members of the opposition party cry out for votes in the only election that really matters, the dominant party primary. 

Newsie's day dream, a "brokered convention"

The TV newsies keep talking about one.  They would just die to cover a "brokered convention".   The good old fashioned smoke filled room where party bosses cut a deal to select the nominee.  Dream on newsies. 
   In real life, the voters expect the party nominee to be chosen in primary elections.  If this doesn't happen, the voters will think something illegal, or immoral, or merely fattening, has happened behind closed doors.  They will refuse to support for any nominee selected by anything except a majority of the primary elections.   If necessary they will vote for a third party candidate who has some legitimacy.  Which will hand the general election to Hilliary. 
   Does the establishment or the voters understand this?   Given the horrible state of American schools, they may not. 

NH legislature off on wild goose chases

Let's see.  First we have the commuter rail project.  Costs $300 million to set up, plus $12 million a year running costs,  Only serves Nashua.  They want all the taxpayers in NH to pay for it.  Nice work if you can get it Nashua.
   Then somebody wanted to pass a new state law on indecent exposure.  We have been doing just fine with existing law going back to the colonial period.  Why do w need to change anything.  Far as I am concerned, if guys or girls want to walk around stark naked, fine by me.  I will enjoy the view.  I don't see any need for a law. 
   Then someone else wanted to pass a new law about bestiality.  I know the Old Testament is again it, but I hadn't heard of any cases in NH in the last fifty years.  Again, we have law on the books, going back to colonial times, that has been perfectly adequate.  
   Why is our gallant legislature wasting time with this sort of stuff?

Kelley Ayotte event in northern NH

Kelly Ayotte is our incumbent US Senator, running for re-election. She traveled up to northern NH to give a town hall event today.  It was held in the classic NH location, a VFW hall, this one in Haverill.  Turnout was good, parking lot was full, so was the VFW hall.  It was a close knit affair, Kelly knew half the people present and greeted them all. 

Learning to trash The Donald

Just watched Mitt Romney laying into The Donald on TV.  Wow. Zap.  Mitt came on just as strong as Marco Rubio, maybe stronger. 

Learning to love The Donald

The Donald is gonna win the Republican nomination, unless something really weird happens, like an assassination, or all the other Republicans consolidate behind either Cruz or Rubio.  Or  lightening strikes the convention.  Not likely. 
   I have some problems with The Donald as president, but I have more problems with Hilliary.  So I'll vote for The Donald, and work to get him elected.  I sincerely hope that The Donald can beat Hilliary in November, but I have my doubts.  Hilliary's negatives are very high, but The Donald's are higher. 

Everyone whines about the US deficit

But nobody running for president talks about how to reduce it.  It's very simple, Uncle spends more than he takes in with taxes.  So Uncle borrows whatever to make up the difference.  So far, Uncle has borrowed a total of one year's output of the entire US GNP, call it $17 trillion. 
  The only way to reduce the deficit is to hike taxes (highly unpopular with everyone) or cut spending (highly unpopular with those on the federal teat).  Nobody wants to talk about either alternative except The Bern, who wants some good old fashioned soak-the-rich taxes.  Trouble with soak-the-rich taxes, is we will all be rich in a few years from inflation.  So soak-the-rich today means soak everybody tomorrow.
   Since the people on the federal teat are less than everybody, it's more politically possible to cut spending than to hike taxes.  Although it still ain't easy.
   If we are gonna cut spending, it makes sense to start with the biggest money suckers, namely Medicare, Social Security, and perhaps Medicaid.  The US spends 19% of GNP on health care, twice as much as any other country in the world.  Some investigation ought to reveal how decent first world countries like Canada, Britain, France, Germany and a bunch of others get by spending half what we do.  Naturally the doctors, the drug companies, the insurance companies, and the hospitals will scream bloody murder when Uncle does a little cost cutting, but let 'em.  They don't have that many votes. 
   Social Security (the third rail of American politics, touch it and die) is harder.  Cutting retiree's social security benefits would create a nationwide firestorm against those stupid enough to try it.  But Social Security pays out a lot in "Survivors Benefits" and "Disability Benefits" which could be tightened up somewhat.  Even a small cut in a big program would save serious money.
  And nobody running for president is talking about any of this.  Wimps. 

