Over The Air TV

Gotta have something on the TV.  While my TV cable was still broken, I hooked up my roof antenna to the big Sony flatscreen TV. That antenna is pretty beat up, a lot of fingers have broken off over the years.  . They were still broadcasting analog TV when I put that antenna up on the roof, and that was a long time ago.  Beat up as it is, it still gets enough signal to run my FM radio.  And it gets enough signal to provide 17 digital and 2 analog channels for the Sony TV to tune in.  Hurrah.  Both of the analog channels are WMUR, the NH TV station (ABC) which at least has some local news and weather. The digital channels are all high def which gives lovely video, at least if you like watching Thomas the Tank Engine, Sesame St, the View, Jeopardy, and some other  loser programming.  No Fox News, no Sci-Fi channel, no CNN.  Arggh.  I want my cable TV back. 

Celery Phones

  What with my land line broken in two,  I used my celery phone to call the power company.  That didn't work.  I dialed, got thru to the faraway call center, and listened to their auto answer machine.  It got around to saying " Press ONE to report a power outage." Tough luck, my celery phone (Lucky Goldstar 305C) won't do that.  Soon as it connects, the number keypad goes away.  Without that keypad, there is no way to press ONE, or any other number for that matter.  PITA.  I had to drive down to Mac's Market in the ville to call in my power outage.  I even dug up the celery phone instruction booklet off my laptop and read it thru.  When all else fails read the instructions. No luck.  Not a word about dial ONE or dialing an extension, or dialing anything at all after the celery phone places a call. 

Back on Line!! Hurrah!

Back on the air, at last!  Took long enough.  We had a really serious windstorm go thru here Sunday night, October 28.  At 2 AM a crash and a flash woke me up.  Lights were out on the bedside clock radio.  Since it was pitch dark, blowing hard and raining hard, I decided to stay in bed and go back to sleep. Whatever it was could wait for daylight. 
  Well, daylight came, and showed the wind had blown down two power poles, the ones that feed juiice to all of Mittersill.  The pole right behind my house  went over and pulled my service entrance clean off the back of the house, and snapped my telephone line clean in half, and broke my cable TV coax. The wired society had struck out. 
   It took the power company ( used be PSNH, now they call themselves Eversource) until Tuesday (THREE DAYS!!) to get a crew up here with new poles, and cherry pickers to fix the downed poles.  The pole right behind the house had not gone all the way down;  it just pulled sideways and was leaning at about 60 degrees.  They just pulled that one back up straight.  The other pole had snapped clean off  about 5 feet off the ground.  That one got replaced.  They restrung the electric wires and bingo everybody else's lights came back on.  Not me, I hadn't gotten my service entrance repaired yet.  Power company won't do that, I have to.
  Next day, Wednesday, I got Jim Price, very nice, very competent, licensed electrician from the next town over (Bethlehem) out to repair my service entrance.  He got that done just before dark, and then by the grace of God, the Eversource people came out Thursday morning and hooked me back up the the grid.  Hallelujah, lights came on, furnace started up, fridge started cooling, hot water heater started heating. 
   And, wonder of wonders, the phone company came by later on Friday and spliced my telephone wire.
   Last player, the cable company, Time Warner, who is changing their name to Spectrum, didn't get here until just now.   They ran new coax to the house and spliced it into the main cable on the troublesome pole, and wonderbar, TV and Internet came back. 

General Electric wants out of the locomotive business

Wow.  The diesel locomotive business really got started right after WWII.  All the railroads wanted to replace their steam engines.  This was a huge piece of business.  Between 1945 and 1957 every steam engine in the land was scrapped and replaced with brand new diesels.  The Electro motive division of General Motors got the bulk of this work.  Old line steam engine makers Baldwin and Alco offered  product, and Fairbanks Morse and GE offered product but EMD got all the business.  90% or better of all railroad locomotives were EMD built by 1960.  All the competitors dropped out except GE, who still offered fairly decent product, but wasn't selling much against EMD. 
   Somehow, in the 1980's GE pulled ahead of entrenched EMD and today is the best seller, with EMD just clinging to life.  GE did some $4.7 billion worth of diesel locomotive business last year.  A handsome chunk of change, even compared to GE's other businesses (jet engines, heavy electrical equipment) which brought in close to $100 billion. 
   For some reason the new guy at GE, the one who sold off the GE corporate jet fleet,  wants to get rid of the locomotive business.  No reason given.   That's some 10000 employees.  The Wall St Journal had a picture of the locomotive production line,  giant room,  half a dozen big locomotives under construction. 
   Some business writer ought to do a book on how GE managed to take to diesel market away from EMD back in the 1980's.  There ought to be some good stuff in there.  Was it GE's AC powered locomotives that had greater tractive effort (pulled harder) and cost more?   Was it sloppiness over at EMD?  something else? 
  I wonder why GE now wants out of the locomotive business.

Tempest in Teapot

"Don't Trust the Chinese to make Microchips for the Military"  Headline to a Wall St Journal op-ed yesterday.  The writer, Dan Nidest, clearly lacks experience in the design of military electronics.  Whereas it used to be my day job. 
   US procurement regulations require that all the semiconductors in a military gadget be "Mil-Spec" semiconductors.  Which cost ten times as much as commercial devices, and are of marginal quality.  The Mil Spec thing got started back in vacuum tube days.  The military knew that tubes with extra thick filaments would last longer than standard commercial tubes.  And they bought such tubes, for a premium price.  Trouble is, there is no way to inspect the insides of a glass vacuum tube without ruining it.  And so unscrupulous vendors put mil spec markings on ordinary commercial tubes and sold them to the military.  And so, the military demanded that mil spec tubes only be manufactured on special production lines, under inspection by government agents. 
   This quaint custom carried over to semiconductors when they came into service in the 1960's. 
   So, false alarm.  All semiconducters used in military electronics are made in the US of A.  Not to worry.

Dawn over Marblehead (Wall St) Finally.

