Spring must be coming

 Just bought a box of fresh strawberries, ONLY $3.99 for a box.  Last week they were asking $7.99 a box for fresh strawberries from who knows where.  They were all the giant berries, big as lemons, but they tasted OK.  Sweet, an improvement in strawberry breeding from a few years ago when the giant berries tasted more of straw than a sweet berry did.

Impeachment hearings. Jan 6 was terrible terrible and all Trump's fault.

 Been a lotta Democrat  speakers saying how horrible the Jan 6 riot at the Capitol building was.  Worst thing that ever happened and it's all Trump's fault.  Trump egged on the rioters, and we ought to impeach him for it.  Un spoken agreement, if we can impeach him we can forbid him from ever running for dog catcher, let along President of the US, for the rest of his life.  

I hear all this.  But after a summer where BLM and Antifa burned down Milwaukee and Seattle, and some other places, a few broken doors and windows, a few screwballs sitting in Nancy Pelosi's office, and a lot of trash dumped all over the Capitol building doesn't seem all that bad to me.  They could have set the place on fire, but they didn't.

How to open the schools.

 To get the schools open again is very simple.  Unlock the schoolhouse door in the morning.  Inform students and parents that school is open.  They will be there, no question about it.  Inform the teachers that school is open.  If they don't show up for work, their paychecks will stop.  

I know that the teachers want all sorts of stuff, remodeling, protective equipment, vaccine, ventilation, new heating plants, all sorts of stuff.  Well, we might do some of it, when we come up with the money, but, school will open NOW, and if they don't show, they don't get paid. 

Florida town's water system gets hacked

Wanna bet that water system's computer was on the public internet?  And was running Windows, world's most vulnerable operating system?  The public internet allows hackers from all over the world to try their luck on your computers.  If you just have to have remote control of something, do it over a private fiber optic link.  To hack that, they have to climb a pole, and splice an optical splitter into the fiber link.  Few people know how to splice fiber.  Few hackers climb poles.  And your system will be far more secure if it runs Linux, or Apple, or anything but Windows.

Join the National Rifle Association.

 The Democrats, currently controlling the US federal government, want to forbid private ownership of firearms and in fact take all of our guns away.  If you are a gun owner, you really need to join the NRA if you want to remain a gun owner.   It is the most effective organization defending our right to keep and bear arms.  Right now there are around 5 million NRA members, enough to give NRA leaders some clout when they negotiate with lawmakers.  They are a lot more than 5 million gun owners in the country.  If all of us joined the NRA it would give the NRA enormous clout. 

    NRA runs a big website, at which you can join up.  It’s www.NRAila.org. Or just Google for NRA, that will get you there.  Dues are modest, and they will cut special deals for needy folk.

Whither the Republican Party?

 There are some internal strains, differences, factions, and infighting inside the Grand Old Party.  Of the 75 million people who voted for Trump, a lot of them did so because of Trump.  They liked his attitude, they liked his style, they trusted his word, they liked the economy he created, and they liked the taxes he cut.  They showed up at Trump’s rallies in vast numbers.  I am guessing that about half of them, say 37 million, are there for Donald Trump, and without Trump, they are gone.   In short, the Republican Party needs Trump because he brings in the votes better than anyone else in the party.

   Then we have the RINOs.  These guys are Democrats at heart, they believe that hiking taxes let’s them spend money on pet programs, and they don’t worry about tax hikes messing up the economy.  They don’t like private enterprise very much.  For example, given a choice between contracting with SpaceX and doing it in-house in NASA, RINOs will go for giving the work to NASA civil servant people every time.  RINOs don’t like Trump.  We ought to vote out as many RINOs as we can. 

   And we have the old line upper crust of the Republican Party.  They don’t like Trump much because he is too rude and crude for them.  Trump tends to hang out with, and hire, working class and ex military folk that the old line upper crust cannot stand.  They think Trump’s habit of tweeting every day is silly. 

   And finally we have the professionals, guys who hold elective office, party officials, and community organizers, appointed officials.  These guys just want to win the next election.  I think they are smart enough to recognize that the Republican Party needs Donald Trump and the 37 million voters that he can bring into the party.                  

  I cannot tell how the various Republican factions will sort things out.  They could screw themselves up and hand the next election to the Democrats.                  

VAMS comes to life

 Being well over 65 years old, I make it into Corona virus vaccine phase 1b, eligible right now.  I visited the NH web site back on the first day it was open, 22 Jan.  I got a nice reply saying a link the the "VAMS" website would be coming in 3 to five days.  Nothing showed.  I revisited the NH website 2 more times.  Each time a link to "VAMS" was promised but never showed.  Couple of days ago governor Sununu said that "VAMS" was seriously broken and NH would junk it and create a replacement.  I saw somewhere on the web the "VAMS" had been created by the feds with a sole source contract for $16 mil, and later had a cost overrun of $28 mil.  Lesson for dumb as rocks government types, never do sole source contracts for anything.  Get three bids every time.  Anyhow,  the long promised link to "VAMS" came finally came thru yesterday.  I managed to get an appointment up in Whitefield for early May.  Littleton was not accepting appointments at all.  

