Are Yard Sales over?

Did my usual Saturday morning circuit looking for yard sales.  Up US 3 to to US 302, take a left thru Bethlehem, down the Brooks Road, into Littleton on Union St, and back thru Franconia.  One, just one yard sale, way back off the main road and very small.  Used to be I'd hit a round dozen yard sales on the circuit, at least any day it wasn't pouring down rain. 
   One thing that slowed yard sales down.  The local paper (Littleton Courier) used to run free classified ads for local yard sales.  Then they started charging $35 and people stopped advertising in the Courier.  And I stopped buying it regular. 
   Any how the yard sales are getting scarcer.

Picking Ryan sends us a message

Romney's pick of Paul Ryan for VP tells us something good.  Ryan stands for balancing the budget by cutting spending.  He even has a plan to cut Medicare spending.  By picking Ryan, Romney is telling us that he wants to cut spending and balance the budget.  Which is a good thing, that up until now, Romney had not been really clear about.  Romney is a nice guy, and his election will be 100% better for the country than Obama, but he hasn't been very clear about just what a  Romney administration will do if elected.  Now we have a better idea.  With Paul Ryan in the administration, there will be spending cuts, medicare reform, and budget balancing.   I'm all in favor.  We cannot get the economy growing again until we get the federal budget balanced.  Right now Uncle borrows 40 cents of every dollar spent.  Our yearly deficit is better than 10% of GNP.  We may not truly balance the budget (get the deficit down to zero) but getting it down to 1% of GNP would be a tremendous improvement.

Free pills more important than jobs?

That's what Obama thinks.  He's offering free contraception pills.  He is hoping that women voters will vote for him to get free pills, at the risk of losing their jobs, and the risk of their husbands losing their jobs.  Is this gonna work for Obama?  I'd like to think American women are too smart to fall for a simple ploy like that.

Gallup says 54% of Americans are OK with TSA

I saw this one both Instapundit and Slashdot.  Why do I have trouble believing it?

100 Best YA novels according to NPR

There is a long list, some good, some I never heard of.  Some old favorites are missing.  Like the C.S. Lewis Narnia stories. Nothing by Andre Norton. No Montgomery Atwater stories.  No Poul Anderson.  The Borrowers are missing. Nothing by Edgar Rice Burroughs. No Jules Verne.  No Three Musketeers. 
   Then it does have some awful distopias, Lord of the Flies and The Giver.  I suppose they made it in because English teachers like distopias and assign them as required reading. 
   Then the ranking is odd.  Harry Potter comes in as #1, with Lord of the Rings pushed down to #7.  Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 is #8, but his much better Martian Chronicles is missing all together.   Just how the list was put together is not given, apparently there was some editorial weeding out, and some listener voting, but just how good a list it is, is unclear.  It might reflect the likings of NPR staff, or just NPR listeners, or it might be more broadbased. 

Life Extension Program for Nuclear Weapons

The B-61 nuclear weapon, a plain old gravity bomb, entered service in the early 1970's.  A large number (hundreds for sure, perhaps thousands, its classified) were built and are still in service.  B-61 featured "dial-a-yield" by which the bomb can be adjusted from city-smashing size down to a nuclear cherry bomb. 
Although it has never been used in action, some forty years in service  ought to indicate that it is fairly satisfactory, and they are all built and paid for.
   In Washington there is a move afoot to spend another $10 billion dollars on the B-61's.  The Air Force wants to add a guidance system to improve accuracy.  We really need that.  These are nukes, with a total destruction radius measured in miles.  Get the bomb with a mile or so of the aim point, and that target is vaporized.  World War II mechanical bomb sights were good enough for that. 
   Then they want to "consolidate" the various flavors of the B-61.  Naturally over a production run of forty years, changes were introduced, and the experts recognize half a dozen varients of the B-61.  Money would be spent to make them all the same.  Not a bad idea mind you, but hardly necessary. 
   Anyhow they want to spent $10 billion on modifications to a perfectly serviceable weapon.  Sounds like a good place to do a little sequestration. 

Apple goes after Samsung

Apple is suing Samsung for patent infringement; they are claiming that the Samsung smart phone infringes on patented features of the Iphone.  They are in court now, and getting solid coverage in the Wall St Journal.  Lots of chit and chat about the lawyers on each side, and revelations on the Apple product development process, including marketing budgets at Apple.
  No talk at all about what was patented, and where Samsung's phone infringed it.
  Your patent office at work, making it easier for high tech businesses.