Where did all the shaving cream go??

 My grocery store no longer carries shave cream.  Walmart had some but no brands that I reconized.  I wound up with a strange looking can, painted grey, and a no-name manufacturer.  It was the last can on the shelf.

  So what is happening?  Electric razors tanking over?  Guys working up a little lather from the bath soap bar?  Gels?  Guys giving up on shaving and growing beards?  Do I need to find a shaving brush and work up my own lather?  Anyone know?

And for that matter, Walmart no longer carries wool blankets.  They have nothing but fleece blankets, which are warm, silky to the touch, and cheap.  I was raised on wool blankets, we even had wool camp blankets at summer camp.  Do the kids go to camp with fleece blankets now?

TV still talking about who should get Corona virus Vaccine first

 Cool and all that.  But American industry will churn out enough vaccine for everybody in the world given a few months. 

They submitted the paperwork to FDA.

 And FDA is going to sit on it for two weeks.  Responsive they are. 

New US government computer model claims 100 million Covid cases

Of course, the model suggests that there are a lot of "cases" out their that didn't make the patient sick enough to see a doctor, or get tested.  Personally I believe that cases of a disease, corona virus or just plain old measles ought to diagnosed, by medical personnel, not guessed at by computer modelers.  Far as I am concerned, unless patient gets sick, shows symptoms, runs a fever, we don't have a case.  Right now they are calling every false positive from testing a case, even when the patient isn't sick.  And, this kind of imagineering of the number of cases, does crazy things to the death rate.  For the same number of deaths, if you call the number of cases 100 mil, the death rate drops down to practically nothing.   Plus we know that the medics are under a lot of pressure to call every death a Corona virus death.   

   There was a study, that got published and then got retracted a day or two later, that claimed that the over all US death rate (all causes) was about the same this year as it was last year before the Corona virus hit.  Which suggests that a lot of the deaths blamed on Corona virus would have happened anyhow due to patient age and other conditions.  

Anyhow, I am taking all the Corona virus statistics with a grain of salt.  Maybe a whole tablespoon of salt.  

His Dark Materials

 They made a miniseries out of the Phillip Pullman books (Golden Compass, Subtle Knife, Amber Spyglass).  It plays on HBO and I got the first season thru Netflix.  I started on the first disc, and have watched the first two episodes so far.  It's not bad.  The landscapes and cityscapes are well done and convincing.  The daemons are well done.  I assume both are all CGI. The interior scenes, especially of Jordan College are beautiful and well done.  The airships look good.  
    They gave black actors a lot of parts in this one.  They all seem to be pretty good actors.
    It doesn't move all that fast.  After two hour long episodes we have only gotten Lyra picked up by Mrs Coulter and brought to Mrs Coulter's London place.  Lyra has just decided that Mrs Coulter means her no good and she slips out the window and runs for it.   The girl they cast for Lyra's part is really too old, too tall, and not all that cute.  The Golden Compass movie had a better young actress for Lyra's part.  
    I read the books, some years ago, so I could recognize the major characters and know their names.  The poor second string characters don't get names.  Nobody ever addresses them by name, or speaks about them and gives their name.  If you haven't read the books, you will need to pay very careful attention to the plot or you will get lost.  
   All in all, it's pretty good, I plan to watch all the episodes.  

Lotta whining, lotta bitching, Senate grills Big Tech

The senate has spend all morning grilling Big Tech, Facebook and Twitter.  Senators have complained about them.  No senator had the stones to propose any concrete fixes.  Such as using Sherman anti trust to break both of them up for being monopolies.  Break them into smaller pieces, let the pieces compete against each other in the marketplace for users and advertisers.  That will force them to stop objectionable activities such as censoring conservatives.

Smokey and the Bandit 1977 Goldie Oldie

 Burt Reynolds and Sally Fields.  This one won an Oscar surprisingly enough.  Box office was good enough to make a second one in 1980.  Lot's of great cars.  They don't make cars like that anymore.  Enjoyable mindless watch last night.  Sally Fields does a great job.  She is cute, funny, and tough enough to keep Burt Reynolds more or less in line.  Jackie Gleason makes a great redneck southern sheriff. 

