Dreadful books are one reason kids aren't learning to read.

 

This evening Trey Gowdy said on his program that children’s school grades and scores have been falling since 2011.  He mentioned difficulties reading in particular.  I can agree with that, kids that can read, quickly and well, can learn everything else they need to know by reading about it.  A good deal of the loss I will lay at the feet of school teachers, who assign just dreadful books for the kids to read.  My youngest son had a good deal of trouble learning to read, so I did what I could to help him, including reading his assigned books so we could talk them over.  Most, perhaps all, of the assigned books were terrible.  “The Giver” about a distopia so harsh as to make 1984 look like summer camp. “Riding the bus with my sister” where the sister was autistic or something and the protagonist finally falls in love with the bus driver and marries him (Boring, extra boring).  “Of Mice and Men” assigned in 7^th grade which is entirely too young for a story about sexual dysfunction.  “Fahrenheit 451” instead of Bradbury’s much better “Martian Chronicles”.  A looser story about the mujahadeen in Afghanistan in which the young girl protagonist’s favorite camel gets turned into K-rations for the mujh to eat.  I don’t remember reading a single book that was of interest to Youngest Son, or to me, and I do a lot of reading.    

   About the only good books from my childhood still in the bookstores are Tolkien and C.S. Lewis.  We have picked up the Phillip Pullman books, J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books, and the Rick Riordan books, but that is about all.  We have lost Edgar Rice Burroughs (Tarzan and the John Carter Martian stories). Andre Norton, (lots of good science fiction),  Robert Heinlein, the greatest science fiction writer, L Frank Baum and Ruth Plumley Thompson, the Oz books, Fletcher Pratt, The Battles that Changed History, Bruce Catton, civil war. 

   In short assign the kids too many really dreadful books to read, and we have taken a lot of the good readable books off the market. 

Wuhan Lab. Why is the US funding any kind of research in China???

 The TV is now discussing the US grant to the Wuhan Lab and what it was for.  Many people and National Institute of Health (NIH) say the grant was to do dangerous "gain of function" research.  Dr. Fauci denies this. My question is why were US taxpayer funds sent to a Chinese lab rather than an American lab?  American labs offer access to the raw experimental data, chance to interview the researchers, in general a necessary openness.  Chinese labs do what the Chinese government tells them to do.  In the case of Corona virus, which we think was created in the Wuhan lab, certainly a vast embarrassment to China, the CCP closes the doors, keeps foreign investigators out, conceals or destroys the lab results, and won't allow interviews with the researchers.  So why did US funding go to China?  Was it that the Chinese would perform "gain of function" research that US labs won't?  The Obama administration forbid "gain of function" research because it is very dangerous, and we don't want the know the results.  Gain of function research fiddles with the genes of the virus, bacterium, whatever to see what happens.  It often happens that the modified pathogen becomes much more deadly.  

  

I was taught to always treat every fire arm as loaded

 This teaching started in summer camp (riflery was taught in those days) when I was 11 years old.  This teaching continued up thru my Air Force years.  When picking up a gun the first thing you do is make sure it is unloaded.  This includes opening the chamber to make sure there is no round lurking there in.  Another basic gun safety rule is "Never point a gun at anything you don't intend to kill".    The recent tragic accident of Alex Baldwin and a "prop" gun indicates Alex Baldwin has not been properly trained in gun safety.  Had either rule been followed this killing would not have happened.  Surely Alex did not intend to kill his cameraman (woman). I feel sorry for his victims and for Alex. 

Solve the Truck Driver Shortage

 The TV is saying that the backup in West coast ports comes from a lack of truck drivers to get the containers out of the port and on their way to make room for another shipload of containers. I think the truck driver shortage could be easily fixed, just reduce the amount of paperwork done for each driver and allow 18 year old high school graduates to earn a truck driver's license. 

   Driving a truck is not that much different from driving a car, and most high school graduates have already obtained their driver's licenses.  Granted, a truck is bigger than a car and requires more attention to clearances and care to avoid sideswiping stuff, and backing a semi trailer rig is tricky.  I am thinking that about a week's behind the wheel practice will be enough.  If we decide that class room instruction in rules of the road and other stuff is necessary, have the classes taught by real truck drivers, not bureaucrats or ed majors.  

  Some will object that 18 years is not enough to be a responsible driver.  I say that is up to the hiring manager.  If he thinks the applicant for a job is trustworthy enough to handle his company's trucks, let him hire the kid.  I graduated high school quite some years ago.  All my classmates were responsible people, in whom you could entrust an expensive truck, and its valuable cargo.  I'd like to think that today's high school graduates are as good as all my classmates were years ago. 