Price of Puerto Rican bonds is finally dropping into the toilet.   About time.  Early in 2015 a Puerto Rican bond was selling on the street for 95 cents on the dollar.   This price drifted down gradually thru out 2015, 2016, and most of 2017.  It had reached 65 cents on the dollar by this summer.  Only this fall did the price dive down to 30 cents on the dollar. 
   In actual fact, Puerto Rico doesn't have the money to pay off a nickel of the $93 billion that Wall St bankers were stupid enough to loan them over the years.  It's been obvious for twenty years that Puerto Rico didn't have, and could not get, the money to pay off any of its loans.  And yet,  those clever Wall St banks kept loaning Puerto Rico more money.  And trading Puerto Rican securities and bonds back and forth among themselves as if these securities were actually worth something.   They aren't.
   The amazing thing.  The Wall St bankers only figured things out in the last few weeks.  You gotta wonder where these people went to school. 
 

OK, so Corker and Flake are bailing out

Two US republican senators announce they will not run for re election in 2018.  They are no friends of Donald Trump, but up until now have been more loyal and useful Republicans than John McCain, Susan Collins, or Rand Paul.   
   They both come from reasonably Republican districts, which may elect Republican replacements.  On the other hand, incumbents usually have better odds of winning the election than  challengers.
   Granted, Trump and his friends will have a more tractable Congress if Corker and Flake are replaced by Republicans.  If they are replaced by democrats, life will be harder for the administration.   The Republican control of the Senate rests on a mere two seats. 
  Note to Steve Bannion.  You would do the party more good by attacking democrats, rather than Republicans. 

Opioid Crisis Some more bad stuff

Article in a local paper said that opioid prescriptions were down, from about 90% of patients in 2014 to maybe 70% in 2016.   The article didn't bother to explain the percent numbers (typical of newsies who are totally innumerate).  I'm guessing that it is the number of opioid prescriptions written over the total number of patients.  Any one please feel free to correct me on this. 
   If this is progress we are doomed. 
   I take my self to the doctor today.  I used to bring all three children to the doctor along with my wife.  For 50 years, 200-300 doctor appointments at least.  Never did I or any of my family receive a prescription for opioids.    That's an opioid prescription rate of 0 for me and my family. 
   To hear that an opioid prescription rate of 70% is an improvement is ridiculous. 
   I can believe that there are some people with real pain problems for whom opioids are indicated.  I cannot believe that 70%  of people have real pain problems. 
   I am aware that most of the overdose deaths are caused by heroin and fentanyl , both of which are illegal.  I'd like to know how many of these overdose cases got started with prescription opioids.  I have never seen any numbers on this.  But if 70% of patients are started on opioids,  you gotta believe that a lot of 'em move over to cheaper (but more dangerous) street drugs.

Whither the EU?

Just as it looked like the EU was coming together, the Brits pull out.  Britain is the number 2 EU country, just behind Germany and ahead of France in terms of GNP, population, diplomatic effectiveness, American connections, lotta things.  To have your Number 2 member pull out has gotta be disheartening for the advocates of European unity. 
   And we may have further breakups in the works.  Catalonia, an important Spanish province, has voted in a referendum to succeed from Spain.  There has been some pushback by the government of Spain, and some stories about how turnout for the referendum was very light, say 20%.  If that's true, it says that only the hard core Catalans came out to vote.  And, if the Catalans succeed, the Basque region will be right behind.  And the Scots and the Welsh are making noises about pulling out of the United Kingdom (Britain).  That's four small provinces making succession noises.  Although I don't remember hearing anyone from these proto-mini-nations talk about joining the EU, it's a good bet that some, maybe all of 'em will apply for EU membership after they make their succession good. 
   The EU got started right after WWII.  The European survivors of that disaster wanted to prevent WWIII by welding Europe together into a single country.  The Americans were all in favor for that reason and to present a united front against Russian Communism.  It started small with a trade deal called the European Coal and Steel Community.  I don't remember, perhaps never knew, just what kind of a deal this was, but it worked.  Sometime in the 1960's the Common Market was declared.  Initially the Common Market had a mere six members, and Britain was not one of them.  In fact the Brits put together a trade block of their own, which lasted for some years.  Eventually the Brits, and their trade block joined the EU.  Then the Soviets collapsed and all the Warsaw pact satellites rushed to sign up with the EU as a defense against Soviet revanchism.  Then the big step, the Europeans launched a successful European currency, the Euro and that worked. 
   But, the EU never was able to pull together like the American United States did.  The EU members never surrendered control of their armed forces, or their diplomatic corps to the central EU government.  The American founding documents, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution talk about base principles ( all men are created equal) and distribution of political power (executive, legislative, judicial).  The EU founding treaties are silent on most of the issues Americans find fundamental, and have a lot of happy talk about all the bennies EU citizens are entitled to, free healthcare, universal education, and the like, but don't divvy up the political power the way the Americans did.  The American states yielded up serious and important powers (rights to have their own armed forces, right to operate their own foreign policy, and a lot of other heavy duty stuff to the new federal government.  The European states didn't yield up an ounce of their sovereignty to Brussels.
   Where to next?  Will the rest of the EU hang together?  Or will more members follow the British lead and bail out?  Will the US offer Britain membership in NAFTA?  What about other EU refugee countries?  Stay tuned for future developments. 

Driving down to a Boston Train Show

It was a lovely day, dry, warm, sunny.  Leaves are a bit past peak in Franconia Notch, but are at peak down south.  I93 was in good shape except the widening project south of Manchester hasn't gotten anywhere since I was thru there last.  More NH infrastructure money spent with out improving the road at all. 
   The North Shore Model Railroad Club of Wakefield MA, of which I used to be a member until I retired to NH, put on the show.  They had the swap meet at the Wakefield Americal Hall, across the street from the club layout.  The vendors had a lot of rolling stock and some structures, no tools or parts.  A fair number of steam engines that could serve as project locomotives, except I have two such project locomotive in my shop awaiting work.  The crowd was mostly older guys, a few very small children who were entranced, no kids old enough to be into electric trains on their own.  The hobby is not recruiting new hobbyists to replace the older guys who are dying off.  The North Shore club had three member who I had known die just this fall. 
  The club layout is down stairs from Brother's restaurant on Main St.  The layout is 90 feet long.  The newest and last section toward the back is largely done.  Benchwork is in, track is laid, trains run.  Scenery is coming along nicely.  The old core of the club was still there, still guiding the work.  This layout was large enough to make a cover story of Model Railroader back in 1985, and it's bigger now. 
   Anyhow a nice day.

