Sharpe, played by Sean Bean, is a British officer leading riflemen in the Napoleonic Wars. Sharpe is dashing, handsome, an effective combat leader, the man Wellington selects for especially difficult missions. He has a beautiful mistress, later his wife, who is also a leader of Spanish guerrillas. She is shot in action, and dies in Sharpe's arms in the fourth episode. The villains are villainous, and get their just deserts. The costumes are great, the redcoats are bright red, the riflemen wear dark green with lots of buttons, the ladies dresses are wide and floor sweeping. Sean Bean has a much better role here than he did as Boromir in Peter Jackson's Fellowship of the Ring.
Some British company did 14 episodes of Sharpe as a TV miniseries and Netflix has them all. The series is based upon a series of historical novels by Bernard Cornwall, and in my humble opinion the TV series does the books full justice. If you liked the Captain Hornblower mini series you will like this one. Good fun and good theatre.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Monday, April 25, 2011
NH State pension "reform". SB3
This bill isn't going to help us taxpayers much. First off it allows spiking. Pension is determined NOT by base pay, but by base pay PLUS overtime, sick pay, vacation and holiday pay, cost of living bonus, non-cash payments such as room and board, and some other stuff. That's right at the beginning, RSA 100-A:1, XVII. Employees work a lot of over time, and cash in all their accrued pay right before retirement to boost their pensions. Pensions ought to be on base pay ONLY.
It permits pension benefits of 100% of base pay. (RSA 100-A:6 a). That is twice what it ought to be. Pensions ought to half pay. If the pension pays as much as base pay, why not retire now?
It permits pensions be paid to employees with as little as three years of service!! (RAS 100-A:XVIII 1).
The pension department says this bill isn't going to save any money. This is a "note" toward the end.
The whole bill is too long, and has too much opaque verbiage in it. There has gotta be some expensive benefits hidden in the lawyerese. We shouldn't pass bills that cannot be understood.
It permits pension benefits of 100% of base pay. (RSA 100-A:6 a). That is twice what it ought to be. Pensions ought to half pay. If the pension pays as much as base pay, why not retire now?
It permits pensions be paid to employees with as little as three years of service!! (RAS 100-A:XVIII 1).
The pension department says this bill isn't going to save any money. This is a "note" toward the end.
The whole bill is too long, and has too much opaque verbiage in it. There has gotta be some expensive benefits hidden in the lawyerese. We shouldn't pass bills that cannot be understood.
Resaw, or why you need a bandsaw
Should you need wood thinner than the standard 3/4 inch (softwood) or 1 inch (hardwood) you are pretty much up the creek without a paddle. Thinner stock either isn't available at all, or it's special order.
Plenty of projects call for thinner stock. In my case I needed 1/4 inch pine for the model railroad and 3/8 inch walnut for a set of DVD holding boxes.
Click on the image to see the whole thing. I can't seem to make blogger size the picture to the page.
A bandsaw will resaw thick stock into thinner stock. You can cut a 3/4 inch thick board into three 1/4 inch thick slices, or two 3/8 inch slices. A low end 12 inch Craftsman bandsaw is big enough to do a lot of resawing. You don't need a big fancy DoAll saw (like a friend of mine has), a plain jane low end bandsaw off Craigslist will do the job.
I resaw with a home made fence to keep the board vertical. The fence is nothing more than a couple of pieces of plywood, fastened together in a right angle, and secured to the band saw table with C-clamps.
I use a square to make sure the fence is at right angles to the table and the table is at right angles to the blade. I use the widest blade the saw will accept (1/2 Inch in my case, with coarse teeth and big gullets between teeth with room to hold the sawdust created on a deep cut.
Plenty of projects call for thinner stock. In my case I needed 1/4 inch pine for the model railroad and 3/8 inch walnut for a set of DVD holding boxes.
Click on the image to see the whole thing. I can't seem to make blogger size the picture to the page.
