Pudgy NORK dictator Kim Jung whats-his-face is threatening an ICBM test launch of a missile that could reach the US with a nuclear warhead in a few days.
Today's Wall St Journal suggests that we ought to shoot it down. The Journal would have a Navy Aegius cruiser standing off shore put a SAM thru the NORK missile as it boosts up.
Not a bad idea.
If I was doing it, I would have an Air Force AC-130 gunship orbit the launch pad and ventilate the NORK missile with 20mm Vulcan cannon fire. This would need some fighter escort against NORK fighters, and some Wild Weasel support against NORK SAMs, but it's doable. The strike force could assemble out to sea, over international waters, and fly into NORK airspace only after intelligence positively located the missile standing on the pad. North Korea isn't all that big and a strike force flying at 400 knots can be anywhere inside North Korea in no time at all.
Tuesday, January 3, 2017
What to do about Obamacare?
Obamacare is a disaster. The costs it lays on business has stalled hiring, stalled expansion, and generally slowed the economy. Obamacare is one of the reasons for the miserable 1% growth of GNP in the Obama years. GNP growth used to be 3.5% back before Obama. Obamacare along with some other misguided Obama policies knocked it down to 1%. That's not enough growth to offer employment to match our population growth let along reduce unemployment and raise wages.
And, the US spends too darn much on healthcare. We spend 19% of GNP on healthcare, where as all the other countries in the world only spend half that. And US health is no better than many other countries who spend much much less. This means that US exports have to be priced 19% higher than direct manufacturing cost, just to pay for the workers healthcare. Whereas our international competitors, places like Japan, the EU, South Korea, even Canada, only have to mark their products up 9.5% That's a crippling price disadvantage in the marketplace. And it drives US companies to move operations overseas to avoid US healthcare costs.
The Obamacare law is some 10,000 pages long. Nobody can read 10,000 pages of legal gobble-de-gook and understand it, even if it doesn't drive them mad. Trump needs to repeal all 10,000 pages just to eliminate surprise clauses springing to life and doing badness. Modifications or amendments are a slippery slope that open the door to all sorts of crookedness. Trump needs to kill the whole thing, root and branch. If there are parts of Obamacare that people want to keep, pass them as new laws and Trump will sign them.
Most Americans (say 80%)get their healthcare insurance thru their employers, or from Medicare after they retire. Obamacare only helped the self-employed, and the medium poor, the extremely poor get Medicaid. First thing to do is to increase competition by allowing interstate sale of health insurance. Any insurance company, based in any state, should have the right to sell insurance in all 50 states, WITHOUT doing any paperwork anywhere except in their home state. Right now, to sell insurance in any state, the insurance company is required to do a couple of tons of paperwork for the state "regulators". For small rural states (like NH) most insurers just don't bother, the market ain't that worthwhile. Which is why we only have two companies offering insurance up here. Allow interstate sales and we would get more choices and better prices.
Then to curb drug price ripoffs, $800 Epipens and $100 pills, we need to allow duty free import of drugs from any first world country, Canada, the EU, Japan and places like that. Any drug the authorities of a first world country have approved can be imported, even if the US FDA hasn't approved them yet. FDA will scream and cry, and so will big Pharma, but too bad.
And, the US spends too darn much on healthcare. We spend 19% of GNP on healthcare, where as all the other countries in the world only spend half that. And US health is no better than many other countries who spend much much less. This means that US exports have to be priced 19% higher than direct manufacturing cost, just to pay for the workers healthcare. Whereas our international competitors, places like Japan, the EU, South Korea, even Canada, only have to mark their products up 9.5% That's a crippling price disadvantage in the marketplace. And it drives US companies to move operations overseas to avoid US healthcare costs.
The Obamacare law is some 10,000 pages long. Nobody can read 10,000 pages of legal gobble-de-gook and understand it, even if it doesn't drive them mad. Trump needs to repeal all 10,000 pages just to eliminate surprise clauses springing to life and doing badness. Modifications or amendments are a slippery slope that open the door to all sorts of crookedness. Trump needs to kill the whole thing, root and branch. If there are parts of Obamacare that people want to keep, pass them as new laws and Trump will sign them.
Most Americans (say 80%)get their healthcare insurance thru their employers, or from Medicare after they retire. Obamacare only helped the self-employed, and the medium poor, the extremely poor get Medicaid. First thing to do is to increase competition by allowing interstate sale of health insurance. Any insurance company, based in any state, should have the right to sell insurance in all 50 states, WITHOUT doing any paperwork anywhere except in their home state. Right now, to sell insurance in any state, the insurance company is required to do a couple of tons of paperwork for the state "regulators". For small rural states (like NH) most insurers just don't bother, the market ain't that worthwhile. Which is why we only have two companies offering insurance up here. Allow interstate sales and we would get more choices and better prices.