Chinese Hypersonic missile Fractional Orbit Bombardment System

 Been a lot of talk about this.  It certainly indicates that Chinese missile engineering is good.  On the other hand I am not convinced that this weapon offers a worse threat than what we face already.  Standard ICBMs are extremely difficult to stop.  The warhead comes in at nearly orbital velocity, Mach 20 or 18,000 mph.  The warhead has a tough heat shield to prevent it melting from atmospheric friction. To shoot one down probably needs nuclear warheads on the anti missile.  

  At Raytheon many years ago I worked on the anti ballistic missile system radar.  It was a massive radar, definitely a fixed installation, no way it was ever going to be mobile.  It  was a phased array radar so it could generate multiple beams to track multiple targets.  The anti missiles had to accelerate at 100 gravities to get high enough to prevent their nuclear warheads from blowing the city they were defending away. 

In short, the new Chinese missile is impressive, but I don't see it as being all that more dangerous than standard ICBMs, of which we have a lot.  

Boeing is hurting.

 So said the Wall St Journal yesterday.  They cited a truckload of lawsuits resulting from the two crashes of brand new 737 MAX's.   They didn't talk about how the 737 MAX is selling now after the treacherous MCAS autopilot has been fixed.  How much revenue is Boeing bringing in from sales?  If it is enough to pay off the lawsuits, Boeing will survive.  If it isn't, bad things will happen.  

   They did mention that ONE Boeing employee, the senior test pilot, is in trouble with the law.  This guy convinced federal regulators that the very existence of the MCAS system did not need to be documented in any of the 737 manuals.   This seems like picking on a fairly low level employee who surely was just following direction from higher ups.  No mention of who the higher ups were. 

   The treacherous MCAS system was a band aid to make the 737 MAX fly just like the plain old 737 to avoid the cost of pilot training to fly the 737 MAX.  The 737 MAX was a plain 737 after an engine swap.  The new engines gave better fuel consumption, maybe 5% better.  With jet fuel going for $3 a gallon, and a full fuel load being a couple of 18 wheeler tank trucks, say 20,000 gallons, 5% fuel savings might be 1000 gallons, or $3000.  Nice chunk of change.  The new engines are bigger in diameter than the old ones, which meant they had to be slung somewhat lower under the wing.  Which meant that increasing the engine thrust, say for takeoff, had an increased tendency to push the aircraft's nose up.  Too much of this and the aircraft will stall, and fall like a stone.  So MCAS was supposed to give a bit of down horizontal stabilizer to counter the nose up tendency.  The two crashes of brand new 737 MAXs were blamed on the MCAS system going crazy and diving the plane into the ground.  

  The Journal piece did not mention who at Boeing, engineers or suits, OKed the MCAS design and what testing was supposed to be performed on each aircraft. 

Exit Strategy from a War??

 Only one exit strategy is acceptable, victory.  Destroy the enemy armed forces, occupy the enemy lands and capital, kill or capture enemy leaders.   Captured enemy leaders to be tried for war crimes.  If we are not prepared to pay the price to bring victory, stay out of the war. 

Down with voting machines. Up with paper ballots

 Voting machines are just desktop computers running an "I-am-a-ballot" program.  They can be hacked over the internet, while stored at city hall, while being set up for election day, and probably twenty other times and places as well.  Paper ballots, marked by the voter get checked by the voter and counted and saved in case of a recount.  Attached is a long screed against voting machines.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2020/11/02/computer-experts-sound-warnings-safety-americas-voting-machines/6087174002/

Colin Powell dead at 84.

 We have lost a great American.  He served his country for many many years, as a soldier, and later as advisor to presidents and secretary of state.  If he had run for president I would have voted for him. We all miss him. 

How the Fed Finances U.S. Debt.

 Wall St Journal op-ed last Thursday.  Written by Judy Shelton.

Strange article.  Never mentioned US bonds (T-bills).  First it talks about a silly plan to mint a $1 Trillion dollar platinum coin, deposit it in the Federal Reserve, and claim we are solvent.  Even if such a toy were 6 feet across, it would not be worth a TRILLION dollars.  Plus, the Fed can print all the plain old dollar bills that might be needed to redeem T-bills as they come due. 

   Then we have a strange quote from Janet Yellen.  “[It] (the platinum coin thing) is equivalent to asking the Federal Reserve to print money to cover deficits that Congress is unwilling to cover by issuing debt. It compromises the independence of the Fed, conflating monetary and fiscal policy.” 

   Wow!  I, and everyone else in America, expects the Fed to prevent a default on our T-bills by any means possible, selling more T-bills if Congress raises the debt limit, or just printing more Benjamins.  The inflationary effect of selling T-bills is about the same as for printing Benjamins.  T-bills are “near money” according to my old college economics text (Samuelson).  They are nearly as good as cash; investors who pay cash for them know that they can turn their T-bills back into cash any business day.  We run a bond market open 5 days a week, and you can sell your T-bills anytime you please and receive a cash payment within a couple of business days.