Something must be happening that isn't Donald Trump

All the TV newsies talk about these days is Donald Trump.  Nothing else is covered.  Not even the stock market.  Surely there is something significant happening somewhere in the world that isn't about Donald Trump.  But we will never know.  Unless we do some web surfing. 

Oh Say Can You See

Small patriotic ritual, performed before sporting events.  Americans are expected to stand and place their hand over their heart as the national anthem is played.  It's a symbol of respect for the flag, and the Republic for which it stands, to borrow a line from the pledge of allegiance.  And it's a sign of unity.  Anyone who fails to participate is saying they don't like the flag, they don't like the country, and they don't like other other Americans. 
   No beef with anyone or anything justifies failing to stand for the national anthem.   I don't like it, and a whole big bunch of my fellow Americans don't like it.  It may be legal. but we don't have to like it.  And we don't accept any excuses for failing to stand.  

The Microsoft Computer scammer calls again

This guy pretends to be from Microsoft, and wants to fix your computer.  The first time he called (maybe a year ago) I played along until he tried to get me to upload a piece of malware onto Trusty Desktop.  I used some salty service language on him and hung up.  Since then he has called back about once a month, giving me another opportunity to insult him. 
   Anyhow, if you get a call from someone who says he is from Microsoft, he is trying to plant a virus on your computer.  The real Microsoft never calls anyone. 

Print is up, E-books are down

According to the Wall St Journal, sales of printed books are up 5% this year whereas sales of e-books are down 17%.  The Journal gave no reasons.  Wow! 
   The electronic wave of the future stopped cold by Gutenberg's printing press from the 1400's.  
    I'm in favor, I like reading a printed book better than I like fussing with a laptop to read an e-book.  I only mess with e-books to read old favorites no longer in print.  Old Edgar Rice Burroughs, old E.E. Smith,  old Andre Norton for example.  The laptop is bulky but it has a decent screen, the special e-book readers are micro screen devices which don't excite me much.   Even the idea of having the Library of Congress packed into a hand held device doesn't really excite me.  Apparently the market agrees. 

   

Leaf Season in Franconia Notch

Does Weinstein affair account for poor Hollywood movies?

No doubt about it, Hollywood is making fewer movies, many of them are comic book movies, and box office has been terrible this season.  And then we have Harvey Weinstein, allegedly a top man in Hollywood.  Maybe he doesn't pay enough attention to making decent movies, and wastes too much time harassing and raping actresses?  If Harvey is typical of Hollywood management, no wonder the movies are lacking. 

Cost Sharing Payments

President Trump has raised yet another firestorm from the Democrats.  He has decided to stop "Cost Sharing Payments" to the health insurance industry.  This is in accordance with a federal court decision calling the payments illegal, because Congress never appropriated the money for them.  Plus the concept of my tax money going to private insurance companies boggles my mind.
    Democrats claim these payoffs are necessary to keep Obamacare insurance premiums from going even higher than they have.  To which one might ask why they haven't appropriated the money.  And why the money should go to insurance companies, rather than to patients. 
   The Democratic whining over "Cost Sharing Payments" has drowned out Trump's other Obamacare reform, announced the day before, allowing sale of economical insurance policies, instead of the "covers everything under the sun" Obamacare policies.  The medical industry loves the Obamacare policies, they pay for everything, whether it does any good or not.  Patients don't complain about cost, 'cause it's all paid for.  Used to be you could buy "covers everything" policies for $12000 a year.  They cover routine physicals, the wife and kiddies, prescription drugs, out patient treatments, chiropracty , drug rehab, maternity, mental health, and all the cat scans, ultrasounds and MRI's the patient can stand.  This was the usually deal for employer provided health care. 
   But, they was another option, one that paid for the big stuff that nobody has the money for, and let the patient cover the little stuff out of pocket.  This coverage could be had (before Obamacare outlawed it) for $3000.  If you were in reasonably good health (most of us are) you could save $9000 a year by going with "big stuff only" or "hospitalization only" policies.  The $9000 difference was more than enough for yearly physicals, out patient treatments, pills and plasters, just about anything.  I used to go this way until Obamacare outlawed such policies, and I became eligible for Medicare.   My doctor never approved, he wanted me to get an MRI, I asked what it would cost, he didn't know, it took months to finally get someone to quote me a price ($ Many Thou)  at which point to matter was quietly dropped. 
   Trump is going to allow writing policies that only cover what the patient wants to pay for, rather than cover everything under the sun policies, which are outrageously expensive.   Good deal. 

Republicans don't really control the federal government

So what is a Republican?  Really.   A real Republican votes for measures (Obamacare repeal!) important to the party.  There is a shortage of real Republicans in DC these days.  We have a lot of RINOs, who call themselves Republican but believe in Democrat policies like tax and spend.  They actually like robbing their constituents of  as much tax as they can get away with, and then using their ill gotten proceeds to buy votes in their districts with pork barrel spending.  And we have a lot of just plain weirdos, like John McCain and Rand Paul and Susan Collins who stick it to the party every time they can, just because they can.  And we have the "House Freedom Caucus", a bunch of "Republicans" from safe districts, who will bolt the party at the drop of a hat, for any reason at all, or no reason.
   As we have seen on Obamacare repeal, these people cannot be depended upon to vote for crucial bills.  In the Senate the Republicans have only 52 members and four or five of them are undependable weirdos.  Things are a little better in the house, but not much. 
   Rather than saying  "The Republicans control the government."  it would be more realistic to say, "The weirdos have enough votes to stop anything."

Girl and Boy Scouts of America??

Just heard about this on the TV.  Apparently the Boy Scouts have announced that all ranks of scouting are now open to girls as well as boys.  The Girl Scouts of America have objected to what they see as a grab for their membership.  Actually, a co-ed scouting program sounds like a good idea in many ways.  Maybe the leadership of both the Boy and Girl Scouts can get together on this.  Or maybe not.   Stay tuned.  

Forgiving Debt would Hurt Puerto Rico ??

