NRA meets the Press

David Gregory had Wayne LaPierre, NRA chief, an the show as a guest this morning.  Despite a lot of badgering from Gregory, Lapierre did pretty well defending his position.   He, and the NRA, advocate stationing armed policemen in schools to defend them against homicidal maniacs.  In actual fact, this would be pretty effective.
   It would be expensive, although not as expensive as the TSA grope and scan operation.  My little town has a single school and a 5 or 6 man police department.  We would have to hire at least one more officer.  Neighboring Bethlehem has three schools, and would need to hire three more officers. 
   Not so clearly stated, is the NRA's objection to an "assault weapon" ban.  "Assault weapon" is a propaganda term.  There are no objective differences between deer rifles and  "assault weapons".  The NRA fears that an "assault weapon" ban would broaden to ban deer rifles and eventually all firearms.  And, in fact, that is the gun control people's plan.  The gun control people know they can't pass a law to ban all firearms in one fell swoop, so they will use the camel's nose in the tent strategy.  Ban a few at a time.
   In real life, all firearms are deadly, and the Connecticut shooter would have killed as many no matter what sort of gun he used.   Calling the 22 caliber semi automatic rifle he did use an "assault weapon" makes it sound like the weapon is responsible for the killing, not the homicidal maniac pulling the trigger.   

Car Dashboards

My car has a regular dashboard with analog indicators for oil pressure, water temp, fuel level, and voltage.  The analog indicators ( a red needle) are easier to read at a glance than digital displays.  But it could be better, for no cost increase. 
The gauges could be marked with real numbers instead of just H and L.  This way you would have something meaningful to pass on the the mechanic on the phone.
 The scales could have a green band to show normal and proper levels.  And a red band to indicate trouble.  And they could be arranged so that all the needles point up at 12 o'clock when things are good.  That makes a quick glance at the instruments more meaningful.
   Too bad the stylists rule in Detroit.  

Cannon Mountain Ski Weather

It's cooled down, it's now below freezing and we have a few flakes drifting down from the sky.  No accumulation yet.  It was too warm to make snow last night.

Arming Teachers

Well, any of the formidable grownups who taught in my grade school,  Miss Shirley, Miss Gaudette, Miss Percy, Mr. Convery, Mrs Falby, would have no trouble handling firearms, and preventing a massacre of students. 
    Teachers might be more willing to carry if the school provided good student proof gun safes in each classroom.   And didn't make a fuss about firearms locked up in privately owned automobiles on the  school parking lot.  And some state laws protecting them from  lawsuits by the shooter's lawyers. 

Cannon Mountain Ski Weather, It's Bad.

It's warmed up to 40, it's raining, and the snow is vanishing.  Not good. 

CCleaner

CCleaner is a marvelous freeware program that deletes the numerous unnecessary disk files cluttering your system disk.  The typical CCleaner run will free up a half a gigabyte of disk space.  It's safe, I run it every few weeks and never a hiccup. 
  In this day and age of 200 Gigabyte hard drives, why do we care?  Zapping clutter off the hard drive makes file searches go faster, makes anti virus runs go faster, makes Windows Explorer load faster and paint new screen faster.  It makes browsers go faster.  Viruses (Virii) malware has to hide on your hard drive somewhere.  It's easier to hid in a few gigabytes of clutter. 
   Google will find you a download site for CCleaner.  The site will attempt to sell you a fancier version that costs money, but the free one is all I need.

Running out of hard disk space?

Try WinDirStat.  It can be down loaded, Google for a download site.  Windirstat looks at every file on your hard drive and draws a cute graph showing how much space each file is sucking up.  Rolling the mouse over the file symbol in the graph calls up its name in the bottom text window.  Gives you a a good feel for where to look for fat to cut.
 First place to go is Start -> Settings -> Control Panel -> Add & Remove Programs.  That pops up this window.


It lists every program on your machine.  Now is the time to zap all those craplets and games your machine came with and you never use.  Be careful, this window lets you zap darn near everything on the disc, including parts of Windows itself, your browser , MS Office.  It's like a chainsaw, cuts fast and cuts anything. Useful to be sure, but you gotta be careful.  The Programs with the MS icon of a Computer Monitor, CD and CD  Box you mostly want to keep. 
When you click on anything to remove it, it will tell you how often you used it and when it was used last.  Things that haven't been used since the bought the machine can probably be spared.