  Interesting factoid, The Fed gives the interest it earns on various things it bought to the Treasury.  This was $87 billion last year.  A nice chunk of change. 

  There are more words in the piece, but they are things everyone knows. 

Eaves vs gutter screens

 The TV has been heavily advertising gutter screens, pieces of perforated metal that fit on the top of the gutters, and let the rain water in and block out the leaves.  Cool.  Of course my house does not have gutters at all, so I don't need gutter screens.  I have nice big deep eaves, so the rain water that runs off my roof falls at a decent distance from the house and does not cause my any trouble.  

   The other benefit of good deep eaves is heating and cooling of the house.  My eaves allow the sun to shine in my south facing windows in the winter, and they block the sun in the summer to keep the house cool.  I think every house ought to have good deep eaves. 

A Couple of more good bright trees up in Franconia Notch.

 

 

 

Welfare for lawyers.

 Eight years ago the Tsaernov brothers bombed the Boston Marathon.  They killed three people, injured better than 100 people, including 16 people who lost limbs from the bombing.  The older brother was killed by police during his arrest, the younger brother ,Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, was arrested, alive, and given a trial.  The jury found him guilty and condemned him to death.  That was 8 years ago.  For the next 8 years lawyers have been collecting fees to rehash the case.  Today they got their arguments to the US Supreme Court.  How much longer lawyers will be able to collect fees from this case is unknown.  The crime was murder, which is an offense tried and punished by the states.  It is not a federal crime.  Why the Supremes are messing with a state crime and a state court sentence of death, is unclear.  Justice delayed is justice denied. 

Covid Vaccine Mandates Unnecessary

 I got vaccinated back in February and March of this year.  Since then something like 250 million shots have been administered in this country.  Less than 10,000 adverse reactions have occurred.  That is a success rate of 99.996 %.  Success doesn't get much better than that.  Very few cases of covid have occured in vaccinated people.  So I believe the covid vaccination is safe and effective.  I got vaccinated, and I will ask my doctor about getting a booster shot when I see him later this week.  I'll do what ever he recommends.  

  There are a number of people who don't want to get vaccinated.  I think they are wrong headed, but hey it's a free country (at least it used to be). If people don't want to get vaccinated I don't think we ought to be forcing them by firing them from their jobs and not allowing them into stores and restaurants and what ever.  They can walk around, spreading covid, I'm vaccinated so they won't give it to me.  If you are worried about them giving covid to you, go get vaccinated, that works, it's free. 

Tucker Carlson was saying that the humongous flight cancellations on Southwest Airlines  over this Columbus day weekend is caused by workers and flight crew who don't want to get vaccinated taking sick days and staying home.  These highly trained people are impossible to replace.  We would do better if we dropped this vaccine mandate stuff. 

Infrastructure should be a state and local business.

 Infrastructure is roads and bridges and dams and airports and flood control.  This stuff only helps the residents of the states in which it gets built.  I think such projects should be locally funded.  He who spends the money should raise the money.  This tends to keep the spending down.  If the feds just hand cash to the states, the states will make sure that they spend it all whether they need it or not.  Use it or loose it. 

   Congress is debating a one and a skosh TRILLION dollar infrastructure bill right now.  A good chunk of this is the federal highway trust fund, financed by the federal gasoline tax.  It was created back in the Eisenhower administration to build the interstate highway system.  They finished that job 40 years ago.  But they have kept right on spending year after year.  We could shut down the federal highway trust fund, and shut down the federal gasoline tax.  And tell the states that they can do any road building they deem necessary and they can raise the state gasoline tax to pay for it.  Want to bet that spending would go down now that the states would have to raise the money to pay for frills like the Boston big dig?

   I think the country would be well served to get the feds out of the infrastructure business.  The states will do a better job.

 

 

Compression Ratio. What is it? How high is enough?

   Gasoline engines (car engines) work by igniting a flammable fuel air (gasoline air) mixture when the piston is at top dead center. The heat of the burning fuel creates a high pressure in the cylinder and that pressure forces the piston down.  Heat energy (from the fuel burn) is converted into mechanical energy to turn the wheels of the car.  As long as the piston can travel down, heat energy gets converted into mechanical energy.  Unfortunately, in real practical engines, the piston reaches bottom dead center, after a travel in the order of four inches.  At bottom dead center the exhaust valve opens and the burning mixture, still very hot, is wasted to the atmosphere.  If we could build engines where the piston could keep going down, for maybe 10 feet, we could get a lot more work out of the fuel we burn.  Unfortunately such an engine would never fit under the hood, or even inside the length of a car. 

   It was found that the measure of engine efficiency is the ratio of the volume of the combustion chamber and top dead center, to the volume of the entire cylinder at bottom dead center.  You can raise the compression ratio by making the combustion chamber really really small, and living with the four something inch stroke of the typical engine. 