Unconvincing computer expert on Fox news

 He was billed as chairman of the computer science department at University of Michigan.  It was claimed that he had been studying voting machines for 20 years.  I did not catch his name.  He claimed that the voting machines were totally secure, no way they could switch Trump votes to Biden.  Spoke in generalities.  He did not address a number of items.  Can new code be loaded into the voting machine by merely inserting a flash drive into a USB socket?  How is the machine's code patched or upgraded?  What checks are performed to insure that ALL the voting machines have received the latest code?  What prevents a hacker from changing the code in the machines?  How old are the machines in service?  Were they manufactured by Dominion Software?  Who wrote the code in the machines?  What tests did he perform on voting machines?  How many machines did he test?  Do the voting machines produce a hard copy of the final vote?  A filled out ballot?  Are the voting machines connected to the public internet?  or to a private network?  What version of Windows are the voting machines running?  Have all the Microsoft patches been applied? 

   This guy did not convince me that he really knew what he was talking about.  I spent 30 years programming computers.

Impressive pro Trump Demo going on in DC

 It's live on Fox TV right now.  It is big, both on the ground video and airborne video show really impressively large numbers of people.  They all carry flags, US flags, Trump flags, all kind of flags.  It is a peaceful demonstration.  Nobody is throwing stuff at cops, they are not setting fires, they are not looting.  That is good.  They are marching down the streets, I don't know DC well enough to recognize which streets.  This ought to make Trump's day.  Might not get him elected, but it ought to warm his heart.  If the Republicans can muster this kind of support for the Georgia run off, it ought to give us two Republican Georgia senators and a Republican senate.  Let's hope.

The beginnings of Civilization, 20,000 to 8000 BC.

 I just watched a thought providing U-Tube video.  “The beginnings of Civilization, 20,000 to 8000 BC.  Civilization, (www.utube.com/watch $ v=bQxoZsHUw) by which they (and I) mean cities, needs agriculture to feed the city dwellers.  You cannot feed even a small town by having the citizens go out and hunt deer.  Hunter gathering can feed a family, or even a number of families living in a small village, especially in a location with warm winters.  But it cannot feed a city population of perhaps 20% of the population.  Plus, the meat from hunting won’t keep where as grain, flour, will.

    Obviously they cannot start farming until the ice age glaciers melt out.  Nothing will grow when there is snow on the ground all year round.  We used to think that happened 10,000 years ago.  Lots of recent archeology has pushed that back to 20,000 years ago.  We have some (not a lot yet) of archeological evidence of some agriculture getting started way back then, 20,000 years before present.  We don’t see real cities until 10,000 years ago.  Looks like it took 10,000 years for agriculture to develop into a city supporting force.  What took so long?

   Well there are a number of technologies needed to make agriculture work.  First of all you have to figure out how to make grain (grass seed basically) edible by humans.  I cannot eat the grass seed I have in my garage for seeding the lawn; it’s mostly dried blades of grass, with very little carbs to it.  Wheat seeds are better, more carbs and less blades of grass.  The milling process, using mill stones, separates the dried blades of grass and grinds the carb part of the seed into flour.   Once we have flour we can brew beer, attractive because of the alcohol content and containing a fair amount of nourishment.  Today they sell Bud Light to the many customers who don’t want to gain weight.  More complex is learning how to get bread dough to rise, and figuring out that baking the risen dough yields tasty bread.  That might have taken a few thousand years. 

   Then we need some tools to till the soil.  I suppose with enough hard labor you can till a small field with nothing better than a digging stick, but I would not like to depend upon it.  To make a hoe takes metal.  To make a primitive plow (an ard they are called) needs a small amount of metal.  I suppose you can harvest the grain with a flint sickle but I think a metal one will work better.  Then you have to store the harvest in something.  Baskets, pots, or bags.  All of these had not been invented 20,000 years ago.  Pots only turn up 9000 years ago.  

   And then there is animal husbandry, which must have started with sheep and goats and pigs, with cows coming later.  Which needs shepherds and swineherds and goatherds to keep the stock on the farm.  And sheep dogs.  Must have taken generations to breed up sheep dogs from the hunting dogs and watch dogs.

We have evidence of serious irregularities

 That 6000 vote glitch in Michigan, where the Dominion Voting Systems software  turned 6000 votes for Trump into 6000 votes for Biden.  That Dominion Software program is used in every county in Michigan and in 30 other states.   I think some serious checking up everywhere that program is used is in order.  It would only take a few more 6000 vote glitches to elect Trump. 

Too much automation

 Michigan just discovered that election automation software furnished to the state by  Dominion Voting Systems  turned 6000 votes for Trump into 6000 votes for Biden.  Wow.  Did Michigan do any testing of this software before putting it into service?  And, more to the point, why are they using software to add up all the votes?  Surely this could be done the old fashioned way with pencil and paper?  Like we do in New Hampshire.

  

International Space Station (ISS) has been operational for 20 years now.