Then to curb drug price ripoffs, $800 Epipens and $100 pills, we need to allow duty free import of drugs from any first world country, Canada, the EU, Japan and places like that. Any drug the authorities of a first world country have approved can be imported, even if the US FDA hasn't approved them yet. FDA will scream and cry, and so will big Pharma, but too bad.
Monday, January 2, 2017
Did Snowden have a "Need to Know"?
You gotta blame NSA for first of all, not checking Snowden's background before issuing him a security clearance. You would think a simple background check would have turned up evidence of flakiness. Back when I got a Top Secret clearance, the FBI followed up and interviewed my references. I do remember going back to my high school reunion and running into old Fred Swan, teacher of physics, swim team coach, and all around decent man. Fred says to me, "Did you know the FBI has been around asking about you?" I wonder if they did the same for Snowden.
Second of all, for granting him access to so much stuff. We used to have a doctrine of "Need-to-Know". You didn't get to see classified material unless you had a clearance, AND, a need to know the information.
Seems like NSA gave Snowden free run over all their classified. And I never did hear just what Snowden was supposed to be doing on the job. Other than passing every thing to the Russians.
Second of all, for granting him access to so much stuff. We used to have a doctrine of "Need-to-Know". You didn't get to see classified material unless you had a clearance, AND, a need to know the information.
Seems like NSA gave Snowden free run over all their classified. And I never did hear just what Snowden was supposed to be doing on the job. Other than passing every thing to the Russians.
Sunday, January 1, 2017
Obama tries to delegitimize Trump with Russians
Obama is making this big Russian hacking fuss to make Trump's election win seem illegitimate. He is saying that Trump would not have won with out help from Russian scumbags. Obama came out on TV and blamed the Russians for the Democratic National Committee hacks and claimed they tipped the election to Trump. Trump went on TV and pooh-poohed the Russians-did-the-hack theory. And surprise, surprise, the voters believed Trump's story rather than Obama's. Even when Obama claimed the CIA and 17 other intelligence agencies support the Russians-did-it story, the public has real doubts about the intelligence and honesty of CIA and 17 other faceless intelligence agencies.
So Obama declared 35 Russian "diplomats" to be persons non grata and must leave the country ASAP. I'm thinking Obama did that to support the Russians-did-it story rather than to make the Russians smart.
And for a side effect, it might make President Trump's dealing with the Russians harder in the future. That makes it a twofer.
I will grant that the DNC hacks and the Podesta email hack didn't help Hillary, but I won't think they were decisive. The Hillary private server, which was outed by the New York Times, hurt Hillary more.
So Obama declared 35 Russian "diplomats" to be persons non grata and must leave the country ASAP. I'm thinking Obama did that to support the Russians-did-it story rather than to make the Russians smart.
And for a side effect, it might make President Trump's dealing with the Russians harder in the future. That makes it a twofer.
I will grant that the DNC hacks and the Podesta email hack didn't help Hillary, but I won't think they were decisive. The Hillary private server, which was outed by the New York Times, hurt Hillary more.
Happy New Year
Things to be thankful for. The endless election is finally OVER. Maybe in a few more weeks the MSM will figure that out too. And the Republicans won. Hallelujah. And old 2016 may be the year the MSM finally blew it and people no longer believe what they say. And I'm gonna miss Carrie Fisher. She put a lot of life into the Star Wars movies.
Things to hope for. Economic recovery in the US. 1% GNP growth is miserable and just this side of Great Depression. Let's do better in 2017.
Things to hope for. Economic recovery in the US. 1% GNP growth is miserable and just this side of Great Depression. Let's do better in 2017.
Saturday, December 31, 2016
Traveling for Christmas
This year, a breakthru in family Christmas tradition. Instead of all the children coming home to my place, I went down to spend the holidays with daughter Karen in DC. Due to the load of Christmas presents, including a cradle for the coming child, dislike for air travel, and desire to have the car with us in DC, we drove down from NH.
Looks to me like the infrastructure between here and DC is a pretty good shape. Even clapped out New York has down some work on the Cross Bronx expressway (I95) and the potholes are filled. Looks like they resurfaced it. Still a lot of medium bad chuckholes between the Connecticut border and the Bronx. New York is still the infrastructure fail in the North East. I'm thinking all the happy infrastructure talk on TV is coming from New Yorkers like Trump, who only see New York roads. And maybe DC roads, DC has a fine herd of chuckholes and waterbars so bad I feared for my suspension. Fortunately the Buick is pretty tough and nothing broke. NJ has finished widening out the NH Turnpike. The twelve lane wide part now is usable all the way to Philadelphia.
