Congressional rules

We can all agree that Congress isn't getting anywhere these days.  They cannot even vote appropriations to run the government. 
  Each House conducts business under an ancient, complicated, and little understood set of rules.  In the house it is so bad that before each bill is voted on, they hold a separate vote on the rules to be used this time.  That is rediculous, the rules ought to be the same everytime.  The Senate conducts votes to decide whether a super majority is needed this time.  Most of the votes taken are "procedural" votes, not votes on business.  For every real vote cast to pass or reject a bill, they do dozens of "procedural" votes (nothing votes).
   All this rules and procedure business serves to disguise what's really happening from the citizens.  A day of  motions and procedural votes and the real voter has no idea whether his rep is doing good or doing evil, or doing anything.  It's gotten so bad my TV cable provider doesn't bother to carry C-span anymore.  And nobody misses it. 
   At this rate, the Congress critters have escaped from voter control.  They can do all sorts of things that the voters disapprove of (like shutdown) and the voter cannot figure out where his rep stood on any issue.  Come election time,  there is no voting record for the citizen to consult to decide if congressman So-and-So ought to be re elected. 
  So, let's clear the smoke and mirrors away.  Here are my rules.

1.  No procedural votes.  Each bill gets one up or down vote.  That's it.
2.  No riders.  A rider is a low speed bill that gets attached to a high speed bill.  Pass the high speed bill and the rider passes.  It's like hitching a ride on a freight train.  No more.  Your low speed bill needs to get votes on it own merits, no drafting.
3. Every bill treats ONE thing, that thing being in the title of the bill. No kitchen sink bills.

4. Every bill much be printed (ink on paper) and distributed to the press, the public and the Congress one week before a vote may be taken.  No amendments, no extra pork rations, no nothing between printing and voting.  
5.  Every member gets to speak, once, on every bill.  House members get five minutes plus what ever extra time the Speaker will grant them.  Senators get one hour, no more.
6.  Every member is entitled to file as many bills as he likes, and they all must come to the floor for a vote.

Internet Problems? Selective outage?

Cannot contact some favorite websites, Instapundit and Photobucket for two.  Other sites are up and running.  Is this a selective internet outage?  NSA shutting down some enemies?  Sites down for weekend maintenance? 

A lawyer to run Homeland Security

Obama has nominated Jeh Johnson to be Secretary of Homeland Security.  Johnson has served as the Pentagon's top lawyer.  AN official said that during his tenure at the Defense Department, Johnson exhibited "sound judgment" and provided "prior legal review and approval of every military operation approved by the president and secretary of Defense."
  A Combat lawyer.  Just what we need.
  Sorry, but I want a soldier or a cop to run Homeland Security.  Someone who thinks about security rather than thinking about ways to get guilty defendants off.  

Shutdown Scorecard. Who won?

Hard to tell.  I haven't seen any real post shutdown polls yet.  Democrats say the Republicans lost, Republicans say the Democrats lost.  Objectively they kicked the can down the road two or three months.  Right now, the Republicans re opened the government with a two month time limit and boosted the debt ceiling enough to get thru Christmas.  The budget was referred to a committee, standard Washington ploy to sweep something under the rug.   The Republicans didn't get any relief on Obamacare.  So for this round, the Republicans didn't get anything and the Democrats didn't give up anything.
   Will the fight continue after  Christmas?  Who knows.  The Republicans certainly are not satisfied with the status quo.  The Democrats like things just the way they are.  The real issue is next year's election.  This whole shutdown/debt ceiling brouhaha was run off in order to influence the voters for next year.  And Obama wanted it just as much as the Republicans.  If either side thinks renewing the fight will do 'em good in the election, they will. If both sides  figure the public is sick of the squabbling, they won't. 
   Obama certainly looked ineffective.  Congress did all the headline grabbing.  By crying "Default" Obama spooked the international currency markets and weakened T-bills.  He did this because without a debt ceiling hike, he would have to chop $1 trillion a year out of federal spending.  A lot of people are feeding off the federal gravy train, and shutting off the flow of gravy would cause a lot of angry takers, who would mostly blame Obama. 
   The shutdown didn't have much effect outside the Beltway.  Up here we hardly noticed.  Son reports North Dakota did just fine.  Thoughtful taxpayers ought to be wondering if we could solve the spending problem by just closing stuff down.  Thoughtful civil servants ought to be scared. The monument closings were an attempt to make the shutdown more painful, so people would care more about re opening government.  It sparked outrage and civil disobedience, but not much political support.
   I'm beginning to think the only group hurt by the shutdown were the civil servants who missed paychecks.  And they are all democrats anyhow.  And they will get back pay for 16 days off.  The government contractors will probably play catchup as they accomplish the work that didn't get done for 16 days. 
   The other thing, we managed to convince the Europeans and the rest of the world that the United States is coming unglued.  That is a bad thing. 