We got so much crude oil they are stashing it in railcars

US oil production is up, sales are down and the oil is piling up every where.  The surplus is so bad that owners are renting empty rail tank cars to just hold the stuff until prices rise or customers come forward.  That's a long way from "peak oil".  The Wall St Journal says US oil inventories have not been this high since the 1930's. 

Uncle wants to revive Mortgage Backed Securities.

Mortgage backed securities used to be a $ trillion dollar a year market, up until 2007 that is.  Since 2007 nobody will touch them.  The Journal shows a bar graph of sales over the years and zero sales in any year after 2007. 
   Many people think that mortgage backed securities caused Great Depression 2.0  In the go-go real estate bubble back in the aughts, banks and mortgage lenders needed more money to do mortgages with.  Someone had the bright idea of creating a security, essentially a company IOU, which was "backed" by mortgages held by the bank. These IOU's were sold to gullible investors, by promises of high yield,  and the proceeds used to write more mortgages.  Trouble was, the "backing" didn't mean anything, the IOU holders did not get the right to repossess the properties when the borrowers stopped paying.  And when the borrowers stopped paying, the investors stopped getting paid too.  Investors wised up in 2007 and no more mortgage backed securities have been sold. 
   So banks can do mortgages using their own money, of which they never have enough, or by getting FHA or Fanny Mae or Freddy Mac or VA to put up the money.  But, these government agencies, still suffering huge losses from 2007, all have pretty stiff rules about what kind of mortgage they will accept.  Unless the borrower has a real clean credit record, no deal, no mortgage.
  Now we have Monique Rollins,  deputy assistant secretary in Obama's Treasury Dept saying "We do believe that a reformed asset class could responsibly broaden access for qualified buyers who are not being served today."   Translation: Let's do mortgage backed securities to give the banks money to do any kind of mortgage they like."   Which is what caused Great Depression 2.0.  Not good.  But the Obama administration is in favor.
  Of course, Monique has not explained what she would do to get investors to touch the new model mortgage backed securities.  
  I wonder what a Trump administration would do?
  

Brexit

Short for British Exit From EU. The Brits have set 23 June as the date for a nationwide referendum on pulling out of the EU.  British bookies are offering 2:1 odds that Brexit will happen. The Conservative party prime minister will campaign to keep Britain in.  He cannot get all the senior conservatives to support him. Heavy duty Conservatives like the mayor of London and the justice minister are in favor of getting out and have said so publicly.
   Prime Minister Cameron went to Brussels, dickered, and came back with some concessions from the EU. Britain will be able to refuse to pay welfare to new immigrants until they have been in Britain for four years.  There will be some poorly understood restrictions on immigration to Britain.  It probably ain't enough.  The Brits fear being overrun by foreigners and resent EU regulations on just about everything.
   Problem for Her Majesty's Government.  About one third of British exports go to the EU.  Right now they go duty free since Britain is currently an EU member.  If Britain pulls out, that stops and British exports to the EU will face full EU tariffs.  Which means the end of that huge export market.  The EU has 10% unemployment, which means plenty of EU suppliers who would be so pleased to pick up all the Brit's business after EU tariffs made the Brits noncompetitive.
   I did see one clueless letter to the editor in the WSJ claiming that it ain't so, Britain could pull out and still enjoy EU tariff preferences.  I don't believe that.
   The Economist is clearly concerned, they see economic disaster, of the lights go out and everybody starves to death sort.  They also checked with the bookies for odds.  I think the Economist is onto something.  Where do you go to replace one third of your export business?   Canada?  Australia?  the US?  Would we let them join NAFTA?
   Britain is the second largest economy in the EU.  If they pull out it will make the job of keeping the EU from falling apart harder.  Actually, the EU has come a long way since 1945, they have passport-and-customs free travel between most EU countries, they have a single currency, they have EU wide regulations of things like food purity and labeling, electrical safety standards,building codes.  They have a ways to go to become a United States of Europe, they have no EU wide foreign policy or armed forces, and the EU government in Brussels lacks a lot of powers that the US constitution gives to Washington.
   I wish the Brits every kind of luck.  They are gonna need it. 