 Nice long piece in Aviation Week about the  history of ISS.  It got started under Ronald Reagan back in 1984, 36 years ago.  At the time the project was viewed as US-Russia cooperation deal intended to generate some friendship between the two countries.  And the Russians were allocated some of the early important and expensive modules, on the theory it would keep them out of trouble.  The original planning was to use the US Space Shuttle to lift the bigger chunks into orbit.  Good thing we got that part done before a second disaster grounded the Shuttle fleet for good.  As it was the Shuttles flew 37 missions to the ISS.  

   The major bit of information we learned from operating ISS is the bad effects of long term living in zero G.  As it was, the ISS astronauts were required to exercise like crazy every day, and even with all this effort, they all returned to earth seriously weakened.  They all recovered after return to Earth, but thinking about a crew returning from a long mission too weak to even fasten their seat belts is worrisome, to put it mildly.  Any long duration space missions, like to Mars or the asteroid belt will need space craft that supply artificial gravity.  Presumable this will be done with hoop shaped sections that rotate to provide centrifugal force as a substitute for gravity.

If they block you on Facebook or Twitter...

Start a blog instead.  They aren't censoring them, yet.  

TV is unGuided

 

TV Guide website is confused. I click on it and it comes up with the generic country wide menu, listing network names but no channel numbers. So I go thru the set your location razzle dazzle and get some channel numbers for Spectrum cable. Then it says you gotta login in order to save your location. So I have a username and a password. And then it asks for my email address. And I hit login and draw an error message "That email is in use". So it won't remember my location. It didn't used to be this way. Anyone have better luck with it?

Where did all the Macintosh apples go?

 MacIntosh, nice and crisp, sweet, good tasting apple.  Used to be most common in supermarkets.  Something happened and now all the markets have are apples with weird names.  And the weird name apples are mealy, not much crisp to them, not very sweet.  A low speed apple.  Bring back the MacIntoshes.

Gloves, color there of

 Now that Fall is upon us and it's getting cold, I see Trump wearing gloves to keep his hands warm.  Only Trump wears black leather gloves, that make his hands nearly invisible.  Trump uses his hands while speaking, gestures and the like.  Except we cannot see the hand gestures.  I recommend that Trump get himself a lighter colored pair.  Nice tan deerskin gloves like I wear for skiing and for driving.

Are there any never-Biden democrats??

 There ought to be.  It's obvious to anyone that Biden is too old, too frail, and too confused to make a good president.  His spoken plans, green new deal, ending fossil fuels, another national wide lockdown, more free stuff, terrible tax hikes. spell economic catastrophe.  If he dies in office, or gets booted via 25th amendment, Kamala Harris, the ultimate far lefty becomes president.  

   Surely there are some democrats who fear this enough to withhold a Biden vote, or even, gulp, vote for Trump.  Could there be as many as 1%?  Or even 5%?

Postmark? What Postmark?

 All this talk about ballots postmarked by election day make me wonder.  And a court case about ballots that come in without a date. I get a lot of mail.  Some of it doesn't have a post mark at all.  Some of it has a post mark, but no date. The ones that went thru a Pitney Bowes postage meter have a date in the postmark.  How does one make sure his ballot gets a postmark with a date? 

  The date in the Pitney Bowes postmark is the date the company processed that batch of bulk mail.  Want to bet that mail doesn't get to the real post office for a day or two after the company processed it?  Or more?  

A lotta trashing of political opponents happening

 Scanning down my Facebook feed I get a Yuge number of political ads.  Most of which explain why the opponent is a no-good-nick.  OK, and I read them, but I figure the charges are over rated, if not down right false.  Nobody is running ads of the "If elected I will do this and that and the other thing to make your lives better."  It is easier to believe campaign promises.  As it is, if we elect any of these turkeys we have no idea what they might do in office.  Sad.

Who is going to win???

 

 I simply do not know. The polls suggest that Biden has a small to moderate lead. They said this last time, and were predicting a Hillary win right up until the last minute. The polls have some problems. They run a 1000 call telephone poll and get 100 sets of replies. The pollsters have to boil all those numbers down to a duality, votes for Trump, votes for Biden. To do this, they get the figures for Republican and Democrat registration for the district. Then they adjust the count, to match what they expect.

And there is the problem of the shy Trump voter. The left is so unpleasant toward Republicans that many of them simply refuse to express any party affiliation at all, not even to pollsters. Between all these factors, I believe the polls could be seriously in error.

And I see Trump rallies with tens of thousands of cheering people. I don't see any Biden rallies at all. Surely all that good Trump enthusiasm will show up in the election.

