Place an order for one room worth of smoke

Now that the health Nazis have got us all off tobacco, you cannot have a real smoke filled room today, nobody smokes anymore.  Especially not in public.  But I am sure there are numerous suppliers who will fill the gap.
   Way back when, American party conventions were big get togethers at which the party bosses, office holders, and assorted hangers on, would select the party candidates and just spring them on the voters.  It wasn't all that bad a system, it gave us a series of pretty decent presidents, starting with Lincoln.  If you read your modern history, the US was governed by a class of politician a couple of grades better than anyone in Europe.  This smoke filled room selection process lasted until the Kennedy-Humphrey West Virginia primary in 1960.  Then for some reason (probably media love for Kennedy) the single West Virginia primary was deemed totally representative of the national electorate, and JFK became the democratic nominee that year.  I'm pretty sure that Humphrey and Lyndon Johnson didn't go along, but the convention did, although Kennedy had to offer the vice presidency to Johnson to press on over the top.
   Since then, more states have set up primaries.  New Hampshire has done exceptionally well with its first in the nation primary.  It brings zillions of dollars into the state from newsies, candidates, and just plain tourists, and we need the business. Up until this year, the primaries decided the nominee on both sides, and the national conventions dwindled in importance to the point that the big TV networks would not carry them live in prime time. 
   Even though the national conventions were no longer decisive, everyone always wanted to go as a delegate.  Even my mother managed to become a delegate to the the Republican convention one year.  Each state party set up some elaborate scheme to allocate delegates spots to loyal and deserving party members.  The Donald is beating the drums about the Colorado system being unfair to him since Ted Cruz got all the delegates and he got zip.  Not surprising.  The newsies haven't actually figured out the Colorado system and told us about it, but I can guess it favors loyal and deserving party members, all of whom who detest The Donald. 
   Anyhow, the newsies are salivating about covering the Republican convention this year because it looks like nobody will have the votes to lock it up going in, and there will be demonstrations, floor fights, slanging matches, and wheeling and dealing, all of which makes good copy. 
  

Brits to study reviving sailing ships.

According to the Economist, Energy Technologies Institute  (ETI) wants to study auxiliary wind power to cargo vessels.  The ship would be equipped with huge vertical rotors to be spun by the wind.  Some kind of gear train would drive a propeller off the rotors.  Huge, like fifteen feet in diameter and 150 feet tall.  The idea isn't all that new.  The devices are called Flettner rotors, and they were invented by a German aerodynamics guru  in the 1920's.  Flettner was able to obtain enough funding back then to outfit a medium sized ship with his rotors and "sail" it.  For carrying all this top heavy gear, ETI expects, not a real no-fossil-fuel ship, but merely a 5-10% savings in fuel. 
   Seems like a helova lotta money sunk into equipment for a pretty chintzy fuel savings.  Does not sound worth while to me.  I'm sure the greenies are all over this, they love expensive and worthless things.
   By 1840 the square rigged sailing ship had been perfected to a level that is competitive with modern steam ships in terms of speed, size, and range.  Clipper ships could do 20 knots in 1840, where as 1940's convoys of steamers could only do 6 knots.  The only reason steamers replaced sailing vessels was cost.  Sailing ships required a big crew to handle all the sails.  Enough men to furl sail in a sudden blow, enough men to wear ship.  Whereas a steamer only needs a man at the wheel and a few men in the boiler room to keep steam up.  The world's merchant fleet was mostly sail powered up until WWI when German U-boats sank most of the sailors.  Sailors were easier to catch than steamers. 
   Should the price of fuel go back up (way way up)  the square rigger would become practical again, yielding a true no-fossil-fuel ship.  It would probably take something like $200 a barrel oil to do that. 

Finished my taxes, Thank God

Doing taxes gets worse and worse, year by year.  Our friendly IRS keeps adding tax forms, Turbo Tax cranked out 32 pages of Federal income tax forms this year.  You can't just list stock sales on Schedule D anymore, they want half a dozen different forms, with different rules and gobble-de-gook for each form. 
   I don't understand why some presidential candidate doesn't promise to clean this up.  I know there are rabid special interests ready to leap to the defense of every loophole and deduction, but there gotta  be a lot of regular taxpayers who dread  doing all this scutwork every year. 
  I used to do my taxes with an Excel spreadsheet of my own construction.  But craziness connected with sale of foreign stocks is just to much for me, I can't write the spreadsheet when I don't under stand the rules.
There has gotta be a better way.
   The better way is Turbo Tax.  It's straight forward to use but you gotta watch it.  Accidentally hit a comma, when you meant to hit period for decimal point  can drive the program, and you crazy.  You want to double check this year vs last year, assuming  you used Turbotax last year.  Deductions you took last year you ought to be able to take this year. 