WSJ reviews the Chevy Malibu

At least they are reviewing a car that their readership might consider buying.  The bulk of the Journal's readers are ordinary folk who cannot afford $100,000 supercars, but might well afford a Chevy.  They discuss the various levels of plush the car comes in, ranging from $23,000 to $35,000.  Top of the line rates leather seats.  They list all the electronical goodies, heated seats, heated steering wheel, wi-fi.  The bottom of the line comes with a 4-banger 1.5 liter rated at 160 hp, the up scale models have a 2 liter 250 hp turbo engine.  Actually those horsepower rating sound a little bogus to me.  Back in the day, a stock Chevy 283 cubic inch two barrel V8 was advertised at 180 hp.  To rate a 2.0 liter (126 cubic inch)  4 cylinder engine at 200 hp makes me think they are fudging the numbers somehow.  (There are lots of ways to fudge).  They bitch that the top of the line model looks just like the bottom of the line model.  The expect that for spending an extra $12K you would get some bling on the outside of the car to make it look snappier than the stripper.
   They don't mention test driving it, handling ability, how well the antiskid handles a fresh fall of snow, how much you can get into the trunk, gas mileage, how well the suspension soaks up a New Hampshire pot hole, and a bunch of other stuff that the car mags used to tell us. 

After action reports

I didn't watch the Republican debate last night.  I been seeing plenty of instant replays on TV today.  Lotta shouting and name calling.  Some new dirt dumped on stage.  I never heard about the Trump University thing before.  Nor about Trump hiring illegal aliens.  I suppose there is something in them, but I won't get very excited about this until I see or hear a reasonably impartial account from a third party.  Trump's opponents ought to bore in on Trump's tax returns. They are real, the returns must exist somewhere, and I'll bet they have some juicy damaging deductions in them somewhere. 
   The instant replays never show anyone saying anything of substance, like what they would do if elected.  Nothing about how to create jobs, how to stop ISIS, nothing clear about Obamacare except they are agin it.  Do they want to just drop it completely and go back to where we were before Obamacare was passed?  That wasn't all that bad.  Do they want do do anything to reduce the scandalous cost of US healthcare?
   Far as I can see from the instant replays they just spent the evening yelling at each other.  Will this have any effect on Super Tuesday?

Cannon Mountain Ski Weather

Cannon got two inches of new snow last night.  Big drop in temp from yesterday, which was up to 50 F and rained hard all day.  It chilled down over night, switched over to snow, and froze my front door shut.  So I had to eyeball the new snow depth rather than measure it with a yardstick. 

Helmuth Norpoth, Stony Brook Professor, predicts Trump will beat Hilliary or Sanders.

Drudge Report carried the story here.  Since my objection to The Donald comes from my fear that Trump would loose to Hilliary, this is good news.  Cause it looks like we are nominating The Donald. 

I'm debated out.

They are gonna have yet another presidential debate tonight.  I'm not gonna bother to watch it.  All they talk about is how bad the competition is.  I've heard all I need to hear on that subject.  Plus I don't believe most of the trash talk.
   They never make campaign promises, you know glowing prophesies of the bright new future should they be elected.  Not that I believe in campaign promises all that much, but at least they are an attempt to give the voters a reason to vote for them.  Nowadays they don't seem to bother. 
  I want to hear what each candidate would do to create American jobs.  And get the economy to grow at 3.5% per year rather than Obama's 0.7% last quarter.  What taxes would they lower, and by how much? What burdensome Washington red tape would they slash?  What projects (roadbuilding, canal building, NASA trips to Mars, high speed choo-choo trains, more drug treatment beds, etc) would they push?
   How will they counter Putin's aggression in Ukraine?  Economic aid to Ukraine?  Stinger anti aircraft missiles? A USAF enforced no fly zone?  US Army troops in divisional strength?  Same question about Syria, what exactly would they do in Syria?
   How green are they?  Spend money on wind and solar green?  Or lease federal land for fracking?  Or lease Arctic National Wildlife Reservation (ANWR) to conventional oil drilling?  The greenies used to complain about leasing in ANWR nightly, I haven't heard that lately.  Me, I like gasoline and furnace oil for under $2 a gallon.
  