Headline of an op ed in today's Wall St Journal.  Author is a John Tamny,  director of Center for Economic Freedom at Freedomworks, editor of RealClearMarkets, and author of "Popular Economics".  He has some credentials, although the name is new to me.  His arguments make little sense to me, even after re reading the piece several times.  He says "By erasing Puerto Rico's debt, Mr. Trump would be handing the territory's political class more money to spend inefficiently."  Let's be real here.  Fixing up after Hurricane Maria needs lots and lots of money.  Puerto Rico doesn't have any money at all.  There are only two ways for Puerto Rico to get the needed money, borrowing it, or getting it as a free gift from mainland taxpayers.   Lenders are scarce on the ground.  It's obvious to real people (but perhaps not to dumb as rocks Wall St bankers) that Puerto Rico doesn't have the money to ever pay off the $93 billion in debt they have already racked up.  Those lenders won't get paid back, not ever.  New loans won't get paid back either.  Lending to Puerto Rico is just plain charity, loans that won't get paid off are charity, not banking. 
   The other source of money to fix up the hurricane damage is for the US Congress to appropriate the money out of  federal tax revenue, or by selling some more T-bills, or both.  This is charity, and there is a decent chance that the Congress will feel charitable and will cough up the money, especially if the MSM and the Democrats get on board with the idea.
   The concept of "forgiving" Puerto Rico's debts is just psycho-babble.  They don't have the money, they will never have the money, and the lenders are never gonna get paid.  For that matter Puerto Rico declared bankruptcy a couple of months ago,  which means they won't pay anyhow, even if they had the money, which they don't. 

Decertifying the Iran Deal?

TV newsies have been talking about it.  But they say "decertifying" isn't like canceling the deal.  If so, why do we care?  It may be a way of expressing disapproval of the deal, but if it doesn't do anything, why does it matter? 

US Immigration reform

The TV tells me that the Trump administration has laid some 70 changes to current immigration law on Congress today.  Of course the TV newsies don't bother to list just what these changes might be.  They did manage to say that the Democrats oppose them, no reasons given. 
   For myself,  I like the idea of a DACA program.  People who were brought into the US as children, who have stayed out of trouble with the law, graduated high school or college, who have served in the armed forces, who are gainfully employed, and who want to stay in the US, sound like good and decent citizens to me, and more good and decent citizens make America stronger.  We need all the good and decent citizens w can get.
   I think anyone who served in the armed forces and received an honorable discharge ought to be offered citizenship if they lack it.  For that matter foreign nationals who worked with US forces as interpreters ought to be offered citizenship.
   America can take in a lot of immigrants, but there is a limit.  I'd set that limit at 1% of the current population, which is like 3 million immigrants a year.
    Since a lot of people want to come to America, we can be picky about who we let in.  Make a list of desirable characteristics,  young, educated, married, married with children, English speaking, no matter how poorly, parents already in the US, healthy, valuable skills, and many more.  Assign a point value to each desirable characteristic, and we let in the 3 million with the top scores.  Everyone else gets to try again next year.

Un diagnosed mental illness.

That's what one TV commentator said about the Vegas shooter.  And, it's kinda true by default.  We believe anyone who would shoot 500-600 innocent strangers to be mentally ill.  A week of investigation has failed to find (or at least report on TV) any sort of motive, history, or association that would give a motive, or suggest some kind of mental illness.  So, we figure he must have been acting out a horrible mental illness when he opened fire, and no investigator has found any evidence of mental illness before the shooting.  On the other hand, they have reported that he had been buying a lot of guns, legally, for a year before, which surely suggests that what ever it was, it started back when he started buying all the guns. 
   And this is really unusual.  In all the previous awful cases, the shooter had given clear signs of mental illness or some kind of dreadful political fanaticism.  Unfortunately these signs were ignored until it was too late.  In this case alone, we haven't seen any signs of mental illness or political craziness after a week of investigation. 

Smart Phones bad for you

Thus sayeth the Wall St. Journal this morning.  They cite some studies, but do not get down to the nitty gritty such as how large was the sample, how did they measure increase of stupidity of subjects. There were some vague and subjective statements, using the blandest of language. 
   Me, I'm an old fogey, I don't have a smart phone.  I do have a laptop that will do anything a smart phone will, and I pack it along when I travel.  The laptop has a real QWERTY keyboard and a mouse, which the smartphones lack, and I find essential.  I do notice that my smartphone equipped children tend to whip them out during discussions and pop up information to support their points of view. 
  And I an old enough to remember all the things teachers and parents said against television back when it was just coming in.  My buddy Dewey Walsh's family had a 21 inch B&W TV back in the late 1940's.  I do remember watching Howdy Doody and Hopalong Cassidy on it.  My family didn't get a TV until 1956. 
   Could it be the people railing against smartphones are the same sort of people who railed against TV?

There must be something in the water

On Wall St that is.  Something that turns brains to mush.  Only a totally mushed  brain would have loaned $93 billion to Puerto Rico over the years.  It was obvious to anyone that Puerto Rico, a nice place to visit during the New England winter, had no way of ever paying the loans back.  The money was frittered away on salaries and graft, and this and that, it didn't create anything like industries that made money.  Most of  the new loan money went to rolling over old loans.  But Wall St kept on making loans to Puerto Rico.  Must be something in the water.
   And then Puerto Rico, after getting a special act of Congress to allow it, declared bankruptcy last month.  You would think that lower the value of outstanding Puerto Rican loans.  Not on Wall St.  They kept right on trading Puerto Rican bonds at around 90 cents on the dollar, right up to last week.  After Hurricane Maria blew down every electric wire on the whole island and President Trump made an off hand comment that Puerto Rico's loans would have vanish, then finally did Wall St start trading Puerto Rican bonds at 60 cents on the dollar.  Not quite worthless, yet, but a solid hit.  Anyone with two brain cells firing knew that after filing for bankruptcy, Puerto Rico was never going to pay off those bonds.  Which makes them worthless.  But Wall St kept swapping them around at a mere 10 percent discount for weeks.   Must be something in the water.

Let's outlaw Bump Stocks!

