New Hampshire needs real power plants

 Real power plants will produce electric power when ever it is needed.  Fake power plants (aka "alternate energy") only produce power when they feel like it, when the sun is up or the wind is blowing.  We get plenty of cold dark calm nights up here and we need enough real power plants to carry the full load of the entire state.  We cannot depend upon fake power plants.

It would be best if the real power plants were owned by New Hampshire electric companies and located in New Hampshire.  The present deal where companies like PSNH are expected to buy electricity on the open market from out of state generation operations is dangerous.  When power becomes short the out of state operators may not sell to us up here.  If we owned the generators, and they were located in New Hampshire we could be assured of receiving the plant's full output in times of shortage.  

And  while we are at it, we ought to built a decent gas pipeline out to the Bakken.  Out there they have so much natural gas that the frackers are paying people to get rid of it all.  Private industry would be happy to build such a pipeline if we could keep the greenies off their backs. 

I like art and the arts

 On the other hand, good art sells for enough to support the artist.  Art that requires a government subsidy is bad art.  If the art was any good people would spend good money to buy it.  So, I gotta wonder about money for the endowment for the arts tucked into the Corona virus relief bill.  I think that is pork.

Paperpushers wreck Arecibo radio telescope

 On 10 August one of the cables holding up the 950 ton suspended instrument platform broke.  They spent the next three months doing paperwork (a plan for temporary repairs).  On 6 November a second support cable failed.  More paperwork was accomplished.  Then finally on 1 December the last cable failed and the 950 ton suspended instrument platform fell, busting a huge hole in the parabolic reflector and destroying all the instruments in the platform.  

What they should have done, back in August when the first cable failed, is simple. Get about six big rolls of good stout steel cable.  Run six cables out to the suspended instrument platform to hold it up even if all the original cables broke.  The should have been able to get that done in less than three months, even out in Puerto Rico, where everything has to be shipped out from the mainland.  Instead they accomplished paperwork while the Arecibo radio telescope fell into ruin.  They are going to abandon it now. 

Trump speaks at CPAC

 He was about an hour late.  He spoke for and hour and a half.  Never at a loss for words.  Got a lot of enthusiastic applause.  The room was fairly full although I could see  blocs of empty seats here and there. The room was not all that large.  It was not much larger than the theater at my old high school, a decent size room but not all that large.  Trump said he will not do a third party. Trump suggested that he MIGHT run for president in 2024 but it was just a MIGHT, no solid commitment. Which is fair, 2024 is a long way off, lots of things might happen. Trump is getting old, in four years he might not have the energy he has now.  He spoke about all the good things he has done in his one term, and it was a fair summary.  

  In summary, Trump inspires a lot of enthusiasm.  His past policies are popular, at least with the people who go to CPAC.  Of the 75 million people who voted for Trump back in November, a lot of them, maybe half, say 37 million, voted for Trump the personality not for the Republican party.  Without Trump they are gone.  That makes Trump the guy who brings a lot more votes to the table than anyone else.

Democrats pass $1.9 Trillion Covid-19 relief bill

 They passed it in the house at o'dark thirty, when every one had gone to bed.  Of the $1.9 trillion only about $o.38 trillion goes for Covid 19 relief. The bulk of it , $1.5 trillion, is pure pork.  Democrats don't care, they think any kind of spending stimulates the economy.  Republicans fear printing another $1.9 trillion greenbacks will destabilize the dollar and raise inflation. 

Rug Job

 My place is wall-to-wall carpet.  Laid down about 30 years ago.  At the door to my bedroom a worn trail was developing in the wall-to-wall.  Ugly.  On a pass thru Wallymart I spotted an area rug, just the right size, only $18.  Nice color match.  So I bought it.  Now to lay it.  The bookcase full of DVD's and VHS tapes had to be moved.  Loaded it was too heavy for me to lift and move.  I had to unload half of it.  Now the rug lay down nicely, it fit just right.  But, the door would not move.  I had to remove the door, jack ass it downstairs to the shop, and saw 3/16's off the bottom with my skill saw.  To get the door to lay flat enough to saw I had to remove the door handles.  Arrgh.  So, jack ass the trimmed door back up stairs.  And now the hinges did not want to go back together.  Much hammering, prying and cussing later I got a pry bar under the door and heaved up.  That did it, the hinges slide together and the hinge pins went back in with only slight persuasion from a ball peen hammer.  At this point it was 5 PM, I was exhausted.  Time for a drink.   Next morning I put all the DVDs back on the bookcase.

The door, loose, right for the shop.

    The door going down the basement stairs.

The area rug installed.

Why Texas lights went out

 I am reading that as the Texas system load went up and system generation dropped off line, the control center tried to keep hospitals powered up by blacking out all sorts of other consumers.  Pipeline companies had their power go away.  Which meant their pumps on the natural gas pipelines went away.  Which meant the gas fired power plants went off line for lack of gas.  Which reduced the power available on the grid to keep every ones lights on.  