We put them in Gitmo to prevent judges from turning 'em loose

"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States or any place subject to their jurisdiction."
Thirteenth Amendment, passed in 1865 as part of the conclusion of the Civil War.
   The inmates of Gitmo are not criminals, they are enemy soldiers, captured upon the battlefields of Afghanistan.  They have not been duly convicted of anything. An overpaid army of lawyers, working their cases since 2001, has been unable to convince an American court or court-martial to convict them.  Under American law bearing arms against the United States is not a crime. 
  And under the 13th Amendment, if they ain't convicted, we cannot hold them in jail.
  The Bush Administration understood this, and decided to put these people in Gitmo, in the hopes that being off shore, US judges would be less likely to order the prisoners released. 
   And today, Obama engaging in some favorite magical thinking,  wants to close Gitmo and transfer the remaining inmates to somewhere inside the US. 
   He is gonna encounter a good deal of resistance.

" The US Economy is in Good Shape"?

Oh Really?  Thus sayeth a Wall St Journal Op-Ed.  By Martin Feldstein.  I've heard of him, although I cannot place him just sitting there.  The WSJ  calls  him Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Reagan.  That sounds good, he has been around for a good long while and he worked in a rational Republican administration.  It goes on to call him a professor at Harvard University.  Uh-oh, downcheck, he hangs out with Harvard lefties. 
   Martin starts off by cherry picking the good economic stats, and doesn't say anything about GNP growth of a measly 0.7% last quarter.  He gives a glass half full summary. 
   If this economy is in such good shape why did youngest son have to go all the way to North Dakota to find work?

TV newsies calling Trump the nominee

I'll grant that The Donald is looking strong.  But he only has 67 delegates, out of 1200 and change needed to clinch the nomination.  I think we have a few more primaries to go before we declare a winner.

Another favorite store goes down hill

The Good Will Store on old US Rte 1 used to have a lot of decent used clothes.  I used to hit the place every month or so and score some nice shirts and slacks.  You could go down the row of men's shirts and just feel them, the one with a good feel you took out of the rack and inspected.  I'd find a first class maker's tag, L.L. Bean or Hathaway, or suchlike, on a nice shirt.
  Not anymore.  I stopped in yesterday, and huge row of men's shirts were all plain white or plain blue uniform shirts, the sort of thing McDonald's issues to their help.  And I wouldn't wear anyplace.  And the small kitchen appliances are gone and the stereo components are gone.  My home stereo, speakers and all, cam from that store in years past. 
   I probably won't stop there again. 

Marketing fail: Testor's DullCote

DullCote is a clear matte spray finish.  Testors has been selling the stuff to model makers, like me, since forever, at least 50 years that I can think of.  Well known brand name.  I stopped at the biggest hobby shop in Boston, Charles Ro, and bought a can of it.  Surprise.  The new labels that someone in marketing dreamed up, no longer have the DullCote name, instead the label calls itself Clear Lacquer in both English and Spanish.  I wasn't sure if I had the right stuff.  Only after turning the can over and over and upside down did I find a small sticky label that said " DullCote". 
   Probably the same marketeers who have decided not to put the maker's name onto new automobiles.

So does anyone have the right to keep secrets?