The Great Debate

Meh.  Neither Trump nor Biden made a serious gaffe.  I would rate it as a draw.  The two candidates did not interrupt each other like they did the last time.  An improvement.  Both guys threw out a lot of "facts", which I could not check, and in many cases I had never heard of before.  It is hard to evaluate arguments when the "facts" thrown out in support might be real and might be phony.  Biden denied taking any money from the Russians.  That's hard to believe.  If Hunter Biden received $3.5 mil from the Russians I cannot imagine that he did not split the take with "the big guy".  Nobody has denied the story about Hunter's Russian payoff.  Silence gives assent.  If they don't deny it, it is probably true.  Fox news has 12 days to check out Biden's "facts" and label some, or all of them false.  Unless Fox convinces us voters that Biden was telling really ugly whoppers, I think this much bally-hooed debate won't have much effect on the election.

Aviation Week proposes hydrogen to fuel airliners.

 Reason is that hydrogen burns cleaner than jet fuel.  The H2 burns in atmospheric oxygen and the result is just plain water, H2O. Whereas jet fuel, a hydrocarbon, burns down to CO2 and H2O.  The greenies love the idea of no C2O in the exhaust of jet liners.  Not mentioned is the source of all that hydrogen.  In real life, we get hydrogen by reforming natural gas, of which the frackers have given us a good supply.  Natural gas is a mixture of various hydrocarbons, methane CH4 being common.  There are a lot of other compounds in the natural gas, and reforming squeezes hydrogen out of the ones that have a bit more hydrogen than the methane.  So, to fuel up a single jetliner we need maybe 30,000 gallons of hydrogen, and makes that gives us another 30,000 gallons of reformed natural gas.  We may have squeezed all the excess hydrogen out of it, but it will still burn just fine.  So every gallon of hydrogen burned in flight, we burn another gallon of natural gas on the ground somewhere.  This is reducing CO2 in the air??  Never mind, greenies won't understand.  

To get enough hydrogen into the aircraft we have to liquefy it.  Takes a lot of refrigeration and a lot of pressure to get it liquid.  The aircraft's hydrogen tanks have to be very strong and round.  The standard aircraft practice of just filling up the wings with liquid fuel won't work, the wings cannot take the pressure.   Aviation Week didn't say much about that.  

   Every so often Aviation Week pushes something really crazy.  This year it is hydrogen.  Years ago they ran a cover story about a secret American single stage to orbit space plane that was actually flying.  That story ran in just that one issue and was never heard of again.

Big Tech censors Hunter Biden story. Sherman Anti Trust can fix.

 The New York Post broke a juicy story about Hunter Biden getting multi million dollar payoffs from China to get the Chinese an intro to Joe Biden, who was Vice President at the time.  Wow.  Twitter and Facebook decided to censor this story and they have been zapping off their site any mentions of it, copies of it, probably any post with "Hunter" in it anywhere. 

   This particular story is so juicy that I think most of us have seen it on other media.  But, I don't think it is right for a couple of big silicon valley companies to be censoring stories, let alone juicy stories.  What to do?

Use the anti monopoly provisions of the Sherman Anti Trust act to break both companies in half.  Each half gets half the users, half the advertisers, half the offices and employees.  Both half get new names.  Both halves will work hard to please their users and advertisers, lest said users and advertisers flee to the other half.  That will work better that any sort of government regulation.   

First snow of the 2020-2021 winter up in Franconia Notch.  We have 4 1/2 inches of wet snow down and it is still coming down lightly.  They haven't plowed yet. 
 

Columbus

 You gotta respect Columbus.  By opening the America's to European exploitation he doubled of tripled the amount of land that all of European history had played out in.  The western frontier, land for all, the Homestead Act, was only possible after Columbus discovered all that new land.  A European history that played out in the limited land of Europe would have been "nasty, brutish, and short".

   Columbus, for a tarry handed seaman, was all sorts of persuasive. He got the queen of Spain to hock the crown jewels to finance his first voyage.  He needed the money to charter or buy Nina, Pinta and full rigged ship Santa Maria.  

Columbus was a canny seaman.  He knew the Atlantic winds, way back in 1492.  He understood that the trade winds, a little south of Spain, blew toward America.  Once he got there, he knew that the westerlies, north around the latitude of New York, blew steadily back to Europe and he used them to get home.  He had a better understanding of North Atlantic winds than Christopher Jones, skipper of the Mayflower, had 130 years later.  Jones sailed into the teeth of the westerlies on his way to Plymouth Rock.  He nearly did not make it. 