   Haverill is working on starting up a vaccination site.  I told them if I could get vaccinated before early May, I would be right there. 

Yet Another Robin Hood movie

 This one is just titled "Robin Hood", filmed in 2018, with Robin played by Taron Edgerton, of whom I had never heard of before watching this DVD from Netflix.  It is a very different take, in fact a strange take, on the Robin Hood legend.  They didn't pay much attention to medieval looking costumes, they have repeating crossbows as dangerous as modern light machine guns, they use a lot of 21st century cliches.  We start off with Robin of Loxley (a young noblemen) meeting and marrying Marian.  After some blissful time together at the Loxley castle, Robin receives a draft notice to the Third Crusade from the Sheriff of Nottingham.  First I heard of medieval draft notices.  Anyway, Robin sets off on Crusade, and we see a good bit of derring do in the course of which, Robin frees an enemy prisoner of war, name TBSL, who becomes loyal side kick and hard core trainer.  When Robin gets back to England he finds the Sheriff has foreclosed on the Loxly castle and has declared him dead, Marian is now into some kind of relationship (marriage? courting? flirting?) with a Will somebody or other, which tightens Robin's jaws a lot.  The movie presses on with Robin and trusty sidekick getting into stealing from the rich (Sheriff and the Church) and finally organizing a massive peasant revolt.  

Just barely OK.  Most of the other Robin Hood movies are better. 

Shutting down the armed forces for attitude adjustment

 That's what Lloyd Austin, Biden's new secretary of defense, said he would do.  He called it a "stand down" during which time commanders would discuss "extremism" with the troops.  Who knows what "extremism" means.  Could mean membership in the KKK or it could mean just voting for Trump. No mention of what would be done about troops deemed extremist.  

Back when I was on active duty, during the Viet Nam war, we all understood that we were in the service to defend the country and follow lawful orders from the commander in chief.  In the Air Force most of us were volunteers.  We all understood that we were not supposed to get into politics, other than voting.  I hope the same attitude prevails today.  

This shutdown indicates the secretary Austin has his doubts about the loyalty of the troops.  He is a long service Army general, he ought to have a better feel for what is going on that I do.  At least I hope so. 

Lessons from the 737-MAX crashes.

 

Aviation Week has a long (4 page) piece about lessons learned from the Boeing 737-MAX crashes and subsequent grounding. I was expecting to read of some clear general principles that everyone (Boeing and the world wide aviation safety organizations) accepted and would follow in the future.  Dream on. They listed some petty quibbles.  They said company tech reps should have less input on regulators deliberations.  Europe and Canada and pilots unions were OK with 737-Max aircrew shutting down the stick shaker by pulling a circuit breaker.  Brazil and FAA didn’t say anything on this issue.   It was pointed out that pilot training was aimed at experienced US pilots.  They said they would aim it more toward in experienced third world pilots.  FAA made some changes in the way they do paperwork and the way they organize technical expert committees. 

   All in all, an underwhelming list of achievements. 

SB 61 Right to Work, Passed Committee today

 We ought to pass right to work.  Companies won't invest in states that lack a right to work law.  New Hampshire needs more investment, creating factories, warehouses, distribution centers, call centers, just about everything, for the jobs they create.  If we go right to work, we will be the ONLY right to work state for about 500 miles in every direction.  That will attract some investment, there has gotta be a lot of companies needing new facilities in the northeast.

I know that right to work is hard on unions.  But only 7% of the New Hampshire labor force is union, and half of that is public employee unions.  The other 93% of the non union workers would benefit from more company investment.  I think the greater good for the greater number ought to prevail. 

Last time right to work came up, it passed both the house and the senate, but Governor Flynch vetoed it.  We didn't quite have the two thirds majorities required to override the veto.  Too bad.  Lets hope it fairs better this time.  I know Governor Sununu will sign it. 

Cancelling Abraham Lincoln

San Francisco school board voted to rename a bunch of schools to remove the names of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, and more.  Abraham Lincoln??  The man who signed the Emancipation Proclamation that freed the slaves.  And followed up by winning the Civil War to make the Emancipation Proclamation stick?  George Washington who beat the Redcoats in the Revolutionary War, chaired the Constitutional Convention, and served as our first president.  Without Washington we would still be a bunch of British colonies.  Jefferson, the man who wrote the Declaration of Independence, " all men are created equal".  They want to cancel all these heroes of American history??  What kind of education do these crazies offer to the children of San Francisco??

Ten worst Crime Neighborhoods in US

 Seven of them are in Los Angeles and San Francisco. So much for California.  Two are in Kansas City and one in Portland Oregon.  From Forbes Magazine.

Undercounting NewYork Covid 19 deaths???