Uncle is leaning on Apple  to crack a smartphone used by the San Bernardino killers.  Apple is refusing, saying that once they do, it will crack encryption on all Apple smart phones. 
The Apply phone is probably crackable.  Like Windows, Apple must need to patch the code in the phones.  Once you allow the phone to patch itself, change the code inside it, all bets are off, you can load code to do anything you want.  But, Apple is probably the only one who can pull this off.  They have the programmers who wrote the code, they have the source code, they have development stations that allow a programmer to single step thru the code and watch what it is doing.   Without this information and equipment, nobody outside of Apple has a snowball's chance in Hell of pulling it off. 
   Apple clearly fears that if they crack this phone, they will be on the hook to crack any phone in the future, and their customers, knowing that Uncle can snoop their Apple smart phone, will go to a more secure smart phone. Samsung for example.
   I like the idea of being able to keep secrets.  Fourth Amendment, unreasonable search and seizure.  Fifth Amendment, protection against self incrimination.  Uncle has so many ways of snooping that I like the idea of some limitations.  In this case, appalling as it is, I kinda doubt that the cell phone in question will tell investigators much, if anything, if it gets cracked.   NSA already has all the phone numbers that the San Bernadino killers called with thqt phone, and they can jolly well get agents out to interview every one of 'em.

Einstein and gravity waves.

Gravity waves are not new, Einstein predicted their existance a hundred years ago.  My sophmore physics course (50 years ago) covered them. 
   Gravity is a very weak force compared to the electromagnetic force or the strong nuclear force.  Which makes gravitational waves hard to detect.  Indeed, the detectors only managed to detect the most violent event imaginable, the collision of two black holes. 
   The unscientific newsies have failed to report on a bunch of interesting questions.  Such as how do you figure the distance of the gravity wave source?  It's been reported that the two colliding black holes are billions of light years away.  I wonder how they figure that? 
  What is the signal to noise ratio from the detectors?  Detectors of anything, including gravity wave detectors, tend to output low level random noise all the time.  Signals have to be stronger than the noise to be detected.  How much stronger than the noise was this event?  What causes the noise and could it be reduced in an advanced detector somehow? 
  Do gravity waves propagate at the speed of light?  We all kind of assume that they do, but it would be nice to have some measurements to confirm our ideas. 

Living Constitution, fancy words for judicial tyranny

Advocates for a "living Constitution" say that things have changed since the Constitution was adopted way back in 1789 and that judges [usually the Supremes] should change the way the Constitution works "in order to bring things up to date".  The appeal to the courts is a way of side stepping the democratic requirement that laws are only made or changed by the duly elected legislature.  It's easier to sell your changes to 5 out of 4 unelected lawyers possessed of lifetime tenure than it is to sell them to the much larger legislature all of whom needs to stand for reelection in the near future.
   The proper way to change the law in a democracy is to have the votes to pass your changes into law in the elected legislature.  Many will complain that this is just too difficult, which is another way of saying that they don't have the votes for their pet programs.  The Constitution allows for amendments.  We have made twenty seven amendments since 1789, the most recent in 1992.  It can be done, but the Constitution calls for super majorities in both houses of Congress and among all the states.  Amendments only happen with widespread political support.  
   The late Justice Scalia was opposed to the notion of a "living Constitution". He preferred to call it the enduring Constitution.  I'm with Justice Scalia in this. 
   Obama wants a "living Constitution" person to replace Justice Scalia. 

Stuart Weitzman: Wonder what he is selling?

Saturday was heavy WSJ day.  They pack a 184 page 10 by 12 inch slick paper fashion magazine inside the paper.  Makes for very solid feeling newspaper.
   Not that I am deeply into woman's fashions, but I like to look a pictures of pretty girls as much as anyone.  So I'm thumbing thru it and come to an arresting full page ad by Stuart Weitzman.  Three very slender, pretty models standing in front of the camera, completely naked except for high heeled shoes, the kind with big clunky heels, hugging each other.  If it had been in color it would have been porn, but a nicely lit black and white is arty.
   It did get my attention.  On the other hand, I am still wondering what Stuart Weitzman is selling.  Normal fashion ads have the models  wearing the product they are selling.  These models weren't wearing anything except clunky shoes, and somehow I didn't think that was the product.  Two following full page spreads with the same models only one of which was wearing an outfit that a girl might appear in public wearing.  The rest of them were in underwear.   Perhaps Stuart Weitzman is a modeling agency? 