Anyhow, lets keep Columbus day as it is.  If we want to do an American Indian day, pick some other date. 

Judge Barrett hearings

 Democrats are saying that Judge Barrett will strike down Roe vs Wade, Obamacare, Obergerfell (sp?) (the gay marriage ruling) and I forget what else.  I am pretty sure Judge Barrett will rule in accordance with the written law.  If that causes her to strike down any of these Democrat sacred cows, too bad.  Congress can pass new laws anytime it feels like it.  If they have the votes.  Getting enough votes to reinstate Roe vs Wade might be tough.  Same goes for reinstating Obama care or Obergerfell (sp?) 

Faith and Justice

 

Religious faith is a good thing for judges to have.  Religion is the origin of our notions of right and wrong, good and evil, moral and immoral, just and unjust.  Moses brought the 10 commandments down from Mount Sinai a very long time ago.  Religion also speaks of mercy, as well as justice.  Justice needs to be tempered with mercy. 

   I think Judge Barrett’s Catholic faith makes her a better judge. 

Judge Barrett hearings.

Been watching the Senate  judicial committee warming up for hearings on Judge Barrett.  Instead of discussing Judge Barrett's qualifications, fitness to serve, and  judicial philosophy, the Democrats used their time to trash Trump and whine about Senate refuse\al to consent to Merrick Garland's appointment back in 2016.  

   The true purpose of hearings on Supreme Court nominees is to inform us voters as to the fitness of the nominee to serve.  We know that Democrats all hate Trump, we have heard that before.  And events from way back in 2016 are also well known and of little interest in 2020.  We really want to hear about Judge Barrett.  I suppose the lack of Democrat discussion of the nominee means they have been unable to find any dirt to smear her with.  Be thankful for small favors.

Peak Leaf Season in Franconia Notch

I fired up the Buick yesterday and did some cruising around looking for good leaf pictures. 

Mt. Lafayette from Lincoln.  Winter is coming.

Hard working tree.  This one looked a lot more colorful by eye than it does in this photo.

Lafayette from Peabody slopes.  Note Eagle Cliff in foreground.  Winter is coming.

Lafayette again.  I could not decide which of these two photos was the better one.

Good bright red tree at Mittersill.

Nobody makes campaign promises anymore.

 Used to be, candidates would promise to do all sorts of good stuff if elected.  And, when elected they failed to live up to their promises, we voters and the newsies got all over their case.  Not any more.  Neither Trump not Biden have promised a thing this year.  We cannot trash the winner for reneging on his campaign promises, 'cause he never made any.  With Trump, it's a good bet that he will keep on doing what he has been doing for the last four years.  With Biden, or rather with the people who are "advising" Biden, it's hard to tell.  They have let a lot of far left talk drift out to the electorate, and the electorate has been lukewarm to negative on it, and they have stopped talking about it.  Anything might happen.  I don't see much dynamic leader left in Biden, not at his age.  He could just go with the flow until he dies in office. 

One of the saddest days in WWII.

 France, a great power, at least before June of 1940, owned a powerful navy.  Not quite as big as the Royal Navy, but far bigger than anything Hitler had at his disposal.   With the French fleet under his control, Operation Sea Lion might have worked.  The Germans possessed a very small fleet, and the British had been making it smaller.  They sank the Graf Spee and at Narvik HMS Warspite had steamed up a fiord, cornered and sunk most of the Germany destroyer fleet.  In the summer of 1940, the Royal Navy had better than 100 destroyers, backed up by thirty odd cruisers and half a dozen battleships.

The Germans had practically nothing.  The Royal Navy would have had no trouble sinking anything the Germans had in mid Channel.

On the other hand, if Hitler had laid his hands on the French fleet, he would have had a chance.  The bulk of the French fleet was at Oran in North Africa.  The British send a large fleet to Oran and told the French Admiral Gensoul in command that he had three choices, sail his fleet to British ports, sail to the French West Indies (Martinique) or sail to the United States.  Otherwise be sunk right there at Oran.   The French tried to stall for time.  The British were in no mood to put up with that, they opened fire and sank the entire French fleet right then and there.  You would have thought that after 1000 years of dealing with the British, the French would have understood what they could and could not get away with.  Apparently not.  Needless to say, this ruined Anglo French relations for the rest of WWII, but it did keep the French fleet out of German hands. 

They stopped the world...

 But they won't let me get off.  It must be that nothing is happening, anywhere in the world, except the debate last Thursday and Trump's Corona virus case announced in the early AM Friday.  The TV news and the internet has talked about nothing else. Must mean they stopped everything else, all over the world.  