 The TV is carrying the story today.  I wonder just what they are talking about.  Surly they could not conceal the fact of a death occurring.  I mean you have a body to bury or otherwise dispose of, you need a death certificate.  I cannot imagine concealing the occurrence of the deaths.  So are we talking about deaths from Corona virus being recorded as from other causes?   More easily done, as most of the deaths were of elderly people who suffer from a number of problems as well as from Corona virus.  In a case like this, where there are a lot of things present, what to blame the death upon is up the the judgement of the doctor.  The odd part about the situation is doctors have been widely accused of attributing every death to Corona virus.  Apparently hospitals get more reimbursement for Corona virus cases than other things and place great pressure upon the doctors to call all the questionable cases to be corona virus cases.  

   The TV is not talking about that angle.  

  Later TV input, About 8000 New Yorkers died in nursing homes from Corona virus.  Another 4000 came down with Corona virus and were transferred to hospitals and then they died.  Those 4000 deaths were not counted against nursing homes. 

The Rise of Skywalker: Star Wars Episode 9 2019

 I  got to watch this, on a Netflix disc, the other day.  We have from the old days, Carrie Fisher as Leia Organa, looking kinda over the hill, especially since she died before filming started and her presence is from film shot on the last Star Wars movie.  Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker, Daisy Ridley as Rey, Darth Vader Jr, Harrison Ford as Han Solo, R2D2, C3PIO, and a bunch of new faces that didn’t make much of an impression on me.  It’s long,  better than two hours.  Not much of a plot.  Lots of light saber duels, star ship shoot outs, crashes and smashes.  Darth Vader Jr has some kind of teleportation link with Rey, and keeps popping up, no matter where Rey is, and doing a light saber duel with her. 

   Rey’s outfit, white, is cute.  But the arrangement of a gauzy skirt, split in the front, and clam digger shorts could be improved. Either cut her shorts shorter and make the skirt more opaque, or cut the clam diggers as long slacks going down to the ankle. And skip the gauzy skirt.  

Overall:  meh. 

American funding created Corona virus in China

Steve Hilton, host of Fox News show The Next Revolution said this evening that the corona virus came from the Chinese Institute of Virology in Wuhan China.  It was the result of genetic manipulation of viruses harvested from wild animals, like bats.  The genetic manipulation was “gain of function” work intended to give the virus functions it lacked, such as the ability to go aerosol, and infect after a short or long period of floating around in the air. 

    This sort of research was deemed extremely dangerous.  The Obama administration forbade gain of function research in 2014.  The Trump administration added to the ban.

    Hilton revealed that the work at Wuhan was funded by an AMERICAN grant of $3.5 million.  The funding was set up by Dr Fauci, scientific advisor on Corona virus to both the Tramp administration and the new Biden administration.   The funding was granted AFTER the ban on gain of function research was announced.  In short Dr. Fauci created the Corona virus using US taxpayer money. 

   Steve Hilton did not know how the mutated virus got out of the Wuhan lab.  Might have been an accident, might have been deliberate.  The Wuhan lab has a poor safety record.

   This is the first time I have seen this story.  I thought I would pass it on.  My only source is Steve Hilton of Fox News.

Donald Trump's acheivements

Way back in the winter of 2007 and 2008, bone headed Wall Street banks managed to crash the global economy with too many "credit default swaps".  The resulting recession knocked our GNP growth down from 3.5% a year to zilch.  And Obama took office.  For the next 8 years Obama manage to hold GNP growth down below 2%.  He even got financial commentators to write that 2% was the right growth rate.  Then Trump took office.  He got our GNP growth back up to 3.5% where it belongs.  He brought the stock market up to new highs.  He brought unemployment down to 3%.  And when the Corona virus struck in 2020 he spearheaded operation Warp Speed that brought a vaccine into production in only a few months.  

  Not too shabby.

What do Democrats have against Winston Churchill?

 Barack Obama removed the bust of Churchill from the oval office upon his election victory.  This gained him a good deal of hostile commentary.  Donald Trump restored the Churchill bust in 2016.  Now we have Joe Biden removing the Churchill bust again. 

Churchill was the man who did more than anyone else to win World War II.  First he kept Britain in the fight.  Had Churchill not been Prime Minister it is very likely that Britain would have made a deal with Hitler.  Hitler offered such a deal, and it wasn’t totally unattractive.  Churchill refused to have anything to do with Hitler’s deal and instead inspired British resistance to Hitler. 

   Churchill convinced Franklin Roosevelt to do Operation Torch, the North African landings.  Torch resulted in an allied victory over the Germans nearly as big and the Russian victory at Stalingrad a few months before.  Churchill traveled to Moscow and negotiated with Joseph Stalin.  Churchill was instrumental in setting up the United Nations and NATO.  President John F. Kennedy bestowed honorary US citizenship upon Churchill.  The US Navy named a vessel after Churchill.  Churchill wrote a six volume history of World War II which was widely read in both Britain and America.