Mclaughlin Shouting Hour debates drafting women

They spent 15 minutes of the 30 minute show discussing this one.  To be technical about it, they were discussing requiring women to register for the draft, the way men are required to do.  All the obvious arguments pro and con were advanced. 
  Actually, Nixon ended the draft back some 40 odd years ago.  Because the government can never shut anything down, they left the requirement for men to register, just to give Selective Service something to do and avoid massive layoffs of bureaucrats.
   Nobody really expects to start up the draft again.  The all volunteer army seems to attract enough recruits to fight things like the Iraq war.  Nobody expects to do a World War III with 10 million men under arms.  So to my way of thinking  we might as well drop the requirement for men to register for the draft and then we have full sexual equality about the draft.
  I remember going back to my old high school for alumni day many years ago.  I ran into a few students all hot and bothered about the requirement to register for the draft.  This might have been sometime in the 1980's.  I laughed at them.  I told them when I was a senior there  we had a real draft and we wound up carrying M-16's thru the rice paddies of south east Asia. I went and my two brothers went.  All these kids had to do was fill out some paperwork. 

We miss Justice Scalia

And God help the United States if Obama nominates his successor. 

Maggie Hassan on the Sunday Pundits show

Maggie Hassan, incumbent NH governor, and candidate for US Senate.  WMUR's "Closeup" show with Josh McElvane gave her 15 minutes of pretty much un interrupted air time.  This is fairly important coverage in NH, WMUR being the only real New Hampshire TV channel. 
   And, in fifteen minutes of happy talk, Maggie managed to say exactly nothing.  Pols must go to school somewhere to learn all the happy talk words that mean nothing, don't commit them to anything, but sound good.  Maggie used them all, and gave no hint as to what she might do in the future, what she wants to accomplish either as out going governor or newly elected senator. 

Where is George Orwell when we need him?

Actually Orwell has been dead since 1950, but we need him back.  In Orwell's time Communism was a virulent ideology spreading world wide and fast.  Communism was so compelling as to cause people to risk their lives spying for the Soviet Union.  The Rosenbergs were caught passing secrets of the Manhattan project to the Soviets and were executed for it. 
   Orwell's Animal Farm and 1984 did more to kill off Communism as any other event during the Cold War.  The two novels spelled out the evil at the heart of communism in simple terms clear to the average reader.  Anyone who read either book could never be a true believer in Communism ever again.
   Today we are afflicted with two dangerous ideologies.  Communism, which I had thought really dead since 1989, is making a come back in the US.  The Bern is preaching communism.  He calls it "democratic socialism" but it's Communism.  And ISIS and company is preaching a horrible fanaticism that leads people to massacre  innocent bystanders, Christians, Kurds, Yazidi's, anyone not a Shia Muslim.
  We need another Orwell to point out the evil at the heart of both these dangerous and horrible ideologies.  

Who should vote in the NH Primary?

Howzabout limiting participation to real New Hampshire citizens?  Let's not allow busloads of out of staters showing up on election day to vote.  Out of state college students should not get to vote in New Hampshire, they can jolly well vote by absentee ballot in their home states. 
  And for that matter, the primary is how the parties choose who the party will support with money, publicity, and workers.  Primary voters should be party members.  If a voter cannot bring him/her self to simply declare their party affiliation when they register to vote, then they should not get to vote in party primaries.  It's not like the parties ask members to do anything, like contribute money, attend party meetings, post yard signs.  They just ask the voter to express an interest in the party, verbally.  I'm thinking that voters who cannot say "I am a Republican" or " I am a Democrat" are so turned off by American party politics that they should mot be allowed to mess up candidate selection by voting in the primary. 
   Speaking of which, NH voters should be required to register, in person, at town hall BEFORE election day.  Voters so unmotivated as to not get down to town hall and register at least a week before election day, are too lackadaisical to cast intelligent votes.  And requiring registration in advance will make it harder for out of state shills to vote, they will have to come up twice, once to register and once to vote.  To register the voter needs to show a NH driver's license, out of state licenses make him an out of stater.  And they need to show a real NH address, an apartment or a house, college dorms are temporary and don't count.  