   In gasoline engines something else limits the possible compression ratios.  The piston compresses a flammable mixture of fuel and air. Compressing a gas (a fuel air mixture) heats it.  Sooner or later the mixture will spontaneously burst into flame.  The mixture burning on the compression stroke is called knocking in automotive circles.  Most of us have heard the noise, a kind of banging, when lugging up a hill, rpms too low, load too high.  Knocking is more easily heard on standard shift cars.  Slush box cars are programmed to down shift, get the rpms up, and avoid knocking.  The onset of knocking depends upon the grade of the gasoline.  80 octane regular gasoline is about as low as we go in the United States and will not allow a compression ratio higher than 8:1.  100 octane high test is quite knock resistant and can support a compression ratio as high as 13:1, beloved of car racers. 

 In recent years the advent of microprocessors in cars has allowed compression ratios as high as 10:1 to run on 80 octane regular gas.   The microprocessor detects the onset of knock and adjusts the ignition timing to control the knocking. 

   The greenies have been working hard to reduce car fuel efficiency.  They believe that car exhaust emissions of various nitrogen oxides are the cause of LA smog, and they have written regulations to reduce nitrogen oxide emissions.  Nitrogen oxides are formed whenever air is heated to extreme temperatures.  High compression ratios yield extreme temperatures as well as high fuel efficiencies.  To pass the greenies nitrogen oxide limits most car makers are reducing compression ratios and taking the hit to fuel economy. 

   In actual fact, nitrogen oxides all wash down in the rain, all nitrates are soluble.  And nitrogen oxides are good for plants; the botanists call the stuff fixed nitrogen.   When you buy fertilizer for your lawn you are buying nitrogen oxides. 

   LA smog happens when nitrogen oxides react with oily vapors from spilled fuel, loose gas caps, and worn engines that burn oil.  We could reduce smog by clamping down on oily vapor emissions and permit car engines to run high compression ratios to get good gas mileage. 

Leaf Season. Not quite peak yet, but getting there

 

Raising the Federal Debt Limit.

The Feds have two ways to pay for their many many expenditures.  One is taxes, the other is borrowing.  Right now taxes are high enough to pay for about 60 odd percent of the federal budget, and the other 40 percent comes from borrowing. 

The Feds borrow money by selling Treasury bonds (T-bills).  The bonds are a promise to repay the money borrowed within a fixed period, so many years.  The United States has an excellent credit rating.  We have never defaulted on our bonds, and the US dollars are good money all over the world, mostly because the Americans will sell nearly everything that exists for US dollars.  We have product on the shelf, ready to ship, or we will make it to order.  This is far better than the Russians ever did, all the Russians have to sell is crude oil, and most of their manufactured goods are so shoddy that nobody will touch them for any money.  We have stuff like jet airliners that you cannot get just anywhere.  We have top notch pop performers; we have best selling movies, best selling books, unbeatable tourist attractions, and stylish clothes, everything you can imagine. 

   My old economics text called T-bills “near money”.  They are almost as good as money, there is a 5 day a week, 8 hours a day market in which you can sell your T-bills for real cash.  An investor can buy T-bills and not feel he is any poorer, he thinks of T-bills as nearly as good as cash, and convertible to cash in a couple of business days.

   And so, to keep some limits on things, there is a federal law, the debt limit, that puts a hard limit on the amount of T-bills the federal government can sell.  Every so often as the feds borrow more and more, we raise the debt limit.  Such a time is upon us, the US treasury is saying they will hit the debt limit this month.  The Democrats don’t have the votes to pass a debt limit hike; they need some Republican votes to go along.  The Republicans, looking at the Democrats plans to pass $3.5 TRILLION (or maybe more, depends on how you count it) worth of pork and welfare, are saying “We won’t vote to hike the debt limit”. 

   The Democrats are crying that without a debt limit hike the US will default on its bonds.  This is malarkey.  Federal debt service (mostly paying off T-bills as they come due) is like 10 percent of the federal budget.  Taxes are enough the pay 60 percent of the federal budget, so paying the debt service is no real problem.  What will be a problem is deciding what to cut once the Treasury can no longer raise money by selling T-bills.  We are talking about 40 percent of the federal budget, a handsome chunk of change.  We can furlough most of the federal bureaucrats, stopping their pay.  We can stop paying for a lot of welfare and school lunches and other freebies.  We could stop federal highway subsidies, farm program price supports.  We will have to keep paying social security benefits because of the political outcry that would occur if social security went away.  We probably need to keep paying the armed forces, we may need them badly. 

Uninstalled AVG antivirus. Computer runs faster.

I was trouble shooting another problem.  An Internet posting suggested turning off antivirus might fix the problem.  Not knowing how to turn off AVG, I uninstalled it.  That did not fix my problem (cannot send email) but it did speed up my computer a lot.  Particularly noticeable was faster internet speeds with DISH.

