Surprise, you can find useful stuff at Tractor Supply

Tractor Supply, a national chain, opened a medium-box store up here in Littleton last fall. Lured by mail advertisements and coupons, I checked it out last year. At the time it seemed like a boutique for wannabe farmers, full of out door clothing, no-name hand tools from China, and 50 pound bags of dog food.
Til yesterday.
I needed a five inch pulley for a Craigslist jointer. No luck at Franconia Hardware (they had a four inch but no five inch), or NAPA. But the counterman at NAPA suggested Tractor Supply. And lo and behold, Tractor Supply had just the right pulley, American made even, hanging on pegboard next to the shelf of electric motors. A little pricey ($15) but when you need a part you need a part. But cheaper than Internet, with its $10 shipping charges for everything.

Clueless Sunday Pundits

After endless Ted Kennedy funeral coverage the ABCers got to talking about the great CIA prosecution flap. One newsie said that Obama didn't want to prosecute but his hands were tied. Wow. Decision to prosecute always been at the discretion of the prosecutor. Eric Holder, the prosecutor, is Obama's attorney general. I believe that Mr. Holder will defer to the president's wishes at all times. Obama picked him for the attorney general job for just this reason. I ain't gonna believe that Obama is opposed to the prosecution.
I still don't understand why Obama is doing it. Conservatives and independants are dead set against it. CIA as an organization is dead set against it. CIA might proceed to destablized the Obama administration the way they did the Bush administration with embarrassing leaks of classified information. Why mud wrestle with a pig? You get dirty and the pig seems to enjoy it. Is it really worth stirring up this much bad feeling just to distract voters from Obamacare?
The newsies did not discuss those issues at all.

Al Jazeera more objective than CNN or BBC?

Roger Simon, vacationing in Italy, says yes. Which is another way of saying that CNN and BBC are truly awful news sources.

Sunspots affect the weather? Really?

Short article here. Trouble is, before I believe that, I have to see a graph of temperature or rainfall or something that varies with an 11 year period. Lacking such a graph, I don't believe it.
Sunspots have been known for better than 400 years. They do have a strong effect on radio propagation, something well known to any ham radio operator. Long distance, or over-the-horizon, radio communication is much easier at sunspot maximum.
Somehow it is hard to believe that only now, in heat of the global warming crisis, that suddenly a correlation between weather and sunspot activity is discovered.
If the very small variations in solar heat caused by sunspots makes a difference then global warming can be linked to longer term variations in solar heat. Satellite observations of solar activity only go back 30-40 years. The satellites all show the sunspot cycle clearly, but the long term trend is unreadable. Each new satellite launched (and there have been a dozen) reads the solar activity a little bit different from its predecessor, due to tiny variations in instrument calibration. After this effect has been corrected, the long term trend is read as nothing by some, and as improper corrections by others.
The referenced article contains no data at all. The scientific articles linked to are all "pay-per-view". Being a cheapskate, I'll try and find something on the net that is free before putting up real money to satisfy my curiosity.

Is Obama prosecuting CIA to take heat off Healthcare?

The Obama administration has decided to prosecute CIA people for harsh interrogation of Al Quada prisoners. You have to wonder why. Only the deepest lefties care much. Ordinary Americans are all in favor of squeezing intelligence out of Al Quada people by any means at all. People who blow up skyscrapers full of US citizens don't get much sympathy.
Prosecuting CIA people will render CIA even less effective than it has been. With the threat of criminal prosecution hanging over then, CIA agents are less likely to press hard, or take risks. Conservatives are unhappy about the national security risks incurred by weakening CIA.
All and all the issue seems like a loser for the Obama administration. So why are they doing it?
Could it be that they want to divert attention from the health care issue which doesn't seem to be going their way? Perhaps they fear they will lose on health care and are looking for something else to put on the front pages? Seems like a dumb idea to me, but with Obama you never know.
Some have suggested prosecuting CIA people is a way to get at Dick Cheney. That seems like a stretch to me. Cheney was vice president, not CIA director. Plus, how many real people really care about getting revenge on Dick Cheney? Especially now, when he is out of office?

Meet the Press, or Newies for Horserace reporting

We had Sen Chuckie Schumer (D-NY) and Sen Orrin Hatch (R-somewhere out west) on the show, topic Obamacare. The senators each launched into the merits of Obamacare or no Obamacare. Every time they got into a discussion of real issues, the moderator, newsie David Gregory, would interrupt and ask them to comment on the bill's odds of passing, or who had taken sides. In short, Gregory covers the issue like a horserace, all he cares about is who is ahead, he doesn't care about what it means, he just wants to predict a winner. Any winner. He sees no obligation to burden voters with facts or issues. Just pick the winner of the horserace.

Bipartisanship is the Holy Grail

In American political folklore, bipartisan bills are virtuous, wholesome, and god fearing. The rationale being that if both parties agree that the bill is a Good Thing, then it must be OK (or at least non-toxic).
Needless to say, both parties want their bills to gain the label of "bipartisan" and they accuse the other party of "obstructionism" if they fail to jump on board. Once the minority party has voted for a bill, they cannot campaign against it. The Obamacare bill, currently raising political blood pressure is a fine example.
The real question for the minority party is whether a majority party bill is of sufficient worth to support. The working politician firmly believes in "scratch my back and I will scratch yours." Unless the bill is really really bad, the minority party is tempted to offer "bi partisan" support, in return for a promise of earmarks, committee assignments, and support for it's pet projects.
Trouble with the "go along and get along" strategy comes at election time. The voters have great difficulty seeing much difference between the two parties, especially when they have been "bi-partisan" all the time.
So far this administration, the Republicans have been good about opposing things that smell really bad. They voted against the Porkulus, Cap and Tax, and Obamacare. They need to keep it up, any weakening will cost them in 2010.