A bandsaw will resaw thick stock into thinner stock. You can cut a 3/4 inch thick board into three 1/4 inch thick slices, or two 3/8 inch slices. A low end 12 inch Craftsman bandsaw is big enough to do a lot of resawing. You don't need a big fancy DoAll saw (like a friend of mine has), a plain jane low end bandsaw off Craigslist will do the job.
I resaw with a home made fence to keep the board vertical. The fence is nothing more than a couple of pieces of plywood, fastened together in a right angle, and secured to the band saw table with C-clamps.
I use a square to make sure the fence is at right angles to the table and the table is at right angles to the blade. I use the widest blade the saw will accept (1/2 Inch in my case, with coarse teeth and big gullets between teeth with room to hold the sawdust created on a deep cut.
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Obama can too bring gasoline prices down
All Obama need do is issue 50 or 100 permits for deep water drilling in the Gulf. Do it on TV, show stacks of paperwork, big "Approved" stamps all over them. Hand the paperwork over to some oil drillers, who then stagger out the door under the load of hundreds of pounds of paperwork.
Then expedite permits to drill in the Arctic ocean.
Then declare "Alaska National Wildlife Refuge" (ANWR, darling of the greenies) open for drilling. Explain that oil wells on frozen tundra don't harm caribou. Then open up the Atlantic and Pacific coasts for offshore oil exploration. Auction off leases to exploit shale oil in Colorado.
Do all of these things before the 2012 election. Watch the price of crude drop back to $50 a barrel. Price of crude will start going down within a week. Doesn't matter that it will be years before any of this comes on line. The crude market is a futures market, the price today is set by what the market thinks the price tomorrow will be.
When the MSM or the Administration says nothing can be done about gasoline prices, they are not telling the truth.
Then expedite permits to drill in the Arctic ocean.
Then declare "Alaska National Wildlife Refuge" (ANWR, darling of the greenies) open for drilling. Explain that oil wells on frozen tundra don't harm caribou. Then open up the Atlantic and Pacific coasts for offshore oil exploration. Auction off leases to exploit shale oil in Colorado.
Do all of these things before the 2012 election. Watch the price of crude drop back to $50 a barrel. Price of crude will start going down within a week. Doesn't matter that it will be years before any of this comes on line. The crude market is a futures market, the price today is set by what the market thinks the price tomorrow will be.
When the MSM or the Administration says nothing can be done about gasoline prices, they are not telling the truth.
Saturday, April 23, 2011
The Economist knows all about California
The Economist is a weekly news magazine from England. Unlike Time and Newsweek, the Economist still does real news mixed with a bit of liberal editorializing. This week they focus on the woes of California. Initiative, referendum, and recall, 19th century reforms, are 21st century disasters according to the Economist. "Too much democracy is bad." They go on to explain that initiative laws cannot be changed by the legislature and once passed, they live forever. Initiative proposition 13, the Howard Jarvis tax cap from the '70's is dissected in detail. Prop 13 put a 2% per year limit on real estate tax increases. This so impoverished municipal governments that Jerry Brown (governor back then) stepped in and offered state funds to the municipal governments to keep their payrolls intact. This had the effect of centralizing all budget decisions in Sacramento.
And that, in a British nutshell, is how California became a basket case. It's all because of initiative petitions.
That's a turn around from the American history they taught back when I went to school. In those days, initiative, referendum and recall were presented as true reforms of corrupt state governments and saviors of democracy.
There has to be more too it than that. Clearly the forces in favor of spending overwhelmed the forces of low taxes in California. The Economist says little about who the forces were (are), how numerous each side is, and what the crucial battles were, and how the forces of tax restraint lost them, or perhaps never even came out to fight. Despite being journalists themselves, the Economist says nothing about the role of the California media in informing the voters. They don't talk about the Gray Davis recall and the Governator. And why Arnold was unable to get the legislature to cut spending, or even pass a budget. Nor do they talk about the great California electric price controls and electric deregulation, which so reduced capacity as to cause rolling blackouts. Nor the greenies who obtained a law that makes virtually everything "known to cause cancer by the government of California." They never mention the name of Victor Davis Hanson, noted CA resident, author and blogger.