The TV ads mostly sell health

 Just keeping score this evening I counted 13 ads for health stuff, pills, copperfit, lawyers to call to sue companies for health damaging stuff.  Health was the biggie.  They are selling health.  This probably has something to do with the US spending 19% of GNP on healthcare, twice what any other country in the world spends on healthcare.

There were 15 other ads for realtors, pans, mypillow, air freshener, Angi, vacation spots, watches, computer stuff, food, and foreign cars.  All of these other ads were onesies and twosies, nothing like the 13 ads for various health products. 

Justice Kavanaugh tests positive for Covid according to Legal Insurection

 And just how reliable is that test?  The justice has been vaccinated and is asymptomatic.  Sounds like a false positive due to poor quality control on the test.  In my book, you don't have covid until you show some symptoms. 

Nancy and the Democrats throw in the towel

 This morning the TV news announced that ONE of the TWO big spending bills will not be brought to a vote.  Presumably this means that Nancy counted votes and found that the bill would loose.  So, better not to have a losing vote, just don't have a vote at all.  I think the bill that got withdrawn today was the smaller $1.5 TRILLION bill that had a fair amount of real infrastructure spending in it,  Infrastructure is stuff like roads, airports, stuff you can see and touch.  There is a second $3.5 TRILLION spending bill kicking around which is just hand outs, freebies and pure pork.  With luck, that one will die quietly in a corner somewhere, and soon.

Fox News shows off their totally remodeled DC studio

 It looks cool.  Lots and lots of TV sets everywhere.  Painted a light shade of Landlord White.  The Fox people talked about all the fancy electronic stuff built in to their nice new studio.  I wondered if they had done anything about all the emergency vehicle sirens, gunshots, and other loud noises that kept interrupting the programming on their old studio.  Nobody said anything about that.

The Marksman, Liam Neeson 2021

 Not bad.  I Netflixed it and watched it today.  We meet Liam Neeson as a kinda washed up rancher on the Mexican border, so washed up that the bank is going to reclaim his ranch.  He is also very tough.  A mother and her 12 year old son make it on to his property, pursued by the cartel.  Liam opens the flick by shooting a coyote, he moves on to shooting a cartel member.  What thru one plot twist after another, he winds up headed for Chicago with the boy, Miguel.  They make it,  They kill the pursuing cartel members.  Sound man does the right thing and I can hear and understand all the dialog.  Camera man keeps the camera on a tripod and keeps the lights on.  

Not a bad flick, but not so good as to duplicate and keep.

A lotta talk about "over-the-horizon" operations

 This talk is mostly BS.  It is just photo recon flights, with camera's, talking pictures from 10,000 feet.  This works for large targets like cities and towns that cannot move.  The WWII 8th Air Force was able to find and bomb German cities from just overhead photos.  But you cannot find and strike smaller and mobile targets like enemy infantry, or enemy leadership.  Despite a lot of technological progress since WWII,  our " over-the=horizon" capabilities are no better than they were back in 1944.

  So when you hear Democrats talking about "over-the-horizon" operations on TV, know that you are hearing mostly happy talk, trying to make our pullout from Afghanistan sound less dreadful and less shameful than it really is. 

Congress is grilling the generals responsible for the Afghan disaster

 They been yakking for nearly an hour.  NOBODY has asked the key question, namely why did we not evacuate the civilians, Americans and our Afghan friends, BEFORE we pulled our troops out? 

Federal Government Shutdown? How bad? How likely?

 Last time, some years ago, don't remember just how many years, it wasn't all that bad for us just plain citizens.  Post office kept on delivering the mail.  The armed forces got paid. Air traffic control stayed on duty.  A fair number of bureaucrats got laid off for a couple of weeks.  I think that eventually got paid for the time they were out.  IRS workers got laid off, but that was no loss from my point of view, I wasn't expecting a tax refund, and I paid my income tax, by mail, on time.  The whole thing made you wonder just how many useless bureaucrats we are paying.  

  This time, I cannot tell if the CongressCritters will be able to pass a raise to debt ceiling.  In the Senate, just one Democrat deciding to vote against the debt ceiling raise would do the trick.  There might be some Democrats appalled by the deficit spending, on the other hand there might not be.  I cannot tell.  Things are a little looser in the house, the Democrats have a 5 vote majority.  I think Pelosi will be able to deliver the house for the Democrats.  

TV sounds

 My TV makes the sound of telephones ringing, electronic gadgets beeping, cats crying, sirens screaming, cars crashing and many more.  Each time I hear one of these sounds I stop, listen, and ask my self "Is that sound mine? Is it real? Should I answer my phone?"  PITA.  

   The TV people could help, by relocating their studios to a quieter part of of town so they don't have emergency vehicle sirens drowning out the newsie who is pontificating in front of the camera. 

Men make only 40% of college students.

