Cherry Pie (recipe)

Comes out very tasty. Very simple. Make the crust (2 cups flour, 1 tsp salt, 1 tablespoon baking powder, some sugar, one stick of margarine, 1/4 cup cold water). Sift dry ingredients together. Toss in the margarine and use a pair of table knives to chop the margarine up into pieces the size of a baked bean. Add the water. Dust your hands with flour to prevent sticking and knead the dough into a single mass. Adjust the consistency of the dough by adding water til the dough all sticks together and soft enough to roll. Divide pie dough into two parts, one for top crust one for bottom crust. Dust rolling surface and rolling pin with flour. Lacking a rolling pin, use a bottle. Grease the 9" pie pan by rubbing it with the margarine wrapping paper. Put the bottom crust in the pie pan.
Fill the pie with cherry pie filling. Or make your own filling from two cans of cherries. 1/4 cup sugar, 3 tablespoons corn starch and the juice from ONE can of cherries. Cook on low heat, stirring constantly until it thickens. Remove from heat and add two drained cans of cherries. Pour into pie crust. Add top crust and bake at 375 for 40 minutes or so. Pie is done when filling is bubbling hot and crust is browned. A cookie sheet under the pie pan will catch any leaks before they bake themselves onto the oven floor.

Popguns

This month's American Rifleman (the NRA mag) has a review of nine little automatic pistols, the pocket sort. They are all good looking and chambered for low powered 380 ACP cartridge. Prices range from $318 to $1150. Each gun gets a picture and a writeup.
The striking thing about the writeups. All, except but one, experienced "malfunctions" during the test shooting. We used to call them stoppages or jams. One pistol maker recommended shooting in the gun with 200 rounds before carrying it for real.
Where as a plain old .38 Special snub nosed revolver never jams, always works, and .38 Special will do a bunch more damage than 380 ACP. If you are going to carry a gun best to carry one that works.
Used to be Americans believed in revolvers, powerful and reliable, and distrusted automatic pistols as jam prone and apt to let you down in an emergency. Dirty Harry carried a revolver. That was then
Now all the cops carry Glocks, and private citizens are carrying 380 automatics. At least those who read American Rifleman. Me, I don't carry, but if I did, it would be a revolver.

Nice Guys can win

I watched Scott Brown's victory speech last night. He was good. He thanked all the proper people, and congratulated his opponent for running a good race (she didn't but Scott said the right thing). He was funny. He teased his daughters, made jokes about the pickup truck, did a good standup routine. He came across as a nice guy, witty, likeable, who likes people.
In short, Scott Brown showed as a helova good candidate, where as Martha Coakley is stiff and formal, doesn't like people much, doesn't campaign hard, and isn't very likeable. Plus she carried some formidable baggage from the Amiralt Malden daycare case and the Woodward infant death case. There's gonna be gallons of electrons and ink spilled over "why Scott won" in the near future. Maybe it is just a nice guy who happens to be an effective candidate, beat a not-so-nice woman who was a poor candidate.

Scott Brown Wins. Coakley concedes

With 83% of the vote in, Scott Brown has 52% and Martha Coakley has 47%. Coakley has formally conceded. Scott Brown will be the next Senator from Massachusetts and the 41st Republican Senator. 41 votes is enough to block action (like passing Obamacare) in the Senate.
Let the avalanche begin.
Hallelujah.

CAn Brown do it?

Who knows? There will be no exit polling so we won't know diddly til the polls close and the precincts report in. Polls stay open til 8 PM. Many, perhaps most Massachusetts towns have updated to electronic ballot boxes which give vote totals instantly. I'm planning to stay up and watch the results come in. I have a bottle of $5 Andre champagne to drink when Brown wins. I have a bottle of scotch bet with daughter.

Tankers for USAF

The Air Force tanker fleet are still largely the old KC-135 which has been flying for fifty years. That's damn good service life for anything, let alone a jet aircraft. The tanker fleet is as important as the fighters, bombers, and transports flown by USAF. The fighters and bombers nearly always need air-to-air refueling to reach their targets. The F105's from my wing used to tank twice, once on the way in and a second time on the way out on missions into North Viet Nam. Without the KC135's, the Thuds didn't have the range to get to Hanoi. The B2 missions to Iraq all needed tanker support. Without the tankers there are a lot of targets the Air Force cannot reach. So we really need to place an order for new tankers. Remember, years go by between placing the order and delivery of aircraft.
USAF has made two tries to order new tankers and bungled both of them. A third try is in the works. Technologically speaking, the tanker is dead simple, buy a commercial airliner, take out the seats and install fuel tanks. The existing KC135 tankers are Boeing 707's in USAF markings.
Money is the issue. As in who gets the money (Boeing or Airbus the only makers of big jet airliners) and how much money goes for each airplane. Speaking as a taxpayer, either aircraft will do the mission and we should buy the cheaper of the two. The Airbus uses American jet engines which are 1/3rd or more of the final cost. Buy Airbus and US engine makers get a good deal of the money.
There are some smoke screen issues. Boeing accuses Airbus of accepting government subsidies. We are supposed to forget that fifty years ago US government money for KC-135 tankers helped mightily in the launch of the 707 airliner. Is there a stature of limitations on subsidies? This issue doesn't matter to us taxpayers. If the EU governments want to make tankers cheaper for USAF, more power to 'em.
Airbus is quibbling about specifications and threatening to no-bid the job. Specifications ought to be "standard A320". Period. The gold platers infesting the Pentagon will fancy up the aircraft with military avionics and all sorts of expensive gadgets if you let them. The standard commercial avionics and gadgets are good enough, and a helova lot cheaper than any special design military stuff. The commercial airliners are in production, the bugs have been worked out of them, they work, and that's what USAF needs, a reliable airplane that flies when asked to, rather than a finicky special design bird that ground aborts at the slightest excuse. Same goes for Boeing. Standard 767 (or 777), no modifications. Last time Boeing was proposing a "special" 767 with stretched fuselage, extra flaps, longer wing, damn near a whole new airplane. And taxpayer money for all the engineering required.
Ignore the whines from the paperwork people. "Oh preparing a bid is so expensive". "We have to refine our requirements." All the Air Force has to say is how many aircraft, how many spare parts, and how long to deliver them all. All the bidder has to say is how much.
This is a $40 billion program. Lot more economic stimulus in a $40 billion aircraft buy than we are getting from the $700 and something billion porkulus.

Coakley came into money today.

Coakley is running back to back attack ads against Scott Brown in New England Cable News (NECN). This is new. I wonder who gave her all the last minute money. There are Brown ads, but nearly as many. Brown is doing straight forward "vote-for-me" ads rather than attack ads.