Or, it means that the newsies prefer writing up opinion pieces and op eds and prognostications which they can do sitting in their offices.  Getting out of the office, talking to people, finding some real stories and writing them up falls into the  newsies's "too hard" basket. 

Best Wishes to Donald and Melania

 I hope Donald and Melania Trump will shake off and survive their Corona virus infection. I wish both of them all the good luck in the world.

Fixing Twitter

 When I tried to log into the twitter web site (www.twitter.com) I was drawing an obscure error message that suggested that the twitter site was down or the internet was broken.  I am using Firefox and the problem is at least partly a Firefox problem.  To fix twitter, get into the Firefox “options” window.  Click on “Tools” on the main Firefox taskbar.  Options is under Tools.  Click on options.  Use the search feature and search for “cache”.  This will find a place/feature/what-do-you-callit named Cookies and Site Data.  And it offers Choices to clear data, manage data, and manage exceptions.  Select manage data.  This will show a list of all the websites that have stored data on your hard drive.  Firefox permits websites to stash megabytes of who knows what.  You need to find twitter and delete all of the twitter data.  I could not find twitter on my first shot so I just started deleting data from every website that seemed worthless to me.  For instance the New York Times had stashed better than a megabyte of stuff.  After some weeding, twitter turned up.  I deleted all the twitter data and bingo, twitter.com worked, I could log in and everything. 

Beaker folk get promoted to Britons

 The Beaker folk have been known to archeology for a long time, 60 years that I know of, and probably longer.  They are known in Britain by the drinking mugs, beakers, in their graves.  These are handsome handleless, pottery mugs, good for 12-14 ounces of beer (modern measure), quite distinctive.  They used to think that the beaker folk were traders, who came to Britain, trading bronze to neolithic natives who were still using flint.  

   The DNA people got to work recently analyzing beaker folk DNA and have declared that all modern Britons are descended from the beaker folk.  The earlier neolithic people who had raised Stonehenge were wiped out by the beaker invaders.  This raises the beaker folk from mere bronze traders to ancestors of all of Britain.  The U-Tube videos putting forth this quite new interpretation are non technical and do not give any of the observations supporting this heady conclusion, but I have not seen any postings of contrary conclusions so they probably have it right. 

What might Amy Coney Barrett do to Obamacare?

 I hear a lot of whining from Democrats about Judge Barrett and Obamacare.  To hear the Democrats tell the story, she will do something (unspecified but awful) to destroy Obamacare.  This should NOT be a judicial issue.  Obamacare, like medicare and medicaid and social security and a lot of other stuff should be acts of Congress, passed by both houses and signed by the President.  If the court rules Obamacare unconstitutional, Congress can fix the law, or do a constitutional amendment to make it constitutional.  But it is up to Congress to pass something, it is not up the the courts.  

   America is a democracy, which means laws are supposed to be made by an elected legislature, whose members have to stand for reelection every few years.  Not by appointed judges with lifetime tenure.  

   Unfortunately pressure groups have been able to talk US courts into approving new laws that would never pass a legislature, and now they expect to be able to repeat that process to pass their next piece of new law.  It is easier to convince 5 Supremes to rule their way on something than to convince 200 odd US representatives to all vote their way.  Judge Barrett says she is against legislating from the bench.  Her judicial rulings bear this out.  And she looks like an honest person whose word is good. 

Everyone ought to go and vote

 It would be good for America if this election was won, decisively by someone.  If we have another one of those cliff hangers, with recounts, never ending court fights over who won, impeachments, and obstructionism. Nothing will get done about getting the economy working again, fixing Corona virus, dealing with the Mid East, China, Russia and all our other foreign policy hot spots.  So everyone ought to get down to the polls on November 3 and vote.  You can save the country a lot of grief if you do.

Debate Watch at my place

 The Trump Biden TV Debate is coming right up, like next Tuesday the 29th of September.  I expect some extra ordinary statements, some whoppers, perhaps a few gaffes.  It's sort of like watching a bull fight.  The attraction is greatest when the bull gores the matador.  Judging from Biden's appearances on TV, he could make and election loosing gaffe.  On the other hand, he might not.  Anyhow these things are more fun when we can talk them over with friends.  

My place is up near the top of Franconia Notch, in Mittersill at 22 Ridge Cut Road.  The entrance to Mittersill is on NH Route 18, one driveway down the hill from Peabody Slopes.  Everyone is welcome.  There will be some food and munchies.  Bring your own bottle. I think the show starts at 9 PM .  Feel free to come a bit early and we can chat.  If you get lost call me 823 5319, and I ought to be able to get you back on track.

