Words of the Weasel Part 48

"a temporary glitch" is what Fox News called the failure of the TSA computer system.  I'd call that a crash myself.  And a program that is buggy enough to crash probably has other bugs that cause it to give the wrong answers.

The Parties should not let TV people control the debates.

The Republican and Democrat parties should control who gets into the debate, who is the moderator[s], when and where the debates are held, and what the questions will be.  They should not allow the TV newsies to control any thing of importance. 
   The newsies are hugely partisan, and they rig things to help their candidates and hurt the other sides candidates.  I see no reason why such poorly educated, biased, and  ignorant people should be allowed to influence the elections. 
  The parties could easily say to the candidates, "You won't appear on any debates that we, the party, do not approve of.  Anyone who steps out of line will be denied the nomination."

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.