Is this Right? Wall St Journal new year's predictions

Let's see here.  WSJ makes twelve predictions.  Number 2 is "The Fall if Islamic State" by Walther Russell Mead, who ought to know better.  Walther thinks that IS has antagonized the French, the Russians, the Merkins, and scared the bejesus out of the surviving Sunni Arab regimes left in the middle east, and thus it will get crushed.  Maybe.  But an ideology so strong as to pull European teenagers to fly to Turkey and hike across the border into Syria to carry an AK47 for IS is going to be hard to stop.
  "A Grand Bargain on Energy" Jeffry Sachs (Columbia University Earth Institute) thinks there is a role for wind and solar energy.  He does not explain how wind and solar keep my lights burning after the sun goes down on a windless day.  If my juice goes off, my oil burner stops working and my pipes freeze.
   "Bookstores are Back" by Ann Patchett, owner of a startup bookstore.  I wish her a lotta luck.  Up here our beloved Village Bookstore, after 20 years of operation, went out of business, and it being revived on a much smaller scale.  Between the price competition from the Walmarts of the world, E-books, and the ridiculous price of hardbacks,  bookstores have a tough row to hoe.
  "Cooperation with China" by Orville Schell, outlines the well know tension spots between the US and China and is so pleased to find that the Chinese and Americans can agree about "Climate Change".  How groovy.  Not a word about US-Chinese trade, the largest trade relationship in the world.  You would think having most of your economy connected to trade with the US might just possibly create a few common interests.  Mr. Schell does'nt mention this at all,
   Ah well, four out of twelve duds ain't too bad.  Betcha the NYT did worse.

Cannon Mountain Ski Weather

Well, we got a half inch of snow yesterday.  Not much, but better than nothing, better than rain.  It's  cold enough for snow making, just barely.  It's 30F right now.  Snow is forecast for tomorrow.

Windows 10 anyone?

I gotta plump Micro$oft program on my laptop that pops up and urges me to upgrade to Windows 10 every other day.  My children tell me Win 10 doesn't offer anything except a faster video interface for games. I gave up on games after Adventure, and that was a long time ago.  The Internet tells me Win 10 sends your username and password to Micro$oft for use in cracking your computer.  Past experience tells me that each new Windows runs slower and sucks up more RAM and disk than the previous one. 
   Anyone got any good experiences with Win 10?

Another year down

2015 is not gonna be my favorite year.  The stock market slide sucked value out of my retirement savings.  The economy still sucks.  We still have Obama pissing in the soup.  We have ISIS terrorists killing in California. We still have global warmers trying to force us all back into a Hiawatha lifestyle.
On the other hand, it could be worse.  My health is still good.  My three children are all graduated from college, gainfully employed, and doing well. 
2016 looks to be a year of pure presidential politicking, non stop, ad nauseum.  Newsies love this story because it is so simple that even they can understand it.  All they have to do is read poll results over the air and make a few obvious comments.  My big fear is the Republicans (aka the stupid party) may screw up and loose to Hillary in November. 

Feel the Bern. Suppose Bernie wins the NH primary?

This is not impossible according to polls.  Bernie is the next door Senator, he has plenty of name recognition.  Who knows what it would do to the Democratic nomination race?

Toasters, the last 65 years of progress

65 years ago my father brought home a new GE two slice pop up toaster.  It toasted  for my family, my grandmother's family, my brother's family, and was turning out beautiful golden brown toast up until last year.  At which point one heating element opened up and went dark.  I took it apart and spliced the nichrome wire with a bit of brass tubing crimped with vicegrips.  That kept her going for another year, when another heating element died.  I couldn't fix that one.  So ho, off to Wally Mart and a brand new Black and Decker toaster.
   Well, it came in a nice Ferrari Racing Red plastic case and it had bigger toast slots that could accept that big country white bread, and bagels.  Had a special button for bagels, and another for "frozen". Trouble is, the damn thing stopped toasting over Christmas, when I had five house guests up for Christmas.  Service life less than half a year, as opposed to the GE which lasted 65 years. 
   Since it was still shiny and new, I took it apart.  Problem was the toaster tray hold down.  Magnetic it was, an electro magnet on a PC board pulled on a steel lug on the pop up mechanism.  One, just one toast crumb had fallen on, and stuck to, the magnet pole piece and prevented the magnet from sucking hard enough on the steel lug to keep the handle down.  A pass with the shop vac got the crumbs under control, and a wipe with a rag got the stickum off, and it worked on the bench.  It even worked after I replaced the cover.  We shall see how long it lasts.  It is in a benign environment, no small children, just me using it. 
   Wanna bet it doesn't last for 65 years?  GE never should have sold it's small appliance division to Black and Decker.

May be the Iraqi's can fight after all.

Looks like they took Ramadi, driving out a determined ISIS defense force.  That takes some doing, a built up area is just one solid mass of firing points and good cover.  When the defenders stick to their guns, advancing into a built up area is very tough.  So the Iraqi's did it, which says their Army is in better shape than this spring when ISIS drove them out of Ramadi. 
   The Iraqi's are giving some of the credit to effective close air support from USAF.  Certainly a few 750 pound smart bombs in the right places can make a lotta difference.