I never heard of "bump stocks" until the Las Vegas massacre this week.  And I am a medium savvy gun guy.  Not a total expert, but reasonably knowledgeable.  From what the MSM is telling us (you can believe as much of that as you like) the bump stock is some kind of spring loaded rifle stock that gets an otherwise legal semi automatic AR15 to fire at 700 rounds per minute, machine gun speed.  And the Las Vegas shooter used some.  Apparently the Obama administration ruled bump stocks to be legal a few years ago.
   And the Congress is so happy to find something to ban, that most of us would not object to banning.  They can pass a law, gain some favorable publicity, what's not to like? 
   Depends upon what the letter of the proposed law might be.  Congress critters (mostly dumb as rocks) might vote for language so broad as to outlaw perfectly ordinary shooting accessories like slings, sights, cheek pads, and rests.  I agree that such a law needs to define what it is banning.  Just banning "bump stocks" doesn't work, the makers simply rename the product some thing else, anti recoil stock for example, and go right on selling them.  They gotta come up with words that only ban devices that raise the rate of fire.
 

Gerrymanders, how to detect them, what to do about them.

The term goes way back.  Massachusetts governor Elbridge Gerry, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, vice president of the US under Madison, fairly heavy duty guy for his time, signed off on a Massachusetts redistricting.  One district came out long and thin and looked kinda like a salamander.  Gerry's political enemies, of which he had a decent number, called the district a Gerrymander, designed to make Gerry's party win the next election. The term stuck.
   Today, skillful politicians attempt to draw district boundaries to win elections.  The idea goes like this.  Pack the opponent's voters into a few districts where they form 100% of the vote.   Spread our voters out so they form 51% of the vote in as many districts as possible.   This way we win more districts than the opponents do, which gives us control.
   Wisconsin Democrats have gotten a case to the Supremes claiming the last redistricting by Republicans is unfair to Democrats because the "Efficiency Gap"  exceeds 7%.  What is the "Efficiency Gap" you ask? Good question.  I never heard of it before.  According to the Wall St Journal it is the sum of "wasted" votes from Party X less the  sum of "wasted" votes for party Y over the sum of all votes.  Chief Justice John Roberts wasn't fond of "Efficiency Gap".  He called it sociological gobble-de-gook.
   I could get with rules against weird shaped districts, such as "The longest distance across a district shall not exceed 1.5 times the shortest distance across the district."  I can get with rules requiring all districts to have the same population, give or take 10%.  I could get  with rules against districts formed of several blobs connected by ultra thin connecting strips.   But I don't like the "Efficiency Gap" idea, it sounds like "You have to redistrict until my party wins."      
  

Electric cars

The Chinese are pushing sales of electric cars.  To keep down the traffic in their biggest cities, they conduct license plate lotteries. Out of millions of hopeful car owners, only a few tens of thousands get plates.  Unless it's an electric car, electric cars get plates immediately. And, the Brits and the Euro's are talking about the same thing, everybody drives an electric by 2040.  Yesterday GM and Ford made similar noises over here.  GM has actually made and sold electrics for twenty years now, abet not many of 'em.
  Is this really the wave of the future?
  Not for me.  The best electrics only go 200 miles on a charge, most of 'em are worse, like 100 miles.  I regularly drive 400 miles down to see my daughter, my new grandson, and my son-in-law, who is a perfectly nice and decent guy, but I am a little closer to my daughter than my son-in-law.  My Buick will make the trip on a single tank of gas.  A best electric would have to recharge once, the lesser electrics would have to recharge three times.  Even with a high powered 440 volt charger, it takes two hours to get a charge.  Lesser 220 volt home chargers take all night.  I don't want to spend two hours waiting on a charger, and turning a 10 hour trip into a 12 hour trip.  I'm sticking with 87 octane gas engines. 

Las Vegas Shooting

Just awful.  My sincerest condolences to the victims, their families, and the wounded. 

This Blog is now TEN years old.

Yep, started posting back in October 2006.  For the first years I got no page views at all.  Nowadays I can count on 10-20 pages views a day  Some hot days the page view count hits the hundreds. That doesn't happen all that often, but it feels good when it happens. 
  Any how, thank you all for reading here. 

Hugh Hefner. the Playboy guy

He died the other day.  That got some press coverage.  I first encountered Playboy way in back in high school.  It was boarding school, so parents weren't cleaning up your room and discovering your Playboy stash.  The centerfolds, and other porno shots were cool, but for what the magazine cost, we got darn little good photos, and a load of not very convincing editorial comment.  I learned not to pay attention to Playboy's writings on man's fashion, stylish cars, and art appreciation.  And, it wasn't long before there were other skin mags out there with more juicy photos and less boring editorial comment, and lower prices.  I  don't remember ever buying Playboy with my own money, but I was happy to read, and leer at, Playboys that my buddies had bought. 
   Back then, effective contraceptives hadn't made it to market, and the chicks were very reluctant to have sex with guys, fearing pregnancy.  I am convinced that the arrival of effective contraceptives had far more to do with the sexual revolution than Playboy ever did. 

Cambridgeport librarian trashes Dr. Seuss

I used to live in Cambridgeport, a not-very-tony district of the Peoples Republic of Cambridge, MA.  Owned a triple decker right off Western Ave for years.   The neighbor hood is mostly black, some public housing, and so tough the FBI didn't dare do stakeouts down there.  Last time they tried it, the locals thought they were casing the joint for a robbery and beat the tar out the them.  The natives I knew were mostly decent, hardworking, open hearted folk.
   I'm a fan of Dr. Seuss.  When my children were young, we had a lot of Dr Seuss books, and I read them all aloud, over and over again.  The children loved them.  I found them witty enough to enjoy, time after time. 
   Gotta wonder about that Cambridgeport librarian who trashed a gift of Dr. Seuss books.  Is she a real Cambridgeport native?  Or is she a SJW, imported from the suburbs, with a fancy sounding degree in something like gender studies?  And a dyed in the wool Trump hater?   I cannot imagine a real Cambridgeport native failing to speak well of, and kindly to, the giver of  any sort of gift. even if the giver is of the other political party. 

Tax reform is getting some TV coverage.

I'm ready for it.  I'm tired of the non stop NFL dissing the national anthem talk that has taken up ALL last week. 
  The Democrats are pushing the old line about how any tax change (up down or sidewise) is "for the rich" and thus evil.  The MSM is playing this line for all it's worth, when they aren't talking about the NFL.  Dunno about that.  Doubling the standard deduction is good for the poorer folk.  Carly Fiorina had it right when she said "Close every loophole, lower every rate."  I haven't seen much about loophole closing.
   I heard somewhere on the Web that the NFL is a "non profit" operation and thus pays no taxes.  We ought to fix that. 
   I heard somewhere on the web that a big lot of companies are paying no taxes.  We need to find the loopholes they are using and slam 'em closed. 
   Taking away the loophole for state and local taxes is good.  Coming from a state with no income tax and no sales tax, I don't get diddly out of the state and local deduction. 

