Warren Commission

Been a lot of talk on TV about the Kennedy assassination, new evidence, second gunmen, all good Oliver Stone material.
  I clearly remember the day Kennedy was killed.  Word reached us on the Franklin & Marshall campus.  It was just before my afternoon class in Civil War, taught by good old Frederick Klein.  We gathered in the classroom, Fred was clearly shaken.  He said a few words about now he understood how the country felt after Lincoln's assassination.  Then he dismissed the class.  Nobody said much, we settled in front of the dorm TV set to watch the news.  We got to see Ruby waste Oswald live.  And the state funeral.  Those were sad days. 
   Back then, the entire thing seemed fishy.    There was fear in the air.  1963 was the coldest part of the cold war.  Oswald's Soviet Russian connections were in the press, his Russian wife, his stay in the Soviet Union.  Every one still remembered Joe McCarthy.  If the citizens ever got the idea that the Soviets were behind Oswald, all hell would break loose, including a demand for revenge, leading to WWIII.
    They appointed the bluest of blue ribbon committee of investigation available to investigate and report what really happened.  Earl Warren, chairman, was chief justice of the Supreme Court.  You don't get more respectable than that.  The rest of the members were all household names.  They had full and enthusiastic cooperation of  FBI, CIA, the armed services, the Congress, the Dallas authorities, everybody.  All the witnesses (except Oswald) were still alive for questioning.  Events were still fresh in everyone's memory.
   We were disappointed in the contents of the Warren report.  Nobody liked the idea that JFK had perished at the hands of a lone nutcase.  But we accepted it, largely 'cause we figured the commission members were too honest and too patriotic to lie to us. 
    I still feel that way.  The fifty years of conspiracy theories of history from that time to this don't impress me.  I think the Warren Commission, had all the time, all the expertise, all the pressure to produce, that were possible.  I doubt that latter day revisionists will get it more right than the Warren Commission did right after the fact.   
   But they keep trying.  It sells movies.
   

Sorry doesn't cut it

Obama actually managed to say he was sorry about canceling people's health care policies.  Too bad he didn't promise to fix anything while he was at it.  All talk, no action, that's our boy. 

It's all in the pan

Popovers that is.  Very tasty for breakfast.  Trouble is, they don't always pop for me.  I started out using ordinary stamped muffin tins.  Then I upgraded to pyrex cups.  Either way I have having a 50% failure-to-pop.  They would rise, come out tasty, but half the time, no pop. 
  So I splurged on a brand new Bundt popover pan.  $41 marked down to $35.  Cast aluminum, carefully shaped popover holes.  And it worked.  Made my regular recipe this morning,  filled the new pan half full, and bingo, they all popped.  Must be something magic in this fancy pan. 
   In fact, maybe there is.  Used to be, using muffin pans and such, the top of my popovers would brown and bake solid, rock solid,  too solid for the popping action to push up.  The fancy pan keeps the tops softer longer, and that may be the secret.  Popovers are unleavened bread, no yeast, no baking powder, they rise and pop on steam from the milk alone. 
  I only have to bake about another  30 batches to spread out the cost of fancy pan.  Good thing I like popovers for breakfast.

WIMP detector WIMPS out

The search for WIMPS was returned a negative.  Big new WIMP detector buried deep underground failed to detect any WIMPS.  Either the detector has a problem, or there are no WIMPS.  Stay tuned for future developments.  Perhaps MACHO's are the real answer?


DarkMatterEludesLUXdetector

Engineering.com

Bring the deck chairs in, it's snowing

I'd left the deck chairs out, hoping for some more weather warm enough to sit out.  No such luck.  Deck chairs are now safely stowed in the cellar, not to be seen for six months. 

Republicans don't have alternatives 'cause of special interests

As Obamacare takes on water, and a heavy list to port, the national punditry has been zinging the Republicans for failure to come up with an alternative to Obamacare. 
   That alternative is simple.  We need measures to bring down the sky high costs of US healthcare.  The US spending 19% of GNP on healthcare.  That's twice as much as every other country in the world.  And, as measured by infant mortality rates and life expectancy, US health is no better than, and in fact, not quite as good as, health in any other first world country.  For example  Canada, Britain, Germany,. Japan, France, Israel, Scandinavia, South Korea and others.   In short we are paying twice what we ought to.  If we could bring costs down by half, things would be a lot easier.  The uninsured could take a sick child to the doctor without entering bankruptcy. 
   Measures to bring down costs are well known.  It's just that well heeled special interest groups are dead set against 'em.  They like things the way they are.
   First off, we need to bring down the malpractice costs.  Malpractice insurance, which every MD has to carry, runs $100,000 a year in premiums.  At this point, any unfavorable outcome is malpractice. Any time the patient fails to recover, the doctor gets sued. The lawyers advertise on TV for plaintiffs.  We could adopt the English rule (loser pays court costs).  We could do what New Hampshire did, implement a special medical malpractice  court, we could forbid suits over FDA approved drugs.  We could forbid advertising for plaintiffs.  But, the lawyers are dead set against anything that cuts into their profits.  Most politicians are lawyers, which makes 'em shills or at best highly sympathetic to the lawyers arguments.
  Second, we need to bring down drug costs.  Big Pharma whips out scads of wonderful new curealls, and charges $100 a pill for 'em.  We ought to allow import of drugs from places like Canada, where the national health care system has forced the prices down out of the stratosphere.  Big Pharma is dead set against it.  Obama got their support (and kept Harry and Louise quiet) by promising Big Pharma, no imports.  In fact the government won't even bargain for better drug prices.  Allowing import of drugs would drop US drug prices by half.
   Third we could allow sale of health insurance across state lines.  Up here in New Hampshire, we only have ONE health insurance company, Anthem.  And guess what our rates are?  Anthem just told a third of the hospitals in the state to go out of business, 'cause Anthem won't do business with them any more.  Ought to be, that I can buy health insurance from any US company, no matter what state they are located in.  Naturally the insurance companies are dead set against this idea. 
  In short, special interests have forced up the cost of health care, and the Republicans lack the stones to work against them. 
 

Women's vote beats Cuccinelli in VA

The VA government election was close, closer than the polls were predicting.  McAuliffe only won by a couple of percent over all. 
  But, according to the TV news today, McAuliffe won the women's vote by 10% over Cuccinelli.  That's margin of victory right there.  If Cuccinelli had carried the women's vote, he would be governor right now. 
Same thing happened to Romney last year.  He lost the women's vote by 10% to Obama. Romney would be president today if he have carried the woman's vote.
    What is it with us Republicans that we turn off the chicks? 
    Is it time to get off the anti abortion thing?  Most chicks remember a scary time when they were single, in school, and feared they were pregnant, and feared not being able to find a safe and confidential abortion.  This memory is unlikely to make them vote for Republicans who campaign on anti abortion platforms.