Sub titled "How extreme partisanship has paralyzed Washington and polarized America." It's a very recent book (2007) . It gives an interesting account of the politics of the last 20 years. For those that lived thru the period, it is a good nostalgic read. The author describes the "great sorting out" when the Solid South decided to leave the democratic party and join the republicans. In the good old days, the solid south voted democratic, and had done so ever since the Civil War. The Civil Rights Bill of 1964 was pushed thru by the national democratic party, over the dead bodies of the southern democrats. After that, southerners found they could join the republican party without causing total revulsion among their neighbors.
The result was the conservative southern democrats joined the conservative republican party, and the moderate republicans from the northeast switched to the liberal democratic party. The result was considerable more unity in the two national parties. By the 1990's the division between the parties in Congress was as sharp and rancorous as it had been before the Civil War. The strength of the two parties was fairly equal by the '90's so controversial legislation had little chance of passage.
The author decries this as total gridlock and calls for a return to the more mellow 1950's. I fail to agree with this viewpoint. I see the great sorting out as clarifying the issues to the voters. In the mellow 1950's it was hard for citizens, even real news junkies, to know what their party stood for, and what it might do if elected. Today the choices for the voters are more understandable.
The author does not discuss the rise of contentious issues since the 1960's. Things like drugs, abortion, gay rights, and immigration just were not issues in the 1950's and 60's. They hadn't been invented yet. When you have more contentious issues on the table you are going to have a more polarized electorate. The other thing the author fails to discuss is the fading of the unity forced upon us by the great challenges of the depression and World War II, and the Soviets. Twenty years of facing down existential challenges will foster a lot of political unity.
The author is a reporter for the Los Angles Times, and once co authored a book with Ralph Nader. His liberal sympathies seep out in the text.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
The Petraeus-Crocker hearings
C-Span carried the hearings live. General Petraeus looked and sounded good. Crocker did OK, although there were a couple of times where he should have answered "Yes' or "No" and didn't. Ranking committee member John McCain was impressive. McCain's questions where real questions, which prompted the witness (Petraeus) to offer more and useful information. The committee democrats just made anti-war speeches. The democrats tried hard to get Petraeus and Crocker to commit to a withdrawal date, but they wisely refused. You don't tell the enemy when you plan to go home, that just makes the enemy hunker down until you leave him in charge.
Crocker is negotiating a "status of forces" agreement with the Iraqi government. The UN resolution that OK'ed the US invasion will expire end of this year. "Status of Forces" is the usual agreement between our government and foreign governments that allows armed US troops into said foreign country. Such agreements usually spell out legal jurisdictions, does a US soldier have to face the local justice when crimes are alleged? We try hard to put in a clause that give the US Army jurisdiction, but that doesn't always fly with the locals. Interesting point, Crocker said the status of forces agreement would be handled by executive order without the advice and consent of the US senate. Most of the existing status of forces agreements were handled as real treaties needing Senate OK. This might give rise to more Senate grandstanding before the election.
Petraeus and Crocker feel that the recent shootouts in Basra and other places represents the Maliki government getting strong enough to take out the militias, which is a good thing even if taking them out leads to a bit of mortar fire into the Green Zone.
Crocker is negotiating a "status of forces" agreement with the Iraqi government. The UN resolution that OK'ed the US invasion will expire end of this year. "Status of Forces" is the usual agreement between our government and foreign governments that allows armed US troops into said foreign country. Such agreements usually spell out legal jurisdictions, does a US soldier have to face the local justice when crimes are alleged? We try hard to put in a clause that give the US Army jurisdiction, but that doesn't always fly with the locals. Interesting point, Crocker said the status of forces agreement would be handled by executive order without the advice and consent of the US senate. Most of the existing status of forces agreements were handled as real treaties needing Senate OK. This might give rise to more Senate grandstanding before the election.
Petraeus and Crocker feel that the recent shootouts in Basra and other places represents the Maliki government getting strong enough to take out the militias, which is a good thing even if taking them out leads to a bit of mortar fire into the Green Zone.
Defeat the Granite State Fair Tax Coalition
They want to strip away the powers of cities and towns and give them to
Cities and towns will get more education done for less money than
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Secrets of fine wood finishing
For a paint finish, things haven't changed much over the years. Although a bright finish (varnish,shellac,oil) shows off the wood to advantage, some pieces call for the opaque finish of paint. Especially things made of ordinary lumberyard wood (pine) as opposed to expensive hardwood.