 This is being deplored,  but I am not sure it is all that bad.  There are a lot of good paying jobs for men that don't require a college degree.  Truck driver, heavy equipment operator, logger, construction worker, auto mechanic, miner, carpenter, cop, fireman, lineman, soldier, machinist, and many more.  Few women want to take those kind of jobs.  Women are looking for office jobs with no heavy lifting, where they might snag a good husband.  Plus more girls are deeply into academic work.  There are a lot of guys who find academic work boring. 

Iron Dome replacement missiles

 Last Arab Israeli go around, the Arabs fired a helova lot of rockets out of Gaza into Israel.  Israel's Iron Dome missile system was amazingly effective at shooting down the Arab rockets.  Most of the Iron Dome missiles launched, hit their targets in mid air.  The Israeli's launched a LOT of Iron Dome missiles.  They must be running low.  

   We were going to give the Israeli's $1 billion to buy or build more Iron Dome missiles.  Israel needs those missiles for the next time the Arabs start launching rockets at them.  Yesterday the Democrats in Congress killed the Iron Dome replacement missile funding.  Good work Pelosi, refusing to fund defensive weapons for our best (only?) ally in the Middle East.  A liberal democracy, the only one in the entire area. 

Booster shot or no booster shot?

   Biden recommended everyone get a booster shot.  On the other hand, Biden is getting senile, and knows very little about anything of importance.  In fact, much of what Biden thinks he knows is wrong.  I don’t plan to take Joe Biden’s advice on any medical issue

   Anthony Fauci is recommending booster shots.  On the other hand Fauci has changed his tune repeatedly over the last year. Why should I think he has got it right this time?

   FDA recommended against booster shots, and then changed their tune the next day and recommends booster shots for people over 65.  On the other hand FDA is mostly bureaucrats concerned with keeping their jobs.  They believe in doing more and more paper work.  The few medical doctors in the FDA haven’t treated a live patient since leaving medical school, they just do paperwork. 

   So who’s advice will I follow?  Dr Kevin Silva, my doctor who I have been seeing for many years.  He has gotten it right a couple of times over the years.  I will wait a bit, to give the information (if any) some time to circulate and then ask him if I should get a booster shot.  I plan to follow his recommendations. 

USAF starting bids on yet more tankers.

 Ten years ago Boeing won the contract for 180 new air refueling tankers.  They have not yet finished delivery on all the planes.  Boeing says they have lost $5 billion on this job.  There was a hassle over how to wire the aircraft, the Air Force thought they knew more about aircraft wiring than Boeing did. Then there is the rear view TV system.  They wanted to seat the boom operator up in the cockpit rather than back in the tail.  So they put in a TV system to let the boom operator see to steer the boom into the fuel receptical  of the refueling aircraft.  The Air Force has complained that the TV system image is not as good as the image you get looking out thru a plain old window.  Air Force has been "witholding" $12 million per plane.  Boeing has promised an improved TV system, some time in the future.

   180 new tankers aparently isn't enough.  So, USAF is going thru the  whole bidding process, pitting Boeing against Airbus all over again. New specs, new contract, and if Airbus wins,  they will furnish their own tanker, based on an Airbus airliner.  Speaking as an old USAF maintenance officer, I would much rather have a larger fleet of the same aircraft, than a mixed fleet of half Boeing, half Airbus.  The mixed fleet means I have to train my guys on both aircraft and I have to  stock different spare parts for both aircraft.  

So what's with booster shots for Corona virus?

 Yesterday the TV said that FDA does not approve of booster shots.  Today the TV says that somebody thinks boosters are needed for old folks over 65 like me.  I think I will ask my doctor what he recommends rather that taking the TV's word for anything.

What's with a Marine wearing a Class A uniform in medium blue?

 General Mark Milley, Chief of Staff, in the news a lot, over Bob Woodward's story about Milley telephoning the Chinese chief of staff and promising to give him a heads up in case Trump was planning an attack on China.  Some times he wears the traditional Marine Class A uniform in olive drab.  Sometimes he wears a blue Class A uniform, the blue is lighter than Navy blue, and darker than Air Force blue.  I am out of touch with uniform regulations now, but I am surprised about two colors for the Class A uniform.  

The Democrat’s “Freedom to Vote Act”

 After talking up a spending bill of $3.5 trillion, or perhaps $5.8 trillion, the Democrats are proposing loosening up voter laws to make it easier for Democrats to vote.  They are planning a voter law that would put the federal government in charge of a lot of stuff that is currently handled by state governments.  The want to force Republican states to make a lot of changes that will favor Democrats at the ballot box.

The Democrats want five changes that will open the doors to massive voter fraud.

1.  15 Consecutive days of early voting.  I think we ought to vote in Election Day; it simplifies counting votes, and makes it harder for out of state voters to show up, show false ID and a mail in ballot, and steal the vote of a real resident voter. 