    It has been 75 years since World War II and memories have faded.  But I still admire Churchill.  Without Churchill Hitler might have won World War II.  We might still be coping with a Nazi government ruling all of Europe.

Putting the troops in a parking garage is awful.

 Governor Sununu has ordered the our troops home to New Hampshire.  We ought to meet them at the Manchester airport.  Assuming they will be flying home.  Let's hope they are, making the 11 hour drive from DC in Army trucks sounds unpleasant.  

  At least the concrete floor was fairly clean in the video I have seen.  Usually parking garages have big black oil and grease spots in each parking space.  The videos showed fairly clean floor.  But still, a garage is a garage and we ought to be treating our troops better than a garage floor, especially in our national capital.  I had more comfortable quarters during a combat tour in Southeast Asia during the Viet Nam war.  We had hootches, with insect screens and a decent latrine.

So we inaugurated Sleepy Joe Biden today

 On TV it looked reasonable.  The camera's didn't show the lack of spectators.  Biden spoke of improving unity, pulling the two sides together.  Sounds good, but will Biden actual do anything to unify the Country.  They say he has 17 executive orders ready to file today.  I bet they all repeal or cancel things that Trump did.   Unifying that is   

   Better would be to explain in detail just what each of the 17  executive orders will do.  And where it clearly reverses a Trump policy, give a rational, a reason, for doing so. 

   Another unifying thing Biden could do is call for an end to the Trump impeachment.  Most of us think losing the  election is punishment enough.  Ending the impeachment would sooth a lot of people.  Not a word of this came from Biden's mouth today

I suspect that Biden is just giving lip service to the unification idea.  I think he really wants to cancel out every thing that Trump did.  Just because Trump did it. 

Howcum no talk about Sherman Anti-trust??

 Been a lotta talk about Facebook and Twitter shutting off Donal Trump and what to do about it.  I have not heard any talk about using Sherman Anti-Trust to break them up.  Both of them are clearly monopolies and Sherman Anti Trust was intended to break up monopolies just for being big, they did not have to misbehave to fall under the hammer.  

   Of course, Biden's democrats like what Big Tech is doing, silencing the political opposition, so I don't expect them to make a move to break up Big Tech.

That $15 an hour minimum wage

 Getting $15 an hour is groovy, IF you stay employed.  Retailers are tooling up to replace workers with automation.  The Tilton Mcdonalds is all automatied right now.  You walk in the door and see a dozen giant touch screens.  You touch what ever it is you want to eat, slide your credit card into the slot, and bingo, your order pops up back in the kitchen.  Cashiers and counter people are gone.  Next they will automate the kitchen jobs.

   The big box stores (Wallymart, Home Despot, Lowes, Shaws and the like) are training us customers to work the bar code scanners and pay with credit cards.  Bye Bye cashiers jobs.  

   For that matter, Bye Bye to the little local shops and eateries that cannot afford to buy all that automation.  Get ready to eat only in the big chains, McDonalds, Applebees, 99, and such.  Tasty they are. 

Entry level jobs that currently pay less than $15 will just go away 'cause the employer will be losing money on them when he has to pay $15 an hour.  It's gonna be tougher for kids entering the workforce to find a job at all. 

The right to keep and bear arms.

 You would think that elected representatives, both federal and state, would be solid responsible citizens.  Just the kind of people you would trust to carry a gun.  And yet we have Nancy Pelosi down in DC and the Democratic leadership in the NH house (last session) putting in metal detectors and forbidding concealed carry in the NH house.  

   Every so often terrorists work their way into the visitor's gallery or the legislative chambers.  It would be nice if those terrorists were met with gunfire from their targets.  In Concord NH the reps have to walk considerable distances to their parked cars, often after dark.  I know a fair number of female reps would feel better about taking a walk on dark city streets if they were carrying a gun.  Just in case.  

   We should not be denying the right to keep and bear arms to our most responsible citizens. 

Cobra Kai, TV series from Karate Kid

 So I watched the first disc of the series.  It picks up the story from Karate Kid I movie 20 years later.  Daniel LaRusso is married and a successful owner of a string of auto dealerships.  Johnny Lawrence (Daniel-san's opponent in the big karate tournament) , is not doing so well, in fact is unemployed.  He some how gets the money to start up the old Cobra Kai dojo.  Some amusing scenes of Johnny doing the hard ass act on his Karate students.  The plot is shaky bordering on non existent.  The chicks are not all that pretty.  Mr. Miyagi is dead and buried and the series needs him, or a replacement, badly.  Not as good as the first two Karate Kid movies from years ago. 

15000 National Guard troops for inauguration security??

 I will grant that after last Wednesday we probably need to beef up security.  But with the inauguration parade canceled for corona virus do we need a full division of troops?  That's more troops than we have in Afghanistan.  Hopefully they won't issue live ammunition like they did at Kent State years ago.

