Leaves are at peak now

Speaking of Franconia Notch.  They are as bright as they are gonna get.  From here on in, it's more brown, and fallen.  Considering that we have not had a frost up here, things look pretty bright.

Words of the Weasel Part 47

"Passed away" or now just "passed".  A euphemism for die. When some one dies, lets just say he died, like real people do.  To use "passed" is to soften the dreadfulness of death.  

So I watched the Dem debates to the end

Nobody self destructed on stage.  They all think alike.  They all want to hike taxes.  They try to soften this by claiming to favor soak-the-rich taxes and they all talk about "income inequality" as an excuse for soak-the-rich taxes.  They all want to take our guns away.  They all want $15 minimum wage.  They are all doves on foreign policy. They all like mandatory maternal leave.  They all think you can get thru a New Hampshire winter on "alternate energy", rather than furnace oil and gasoline.  Most of 'em favor "comprehensive immigration reform", what ever that might be. They all believe in "climate change".  They are all in favor of free college for all.  None of 'em said a word about charter schools. Bernie wants free health care for all too.  Soak-the-rich taxes will pay for all this.  Right.
   Hillary looked pretty good.  So did Bernie Sanders.  Jim Webb impressed me as the most rational person on the stage.  Lincoln Chaffee looked old, querulous, and out of touch.  Former Maryland governor whats-his-name  didn't make much of an impression.
   Moderator questions were OK.  They asked each candidate about some embarrassing incident or saying in their past. They did not ask anyone what they might do to fix the economy.
    If the democrats win next year, we are doomed.  Vote a straight Republican ticket.

Dems think Iraq is worse than Viet Nam

Most of the five dems standing on the stage tonight believe (or said they believe) that the Iraq war was the worst mistake the US has made in modern times. 
   Viet Nam cost 50,000 casualties, lasted 10 years, and the Communist enemy drove us out of the country and conquered South Viet Nam and placed it under a Communist dictatorship in Hanoi.  That's about as bad as defeats get.
   Iraq cost only 5000 casualties, a lot, but only a tenth of the Viet Nam casualties.  It was successful, the enemy regime was deposed, and a new one installed.  Things were well in hand until Obama withdrew all our troops.  Without US support, the new regime collapsed, and ISIS took over most of the country. 
   I say Viet Nam was much much worse than Iraq.

Beer Monopoly

It's coming.  Inbev (#1 brewer worldwide) wants to buy SABMiller ( #2 brewer worldwide) for $104 billion.  Combine the #1 and #2  brewers and  you have a world wide monopoly.  They will be able to hike their prices without fear of competition, there is no competition. 
  The anti-trust division at Justice ought to fight this merger.  If anti trust means anything, it means the two top firms in any one market cannot merge.  The two top firms are supposed to compete, on price and on quality.  The merger just eliminates competition, so they can hike the price and lower the quality and get away with it.

I buy a car to drive it, not to compute in it

The new car ads on TV speak of Bluetooth connectivity, On-Site, satellite radio, GPS navigation, electronic gadget after electronic gadget. 
  I don't buy a car to get electronics.  I want to drive it.  The auto marketeers seem to have forgotten my segment of the market. 
  So what properties of car make it sell?  First off is a good low price.  There was a time when you could buy a brand new VW beetle for $1800.  That year a Chevy baseline sedan cost $2800. The Beetle wasn't very big, had sort of weird styling, didn't have much power, lacked automatic transmission, but it was well built, reliable, good paint job, good gas mileage, and it sold.  Even got to star in a Disney movie. 
   Then there is styling.  Good styling doesn't make the car more expensive.  The dies to press the sheet metal cost the same whether they press handsome fenders or ugly ones.  Detroit used to do good styling, just look at the movies and TV, all the good guys drive classic Detroit cars.  You never see a good guy driving a Chevy Avio.  For 2015, the best cars rise to the level of merely plain, nothing looks as sharp as say a 1959 Buick, or a '60s Pontiac GTO.   Lackluster styling is the fault of corporate suits.  The stylist's conceptions are all vetted by top management before going into production.  Top management is no longer real car people like Lee Iacocca, but miserable narrow gauge bean counters.  Who select the bland styling now universal.
   Then we have carrying capacity.  The minivans and SUV's  sell to people who have children to transport and stuff to bring home.  If you don't have children, you get a pickup truck.  The little econobox sedans cannot do either, and serve mostly to drive to work. 
   Over the years Detroit invented new body styles, the station wagon, the compact car, the pony car, the minivan, the SUV.  Each one of these made a ton of money.  Detroit needs to invent some more body styles.  For example, a real small car that can bring plywood and sheetrock home from the lumber yard, or a bureau home from the yard sale.  A clever roof rack, a removable top, something, to let you do some hauling without getting into an F150. 
   Right now Detroit is getting along by expanding into China.  But that won't last, the Chinese will take over their own auto production.  They need to work harder on the North American market.

Car radios get better every year

Way back when, when the radios were vacuum tube, the Boston FM stations faded out to static about the time we crossed Rt 128.  Then it was AM all the way to Cannon Mt, usually WBZ.  So yesterday I drove back from Boston with the FM in my new-to-me car playing WCRB, the Boston classical music station.  The radio pulled in good solid signal all the way to Concord NH.  That didn't used to happen. 
  It was a lovely day, leaves at peak all the way, sunny, blue sky, hint of fall in the air but not really cold.  My old North Shore model railroad club threw an open house and train show in Wakefield.  I found some stuff at the show, and admired all the work that had gone into the layout since I retired to NH 6-7 years ago.  Lot of old friends were still active, was glad to see them all.