Does the GOP have enough party discipline to do tax reform?

They certainly blew it on Obamacare repeal/reform.  Pure backstabbing and infighting killed it.  For instance John McCain killed two Obamacare reform bills this summer.  On the last one he killed, he gave as a reason that the bill had not gone thru some arcane Senate procedures before coming to a vote.  He had no objections to the contents of the bill (at least not spoken ones) he just didn't like the process.  That's childish.  McCain doesn't like Trump (Trump has given him plenty of reason to dislike him) and so he torpedoed a bill essential to the survival of the GOP, just to irritate Trump.
   If you claim to be a member of the Republican party, you ought to support your party, even if the party is going places you don't want to go.  If you just cannot take where your party goes, the honorable thing to do is to resign from the party, not to stab it in the back.  McCain isn't the only offender here.  That "House Freedom Caucus" of some 30 weirdos is just itching for a chance to show their stuff by killing an important bill. 

GE to sell off the corporate jets

New CEO John Flannery , replacing long time GE CEO Jeff Inmelt, is doing some cost cutting.  He shut down  GE's flight operations and is putting the aircraft up for sale. 
   Good move Mr. Flannery.  Corporate jets cost like crazy and your people can get there flying commercial.  I know they are nifty perks for company brass, but the money would be better spend on building new factories, developing new products, and boosting wages and dividends.  A corporate jet costs nearly as much as  a real jetliner, say a 737, and costs nearly as much to fly.  And you gotta keep on paying on the planes and paying the salaries of the flight dept whether they fly or not.  The airlines pay a lot for their planes, but they fly the hell out of them, ten flight hours a day or more.  Corporate jets seldom fly as much as one hour a day. 
   If your company people need to travel, fly commercial, coach is cozy.  Running your own mini airline just costs your company barrels of money for no good reason. 
   Stockholders should take notice if your companies are wasting money running a company mini airline. 

Catfood Quality

My local backwoods market carries 8 or 10 different brands of dry catfood.  Price ranges from $3.50 a bag to $9-10 a bag.  Cat will eat them all, and in fact shows a little more interest in the low end "Alley Cat" $3.50 a bag stuff.  I mix things up, even to the point of occasionally buying the $9-10 stuff.  I worry that the cat food producers may leave some essential-to-cats nutrient out of the mix, causing Cat to curl up and die.  Cat only eats catfood, she won't touch people food or dinner leftovers. 
   Is Cat missing something in her diet?  She is now a senior cat (12yo) so she is slower than she used to be.  She gave up hunting some years ago.  Should I pamper her with expensive catfood?  Or doesn't it make a difference? 

Dissing pro football gets more coverage than Obamacare repeal

Senator John McCain pretty much torpedoed the latest last ditch attempt to repeal Obamacare.  He said he would not support the current effort at repeal.  He said he disapproved of the procedure used to bring it to the floor.  Didn't say a word about the contents.  This will probably cost the Republicans control of Congress in the 2018 by election.   Given majorities in both houses of Congress, and the presidency, the stupid party is unable to get their members to vote out Obamacare.  We voters are noticing.  We will remember in November.
  And then Trump disses some pro football players for remaining seated while the national anthem is sung.  Wow.  TV has been talking about nothing else since.  The NFL and it's commissioner have come out four square for letting the players do what ever they like.   Most of us citizens recognize the player's rights of free speech, but free speech doesn't mean we have like what they say.  We would happily boil those football players in oil for what they have said.  But, this red meat issue, abet low importance issue, has completely overshadowed  the really important issue of repealing Obamacare which is impoverishing every one, and wrecking the economy as a side effect. 

Red Phoenix, Larry Bond

An old action thriller in the Tom Clancy mode, written in 1989.  Describes the outbreak, combat, and outcome of a second Korean war in 1986.  Features pudgy, crazy Kim Jong Il, taking power from his aged father Kim Il Sung, and launching the second Korean war.  A decent read.  And it sounds so much like what is underway today, lacking NORK nukes and ballistic missiles.  Let's hope we can settle today's NORK crisis with out starting up the Korean war again. 

Where does CIA hire these losers from??

Valerie Plame, worked for CIA until she was outed by Robert Novak in a Wash Post column back in 2003.  The resulting furor went far to destablize the Bush administration and resulting in the conviction of "Scooter" Libby on shaky evidence.   That was then.
   Now, many years later, Valerie pops back into public view with some internet postings where in she claims that Jews are responsible for getting America into war, and ought to wear special ID badges when on TV.  In addition to being despicable, this is pure fantasy.  What did this screwball do back when she was working for CIA?  How did CIA ever hire such a weirdo?  She must have contributed to CIA's many intelligence failures in at least a small amount.  
   CIA has needed a serious housecleaning for many years.  Valerie Plame is just one more reason to get on with it. 

NHPR talks about opioid prescribing

It was a long piece on the FM radio this morning.  A lotta talk about how prescribing opioids for pain is humane and proper.  Several doctors spoke at length, guardedly in favor of giving patients enough opioids to kill their pain.  Much of the doctor's talk was baffle gab, nice sounding words that don't mean anything.  Nobody gave any numbers.  No surveys, no comparisons of opioid use now and opioid use in the past. No figures on how many addicts got started with medically prescribed opioids. No discussion of the difference between a dose strong enough to kill pain and a dose strong enough to create addiction.   Assertions that things had been tightened up so much that legitimate patients could no longer get prescriptions, or had the prescriptions filled should they have them.
   I'd rate this as a NHPR editorial supporting prescription of opioids. 

Prisoner of Zenda. Best costume drama.