   We ought to require the pipeliners to power all their stuff off the natural gas in their pipelines, no electricity required.  They will scream cause doing it yourself is more expensive than just using electricity, but doing it yourself is more reliable.  

Corona virus vaccine

 

I got my Corvid 19 vaccination today.  It was over in Haverill at the Horse Meadows senior center.  I am old enough to be in Phase 1B, eligible right now.  I had logged into the federal government’s “VAMS” system, three times before I got an appointment, for May, way up in Whitefield.  Littleton had suffered some kind of catastrophe where they cancelled all their appointments, “VAMS” refused to give me an appointment at Littleton, Best they could do was Whitefield. 

   Meantime Haverill called me an about a month ago and asked if I would be interested in an appointment if they got their clinic set up.  I said if they could do anything better than May I would be right there.  Haverill got back to me last week with an appointment today at 12:30.  They asked me to show up 10 minutes early.  So I set off for Haverill this morning at 11:45 and got there 9 minutes early.  They had a bunch of volunteers out directing traffic and checking names and dates and times.  I got a choice of right arm or left arm, we did right arm since that was the one on the car window sill.  Everyone was polite and cheerful and professional.  I got the Moderna vaccine.  They gave me in mice little wallet card that I can show to anyone who cares if I am vaccinated.  I got my shot right at 12:30 and was on the road by 12:45.  Good work by all hands

The Real Story: It's all climate change

 Thus sayeth Chuckie the Schumer.  The reason the Texas power grid failed, they did not consider climate change in the design.  Yeah right, climate change is at fault for everything.  

   The reason for the Texas blackout is a lot of power plants failed. I am still seeing conflicting stories on just which plants went down when.  Some say the windmills failed.  Others say the natural gas suppliers failed causing the natural gas plant to shut down.  The Wall St Journal blames it on the windmills.  Another writer gives an hour by hour megawatt by megawatt account which shows the windmills shut down first, but they were not providing much juice and the natural gas plants dropped off line later.  

There are some questions that no one is talking about.  Such as.  Why did the windmills shut down?  Some people have mentioned icing in the cold weather.  How does a windmill get stopped by ice?  The rotor has enough torque to turn the alternator under load, surely that is enough torque to break any amount of ice that might be obstructing the rotation.  

What caused the natural gas supplies to stop?  Again people have mentioned freezing weather.  Natural gas won't freeze at any temperature a winter cold snap can reach. What did freeze?  Or do the natural gas pipelines rely upon electric power to pump the gas thru the pipe?  

We need to get to the real causes of the Texas blackout and then make sure that New Hampshire does not have the same problems. 

The Jungle Book 1942

 I found this in the cheap DVD bin at Wallymart some time ago.  Just got around to watching it this afternoon.  It's pretty good.  It is in Technicolor, which was state of the art in 1942.  Sabu stars as Mowgli.  No other names in the cast mean anything to me.  It was shot in India.   The animals are real animals, with training that is to be admired.  Shere Khan is particularly wild and dangerous looking.  The plot does not follow any Kipling story that I remember.  Sabu is a good looking beefy teenager, which is older than most of the later Jungle Book movies which show Mowgli as a kid about 12 years old.  Mowgli has a thing going with a cute girl from the village.  Anyhow if you are looking for a new flick to show the children, this will do the trick. 

So what is the real story about Texas power failure??

 Lotsa people blame the power failure on the windmills going off line.  The greenies blame the natural gas suppliers failing to provide gas causing the gas plants to drop off line.  Me, I suspect the windmills did it, but I don't have any solid evidence.  All I know is what I see on the 'net and on TV.  And I have not seen anything convincing there.

Some questions for the intrepid newsies the answer.

What is this talk about the windmills freezing up?  Do they use water for something?  What might that be?  Do they mean ice buildup is blocking their rotation?  How can that be, the windmill blades produce enough torque to turn an alternator under load, surely that is enough torque to break any amount of ice, anywhere?  

What is this talk about natural gas wells and pipelines freezing?  Natural gas does not freeze at any temperature a hard winter freeze can reach.  Is it water freezing somewhere??  What is water needed for in a gas pipeline??  

What is this talk about failure to winterize power plants?  What does winterization do for a power plant?  

Boy, that governor Cuomo gets a lot of TV airtime, on Fox no less

 Cuomo is getting sued and worse over his grannie killing policy of putting Corona virus victims back into nursing homes where they infected the rest of the residents,  and lying about nursing home Corona virus deaths.  And they will think up more stuff to lay on him as time goes on.  

But Fox gives him a lot of airtime to give his side of it, uninterrupted by fact checkers. 