Bottom line. The Economist bloviates just as much as the rest of the MSM.
And that, in a British nutshell, is how California became a basket case. It's all because of initiative petitions.
That's a turn around from the American history they taught back when I went to school. In those days, initiative, referendum and recall were presented as true reforms of corrupt state governments and saviors of democracy.
There has to be more too it than that. Clearly the forces in favor of spending overwhelmed the forces of low taxes in California. The Economist says little about who the forces were (are), how numerous each side is, and what the crucial battles were, and how the forces of tax restraint lost them, or perhaps never even came out to fight. Despite being journalists themselves, the Economist says nothing about the role of the California media in informing the voters. They don't talk about the Gray Davis recall and the Governator. And why Arnold was unable to get the legislature to cut spending, or even pass a budget. Nor do they talk about the great California electric price controls and electric deregulation, which so reduced capacity as to cause rolling blackouts. Nor the greenies who obtained a law that makes virtually everything "known to cause cancer by the government of California." They never mention the name of Victor Davis Hanson, noted CA resident, author and blogger.
Bottom line. The Economist bloviates just as much as the rest of the MSM.
Predators over Libya
My question is, why drones? Why not manned aircraft? Unmanned drones are expensive and are intended for missions too dangerous to risk pilots on. Is Libyan airspace that dangerous? It's a no-fly zone, which means anything the radar sees taking off gets a fighter vectored onto it, and it's dead. That leaves SAM. Is the SAM problem that bad in Libya?
The drone pilot's vision is restricted to a TV set. I maintain a pilot in the cockpit, with binoculars, has a better chance of spotting targets, and aiming weapons accurately than a drone operator half a world away, sitting in an air conditioned trailer in Nevada.
The drone pilot's vision is restricted to a TV set. I maintain a pilot in the cockpit, with binoculars, has a better chance of spotting targets, and aiming weapons accurately than a drone operator half a world away, sitting in an air conditioned trailer in Nevada.
Friday, April 22, 2011
Tax Reform, Federal Income Tax that is. Pt II
I used to think a flat tax, no deductions, no exemptions, no credits, no nothing, with a rate cut, would bring in enough revenue to run the country. Now I'm not so sure.
Federal expenditures were 17% of GNP from the end of WWII to Obama. So, it would seem reasonable to make a tax rate of 17% and that would pay the bills. No tax hike.
I looked at the federal rates from 2010. They start at 10% and work up to 33% at $370,000 per year. They don't hit 17% until you hit $50,000 (single) and $100,000 (married). That's after deductions, exemptions, credits and what have you ("stuff"). We need 17% to maintain the government at the pre Obama level. It looks to me like we need more than the current rates to furnish 17% of GNP to keep the government in money. If we drop all the "stuff" we probably cannot cut the rates much and still furnish government revenue of 17% of GNP.
Even with really solid spending cuts, the Feds are gonna be short of revenue.
Federal expenditures were 17% of GNP from the end of WWII to Obama. So, it would seem reasonable to make a tax rate of 17% and that would pay the bills. No tax hike.
I looked at the federal rates from 2010. They start at 10% and work up to 33% at $370,000 per year. They don't hit 17% until you hit $50,000 (single) and $100,000 (married). That's after deductions, exemptions, credits and what have you ("stuff"). We need 17% to maintain the government at the pre Obama level. It looks to me like we need more than the current rates to furnish 17% of GNP to keep the government in money. If we drop all the "stuff" we probably cannot cut the rates much and still furnish government revenue of 17% of GNP.
Even with really solid spending cuts, the Feds are gonna be short of revenue.
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