Democrats trashing Trump as he pays respects to Ruth Bader Ginsburg

 I'm watching video on TV showing Democrats chanting and yelling as Trump comes to RGB's flag draped coffin on the steps of the Supreme Court.  Trump says a few appropriate words for a deceased Supreme Court justice whose politics he did not share.  I think it is out of line for Democrats to be yelling and chanting while the President of the US is paying his respects to a deceased Supreme  Court justice.

Unanswered questions about the Breonna Taylor case.

 Releasing the Grand Jury findings has caused another riot in Louisville.  They indicted one of the three cops for being trigger happy and shooting wildly.  The other two were let off.  They claimed that this shootout was not a no knock raid.  The TV did not tell us what time of day this raid occurred.  The TV claims that the officers knocked.  TV did not tell us how long the officers waited for someone to answer the door.  Nor did it tell us how the door was opened, was it opened by one of occupants of the apartment or was it busted down by the cops?  

My point is that the police should not be doing no knock raids.  Busting down someone's door at o'dark:thirty just provokes a gun fight and people get killed.  If someone busts down my door in the middle of the night, I will shoot to kill and keep on shooting until either I get them or they get me.

Trigger Happy Tree in my backyard

 I got one tree

that thinks it is fall.  Most tree don't go along with the idea and are staying green.  That will last another week or two.  This tree is checking out the red scene.

We need a 9 judge Supreme Court

 Right now, after Justice Ruth Bader  Ginsburg's death, we only have eight justices on the Supreme court.  Should a difficult case, say a case about the 2020 presidential election, come before them, they might well deadlock in a tie 4 to 4 vote.  In which case the lower court decision that was appealed to the Supremes will stand.  Probably not good, the federal appeals courts only have jurisdiction over sections of the United States.  If the Supremes cannot come to a decision then we will have sections of the country with one law and other sections with a different law.  Not good.  We ought to have the same federal law for the whole country.  

   Of course Trump will appoint the same sort of judge that he did for his previous two Supreme Court vacancies.  That is a strict constructionist judge who will hew to the original intent of the Founders and not try to make new law from the bench.  And to be fair, Trump appointees will either be Republicans, or at least be sympathetic to Republican viewpoints, and thus anathema to Democrats.  No matter, I think the country will be better off having nine justices on the Supreme Court to rule on any 2020 election cases, which I judge likely to happen. 

 Ruth Bader Ginsberg.  May you rest in peace. 

Battery lore for motorists.

 

A fully charged car battery will read 13.2 volts.  Draw just a very small amount of juice from the battery, say turn on the headlights for a few minutes, and you will find the battery voltage has dropped down to 12.8 volts.  So most of us call a 12.8 volt or better battery fully charged.  Starting the engine, especially in winter, takes a lot of juice and as the battery charge is used up the battery voltage will drop off.  Once the battery voltage drops below 12.0 volts the battery may not have enough charge in it to start the engine. 

   When the engine is running, it turns an alternator under the hood to charge the battery.  The alternator has to supply current at a slightly higher voltage than the battery in order the charge it.  A properly working alternator will keep the car’s electrical system at 14 to 15 volts.  Cars have a built in voltmeter which you can see.  You may have to read the car’s manual to find it and turn it on.  On new cars (anything less than twenty years old) the voltmeter is digital and you can easily see your system voltage accurate to a tenth of a volt.  With the engine running the voltmeter ought to show 14-15 volts from the alternator.  With the engine off, the voltmeter will read battery voltage.  If battery voltage is above 12 .0 volts it’s good. 

   If the battery is below 12 volts either the alternator isn’t putting out enough voltage, or the battery is old and shot.  Winter is hard on car batteries and 4 or 5 winters is all they are good for.  A new battery is only fifty bucks at the auto parts store and you put it in yourself.  Assuming the alternator belt is nice and tight and not too worn, you have to replace the alternator.  Rebuilt alternators are every bit as good as brand new alternators and a lot cheaper. 

Hang Adolph Hitler from a sour apple tree

 

World War II could have been avoided.   It was an unnecessary war that cost 60-70 million deaths.   It laid important cities, Dresden, Hamburg, Leningrad, Cologne, Stalingrad, Berlin, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and more in ruins. The war broke out; actually Hitler attacked Poland, a mere 21 years after World War I ended.  Men who had been infantrymen in their twenties for World War I were in their forties in 1939.  Every one in Europe remembered the four year agony in the trenches and no one wanted to do that again.  No conceivable political objective was worth doing another four years of trench warfare.  Everyone in Europe agreed on this, except for one man, Adolph Hitler.  Somehow, Hitler had taken control of a great power and used that control to start World War II. 