2. Same day registration at all polling sites.  Same day registration makes voter fraud easier.  A real resident of the state has no trouble getting to town hall BEFORE the election and registering to vote.  An out of state shill, bussed up to vote, loves same day registration. 

3. Mail in voting.  Mail in voting causes millions of good ballots to be mailed out to every voter in the state.  A lot of these ballots fall into the hands of unscrupulous vote buyers, who fill them out for their party, file them down at town hall, and when the real voter shows up to vote, they get told, “Sorry, you already voted”. 

4.  Weaken voter ID.  Allow more documents including bank cards and student ID cards.  Far as I am concerned the only decent ID is a state driver’s license.  Everyone gets one; you have to have a driver’s license to drive to work. 

5. Require provisional ballots.  If the voter lacks a proper photo ID, he can fill out a ballot, the election officials are supposed to check out the voter and his lack of ID.  If the officials run out of time, and the ballot is for their party, they mark it OK, and throw it into the pile of ballots to be counted.  Far as I am concerned, if the voter doesn’t have a valid picture ID (driver’s license) then he doesn’t get to vote.

 

All Republicans ought to oppose this bill.  According to the Wall St Journal it will come up for a vote next week.  Too bad the entire New Hampshire congressional delegation is Democrat.  We need to fix that. 

 

 

 

Secretary Blinken avoids answering questions

 Congress grilled Blinken on TV all day.  He managed to dodge answering anything all day.  A fast mouth on that guy.  And I don't believe a word he said. 

Why did Fauci give US taxpayer funding to a Chinese lab?

 Did, or did not, the Wuhan lab in China create the corona virus?  Who knows?  Why did Fauci approve giving US funding to a Chinese lab?  If there was something that we really needed to know, we should have funded and American lab, on American soil, staffed by Americans, to do the work.  That way we get the results, we can check them, retry anything that seems doubtful, and we have full access to the experimental results.  

   The Chinese have clammed up about just what went on at that Wuhan lab.  We funded them but we don't get any results.  Money down the drain.  

I suspect that the funding went to China, because the work was "gain of function" research, a very dangerous procedure that had been banned by the Obama administration.  Fauci wanted for some reason to do some gain of function work, so he sent the work and the money to China which had not banned gain of function research.

Gain of function research amounts to fiddling with the infectious agent, most likely a virus, to make it more infectious.  There is no good reason to do that sort of thing.    

baked French onion soup

 Tasty.  Start with a can of Campbell's French onion soup.  Follow directions on the can, add a can of water, heat on the stove on medium until it begins to bubble.  Take an earthenware bowl or pottle.  Put in half the soup.  Top with a small piece of toast and some grated cheese.  Pop it until the broiler long enough to melt the cheese.  In my oven, with my timer, that is two minutes.  It's tasty and low calorie.

Why do I care?

 Me, I got vaccinated against corona virus back in February and March.  Far as I know, far as the TV tells me, I won’t get covid, no matter who I hang out with.  We have some people who don’t want to get the corona virus vaccine.  I think they are wrong headed, but I don’t really care.  I won’t get it no matter what they do.  If they think they are immune, or think the vaccine is worse for them than covid, that’s their problem, not mine.

  So now we have Biden calling for mandatory vaccination for federal workers and health care workers and mask mandates.  I think Biden is just talking up a story that is not Afghanistan, just to get the newies talking about something, anything, that is not as damaging to Biden as Afghanistan stories are.  And the vast federal bureaucracy, democrats all, are trying to help poor old Biden out. 

 

Biden wants zero emissions from electric generation by 2040.  Good luck Joe baby.   He is pushing “alternate energy” by which he means wind and solar.  Trouble with wind and solar is they don’t produce electricity when needed; they only produce electricity when they feel like it.  Solar stops generating when the sun goes down, which happens every evening.  Wind stops generating when the wind stops blowing, which is not unusual.  In fact the air is dead still up here as I write this. 

   I need electric power all the time.  My oil burner won’t run without electricity, my stove, my hot water, my lights, my TV, my computer, my power tools all need electricity.  Biden’s zero emissions plan would only furnish power on sunny afternoons.  Juice goes off at sundown.  On a cold winter night, no juice means no oil burner and my pipes freeze. 

  

Biden wants Alternate Energy by 2040

 

Biden wants zero emissions from electric generation by 2040.  Good luck Joe baby.   He is pushing “alternate energy” by which he means wind and solar.  Trouble with wind and solar is they don’t produce electricity when needed; they only produce electricity when they feel like it.  Solar stops generating when the sun goes down, which happens every evening.  Wind stops generating when the wind stops blowing, which is not unusual.  In fact the air is dead still up here as I write this. 

   I need electric power all the time.  My oil burner won’t run without electricity, my stove, my hot water, my lights, my TV, my computer, my power tools all need electricity.  Biden’s zero emissions plan would only furnish power on sunny afternoons.  Juice goes off at sundown.  On a cold winter night, no juice means no oil burner and my pipes freeze. 