America needs a press that we can believe in

 The average citizen has a life to lead, children to raise, a job to go to.  These ( and other things) fill most of his time.  He lacks the time and the skills to dig down and find out what is really happening.  Most of us average citizens get our news from NPR (NHPR) while driving to work, and off the TV in the evening.  For a democracy to work, the voters need to know what is going on.  And American news media have little to nothing about what is really happening.  They have a lot of commentary, and what little news we get is heavily slanted.  Stories that support "the narrative" get lots of coverage.  Stories that contradict the narrative get buried.  And the citizens know this, and hence don't know what's going on, and so vote their built in prejudices, which ain't always good for the country.

  We really need a trustworthy press, and we don't have it.  And we know that.  Fox News and the Wall St Journal are perhaps the best of 'em.  PBS ain't what it used to be back when it was the Mac Neill-Lehrer news hour.   But we need more reliable news sources.  And we don't have them. 

America needs to get off the dime.

 

America is split 50-50 between Republicans and Democrats.  The Georgia elections were very close, nearly 50-50.  The US Senate has 50 Republicans and 50 Democrats.  The US House has the narrowest margin in years, only about 5 more Democrats than Republicans.  For a body of 425 members, 5 is very close.  As a result or this even Steven split, it is impossible to get anything done.  Congress has done very little in recent years.  They need to do something about the DACA children.  They need to do immigration reform.  And a lot of other things.  But, being split so evenly, they don’t have the votes to pass anything.  

   The Republicans need to attract more voters.  Trump did some good work in this area.  He attracted a lot of union voters, a lot of black and minority voters.  It wasn’t quite enough to get him re elected, but it was close. 

   American political parties run on ideology, a platform, and personalities.  Republican ideology comes from the Declaration of Independence, “All men are created equal”.  Republicans were started as the party to free the slaves.  Republicans fought the Civil War.  In the 1960’s Republicans passed the Civil rights acts.  Republicans believe in free enterprise and capitalism as the system that creates vast amounts of wealth.  Under free enterprise factories and farms and everything else is owned by individuals or groups of individuals (corporations) and the owners are strongly motivated to run them efficiently. Republicans believe in American exceptionalism, the notion that America has a glorious history of which we should be proud. 

    Party platforms were more specific lists of laws the party would support, and other laws the party would oppose.  In recent years both parties have pretty much stopped doing platforms.  Partly because it is hard to come up with a platform that everybody in the party approves.  Partly because advocating specific acts gains the party more enemies than it gains them friends.  And probably other reasons as well.  Net result, no platforms for this last election. 

  And finally, personalities.  Right now the biggest personality in the Republican Party is Donald Trump.  He will be around for quite a while.  Nobody else in the party, Cruz, Rubio, Graham, McConnell, Romney, and you-name-him is as big as Trump.  Unfortunately Trump has as many bitter enemies as he has die hard supporters. 

   Looking at this I can suggest Republicans need to talk about the party ideology more often.  They need to get a platform out.  They need to recruit more personalities, especially electable personalities.  Republicans used to get personalities from the military, Eisenhower, Powell, and McCain for example.  We don’t seem to have that many military men with strong reputations to recruit as we used to.

Beat The Press. An hour about the Capitol riots

 Chuck Todd was in full voice this morning.  Spent the entire one hour show talking about Wednesday's Capitol Riot.  Blamed it all on Trump.  Called for impeachment, a bill of attainder, everything.  

  Did not mention the three resignations of capitol security chiefs.  No mention of the video showing Capitol police standing back and letting the rioters stream into the building.    No mention of the Rasmussen poll showing Trump's approval rating rising since Wednesday.

Fox News needs to move the studio to a quieter part of town

 I watch Fox (in case  you had not guessed).  They have fire sirens, police sirens, ringing telephones, and a bunch of other noise in the background of the news stories.  Pain in the A**.  I hear this stuff coming off the TV set  and I start looking out my windows for the fire trucks.  They ought to move the studio to a quieter part of town. 

So what is Parler's Beef?

 Apple has threatened to toss Parler off their Apps Store unless Parler applies the same heavy handed censorship of conservatives that Facebook and Twitter are starting to do.  

Why does Parler need anything from anyone's app store?  I think they can make Parler work by just putting up a website and having the users go to the website and read and comment.  That works for most web places right now.  If for some obscure reason Parler needs to load code onto user's desktops or smartphones, then they just put up a website and let the users download the code over the web.  What's so hard about that?  

So what's the beef??

The democrats, the MSM, all Trump's enemies, blame him for the DC riot

And all of them are so overjoyed to have Trump supporters doing the rioting.  And so they all say the riots are Trump's fault.  It makes them all sooo happy.  It fits the narrative.

   But, the DC police chief, the House Sergeant-at-Arms and the Senate Sergeant-at-arms have resigned their offices, which says to me that security precautions were not taken, or not taken enough to prevent the break ins at the Capitol.  If they thought they had done a good job, they would not be resigning.  I think they all believed that Republicans and Trump supporters are peaceful and law abiding and don't break into buildings.  A small group of fanatical troublemakers worked their way up to the front of the mob and started breaking doors and windows.  Once the way was opened, a whole bunch of normally decent law abiding people in the crowd followed the troublemakers into the building. 

