Brexit

Short for British Exit From EU. The Brits have set 23 June as the date for a nationwide referendum on pulling out of the EU.  British bookies are offering 2:1 odds that Brexit will happen. The Conservative party prime minister will campaign to keep Britain in.  He cannot get all the senior conservatives to support him. Heavy duty Conservatives like the mayor of London and the justice minister are in favor of getting out and have said so publicly.
   Prime Minister Cameron went to Brussels, dickered, and came back with some concessions from the EU. Britain will be able to refuse to pay welfare to new immigrants until they have been in Britain for four years.  There will be some poorly understood restrictions on immigration to Britain.  It probably ain't enough.  The Brits fear being overrun by foreigners and resent EU regulations on just about everything.
   Problem for Her Majesty's Government.  About one third of British exports go to the EU.  Right now they go duty free since Britain is currently an EU member.  If Britain pulls out, that stops and British exports to the EU will face full EU tariffs.  Which means the end of that huge export market.  The EU has 10% unemployment, which means plenty of EU suppliers who would be so pleased to pick up all the Brit's business after EU tariffs made the Brits noncompetitive.
   I did see one clueless letter to the editor in the WSJ claiming that it ain't so, Britain could pull out and still enjoy EU tariff preferences.  I don't believe that.
   The Economist is clearly concerned, they see economic disaster, of the lights go out and everybody starves to death sort.  They also checked with the bookies for odds.  I think the Economist is onto something.  Where do you go to replace one third of your export business?   Canada?  Australia?  the US?  Would we let them join NAFTA?
   Britain is the second largest economy in the EU.  If they pull out it will make the job of keeping the EU from falling apart harder.  Actually, the EU has come a long way since 1945, they have passport-and-customs free travel between most EU countries, they have a single currency, they have EU wide regulations of things like food purity and labeling, electrical safety standards,building codes.  They have a ways to go to become a United States of Europe, they have no EU wide foreign policy or armed forces, and the EU government in Brussels lacks a lot of powers that the US constitution gives to Washington.
   I wish the Brits every kind of luck.  They are gonna need it. 

WSJ reviews the Chevy Malibu

At least they are reviewing a car that their readership might consider buying.  The bulk of the Journal's readers are ordinary folk who cannot afford $100,000 supercars, but might well afford a Chevy.  They discuss the various levels of plush the car comes in, ranging from $23,000 to $35,000.  Top of the line rates leather seats.  They list all the electronical goodies, heated seats, heated steering wheel, wi-fi.  The bottom of the line comes with a 4-banger 1.5 liter rated at 160 hp, the up scale models have a 2 liter 250 hp turbo engine.  Actually those horsepower rating sound a little bogus to me.  Back in the day, a stock Chevy 283 cubic inch two barrel V8 was advertised at 180 hp.  To rate a 2.0 liter (126 cubic inch)  4 cylinder engine at 200 hp makes me think they are fudging the numbers somehow.  (There are lots of ways to fudge).  They bitch that the top of the line model looks just like the bottom of the line model.  The expect that for spending an extra $12K you would get some bling on the outside of the car to make it look snappier than the stripper.
   They don't mention test driving it, handling ability, how well the antiskid handles a fresh fall of snow, how much you can get into the trunk, gas mileage, how well the suspension soaks up a New Hampshire pot hole, and a bunch of other stuff that the car mags used to tell us. 

After action reports

I didn't watch the Republican debate last night.  I been seeing plenty of instant replays on TV today.  Lotta shouting and name calling.  Some new dirt dumped on stage.  I never heard about the Trump University thing before.  Nor about Trump hiring illegal aliens.  I suppose there is something in them, but I won't get very excited about this until I see or hear a reasonably impartial account from a third party.  Trump's opponents ought to bore in on Trump's tax returns. They are real, the returns must exist somewhere, and I'll bet they have some juicy damaging deductions in them somewhere. 
   The instant replays never show anyone saying anything of substance, like what they would do if elected.  Nothing about how to create jobs, how to stop ISIS, nothing clear about Obamacare except they are agin it.  Do they want to just drop it completely and go back to where we were before Obamacare was passed?  That wasn't all that bad.  Do they want do do anything to reduce the scandalous cost of US healthcare?
   Far as I can see from the instant replays they just spent the evening yelling at each other.  Will this have any effect on Super Tuesday?

Cannon Mountain Ski Weather

Cannon got two inches of new snow last night.  Big drop in temp from yesterday, which was up to 50 F and rained hard all day.  It chilled down over night, switched over to snow, and froze my front door shut.  So I had to eyeball the new snow depth rather than measure it with a yardstick. 

Helmuth Norpoth, Stony Brook Professor, predicts Trump will beat Hilliary or Sanders.

Drudge Report carried the story here.  Since my objection to The Donald comes from my fear that Trump would loose to Hilliary, this is good news.  Cause it looks like we are nominating The Donald. 

I'm debated out.

They are gonna have yet another presidential debate tonight.  I'm not gonna bother to watch it.  All they talk about is how bad the competition is.  I've heard all I need to hear on that subject.  Plus I don't believe most of the trash talk.
   They never make campaign promises, you know glowing prophesies of the bright new future should they be elected.  Not that I believe in campaign promises all that much, but at least they are an attempt to give the voters a reason to vote for them.  Nowadays they don't seem to bother. 
  I want to hear what each candidate would do to create American jobs.  And get the economy to grow at 3.5% per year rather than Obama's 0.7% last quarter.  What taxes would they lower, and by how much? What burdensome Washington red tape would they slash?  What projects (roadbuilding, canal building, NASA trips to Mars, high speed choo-choo trains, more drug treatment beds, etc) would they push?
   How will they counter Putin's aggression in Ukraine?  Economic aid to Ukraine?  Stinger anti aircraft missiles? A USAF enforced no fly zone?  US Army troops in divisional strength?  Same question about Syria, what exactly would they do in Syria?
   How green are they?  Spend money on wind and solar green?  Or lease federal land for fracking?  Or lease Arctic National Wildlife Reservation (ANWR) to conventional oil drilling?  The greenies used to complain about leasing in ANWR nightly, I haven't heard that lately.  Me, I like gasoline and furnace oil for under $2 a gallon.
  

We put them in Gitmo to prevent judges from turning 'em loose

"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States or any place subject to their jurisdiction."
Thirteenth Amendment, passed in 1865 as part of the conclusion of the Civil War.
   The inmates of Gitmo are not criminals, they are enemy soldiers, captured upon the battlefields of Afghanistan.  They have not been duly convicted of anything. An overpaid army of lawyers, working their cases since 2001, has been unable to convince an American court or court-martial to convict them.  Under American law bearing arms against the United States is not a crime. 
  And under the 13th Amendment, if they ain't convicted, we cannot hold them in jail.
  The Bush Administration understood this, and decided to put these people in Gitmo, in the hopes that being off shore, US judges would be less likely to order the prisoners released. 
   And today, Obama engaging in some favorite magical thinking,  wants to close Gitmo and transfer the remaining inmates to somewhere inside the US. 
   He is gonna encounter a good deal of resistance.