  

Vetting Afghan refugees.

 

Do we care about “vetting” the Afghan refugees?  We fear that Islamic terrorists will get into our country in the guise of refugees.  “Vetting” is comparison of the refugee with Afghan police records, Taliban membership lists, school attendance records, driver’s license records and the like.  Trouble is, all these records are all still in Afghanistan under the control of the Taliban.  Should the Taliban want to slip a few operatives into the United States, they will surely show a clean as a whistle record to any attempt by Americans to check them out. 

  If the State Dept had been really effective, they would have acquired the needed Afghan records during the 20 years we maintained friendly relations with the Afghan government[s].  You could fit all the records for the entire country onto a handful of smart drives that would fit in your pocket.  But I’ll bet the State Dept never bothered to collect the needed records.  I have little respect for our State Dept.

  As for me, I figure any Afghan willing to board a plane out of his/her country, with nothing but the clothes on his/her back, is probably alright, a good nick on our side.  And, I think ordinary police work on our part, developing informants, cracking down on drug running, keeping good records about crime in our new Afghan refugee communities, will be enough to pick up any Islamic terrorists before they can do much badness. 

In a New York minute

 Hurricane Ida made landfall in New Orleans, and did a lot of damage down there.  Then it meandered cross country, over land, all the way to New York City.  You would think after that much overland travel Ida would have weakened, a lot.  

  Well, the winds had died down but it still generated a lot of rain.  Giving New York and New Jersey some spectacular floods.  Killed something like 40 people.  

The TV is blaming it all on "global warming".  Right.  We get hurricanes, and sometimes the hurricanes do a lot of damage where they come ashore.  We have been getting hurricanes since forever.  I don't think Ida was all the bad by the time it got to New York.  Could it be that New York has been skimping on storm drains?  And blaming the damage on "global warming"?  

Booster Shots, need for

 Lotta talk about giving a third corona virus vaccine shot.  No evidence for or against the idea at least not on TV or the Wall St Journal.  The needed numbers should not be hard to find.  We need to know how many people developed covid AFTER having two shots of the Pfister or Moderna vaccines.  And "developed covid" means the patient actually got sick, and ran a fever.  Just testing positive for covid antibodies doesn't count.  Many of the tests have have false positive rates or 50% or worse, so I don't believe someone has covid just because a test came out positive.  I want to see the patient actually get sick. 

Any how, we the voters need that real data before we can make intelligent choices.

how come I never seem to find a book I might like to read?

 The Wall St Journal publishes a "review" section (book reviews) on Saturday.  Some how I never read a review that inspires any desire to read the whole book.  I like non-fiction, history, science fiction, fantasy, and a number of youn adult (YA) books.  WSJ never seems to review any of these catagories.

Texas Abortion Law

 Daughter is unhappy about the state of Texas abortion law, even though she does not live in Texas. It's a pretty drastic law, it effectively bans all abortions in Texas. The Supremes decided to let it stand.

Question for Texans. Half the electorate in Texas, or any other state for that matter, is women. Cannot this large homogenous group vote out all the legislators that voted in the Texas abortion law?

Biden speaking on Fox News this morning

 Biden claimed that 55 companies paid no taxes last year.  He didn't name even one of them, but he believes that big companies are skimping on their tax payments.  If you cannot name them, they don't exist.  He went on to claim that top bracket tax payers are not paying all that they should.   If true, Biden needs to sic the IRS on them with audits.  

There must be a lot of Afghans who like the Taliban

 The Taliban took over all of Afghanistan without a fight.  That must mean a lot of Afghans are OK with the Taliban.  Back when the Russians (tough customers) tried to take the place over, the Afghans fought and eventually, with some help from us and a lot of Stinger anti aircraft missiles they drove the Russians clean out of Afghanistan.  The fact that they didn't oppose the Taliban says to me that they, or at least a lot of Afghans, are just fine with the Taliban.  

The TV news isn't talking about that at all.  

Biden is on TV right now, blaming Afghanistan on Trump

 Along with saying that Afghanistan is not that bad, and we flew a lot of people out.  But we left hundreds of American citizens to the tender mercies of Islamic terrorists and thousands of Afghans who had helped us and we had promised to take care of them.  We didn't.  Totally shameful.  

Something wrong with the electorate

 Electing Biden has given us the greatest national disaster since the Civil War back in 1860.  It was obvious to anyone watching TV during the election that Biden was senile. And yet they voted for him.  And the democratic party nominated Biden.  Surely there were some Democrats who were better than Biden.  In actual fact just about any democrat would have been better than Biden, but the party nominated Biden.  Something was wrong, probably still is wrong, with the nomination process.  

   We really need a smarter set of voters and a better party structure.