Facebook and Twitter hurt themselves

 By banning Trump.  The social media giants don't like The Donald, but 74 million Americans voted for him and will log into Twitter and/or Facebook just to see what Trump has to say.  Trump is still the president of the US and a whole bunch of people want to keep up with him.  Locking Trump off of Twitter and Facebook just kills their ratings, which is what advertisers pay for.  I believe the phrase is "shooting yourself in the foot."   The TV networks,NBC CBS and ABC, don't like Trump any more than Facebook or Twitter do but they never failed to put Trump coverage on because Trump is good for ratings. 

Rioters storm Capitol Building

 I don't approve.  Rioters breaking into our legislative chambers is the sort of thing they do in South America, not in the United States of America.  On the other hand it does show we have a lot of really pissed off people.  Messing with the election will do this to people. 

   They should have had enough cops, secret service, capital police, US Army, National Guard, FBI, you name them, to keep the rioters out.  Somebody did not prepare properly for this one.  I don't know who "somebody" is.  Will our noble MSM mention the name? 

The DC mayor declared a curfew for 6 PM.  Too late, it is full dark at 5 PM in DC.  You want to get people off the streets before it gets dark.  

Let's hope things simmer down.  If this kinda stuff keeps happening, it will give Joe Biden a lot of grief.

If not Pelosi, who??

 TV newsies are doing a lotta talk about re electing Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House.  They point out that the Democrats only have a 5 vote majority in the House and that 10 Democratic reps voted against Nancy last time.  But they don't talk about who might replace Nancy.  "You cannot beat somebody with nobody." to quote some old time politico.  Unless and until I hear a name, I don't believe all the "Nancy won't be re-elected talk".

Microsoft is out of the browser business

 At least looking at the page hits I get on this blog.  The two big browsers are Safari and Chrome.  Poor old Firefox is nearly gone, although it is still #3, behind Safari and Chrome.  Microsoft's Internet Exploder doesn't show, and that new Microsoft browser, Edge, doesn't show either.  Color them gone.

For that matter, Apple OS is giving me more hits than Windows. 

Road and Track: Best sports car ever

 They had a grunch of 'em, going all the way back to an MG TC.  Somehow they did not have a Corvette.  All American, cheap for what it did, very fast, good car.  I remember going up to Watkin's Glen NY many years ago to watch the Can-Am.  The Glen also ran off a "production"sports car race that weekend.  That year the only two production sports cars that competed were Porsche 911 and Corvette.  Nothing else in production that year was fast enough.  The 911 cornered better than the 'Vettes and would work past them in the corners.  After a couple of laps of hard driving a 911 driver might think he had it made.  Then came the back straight, nearly two miles long.  And we could hear the big Chevy 396 V-8's come on full song.  And the 'Vettes just out dragged the 911's, catching all the cars that had slipped by them in the Esses.  "There is no substitute for cubic inches".  

   After that long ago happy weekend I always considered Corvette one of the best sports cars in the world.

"New strain" corona virus

 

That new Corona virus strain.  The Brits announced that they just discovered it in Britain last week.  Now we have a Colorado man, with NO recent travel, has it.  I don’t believe the “new strain” travels that fast.  I figure the Colorado man caught it from someone in Colorado.  Makes me think that the “new strain” has been around, world wide, for quite some time, maybe since this whole Corona virus disaster started. 

   Does the “new strain” behave differently in patients than the old strain?  Higher death rate?  More infectious? Worse symptoms?  Do we have any clinical data (observations of real patients) to support any of these ideas?  I don’t believe computer models for this, I want real observations.  Far as I am concerned the computer models are merely a Wild Ass Guess (WAG) dressed up as real. 

   How do we tell the difference between patients with “old strain” and patients with “new strain”?

I suppose we use some kind of laboratory test.  This is not confidence building.  A commonly used laboratory test has a distressingly high (20%) false positive rate.  Is the test for “new strain” any more accurate? 

   So far my TV news has not given me backup information about the “new strain”.  For all I know “new strain” is about the same as “old strain”. 

Medieval technological advances.

   The middle ages invented or imported a lot of new stuff.  Far more than the preceding ancient world did.  The last invention made in the ancient world was the discovery of iron working by the Hittites 600 or 700 BC.  The Roman Empire at its peak, say 200 or 300 AD, did not have any technology that the Hittites did not have 800 or 900 years before.  That is a long time for stasis.