For openers, fill cracks, gaps in joints and finishing nail holes with wood filler. Smooth the wood filler with a putty knife. Give the filler some time to dry and then sand the whole thing. Walmart has Black & Decker 1/4 sheet orbital sanders for $30. The power tool takes a lot of the curse out of sanding. 120 grit paper is about right, coarse enough to cut the wood and fine enough that the scratches won't show thru the first coat.
First coat is thinned down shellac, to act as a sealer. The grain in wood is layers of harder and softer wood. The softwood soaks up more paint than the hardwood and causes the grain to show thru the paint layers. The sealer soaks into the soft and hard wood, and prevents to top color coat from soaking deeply into the wood. You take plain store bought shellac and cut it 50-50 with shellac thinner (denatured alcohol). The thinned shellac will soak deeply into the fresh wood.
Let the shellac dry hard, overnight at least. Although shellac dries tack free in less than an hour, you want to give it plenty of time to get good and hard so it won't clog the sandpaper when you sand it. The dries shellac coat will be rough to the touch. What's happened is tiny wood fibers that were soft and flexible have gotten hard and bristly thru the shellac drying and hardening then. Sand every thing with 220 grit sand paper until it feels glass smooth. If the sandpaper cuts down thru the shellac to the wood it doesn't matter much, the thinned shellac is still in the wood pores.
Wipe down the sanded piece with a rag dampened in mineral spirits to catch all the sanding dust and then put on the first coat of paint. I don't trust water based or latex paint. I look for a gloss oil based paint. Rust Oleum or Larcaloid has worked for me, but any oil based gloss enamel works. Avoid lacquer unless you have a paint sprayer. Lacquer dries so fast that the brushmarks don't have time to level. Lest the paint dry over night.
Sand the first coat of paint with 220 grit. Wipe the dust down with the same rag moistened in mineral spirits. Then apply t he second coat, let dry and you are done, if you want a glossy surface. For a more sophisticated matte finish, you sand the last coat with 220 grit and then give it a coat of paste wax. Butcher's wax is good. Avoid car wax, it contains silicone to which nothing will ever stick, making a recoat in later years peel off.
For openers, fill cracks, gaps in joints and finishing nail holes with wood filler. Smooth the wood filler with a putty knife. Give the filler some time to dry and then sand the whole thing. Walmart has Black & Decker 1/4 sheet orbital sanders for $30. The power tool takes a lot of the curse out of sanding. 120 grit paper is about right, coarse enough to cut the wood and fine enough that the scratches won't show thru the first coat.
First coat is thinned down shellac, to act as a sealer. The grain in wood is layers of harder and softer wood. The softwood soaks up more paint than the hardwood and causes the grain to show thru the paint layers. The sealer soaks into the soft and hard wood, and prevents to top color coat from soaking deeply into the wood. You take plain store bought shellac and cut it 50-50 with shellac thinner (denatured alcohol). The thinned shellac will soak deeply into the fresh wood.
Let the shellac dry hard, overnight at least. Although shellac dries tack free in less than an hour, you want to give it plenty of time to get good and hard so it won't clog the sandpaper when you sand it. The dries shellac coat will be rough to the touch. What's happened is tiny wood fibers that were soft and flexible have gotten hard and bristly thru the shellac drying and hardening then. Sand every thing with 220 grit sand paper until it feels glass smooth. If the sandpaper cuts down thru the shellac to the wood it doesn't matter much, the thinned shellac is still in the wood pores.
Wipe down the sanded piece with a rag dampened in mineral spirits to catch all the sanding dust and then put on the first coat of paint. I don't trust water based or latex paint. I look for a gloss oil based paint. Rust Oleum or Larcaloid has worked for me, but any oil based gloss enamel works. Avoid lacquer unless you have a paint sprayer. Lacquer dries so fast that the brushmarks don't have time to level. Lest the paint dry over night.
Sand the first coat of paint with 220 grit. Wipe the dust down with the same rag moistened in mineral spirits. Then apply t he second coat, let dry and you are done, if you want a glossy surface. For a more sophisticated matte finish, you sand the last coat with 220 grit and then give it a coat of paste wax. Butcher's wax is good. Avoid car wax, it contains silicone to which nothing will ever stick, making a recoat in later years peel off.
Sunday Pundits
An earnest young thing on George Stephanoplis' show this morning argued that American withdrawal from Iraq would improve things. She proposed that lacking Americans to shoot at, the Iraqi shooters would hang up their guns and go home. Good old Cokie Roberts said "I don't think the American electorate accepts that view".
I think Cokie has it right there.
I think Cokie has it right there.