   Using hindsight, it is clear that we could have eliminated Hitler and spared the world six years of agony and death.  Hitler would have had to be taken out sometime between 1932 and 1938 to do any good.  We (France, Britain and the United States) could have marched our armies into Germany, over thrown Hitler and put him on trial for war crimes, violations of the treaty of Versailles.  Or shot him “trying to escape”. That would have required French and British governments with some backbone, which was lacking in those years, plus solid support from the United States, to the point of dispatching at least one American division of troops to back up the Europeans and serve as a token of American support.  Unfortunately the United States was sunk deep into isolationism, and then the Depression and did not want to exert itself or take any risks.  It took the unprovoked attack on Pearl Harbor to snap us out of it. 

  Or, we could have sent one or two good men with rifles into Germany and had them shoot Hitler at one of those massive Nazi rallies.  We had some guys who could have done it.  The name Alvin York, (Sergeant York) a good southern boy from Tennessee, comes to mind.  And there were certainly other Americans who were just as good shots. 

   We need to keep this history in mind as we go forward into a dangerous world.   

Is anything happening besides the US elections???

 The TV is playing all election news and nothing but election news.  And most of it is charge and counter charge, both sides being highly unlikely.  As far as I can tell, the entire world has come to a halt, waiting on the outcome of the US elections. 

Peaceably to assemble

 "Congress shall make no law ... abridging ...  the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."   First Amendment.  

The word peaceably is important.  Peaceably means marching a route coordinated with local authorities.  It means carrying signs and flags and banners.  It means singing and chanting and speech making.  These days it means TV coverage.  And dispersing when the demonstration is over and going home.  First amendment requires government to permit these peaceable assembles.

Then we have riots.  Setting fires, beating people up, smashing shop windows, and looting.  Riots ought to be suppressed, rioters arrested, and held in arrest until all the paperwork is completed.  Use non-lethal weapons, tear gas, water cannon, pepper spray, tasers to break them up.  Start breaking up the riot as soon as possible to prevent it from getting bigger.  Many of the stores and businesses we see burning on TV belonged to people who had put everything they owned into starting the business, and keeping it going.  Burning the place down ruins those small business owners.  They expect law enforcement to protect their shops and businesses from being burned to the ground by rioters.  

And I have to wonder about the lack of common sense among the voters, who elected mayors and governors who permit riots to grow large and refuse offers of federal aid to suppress them.   Let's hope the voters have learned something over these last few weeks and make better choices this November.  At least they ought to vote the incumbents who have permitted this rioting out of office.   

Victory at Sea

 This was made shortly after WWII and it was on TV when I was in grade school in the 1950s.  They gathered up all the news reel and movie film of the war, including film captured from the Germans and the Japanese, and spliced it all together to tell a coherent story.  Richard Rodgers of Rogers and Hammerstein fame did the musical score, and it is a spectacular score.  It's a good watch and it does not only the naval side of WWII but a does a fair job on the land and air wars too.  It moves right along and kids will enjoy watching it.  Your kids will have a better understanding of what WWII was about and how it was fought for watching it. 

   I picked up a 5 DVD set that has every episode from the "Cheap Old DVD" bin at Walmart some years ago.  I don't know where you might find it today, but Googling for "Victory at Sea DVD" might turn something up.  

The video is all black and white.  Partly because color TV did not become widespread until the 1960s and largely because the color film of the day (Kodachrome) was so achingly slow, and only really worked out of doors on bright sunny days.  The available black and white film was much faster (more sensitive to light) and less fussy about exposure settings.  Even so, many of the video clips have the tops of everything burned in white and the sides and undercarriages solid black.  

Anyhow, if you can find it, your children will enjoy it and they will learn something. 

Pelosi suggests Biden not debate Trump on TV.

 Wow.  I (and lot of other people) expect the two presidential candidates to debate each other.  We have been doing this since Kennedy debated Nixon back in 1960.  Pelosi's suggestion to kill this year's debate strongly suggests that Pelosi fears that Biden is not up to debating Trump.  It is a reasonable fear.  But I think they have to debate, to pull out is a sign of weakness that everybody in the country will notice.  I saw that the Biden people said that Biden would indeed debate no matter what Pelosi thinks.  I think Biden made the right move there.