"Hillary Clinton was a fine Secretary of State" said Obama

Weekend interview with Chris Wallace on Fox.  Yeah Right.  Fine judge of people that Obama.  Picks the right person every time. 
Hillary was Secretary when the Benghazi consulate was attacked, killing four Americans including the Ambassador to Libya.  She had allowed State Dept cookie pushers to short stop appeals for more security from the ambassador.  She was there when a US general and a US Admiral were fired that night for daring to send rescue missions.  She sent one of her operatives on all the TV Sunday pundit shows to blame the disaster on an obscure bit of internet video. 
   She was Secretary when the Arab Spring began to undermine Hosni Mubarak in Eygpt.  Mubarak had kept the peace that Anwar Sadat had negotiated with Israel.  Mubarak had been a useful and loyal ally of the United States.  When SHTF, and Mubarak's regime began to totter, she did not do the right and proper thing, namely allow the Egyptians to work out their internal problems.  No, she (and Obama) jumped right in and called to Mubarak's overthrow.  
  She was Secretary when the US pulled the troops out of Iraq, turning the place over to ISIS. 
  She was Secretary of State when Putin invaded Ukraineand annexed the Crimea.  She didn't say squat about that.
   She was Secretary will Libya came unglued during the Arab Spring.  We gave the Europeans a little logistical support while they overthrew Qaddafi  and then we all up and left.  Libya is now a failed state, controlled by ISIS.
   She was Secretary of State when Obama announced a "red line" in Syria over the use of poison gas.  She was still Secretary while Assad gassed more of his own citizens and we did nothing. 
   If elected President, Hillary will doubtless find more catastrophes to mismanage.
  

Why do we have Wall Street?

In a word, economic development.  Economic development means starting up new companies, building new factories, opening mines, building dams, launching ships and 747's, expanding production facilities.  All these things need money, often a lot of money, and it takes a long time from startup spending to making money from sales.  Might be years between first spending on production facilities, advertisements, research and development, and first accounts receivable from sales.
   You gotta raise money to get a startup company up and running.  The nicest money raiser for start up companies is to issue stock.  They can pay their initial employees largely in stock.  They can pay their initial investors in stock.  Stock makes the stockholders into part owners of the company.  They get to vote on the board of directors, and they are entitled to a share of company earnings, (dividends).  A company can use stock, which it can issue for merely the cost of printing stock certificates, to cover a lot of expenses.
   The stock market (the heart of Wall Street) exists to give value to stock.  Stockholder's know that they can convert their stock into cash, right now, on the stock market.  That gives the stock real value, far more value than the promise of future dividends will give it.  Lotta startups never pay dividends, they tell the stockholders to just sell the stock for cash.  Which works when you have a stock market in New York and other places. buying and selling every company's stock, every day.
   In short, Wall Street provides the money that makes economic development happen.  The stock market guys are pretty good about picking winners and losers, a helova lot better than any gov'mint snivel servants will ever be.  The stock market steers investment money into winners, and shuts off money to losers.
   In short, we need Wall Street to keep the US economy growing, and hiring workers, and producing the accustomed flood of low cost, high performance products into the consumer market.

Divisions in the Republican Party

The TV newsies have been giving this one a lotta talk.   The newsies are saying that the "Establishment" and the rank and file party members are at odds with each other.  And that the breach is unfixable. 
  Well maybe so, maybe not.  There is an establishment, it's office holders at all levels, local state and federal, then party officials and workers, and activists.  The establishment really cares about winning, they are in it as a day job, they want to keep their jobs, and they don't care about making flashy but risky gestures or embracing ideologies.  They want to win. 
   They know that The Donald will loose, loose big, and take the rest of the Republican party down to defeat.  So they are against The Donald.  Which puts them at odds with The Donald and his supporters.  Just to put the establishment further onto the hot seat,  Ted Cruz, the alternative to The Donald, ain't their cup of tea either.  Ted is a man of strong ideological principles, he is a forth right Christian, and he is into flashy but risky gestures, such as doing a Federal government shutdown.  They fear they cannot cut a deal with Ted, that Ted will stand on principle and refuse to compromise.  So far, it looks like the establishment will back Ted, as their only alternative to The Donald and the lesser of two evils.  Better a hard to deal with ideologue than a flaming disaster. 
   And, the party rank and file isn't entirely agin this viewpoint.
   The sticky part comes when the nominee gets picked.  Trump voters will be upset if The Donald doesn't win, a lotta of other Republicans will be just as upset if The Donald does win the nomination.  The challenge to the Republican party, is to soothe all these ruffled feathers and get the offended voters to at least vote for the party, if not get out and electioneer for the party.   There are gonna be a lot of ruffled feathers and unhappy voters no matter which way the nomination goes.  At a guess,  the disappointed Trump people will be easier to soothe than the vast number of Republicans who detest Trump. 
   One healing gambit that the winner might use, is to offer the vice presidency to the looser. 
  

Going after salt

The FDA is planning/talking about  issuing new regulations limiting the amount of salt in food.  You gotta wonder about this.  Making rules for salt, or any other rules on food seems to be a legislative job, not a bureaucrat job.  The Germans brag about a medieval law on the purity of beer, still in force in Germany, but a real law, they didn't have bureaucracies in the middle ages.  I think the FDA is stepping beyond it's legal authority.
   And then there are recent scientific studies claiming  that salt ain't all that bad for you.  These are disputed, but then True Believers won't accept any thing that cast doubt upon their beliefs.  Lotta bureaucrats are True Believers. 
   My chemistry is weak, but it is clear that all sorts of biochemistry in your body needs just the right amount of saltiness to work.  The body has mechanisms to maintain the right salt level, one mechanism is appetite, when your salt level is low,  salt tastes better, when your salt level is high, less salt tastes better.  In the service, they issued us salt tablets on hot days when we were sweating hard. 
   One effect of the drive for lower salt, is to sharpen my eye in the store.  Original Recipe Stoned Wheat Thins, taste a helova lot better than Low Sodium Stoned Wheat Thins.  Both come in nearly the same packaging, you gotta look sharp to buy the good tasting ones.  On the other hand, down the canned soup aisle, I find the traditional Campbell's is just too salty for my taste.  The new fangled Healthy Request soup tastes better with about half the salt of Campbell's.