   The Middle Ages start after the fall of the Roman Empire and last until Columbus time.  We date the end of the Roman Empire with the deposition of Romulus Augustilus in 470 something AD and Columbus is 1492.  You can round it off and say the Middle Ages run from 500 to 1500 AD, a thousand years.  In that time Europeans invented or imported the following:

1. Trebuchet, a stone throwing machine powerful enough to break stone walls.  It was a weight driven machine, replacing classic catapults, which were powered by skeins of springy materials, perhaps human hair.  Unfortunately the art of making such skeins and keeping them springy has been lost since ancient times.  Trebuchets can be built on site from local timber and some rocks for weight. 
2. Magnetic compass.  We think this was an import from China.  Having a compass on board your ship greatly improved the chances of said ship returning safely from voyages.
3. Wheelbarrow.  Very simple device that greatly improves the amount of stuff that one man can move.
4. Wooden kegs and barrels.  They replaced the clay amphora used as shipping containers in classic times.  Lighter and more rugged than amphora which were just big clay pots.
5. Gunpowder and the fire arms to use it.
6. Lenses and eyeglasses.
7. Stern rudder.  Far stronger than the classical steering oar and less likely to break off in bad weather.
8. Printing.
9. Cast iron.  Classical black smiths only had wrought iron. 
10. Crossbow.  Powerful and accurate.  Although known in classic times it was only used for hunting.  You could train any man to shoot a crossbow well in a matter of weeks.  Robin Hood’s long bow, although effective, required a bowman to start shooting as a child and practicing every day all his life.  The supply of good bowmen was limited.
11.  Water mills.  Although known in classic times, the middle ages made much greater use of watermills.  The Domesday Book, William the Conqueror’s inventory of all the land and buildings in England, lists better than a thousand water mills in England by 1080 AD.
12. Horse collars.  Far more effective horse harness that greatly improved the amount of stuff a horse could move. 

 

How much money can the US print?

 Now that we have a totally fiat currency, a pure paper money whose value is set by public opinion, it is possible for the government to pay its bills by simply printing fresh new greenbacks.  On one hand, most of us believe that printing more money reduces the value of existing money, our savings.  On the other hand some of us believe that we ought to increase the money supply as the economy grows.  

Question, just how much new money is healthy growth?  Who knows??  

   Every year Congress is faced with a gap between obligations and tax revenue.  We spend more than we take in.  The only ways to fixing this are to spend less or hike taxes.  Congresscritters hate doing either.  Spending cuts cause howling from who ever gets cut off from the gravy train.  Pigs hate being pushed away from the trough.  Tax hikes provoke howls from taxpayers.  Congresscritters fear the howling means they will loose the next election. 

  Lately we have been able to keep things going by running a sizable federal deficit each year.  This year is going to be a scorcher.  In simply terms, the US government has been covering the deficit by simply printing more paper money.  So far, nothing too bad has happened.  Perhaps the healthy growth of the money supply, what ever that may be, is enough to pay off the deficit.  I don't really believe that, but it might be true.  Or, far worse, we are printing enough money to crash the currency, sometime in the future.  Maybe next year.  May be five years from now.  Who knows?  But a crash would be bad for us.  Foreigners would stop accepting greenbacks in payment for imports.  Stores would stop accepting dollar bills.  The economy would grind to a halt.  This happened in Germany 100 years ago.  The pain was so intense that the Germans still remember it.  

So, I fear that Congresscritters will continue to follow the path of least resistance and keep right on running big deficits until something really bad happens. 

 I got with the Christmas tree program. I bought the tree from someone in Littleton selling trees at the Meadow St-I93 interchange. That's the last picture of the tree on the roof of the Buick. I left it on the deck until yesterday then I brought it indoors, put the tree stand on it, and set it in place. It brought a good deal of snow in with it, which melted out into the water bucket of the tree stand. Got the lights on it and got them to light. I have a bunch of grandchildren coming over the put the ornaments on it. And I have munchies and drinks for the grownups. If you have any small children who would enjoy hanging some ornaments, come on over. Tomorrow, Thursday, 3 PM, 22 Ridge Cut Road, Mittersill.

Where did that massive hack of Dept of Energy come from??

Where did that massive DOE hack come from??       

 

Trump says it’s China doing the hack.  Biden says it’s Russia.  I doubt that either of them have any solid evidence.  I am talking about the big hack that penetrated the Dept of Energy last week; you know the dept that handles our nukes. 

I know that if I was a Chinese hacker I would try to camouflage my location on the net.  I would have an email account on a Russian email system.  I would use a Russian alias.  I would have social media accounts on Russian systems.  I would have everyone else on my team, and my superiors use my Russian email when they wanted to communicate. 

If I was a Russian hacker I would do the same stuff in reverse.  If I was a third world hacker or a criminal operation I would still use the big boys (Russia and China) for cover on the theory that nobody would believe I was capable of major league hacking and if I tried to look like I was a big boy  everyone would want to believe that. 

US history textbooks

 Anyone know of a good US history book for grade school?  I know some good ones, but they are all college level.  Starting grade school kids on Morrison and Commager isn't going to work.  I would like a text that tells US history straight, not the New York Times 1619 propaganda slant. 