The Eco Fair
I drove over to the great north country Eco Fair, held at the Profile High School yesterday (Saturday). The parking lot was all parked up and cars were parked up and down Rt 18 for quite a distance. It being 11 o'clock, peak hour on a Saturday, I didn't bother to look from a closer in parking space, it was too early for anyone to have left. As I walked up the long line of parked cars I took note of what people were driving. Answer: Mostly Honda and Toyota. The few Detroit made vehicles were full size 3/4 ton pickups. No Detroit sedans at all.
Inside the school gym were vendors, ecological science displays from local school children, various pitchmen, and every one from The town of Franconia. I met Martha McCleod, Ken King, Paul and Karen Foss, plus John and Maggie Starr. Clearly there is interest in saving energy, which up here means saving $3.89 a gallon furnace oil.
Products on display. Several vendors offered a neat "build an insulated concrete wall" system. Sheets of 2 inch styrofoam insulation with plastic spacer gizmos. The spacers hold the styrofoam sheets about 6 inches apart and have pockets for the rebar. Concrete is poured inbetween the two styrofoam sheets, and when it hardens presto, a poured concrete cellar with 2 inches of sytrofoam insulation both inside and out. Since concrete by itself has zero insulating value, this is an improvement.
Then the high efficiency light folks were out in force. The local power company (PSNH) was selling them at the door for $1 a piece. At that price they make sense. An ordinary 100 watt (0.1KW) light bulb lasts 1000 hours which means it burns 100 kilowatt hours over its life. At 10 cents a kilowatt hour, the ordinary bulb uses $10 worth of electricity. The compact fluorescent bulbs use only one quarter of that, so you recover the $1 price of the bulb in the first 150 hours of lighting. Then there was a kitchen appliance maker promising tremendous savings from their products. Unfortunately they did not bring samples to the show, so it was hard to get excited about them.
Then we had vendors of solar hot water heat and windmills. Not present, vendors of "solar cell on the roof" do it your self electric systems.
Inside the school gym were vendors, ecological science displays from local school children, various pitchmen, and every one from The town of Franconia. I met Martha McCleod, Ken King, Paul and Karen Foss, plus John and Maggie Starr. Clearly there is interest in saving energy, which up here means saving $3.89 a gallon furnace oil.
Products on display. Several vendors offered a neat "build an insulated concrete wall" system. Sheets of 2 inch styrofoam insulation with plastic spacer gizmos. The spacers hold the styrofoam sheets about 6 inches apart and have pockets for the rebar. Concrete is poured inbetween the two styrofoam sheets, and when it hardens presto, a poured concrete cellar with 2 inches of sytrofoam insulation both inside and out. Since concrete by itself has zero insulating value, this is an improvement.
Then the high efficiency light folks were out in force. The local power company (PSNH) was selling them at the door for $1 a piece. At that price they make sense. An ordinary 100 watt (0.1KW) light bulb lasts 1000 hours which means it burns 100 kilowatt hours over its life. At 10 cents a kilowatt hour, the ordinary bulb uses $10 worth of electricity. The compact fluorescent bulbs use only one quarter of that, so you recover the $1 price of the bulb in the first 150 hours of lighting. Then there was a kitchen appliance maker promising tremendous savings from their products. Unfortunately they did not bring samples to the show, so it was hard to get excited about them.
Then we had vendors of solar hot water heat and windmills. Not present, vendors of "solar cell on the roof" do it your self electric systems.
Friday, April 4, 2008
Fox & Friends, Life on Mars is a joke
Fox & Friends Megyn Kelly and Bill Hemmer tried to do a life on Mars story this morning. They opened with an enigmatic photo of something fibrous and crawly. The voice over was confused, and failed the who,where,when, what & why test. They failed to mention who took the photo, what is the photo of, where the photo came from, when it was released. Then they flipped up a Mars orbiter picture of some terrain on Mars, but failed to connect the two pictures. At this point Megyn Kelley, the cute blonde who works a 14 hour day said she didn't understand the story, and would have no hope of understanding it. Hemmer then opined that until he saw a flying saucer he wouldn't understand anything.
In this one botched story the two of them managed to convince me that neither of them knew, understood, or cared about, interplanetary exploration. They also managed to show that they had never taken even high school science. They are cute and handsome, but empty headed and ignorant.
I guess they got their jobs thru charm and good looks rather than intelligence.
In this one botched story the two of them managed to convince me that neither of them knew, understood, or cared about, interplanetary exploration. They also managed to show that they had never taken even high school science. They are cute and handsome, but empty headed and ignorant.
I guess they got their jobs thru charm and good looks rather than intelligence.
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