Free up 9 Gigs of disk space.

 I discovered that my desktop had a folder Windows AND a second folder Windows.old, both folders being 9 gigs.  I started out working on 5 megabyte DEC RK05 disks on PDP-11s.  I still think in terms of conserving disk space.  9 Gigs seems like a lot of disk space.  

Anyhow Windows.old pops up when the machine gets upgraded, in this case upgraded from Win 8 to Win 10.  The upgrade routine simply renames the old version of windows to windows.old and then puts the new version of windows into a new windows folder.  This allows you to go back to the previous version of windows should you want to.  In my case Win 10 has been working just fine, all my programs run properly, and I would never want to go back to Win 8, it was flaky.  So, I decided to recover 9 Gigs by zapping windows.old.  

  You cannot just delete windows.old from Explorer.  It is big enough to choke a hog, and it still carries protections against deletion that it enjoyed when it was the active Windows.  Not a problem.  Windows can fix it all.  In Explorer find the master folder C:.  Right click on the C: folder and select Properties.  In Properties select "Disk Cleanup".  In Disk Cleanup select "Clean up System Files".  This will display a number of different files you can clean.  Select the "previous versions" and let her rip.  It takes a while but I gained 9 Gig of free disk space. 

Farewell Rush Limbaugh

 Good man.  He will be missed.  Rush understood where a lot a Americans were coming from.  He spoke for them and to them.  Pax vobiscum.  My condolences to Rush's family.

Real electric plants vs fake electric plants.

 

We expect the electricity to stay on, 24-7.  We count on it in fact.  My heating plant, an oil burner, won’t heat when the juice goes off.  We depend upon electric hot water heaters, electric stoves, electric lights, electric well pumps.  If the power fails in winter my pipes will freeze in a matter of hours. 

   To keep the lights burning on a cold winter night takes conventional power plants, coal fired or natural gas fired, nuclear plants, hydro plants, the kind of generator that will put out power anytime it is needed.  We call these sorts of electric plants real electric plants.  Others call them baseload plants

  “Alternate energy”, beloved by greenies, cannot be depended upon when you need it.  Solar stops working at sundown, which happens every day.  Wind stops working when the wind stops blowing, something that happens fairly often even up here in the White Mountains.  In fact right now as I write this, it is a dead calm.  And we call undependable electric plants fake electric plants.  All the fake electric plants do is raise my electric bill as the power companies are required by law to purchase power from the fake electric plants at outrageous prices. 

    The electric companies, to keep the lights burning, need to own enough real power plants to handle full system load all the time.   The plants are expensive, several billion dollars, and the electric company has to take out a mortgage from a bank to pay for their construction.  And making the monthly mortgage payments is the electric company’s biggest expense.  Things like fuel and personnel costs are way smaller undependable wind and solar suppliers.  .  As long as they are paying the mortgage, the electric companies would just as soon operate the plants, sell the juice, and pay the mortgage with the proceeds.  They don’t need expensive and undependable "alternate energy".

We want to make sure the electric companies put in enough real power plants to keep the lights burning on a cold windless winter night.  We don't want them to fritter away money of fake electric plants.  Looks like Texas has put in a lot of fake electric plants that don't work when they need them and not enough real electric plants.  

 

Ventilation systems in schools???

The teachers and their unions are claiming the "ventilation systems" need upgrading.  The school I went to didn't have a "ventilation system".  It had big double hung sash windows all down the outside wall of the class rooms, that opened.  Open them up and we got a lotta fresh air. 

Are we at a significant turning point right now?

 Mark Levin, Fox news commentator, thinks we are, that future historians will point out January 2021 as an important turning point.  Things get a little vague when he talked about what we were turning from and to.  

I am not sure we are are a real turning point, you don't know until the turn has happened.  But, if we are, then it is a matter for turning away from Jeffersonian democracy, American exceptionalism, free market capitalism, and Christianity.  Turning toward political correctness, Critical race theory, and Marxism, and atheism.  

It is certainly time for those of us that still believe in the traditional American ideas to speak up for them.  And elect representatives who believe in them. 

They acquitted Trump after only a week

 The article of impeachment basically said Trump was responsible for the January 6 invasion of the Capitol building.  All they really presented in support of this idea was a lot of Trump speeches where he called the election rigged, and where he called for a demonstration in DC on that day.  Even so, we had seven RINOs vote in favor of impeachment.  They need to be primaried next year. 

   We have not heard much out of Trump in recent days.  He might just be taking a well earned rest after four years of open combat with the MSM.  Of the 75 million people who voted for Trump, a lot of them did it because they liked, believed in, and appreciated Trump.  And they are Trump's to lead.  Without Trump they are gone.  That makes Trump the most important Republican in the land.  I hope the rest of the party understands this. 

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.