Bullet proof armor

There used to be the Higgins Armory Museum out in Worcester Massachusetts.  Big building, three or four stories tall.  All filled with medieval plate armor.  The museum was put up by a Yankee millionaire who liked to collect armor.  His collection is what filled the museum.  I took my kids out the Higgins a couple of times.  They loved the place. Unfortunately the money ran out a few years ago and they had to close the museum.  A great loss.  

   Higgins did show that plate armor was bullet proof.  Most of the suits bore a proof mark, a bullet mark where the maker had tested the armor by firing a bullet at it.  As time went on, guns grew more powerful.  There was a suit of plate armor at Higgins that sported the proper proofmark, but also sported a big bullet hole in the breast plate.  That bullet probably killed the wearer.   

   Early suits of plate were "cap a pied" French for head to toe.  These had plates protecting arms and legs, including lovely plate armor shoes to protect the feet.  One of these suits would keep out Robin Hood's arrows all over.  Guns hit harder than arrows, and in the 1400's when muskets came into use, they had to make the breast plate thicker to make it bullet proof.  To keep the weight down they dropped the cap a pied and left arms and legs unprotected.  The thinking must have been that a bullet in the torso was probably fatal but a bullet in a limb, while a bad wound, was survivable.  

   By the 1700's the muskets were powerful enough to pierce any plate armor light enough to wear, and so troops stopped wearing armor and just went into battle wearing a colorful cloth uniform. 

Wanna bet all those Chinese and Russian hacks are against Windows?

 Everybody runs Windows.  It is the most insecure operating system in history.  Stick a flashdrive into a USB port and Windows will upload and execute any programming that might be on the flashdrive.  Windows allows any program access to the internet without ever asking the user if this program is safe. Windows comes out of the box with a remote access loophole that allows foreign computers to gain complete control of your machine.  

 I have to believe that the agencies that got hacked this week were all running Windows.

They all should have been running Linux. 

Who dines outdoors in the snow???

 With a lotta snow on the ground, the TV is still talking about dining out of doors.  They showed a clip of a New York restaurant taking in the tables and chairs with a foot of snow on the ground. 

Election integrity

 Ideally, voters ought to appear in person at the polls, on election day, show their picture ID, be checked off on the registered voter list, and then vote on a paper ballot.  No ballots of any kind submitted or "discovered" after the polls close shall ever be counted.  Absentee ballots should be provided only for voters who have a good reason not to be able to get to the polls on election day, such as members of the armed forces stationed overseas.  Fear of contracting a disease is not a good reason for voting absentee.  Ballots should never be mailed out to anyone.  Absentee ballots must be picked up at town hall in person or by a friend or relative who has a picture ID and the voter's signed application form.  

   Ballots shall be counted by hand.  Ballots shall be stored after counting in case of a request for a recount.  

So far as I know, New Hampshire is in fairly good shape except for allowing the use of voting machines.

Super Cute.

 That Chinese spy Fang Fang, or Christine Fang is CUTE. super cute. A lot of guys would do most anything to get a chance to sleep with her.

What is the most eco friendly container?

 A lot of stuff from the grocery store has to come in a container.  Corn flakes, milk, Quaker Oats, ground coffee. And a lot of other stuff too.

Ground coffee is sold in tin cans, cardboard cans, solid plastic jugs and "paper" bags. I call the bag material paper but it probably has a lot of plastic in it.  Anyhow which of these containers is cheapest for the coffee company to buy?  Which container takes the least amount of energy to manufacture?  Which container uses the least amount of scarce materials like tin?  Which container can be recycled?  Which container is happy in a landfill?  Happy containers rust out in a few years.  Unhappy containers last for millennia.

Most of us would like to do the right thing by the environment, if we knew what the right thing was.  

Recent movie sound tracks unhearable

 Sound track first went to pot in Charlie Wilson's War some years ago.  They have not improved since.  Major beef, you cannot understand the dialogue.  Been a lot of movies and TV shows suffering from the curse of the sound man since Charlie Wilson's War.  

   It is not hearing loss with age.  I have no trouble hearing the dialogue on news shows and classic movies.  I have a collection of classic Hollywood movies, going back to Casablanca.  The dialogue in them comes thru clear as a bell.  

Some things any apprentice sound man ought to know.

1.  Don't mix the score or the soundtrack over the dialogue.  Mute everything but the dialogue when the actors are speaking.

2.  Place the mikes in front of and close to the actors mouths.  How you hide than from the camera is your problem, not mine.

3.  Actors must speak up.  Don't speak in stage whispers.  Speak as if you were acting in live theater and your words must make it to the last row in the back of the theater. 

If Biden becomes President, Trump ought to

 Get himself on TV, a nice talk show, and spend his air time flipping zingers at President Biden.  He could start with the Hunter Biden paid off by China stories, move on to zapping his cabinet picks, and give the surviving Republicans air time.  He ought to draw fantastic ratings.  If the TV moguls won't give him  a show, start up his own TV network.