Bummer, Four More Years

Every thing I might say has already been said, ad infinitum. I guess the voters want four more years of the same.  Too bad, I thought Americans were smarter than that.

Poll Standing

I was at the polls at 8 AM, opening time.  It was cold, 20F, below freezing.  Fortunately the sun was out and it wasn't raining or snowing.  Which has happened in the past.  Anyhow my long woolen underwear and SmartWool socks felt pretty good. At the Bethlehem polls we Republicans were the only ones there, no Democrats.  Turnout was decent. 
  At Franconia,  Bob Mead (long time town moderator) called the turnout heavy.  Bob oughta know.  We had 4  poll standers, and the Democrats had 2.  
  Gotta go back out to catch the evening crowd.  Then turn on the TV to find out what happened.  Might be a long night.

Wreckit Ralph

Good flick.  Funny enough to make me laugh out loud, something I don't do very often.  It's from Disney, the old Disney animation studio, which is nice.  They still can make a good animated movie.  The premise of the flick is those characters on the screens of computer games actually have a real life, after the arcade closes.  Wreckit Ralph is a big clumsy bad guy from one game who wants to become a good guy, just once.  After closing time, Ralph journeys to Game Central Station and thence to some other games in search of his dream.  Since it's a Disney flick, Ralph eventually triumphs and returns to his own home game a hero.
  The dialogue is very funny, even the puns are amusing.
  I enjoyed it.  It's one of the better movies to come out of Hollywood this year.  

Second Snow of the season

Looks like winter is serious.  We got enough to stick.  The ground isn't frozen yet, so it's melting off the roads and lawns, but I still have nearly an inch on my deck railing. 

Words of the Weasel Part 30. Issues

Issue.  All purpose word used in place of failure, breakdown, bug, or problem.  Sounds much better.  Like something you can debate, rather than getting down to work and fixing it. 
As in "We have generator issues" from a lower Manhatten brokerage house explaining why they were not open for business on Wednesday after Hurricane Sandy. 
  Sounds much better than "Our generator is down".

Business Administration Blather on NPR

NPR was interviewing some Brit business administration guru early this morning.  The Brit was discussing the American automobile market, and how Japanese imports rose from nothing to 25% market share.  He said the imports entered the low end of the market and then the domestic makers "retreated" from that end of the market.  He obviously thought the domestic makes should have stood their ground and fought the imports on the beaches, on the landing grounds, and never surrender.  He didn't quite say it like that, but you got the message.
    And this guru was spouting nonsense. Detroit never retreated from the low end of the car market.  They were never in it.  Detroit was building famously large cars, six passenger, eight cylinder, automatic transmission, land yachts.  The imports were way smaller cars, four passenger, four cylinder, manual transmission.  Detroit never made anything like that.  And these minimal cars sold for about two thirds of what Detroit was getting for baseline sedans.   And a whole lot of customers decided that a minimal car at a good price was all they needed to get to work and chauffeur the kids around in.
   The decision facing Detroit was not whether to defend the low end of the market, it was a decision to enter the low end with a totally new small car design, or just keep on making what was selling well.
   Only GM took the plunge and decided to produce a true low end car, Saturn.  Ford and  Chrysler punted.   Saturn could have worked out, but GM suits saddled the operation with too much expensive overhead.
   Our Brit guru doesn't understand that the importers created a new market for a new kind of car.  The imports didn't invade the existing market, their created a whole new market.  And did very well at it.

First Snow of the Winter

It's falling up here.  It's light and it ain't sticking much, but it's snow.  Winter is coming.