"Chic artisan food court"

This is the Economist writing about UNION MARKET in DC.  I was there a couple of days ago, looking for a place to get some lunch.  It didn't even look open.  No lights on.  Big letters falling off the roof sign,  abandoned cars in the parking lot.  It looked so bad that we left and wound up getting burgers and fries at Five Guys. 

Nigeria's kidnapped girls

TV news claims the girls have been located.  Then they went into a long song and dance about how difficult it would be for the Nigerian armed forces to rescue them.
  What is going on?
  If we have a location, we load a couple of hundred experienced American infantry men in to helicopters and go get them.  Now would be a good time. 
   Boko Haram are terrorists.  We need to give 'em a lesson. 
   Sure, there is a danger than some of the victims may be harmed in the rescue attempt.  But their risks of death, rape, slavery, and never seeing their families again are very very high.  I'm sure every one of the captives would plead for rescue. 

Luxury Hotels in DC

Well, after a $700 bill for a three night stay, it clearly thinks it's a luxury hotel.  It wasn't bad, but there were odd little lapses.  For instance, no exhaust fan in the bathroom.  Which gives the second person thru the bathroom a hot, steamy, smelly experience.  The bathroom tub was some new glossy material that was slippery as glass.  I had to clutch the crash bar to keep from falling in the tub.  The voice mail system didn't work.  The red "you-gotta-voice-mail" lamp in the phone just would not go out, no matter how many times you picked up your voice mail.  Plus, the voice mail I did pick up was just a long dial tone.  Better than heavy breathing I suppose, but not too useful.  No TV guide channel on the TV.  You have to channel surf to see what's on.  I mean my cheapy cable company at home manages a TV Guide channel, why not a luxury hotel?  And the security scare is getting ridiculous.  The elevator demands you insert your room key/card before it will move.  And the architect...  It's a plain boring concrete block.  Front entrance is smaller than the Au Bon Pain, or the Five Guys burger joint.  No decent sign on the roof.  You can drive right by and it's just one more concrete block building, nothing to make you think it's a hotel.  You walk in, and you have to ride the elevator to floor two to check in.  Which gives the hotel two lobbies.  If you tell someone to meet you in the lobby, you only have a 50-50 chance of getting connected. 

The Hobbit, Desolation of Smaug

I didn't bother to see it in theaters when it came out.  Waited for Netflix.  Well, Netflix brought it to me, I played it.  So-so is the kindest word for it.  The sliced up the book into three parts, to make three movies of it.  This is the middle part, and there just isn't enough plot there to keep the movie moving.  So we have a lot of special effects.  Smaug goes on the rampage, knocks over priceless Dwarf works of art, and keeps on doing so forever. It's a long movie.  I kept hoping it would end.  Little dialog, little acting by flesh and blood actors, the CGI dragon gets the stage for most of the film.
   Too bad.  I have liked the Tolkien books for years.  This flick didn't do much for Middleearth.

Driving down to DC

Its about 600 miles straight thru.  I broke the trip by crashing overnight with an old old friend in Tarrytown NY.  I have done it straight thru in one day, but that was with a relief driver.  I looked at "infrastructure" on the way.  Except for New York, the roads were in good shape.  Fresh new asphalt in many places,  some road work going on here and there.  In New York, everything needed resurfacing, I84, I684, Palisades Parkway.  The New Jersey state line was noticeable for the improvement in the pavement of the Palisades Parkway.  Could it be, most of the media pundits leave in New York, and their constant cries for more infra structure spending are driven be the miserable state of New York roads?  The rest of the way, NH, Vermont, New Jersey, Delaware. Maryland, was good.
  The national motor vehicle fleet has some regional variations.  Upstate in NH and Vermont, there is still a good portion of pickup trucks on the road.  Less so as I went south.  Presumably $4 gasoline has pretty much limited the use of pickups to those that really need them for work.  Used to be, a lot of guys commuted to work in pickups.  Not so much now.  The two seater sports car is pretty much gone, I only saw a couple of them.  No hot rods at all. Every one is driving four door little sedans, either ecoboxes, or Bimmer wannabes.  My full sized Mercury Grand Marquis was pretty much the only one of it's type left.  Merc was running good.  Over the winter his gas mileage had dropped off to a measely 20 MPG.  I gave it a new engine air filter, pumped up all the tires to rated pressure, and I got 25 mpg all the way down.  Not bad for 100,000 miles and 11 years on the road.

Road trip to Washington.

I'm off to daughter's wedding in DC today.  Posting may be a bit light til I get home. 

Fire the bums

In response to the VA scandal, Congress passed a law giving the VA chief more authority to fire senior VA bureaucrats.  If this is a real bill, one with teeth, it is a big step forward.  Right now it is impossible to fire government workers.  We couldn't even fire guys we caught stealing out of the base supply warehouse.  This silly policy goes back to the 1880's civil service reform act.  In the real old days, all government jobs were political, and each time the administration changed hands from democrat to republican and back again, there was a wholesale firing of all government workers.  They were replaced with loyal party members of the winning side, resulting in a federal workforce strong on party loyalty, and little else. 
   They overdid it, and today, it is impossible to fire anyone.  This system applies everywhere except the armed services. 
   We would get better government if we revised the civil service regulations to allow dismissal for cause.  Cause must be documented.  Conviction of a felony in court, espionage, politicking on government time, failure to get to work on time,  sassing supervisors, and failure to pay lawful taxes, and gross incompetence are reasonable causes.  Plus we need an up or out policy.  Workers have to qualify, pass tests for, the next higher grade periodically.  Workers who fail to get promoted, get laid off.  Young guy joins up as GS-bottom-of-the-ladder grade.  He has say three years to work up to GS-next-rung-on-ladder grade.  If he cannot make it, he ain't worth keeping around.  Every three years he has to make the next grade.  Up or out. 
   Incidentally.  The VA employees were on NPR this morning complaining of unfairness in the new law.  The law only applies to the upper ranks of the VA, the janitors and such don't get hit.