Puerto Rico is broke, but cannot declare bankruptcy

Puerto Rico is a US territory, acquired from the Spanish American War of 1898.  It's still a territory because several referendums on state hood were voted down over the years.  As a territory, Puerto Ricans are US citizens and can leave the island and settle on the mainland anytime and anywhere they wish.  Puerto Rico doesn't have to pay federal income tax, but they don't get representation in Congress. 
   Over the years, the government of Puerto Rico has be spending more than they take in from taxes.  They have been covering the shortfall by borrowing, largely from New York banks.  The money has run out, and Puerto Rico can't make payments due this year.  There just isn't any money in the treasury. 
   And, thru some lawyer's technicality Puerto Rico cannot declare bankruptcy.  Apparently when they wrote the US bankruptcy code they forgot to make any provisions for territories, as opposed to states, cities, corporations and individuals.  Puerto Rico has been agitating to get that fixed.
   I'm not so sure.  Let things work themselves out.  The foolish lenders who offered loans to cover operating expenses to a  government that would never be able to repay, ought to loose their money.  Maybe a good stiff loss will teach bonehead banks a lesson. 
   And then Puerto Rico will have to figure out how to live within their means.  They won't be able to borrow, so they will have to cut spending and hike taxes and collect the taxes on the books.  All of these are good things.  I hear that half the population of Puerto Rico is drawing some kind of salary from the government.  Which is ridiculous. 
  And I sure don't want to spend my tax money bailing them out. 

Windows Washing Time

Youngest son was up for the weekend.  Good time.  Anyhow he used my trusty desktop to do some email, and then he said "Dad, your computer is REALLY slow."  Well, yeah it had been slowing down bit by bit over time.  Youngest son suggested  blowing Firefox away and then re installing clean.  
So last night I started in on it. 
Ran Spybot Search&Destroy.  It found and zapped a buncha cookies, and some registry keys, none of which sounded particularly dangerous, but you never know.  Zapped them all. 
Then go for a clean install of Firefox.  Fire up Internet Exploder, Bing for firefox, click on the first reply, and then leave.  Click on Start->Settings->AddRemoveProgram.  Hit remove on Mozilla Firefox.  That goes OK.  Double check.  Fire up regedit and search the registry for keys containing Firefox.  Zap most of 'em, skip keys that look like pointers to Firefox for other programs to use. 
Go back to Internet Exploder  and click on Download.  This is not so good.  It tries to get me to download a couple of suspicious programs, a driver updater and a speed-me-up program.  Won't take no for an answer, both Yes and NO buttons get you to the download page.  Finally get to the Firefox download.  That trundles along for minutes, and then croaks.
  So, restart Internet Exploder, Bing for Firefox again.  Read the dozens of hits.  Second hit down is the official Mozilla website.  Click on that, and Firefox downloads and installs smoothly.  No suspicious extra programs.  Click on Help and then About, and Firefox updates it self to version 45.  And my bookmarks still work.   Moral of the story, If you Google for a something and get a bunch of hits, read each hit, try for the hit that looks like it's the maker's website.  By this time Trusty Desktop is running faster.  More like his old self.
  Download MalwareBytes, and run it.  It gets 11 hits, all on something names PUP.whatever.  Zap those. 
  Start up Microsoft's Malicious Software Removal Tool.  Select "all files".  It's been running for 20 minutes now and has four hits. It's still running.  I'll zap all hits when it finishes. 
  So, Spring Cleaning for Windows.
1.  Empty the recycle bin and delete any files you don't need/want
2. Run every antivirus you have, and you trust. 

What does NASA do that is worthwhile?

Worthwhile like Apollo say.  Apollo worked, and put America into the history books for ever.  What is NASA doing today?  Paying $30 million a seat to the Russians for a ride to the ISS?  Buying Russian made rocket engines for the ULA Atlas booster?  Launching a few robot probes? 
  Are we getting our money's worth?
  The only real history making mission left is a manned Mars mission.  This is within today's technology.  I've seen plans to send the assent stage to Mars, making a soft landing under remote control. Then sending a second one just in case something breaks.  Then setting up a nuclear powered chemical plant to synthesize fuel for the return trip from Martian air, soil, and perhaps water. Then using five Space-X Falcon 9's to boost a Mars mission, crew capsule, and lander into orbit. Four man crew.  Doable out of the current NASA budget.  Within a few years.
   This would be a history book mission.  Why don't we do it?
  

Google Maps, print one, waste one

The Google software weenies keep breaking things.  This time they "fixed" the Google maps print feature so as to print a one page map, it first prints a sheet of pure worthlessness, and then prints your map on a second sheet.  PITA.
   Good work Google.  Keep this sort of thing up and you will conquer the world.

Russians buzzing US destroyer

Back in the cold war, it was hairier.  There was the Russian sub that collided with a US destroyer.  Damage was limited, the destroyer made it back to base under its own power, but it surely must have scared the bejabbers out of the US captain and crew. 
   Then there was that Chinese fighter that collided with a US recon aircraft back in the early uh-ohs.  The Chinese pilot was buzzing the much slower recon plane, only he wasn't as hot a pilot as he thought he was.  He was killed, and the US recon plane had to make an emergency landing in Chinese territory. 

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.