Turner Classic Movies had this on last night.  An old favorite from 1952.  Rudolf Rassendyll, a British gentleman on vacation, played well by Stuart Granger, while traveling in a Central European country gets sucked into top level intrigue and skullduggery, involving the king of the country, to whom Granger bears an uncanny resemblance.  The gentlemen all wear snappy uniforms, with great coats and rakish service caps.  The women all wear ball gowns.  Granger, in full uniform, gets crowned as king, a really memorable scene, fancy interiors, massive chandeliers, organ music, cheering crowds, hundreds of well dressed extras.  He meets and falls in love with the beautiful Princess Flavia (Deborah Kerr), takes Flavia to the royal coronation ball, and then with derring-do rescues the rightful king from captivity, and defeats the wicked half brother Michael and the slippery Count Rupert of Hentzau (James Mason).  The movie ends with heartbreak as Rudolf Rassendyll has to leave the country and Flavia has to marry the true king, who she has known since childhood and doesn't like much. 
   The original story was a novel by Anthony Hope, published in the late 1800's.  IMDB shows that it has been made into a movie seven different times, the first in 1913, the latest in 1988.  IMHO the 1952 version is the best, Technicolor, flawless camera  and sound work, great cast.  Romance, action, humor. Very enjoyable. 

Dawn over Marblehead

The Stupid Party finally wises up.  Failure to repeal ( or at least do some fixes to) Obamacare will torpedo the party's chances at the polls in 2018.  This fact is sinking in, slowly, but better late than never. They are making another try to pass something.  Anything actually.   I wish them luck.  They are gonna need it.   

Navy orders ships to turn on electronic beacon

They called it Automatic Information Data Beacon AIDB.  I never heard of it before.  Let's assume it is like IFF, an electronic beacon that gives identification.  It also gives away your position, and apparently the Navy usually operated with AIDB turned off for stealth reasons.  Now they have ordered warships to turn it on claiming that it would talk to merchie autopilots and get them to change course to avoid collisions. 
   Yeah right.  the big merchies, supertankers and the like, draw so much water that they will run aground if they steer out of the dredged channel.  Running a big merchie aground costs like crazy and the owners figure running anything down is cheaper than running their ship aground.  Their skippers are not going to maneuver to avoid cross traffic like US destroyers.  They are going to steer straight ahead, and lesser vessels better get out of their way.  It seems like our Navy doesn't understand this. 
   Old Admiral Dan Gallery, writing in the 1960's, understood this.  He wrote "Steer well clear of any merchie, lest he decide to liven up your day by ramming you."  I wonder what orders the officers of the deck on those two US destroyers had.  Were they ordered top steer well clear, or were they ordered to insist on their right of way?
    

Viet Nam War, Ken Burns

As a Viet Nam veteran the subject is of interest to me, so I had to watch it.  The first episode aired on PBS last night.  It goes all the way back to the French colonizing Viet Nam in the 1860's.  It brings the story up to about 1960.  They mention Ho Chi Minh showing up at the Versailles Peace Conference in 1919 with a petition for President Wilson to get some moderation of the French rule in Viet Nam.  They cover Ho Chi Minh's establishment of an independent Viet Nam right at the end of WWII, and how the British and the French moved in troops to turn the place back into a French colony.  This was a key moment, if Ho's regime had survived, running all of Viet Nam, the later Viet Nam war would not have happened.  If we Americans had been paying attention (we weren't) we could have told the British and the French to cool it.  This was 1946, and that year nobody dared talk back to the Americans.
     The show had an annoying number of "flashforwards"  Right in the middle of showing events of the 1940's or '50's they would cut to a scene from the 1960's, usually American soldiers in combat gear with a voice of from some veteran explaining how awful the whole thing was.  I didn't need this, I was there, both my brothers were there, I know how awful it was.  The antiwar movement in the '60s is still alive (smaller but still there) and they have made it plain to everyone how awful it was.  I was watching this to see what really happened not to hear yet another voice over telling me how awful it was.
   They told the story pretty straight, the way I remember it happening.  One minor goof,  in the early '50s they described Charles De Gaulle as president of France.  Actually that De Gaulle didn't come out of retirement and take over France until  December 1958.  One thing was new to me, they said that President Truman authorized $23 million in 1949 to support the French in Viet Nam.  They didn't explain just how this happened.  Did Truman just come  up with the money out of some fund somewhere in the vast federal budget?  Did he slip the money into an appropriate bill somewhere?  Who in the Truman administration  thought backing the French against the Viet Minh was a good idea in 1949? 
   The rest of the history, Diem Bien Pho, the partition into North and South, the promised election that was never held because everyone thought Ho Chi Minh would win it, the rise of Nguyen Do Diem in the south, is they way I remember it.  The episode ends before Tonkin Gulf, Johnson landing the Marines, but it's a good opener, covering important background.
   They did not discuss any "might have beens".  Times where someone could have changed the course of history and prevented the war from happening.  And they didn't discuss the mind set of most Americans, especially the American leadership.  Everyone remembered Munich, where decisive action could have deposed Hitler and prevented WWII.  They saw Ho Chi Minh as a communist (he was) and thus an agent of Russian expansionism.  In those years we saw the communist takeover of China as Russia taking over China (not true) and we were not going to permit any more communist expansion anywhere.  Opposing Ho Chi Minh was seen as what we should have done at Munich back in 1938.  This widespread attitude goes far to explain how we Americans got sucked into Viet Nam.   
  

Federal Flood Insurance

It's the only kind you can get.  Commercial insurance companies won't write flood insurance.  Cause, only homeowners liable to floods buy it.  When the flood occurs, all the insurance policies make claims.  Insurance only works when the majority of policy holders don't make claims, and their premiums go to paying off the few policy holders suffering losses.  Like fire insurance, the risk of fire is small, most homes don't burn down. Everybody buys fire insurance (homeowners insurance) because the banks won't do a mortgage unless the property is insured. At the end of the year, the insurance company has to pay a few claims and they have collected a lot of premiums.  With flood insurance, at the end of a flood year, the insurance company has humongous claims and not much in the way of premiums.  After the great Mississippi flood of 1927, the commercial insurance companies decided to not write flood insurance ever again.
   This caused a great hue and cry among owners of waterfront property, who found they could not sell their property, 'cause the banks wouldn't do a mortgage without flood insurance, and nobody would write flood insurance.   And so Congress created the federal flood insurance program.  The humongous losses now fall on taxpayers nationwide.  In effect, everyone is subsidizing owners of waterfront property.  And, since insurance is available people are building on scenic but flood prone properties.
  And, the federal insurance goes on and on, no matter how many times the property gets flooded.  There are properties that have been flooded and rebuilt up to 7 or 8 times.  On the taxpayer's dime. 
   The federal flood insurance program is up for renewal in Congress right now.  We taxpayers ought to get on our Congresscritters to put a limitation in the program.  A one flood policy.  The flood insurance pays off on the first flood, but won't renew after that.  Get flooded out once, and you ought to build on higher ground somewhere else.  If you rebuild on the same site, it's on your nickel, not the taxpayers. 