The Bern and Hillary debate

I turned it on at 9 PM.  First question was to The Bern.  "The Federal government takes up 21% of GNP right now.  How much will it take under a Sanders administration?"  Not a bad question.  The Bern refused to answer it, instead he went off on has rant about income inequality and a rigged economy.  I went to bed.

Cannon Mountain Ski Weather

We got two inches of snow this morning.  Better than nothing, but still pretty measly.  It's cold, 20 F.

Cyber Security for ordinary businesses

In this day and age, every thing your company does is on the company computers somewhere.  Email is forever.  First off, you need to identify the things that you need to keep secret from hackers and competitors.  Start with personnel records.  Those must be secret to keep competitors from pirating your best people.  Pay and salary is particularly sensitive because when that gets out, everyone in your company gets bad feelings about everyone who make more than they do.  And it points headhunters toward your less well paid people.  Production information; mechanical drawings, electrical schematics, parts lists, software source code, test procedures, recipes and formulas.  With this stuff someone can set up to make your product and compete with you.  That's legal in places like China.  At the very least they can make a good guess at your cost of production.  Sales and marketing; your customer lists and customer contact information.  If the competition gets to your customers and wins them over, you are hurting.  Email; there is bound to be damaging information in someone's email.
    To keep the hackers out, first consider keeping stuff OFF the hard drives.  Back it up to CD-ROM and keep the CD's in a locked room.  There is a lot of old stuff on hard drive that you don't use today, but could do a lot of damage in the wrong hands.  If the stuff is really valuable, now is the time to establish an off site backup location.
    Set up a secure network.  This is a small number of computers, kept in locked rooms,  and NOT connected to the general company network or the public internet, or the public phone network.  By not connected we means NO wires or wireless connections to anywhere.  Don't rely on "firewalls", some of them have caught fire in the past.  Snip off the wires going to the USB sockets to prevent Flash drive virus invasion.  Remove all floppy drives to prevent invasion by merely inserting a boot floppy in the "A:" drive. Keep all your sensitive stuff on the secure network.  When you do Engineering Change Orders, pull the master drawing off the secure network, give it to the engineer, and have him return the updated version to the secure network.
   Now we come to training your personnel.  Start with email.  Make sure everyone understands that email lasts forever, and will be used against you in court, and by hackers.  Tell them to never put anything in email that they would not post on the bulletin board at the local super market.  If the matter is sensitive, handle it face to face or over the phone.  And delete old emails after 30 days.
   You want to run an anti virus scan once a week on every computer in the company.  Virii can do the damnedest things, just ask the Iranians about Stuxnet.  Commercial virus scan programs are pretty good, and they get better every week.  Keep your anti virus updated.  Even if you have a deal that permits IT to run the virus scans remotely, you still want everyone to understand how important they are.
   All your creative people want to keep their stuff on their machines, just in case.  Encourage them to encrypt it, and/or back it up to CD and keep it  in a locked drawer.  And make sure the latest version is stored on the secure network as well as on their private hard drives. 
   Consider getting rid of Windows company wide.  It can be done.  Linux works, and isn't too difficult for your people to learn.  Windows is totally, but totally, insecure.  Anything stored on a Windows computer is vulnerable to small children, let alone adult hackers.

Words of the Weasel : Establishment

We have a Republican establishment, and a Democratic establishment.  Up until very lately, the establishment was the parties elected officials, and appointed office holders, people whose day jobs were politics or politicking.   
   Lately, fringe groups in either party have been using "establishment" as an epithet for people who don't share their politics.  This may be true, the establishment is concerned with getting re-elected, making deals, and as a rule is much less ideological than the fringe groups.
   But we are always going to have an establishment, meaning the office holding political professionals.  Get used to it, someone has to do it.  And most of these people are trying to get something done, and they all learn that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.