Bad day at the Green Hill Mall

It's Christmas shopping season, the sun is out, the snow is melting, great day to be out and about. I needed some electronic parts. The local Radio Shacks are all out of business, so I drove over to a surviving one in St Johnsbury. It was in a nice new mall, with a micro Sears, a J.C. Penny, a dollar store, a bank, couple of shoe stores, you know, the usual. Christmas carols are playing on the PA system.
One thing wrong. The place is deserted. The halls are empty, the stores have more clerks on the floor than customers. The mall has four giant gaping vacancies, the parking lot is nearly empty. Great Depression 2.0 is hard at work around here.

Need to Know, We have a democracy

Was watching a new PBS Sunday pundit show yesterday. "Need to Know" they call it and it has Ray Saurez of the Newshour as one of its hosts. They had a panel of elderly Congressmen and newsies, bewailing the current problems of Congress. They had a clip of Elmo from Sesame St saying that a nice playdate would solve all the problems. The panel talked as if Congressmen were both the cause and the solution to the current deadlock. They talked about the good old days when Tip O'Neill and Ronald Reagan, or Newt Gingrich and Bill Clinton could get together and cut deals that would stick. If only Congressmen would socialize with each other more, all the bad partisan feelings could be soothed and we could pass some of each side's favorite bills. The entire focus of the discussion was upon Congress and Congressmen, as if the real world didn't exist.
In the real world, Congressmen have to vote their district. A lot of democratic Congressmen became former Congressmen last November because they forgot that rule. On issues that the district cares about, Congressmen have to toe the line.
In the real world the country is evenly and deeply split over many issues, taxes, spending, abortion, immigration, oil drilling, coal burning, Iraq, global warming, Afghanistan, bailing out Detroit and Wall St, to name just a few. Many districts have strong views on these issues and insist that their Congressmen support their views. When the country is split, Congress will be split too, at least a democratically elected Congress. Which is the way it ought to be.
Not only that, Congress is set up to to prevent the "tyranny of the majority". We cannot allow a slim majority to impose its will on a large minority that is dead set against the change. The country won't hold still for it. The way things are now, the country closely split, it's better to keep things the way they are, than pass laws that 49% of the country will detest.
And that is what is happening. On the deeply divisive issues, the Congress is leaving things the way they are, because it cannot muster the votes to push thru changes that are stoutly opposed by one side. And that is the way it ought to be.
Too bad no one on this panel of supposedly wise men understood that.

David Gregory, master of stupid questions

He is interviewing Ron Paul this morning on Meet the Press. "Who is the real conservative, Romney or Gingrich?" he asks Ron Paul. Who cares? What we want to know is where the candidates stand on healthcare, taxes, global warming, budget cutting, Israel, nuclear power, Syria, Iran, and numerous other important questions. In particular, when you are interviewing a presidential candidate we want to know where he stands, not what he thinks about his competitors.

Whap!

That's the noise a bird makes flying into my Thermopane windows. They been doing it more and more. Just this morning I watched a blue jay perched on my porch railing. The jay spread his wings and took off, gathered speed and whap! Right into the window. He must have survived, I didn't find him lying dead in the driveway.
And it ain't like that window wash commercial "Our Stuff makes glass so clean it seems to disappear." My windows have a goodly selection of bug smears, condensed wood smoke and they all need cleaning.

Mitt or Newt?

Newt is an interesting guy. I'd love to have him over for dinner. Newt is an idea man, he has ideas running out of his head and all over the floor. Most of them are good ideas, some of them are bad ideas. We could be in a lot of trouble should a President Gingrich push thru one of his bad ideas. Mitt is a nice guy, nice wife, nice kids. He has real executive experience and can get uncooperative legislators, investors, and promoters to cooperate. Mitt is a middle of the road guy. He isn't going to go to the mat against abortion, gay marriage, legalized grass, amnesty or any other wedge issue. He will do his best for the economy, employment, and the deficit. The independents are more likely to vote for Mitt, which makes Mitt a better bet to beat Obama.

How did that US drone come down in one piece?

Iran is displaying a futuristic looking drone it claims is of US origin (despite the lack of USAF markings) . How did it fall into Iranian hands in one piece? Did the Iranians get onto the drone's command frequencies and order it to land? Did the drone encounter some kind of in flight failure and the on-board artificial intelligence made a safe landing in a field? Were the Iranians merely lucky? Like the US was in WWII when we found a crashed Japanese Zero in Alaska in good enough shape to salvage and even fly.
If Iran did force the drone down via the radio command link, how come said radio command link was not encrypted? There are plenty of uncrackable encryption schemes that can be realized on a 3 by 5 inch printed circuit board. Why did not this top secret drone have encryption?
And, why is the US admitting that the Iranians have a top secret US drone in their possession? We don't have to lie about, we just say nothing. In response to reporter's questions refuse to answer. That way anyone who wants to believe the Iranians are not being truthful, can go right on believing. But once some big fat mouth in DC says "Yeah, that's ours" the jig is up. Once the Americans themselves confirm Iranian claims everyone will believe those claims. If we could just say nothing (difficult for politicians and bureaucrats) we would leave the matter in some amount of doubt.
Finally, does this drone have anything to do with the series of massive explosions plaguing the Iranian nuclear program?

Plumbing

My least favorite household activity. The bathroom sink faucet has been leaking for months. Not on the floor, just a little dribble on the sink. I finally got irritated enough to fix it. Drive in to Littleton, all the while thinking to myself "Lowes or Home Depot?". We have both, next door to each other. Eventually I found myself in the Lowes parking lot.
They had a lot of faucets. Shiny Chrome, gun metal, porcelain knobs, all pricey. I settled on an el cheapo Pfizer model for $18, thinking that the fancy jewelry grade faucets would look out of place in my humble bathroom. Only when I got it home and unpacked it did I see the "Made in China" sticker on this old line American plumbing fixture company's product.
Now the fun begins, getting the old faucet out of the bathroom sink. That fellow has been peacefully rusting in place since the house was built in 1962. The brand new $15 basin wrench was able to loosen one of the four nuts holding it in place. A heavy shot of PC blaster loosened a second nut enough for the basin wrench to turn it, but the last two were stuck fast. A half an hour of groveling around on the floor and using bad language convinced me that those two nuts were really stuck. So I disconnected the pipes lower down and took the entire sink off the wall and down to the shop. There a one and one eighth inch Craftsman deep well socket made the last two rusty nuts say uncle.
More fun was in store. Replacing the sink on the wall revealed that the new faucet was a quarter of an inch shorter than the old one, and the hot and cold water supply tubing didn't quite reach far enough. Damn.
Make a quite speed run to the hardware store, arriving just before closing time. Bought two new supply tubes. Returned to the job, and found the new supply tubes were the wrong size.
And now it was after five o'clock and the hardware store was well and truly closed. Another struggle and I was able to stretch the old supply tubes just enough to fit. And wrenched them good and tight, and Halleluiah, they don't leak.
I hate plumbing.