Why Hillary lost in 2016

She has a book out about it, she is on a book tour peddling it.  But speaking as a plain NH voter, she is missing the point. 
   She made no campaign promises.  We voters expect candidates to say " Vote for me, and I will to this, that, and some other thing, and life will be wonderful."  We  voters have been around the block a couple of times, so we understand that campaign promises are often broken.  Hillary didn't promise us anything.   We voters knew there were a lot of things wrong in 2016, 1% GNP growth, flat wages, high unemployment, skyrocketing health insurance premiums, ISIS, crazy shooters killing at Christmas parties and night clubs and more.  We expected a presidential candidate to promise  to fix some ( or maybe all) of this stuff.  She failed to do so.
   She brought a ton of baggage, accumulated over many years to the election.  We voters remembered travelgate, the Vincent Foster death, the Monica affair, Whitewater,  the email server, Huma Aberdeen, a top aide married to that Wiener guy in New York, and Benghazi.  Many of us thought she should have divorced Bill over the Monica affair, and failure to do so meant Hillary valued being First Lady, more than she valued a wholesome married life. None of this stuff did Hillary any good.
    And Comey did her no favors, first declaring that the email server business was not prosecutable, and then in October he changed his tune and said he was reopening the investigation.  We voters figure where there is smoke there is fire.  Comey created lots of smoke.  Never did get down to the fire, but the smoke was damaging.
   And, her opponent was a master of live TV.  He was so popular that the TV networks covered his every move, every campaign rally, everything.  More free media than anyone had ever seen.   And Trump put on a good show, drew excellent ratings.  Neilsen is his friend.  And he made a lot of campaign promises.  He has even kept some of them. 

Who is in the "House Freedom Caucus"?

Karl Rove, writing in a Wall St Journal op-ed,  calls them the biggest obstacle to tax reform.  I'm inclined to believe Karl Rove, he has been around a long time, he was a key player in the last Bush administration.  I wonder who the 30 members of the "House Freedom Caucus" are.  They were responsible for the Republican failure to pass Obamacare repeal and replace, which may cost Republicans their control of Congress in 2018.  Karl thinks they will scuttle tax reform too. 
   We ought to publish their names, publish their voting records, and try to primary them in 2018.  If we don't know who they are, it's hard to lower the boom on them. 

Sorting Fake News from Real News

NHPR was going on and on about this just today.  It's a good point, especially for younger folk, teenagers, who lack experience, and find the Internet is full of all sorts of BS.  Used to be, to get your ideas before the public, you had to do a deal with a man who owned a printing press, either a newspaper/magazine editor, or a publishing house.  To get your ideas printed, you had to convince one of these guys that your ideas were worthy.  This screened out a lot of weirdos. 
   Now in the internet age, everyone has the small change it takes for an internet connection, there are no barriers to entry, on the Internet no one knows you are a dog. So how do you sort out the fake from the real news?
   First, you look to the source.  For instance on the net, Instapundit is pretty fair, Republican, and reliable.  HuffPost is leftie greenie and not so reliable.  For the professional media, the Wall St Journal is very reliable and Republican.  The New York Times has been flaky for 80 years and is Democratic shading into Communist.  The Washington Post is Democratic and fairly reliable, less reliable than the Journal, more reliable than the NY Times.  On TV, Fox News is pretty good, abet Republican.  MSNBC is mostly worthless.   One thing to watch out for, the people who write for the professional media are poorly educated, not very smart, all lefties and greenies, and they think they know it all. And they all watched "All The Presidents Men" and they all want to do a Woodward and Bernstein number.  They love to trash American presidents, especially Republican ones.  You need to keep track of sources and build up your own list of reliable and flaky sources.
   Next you make an opinion survey.  Do several sources tell the same story?  A quick Google will find you a slather of pieces on any imaginable topic.  Do all the pieces agree? or do most of them trash the idea? 
   Then we ask ourselves some questions.  Is the piece you have fallen in love with describe something too good to be true?  If so, it probably isn't true.  Have I ever heard of this author before? Have I ever heard of his platform (website, newspaper, TV channel) before?   For instance, if the subject is physics and the author is Albert Einstein or Richard Feynman it's most probably true.  On the other hand if the subject is global warming and the author is Michael Mann, it's most likely false. 
   Does the piece use numbers?  Number of years before catastrophe, number of dollars to do whatever, etc.  Newsies are innumerate, any piece that never mentions a number is suspect.  Does the piece give evidence or examples to back up it's claims?   How is the author on spelling , dates, and names?  An author who fails to get simple stuff right is suspect. 
   Good luck wading thru the swamps.

New Record for Household Incomes. Wall St Journal

They show a graph of the median income, the income where half the country earns less and half the country earns more.  For 2016 we get up to $59,039, but it was nearly as good ($58665) way back in 1999.  In short, median income has only risen a measly $374 over the span of 17 years.  Pretty chinsy (0.6%)  in my book.
  Things looked so bad that Obama changed the methodology in 2013 giving everyone a $400 wage boost.   Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics. 
   We have a long way to go before we can say everyone is getting better wages. 

Why buy drones??

Current drones cost $1 million apiece and up.  Whereas a two place light plane, say a Cessna 172, can be had for closer to $100 K.  Drones and light planes are about the same in range, payload, speed, anything that counts.  Drone pilots only get to see a TV image (blurry, low res, low contrast, small screen).  Light plane pilots get to see  up close, in real time, and with a pair of 7X50's, they can see really close up. 
   The only justification of the pricey drones is for operation in dangerous air space.  When a drone gets shot down we don't loose a pilot.  But for missions like patrolling the US border,  reconning hurricane damage in Florida,  looking for marijuana grows in California,  we don't expect hostile ground fire or shoulder fired SAMs.  A plain old Cessna works better and costs a tenth of what a drone costs.