Advanced countries, jet airliner production.

Jet airliners,  70 seats and up.  Anything less is a puddlejumper.  Listing of production forecasts from Aviation Week.

Country                  Company                           Total                      Aircraft models

United States           Boeing                              7395 total airliners.  737, 787, 777,747 767

France/Germany     Airbus                                6949 total airliners   A319.320,321,330-,340,350 380

Brazil                     Embraer                              973 total airliners    170 175 190 195

Russia                    Antonov, Ilyushin, Sukhoi    438 total airliners    100, IL-96 MS21

Canada                  Bombardier                         376 total airliners     CRJ

China                     Comac Xian                        297 total airliners    MA60, ARJ21, C919

Japan                     Mitsubishi                            285 total airliners    MRJ


Boeing is ahead of Airbus by a nose, and not much more.  Both Boeing and Airbus are miles ahead of everyone else.  Brazil plans to build twice as many airliners as Russia.  Canada plans to out produce China. The lower end producers are building smaller (100 seat) planes, where as the two leaders make a broad selection with top end aircraft seating 400 and up.   

  Viewed as an index of industrial and technological advancement, Brazil and Canada are higher up the food chain than one would expect.  Britain sold out it's stake in Airbus and so doesn't appear at all, although Rolls Royce remains an important maker of jet engines. 

Grafton County Republican fund raiser/get-together

We had the annual party dinner last night.  I must still be fairly active, at this point I know nearly everyone who shows up at these things.  We had candidates, looking to recruit supporters, and all the Grafton County regulars, the people who do the emails, do the sphagetti dinners,  watch the polls, politick from door to door, in short the party workers. 
  We now have two candidates for Jean Shaheen's US Senate seat, Karen Testermann and Jim Rubins. We have a candidate for Anne Kuster's US house seat,  Gary Lambert.  We gave each candidate a mere TWO minutes of floor time to make a pitch.  These guys (and gal) are all old New Hampshire state government pols.  If elected, I'm sure they could all do a fine job in DC.  I'm not so sure that they have the name recognition, the charisma, the telegenic good looks, and the luck, to carry the election.  Fortunately, the Democratic incumbents are pretty unexciting.
    Senator Kelly Ayotte sent regrets, she is in DC, wrangling over the debt ceiling.  State chairman Jenifer Horn sent regrets.  AND,  Ray Burton, the north country legend was not there.  I hope he is OK, he underwent chemo for prostate cancer this year, and it took some starch out of him. 
    Consensus of  opinion.  Obama might indeed be stupid enough to default if he doesn't get his debt ceiling hike.  That's depressing.

Sports are ruining our Schools

This was on the cover of the Atlantic magazine.  I saw it yesterday on the magazine rack at Mac's Market.  It caught my eye, but not enough to make me buy the Atlantic.  Instead it made me wonder about the mental balance of the Atlantic's editors. 
    Sports are good.  They get a lot of kids, the average kids with couch potato genes, off the couch and out of doors getting some exercise.  Partly 'cause it's an opportunity to hang out with friends, partly 'cause there is still some social status to be had, and partly to get out of the house, a lot of kids will go out for sports, if there are any sports to go out for. 
  Dunno what the Atlantic has agin 'em, as I said I didn't bother to buy the mag and read it.