And the NJ tolls are fierce. The GW bridge toll is now $15. The NJ Turnpike toll from the bridge to Philadelphia was $11.80. Then with the Del Mem bridge ($4), the Del TP toll ($4), the Maryland TP toll ($4) and the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel Toll ($8) toll money is getting up closer to gas money.
Noticed a whole bunch of new pricey electric signs flashing harmless platitudes. More infrastructure money at work. And the shiny new mile markers, every 0.2 miles are spreading, like kudzu. Wanna bet each one of those mile markers costs us taxpayers $100 to buy and plant?
Daughter's DC neighbor hood is coming up. New condo's for yuppies under construction. They finally got the trendy H Street trolley car to run. Took 'em five profitable years. Everybody loves it, it's quaint, and it's free since they haven't figured out how to collect fares in cars with front and back doors. At least so says Daughter. The new cars have TWO, not one but TWO hinges in them to allow the car to handle tight curves. That's two hinged sections to leak rainwater. When the Boston T, with the sharpest curves in the nation, bought new cars from Boeing Vertol, they only needed one hinged section. And the hinge has leaked rainwater onto passengers for 20-30 years now. By the Way, the H Street trolley line runs straight as an arrow, no curves at all.
Looks to me like the infrastructure between here and DC is a pretty good shape. Even clapped out New York has down some work on the Cross Bronx expressway (I95) and the potholes are filled. Looks like they resurfaced it. Still a lot of medium bad chuckholes between the Connecticut border and the Bronx. New York is still the infrastructure fail in the North East. I'm thinking all the happy infrastructure talk on TV is coming from New Yorkers like Trump, who only see New York roads. And maybe DC roads, DC has a fine herd of chuckholes and waterbars so bad I feared for my suspension. Fortunately the Buick is pretty tough and nothing broke. NJ has finished widening out the NH Turnpike. The twelve lane wide part now is usable all the way to Philadelphia.
And the NJ tolls are fierce. The GW bridge toll is now $15. The NJ Turnpike toll from the bridge to Philadelphia was $11.80. Then with the Del Mem bridge ($4), the Del TP toll ($4), the Maryland TP toll ($4) and the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel Toll ($8) toll money is getting up closer to gas money.
Noticed a whole bunch of new pricey electric signs flashing harmless platitudes. More infrastructure money at work. And the shiny new mile markers, every 0.2 miles are spreading, like kudzu. Wanna bet each one of those mile markers costs us taxpayers $100 to buy and plant?
Daughter's DC neighbor hood is coming up. New condo's for yuppies under construction. They finally got the trendy H Street trolley car to run. Took 'em five profitable years. Everybody loves it, it's quaint, and it's free since they haven't figured out how to collect fares in cars with front and back doors. At least so says Daughter. The new cars have TWO, not one but TWO hinges in them to allow the car to handle tight curves. That's two hinged sections to leak rainwater. When the Boston T, with the sharpest curves in the nation, bought new cars from Boeing Vertol, they only needed one hinged section. And the hinge has leaked rainwater onto passengers for 20-30 years now. By the Way, the H Street trolley line runs straight as an arrow, no curves at all.
Monday, December 26, 2016
Rogue One, The New Star Wars movie
Saw it today in the Smithsonian Air & Space museum Imax theater. Nice big screen , good sound system, good seats. It was in an annoying three D, glasses required. This three D system had a terrible depth of field problem. Everything in the foreground or background was really blurry, only the middle ground was sharp. PITA. Camera work was only fair, too many superquick shots, cut too fast. Too many scenes poorly lit.
Other than that, it was a decent flick, Better than the last one, far better than the three followon movies. The story is set before the time of the first Star Wars (A New Hope) and has a whole new set of characters, no reviving of the old traditional cast,except Darth Vader. The story line is the Rebel Alliance obtaining the Death Star plans that Luke and Leia will deliver in A New Hope. We have a dynamic and pretty heroine, Jinn sonething-or-other who has a good role and plays it well. We have a handsome hero, whose name escapes me, (whole flick was weak on names) who has a good role but Jinn has a better one. We have a blind and somewhat crazy Jedi master who is into whacking down Storm Troopers with a staff. We have a big ugly mercenary, with a heart of gold and a taste for heavy weapons. And a big long armed long legged Droid with a sense of humor. Lots of booms amd blasts and space combat and special effects, all nicely done. The flick keeps things moving and isn't too long.
A good Christmas flick.
Other than that, it was a decent flick, Better than the last one, far better than the three followon movies. The story is set before the time of the first Star Wars (A New Hope) and has a whole new set of characters, no reviving of the old traditional cast,except Darth Vader. The story line is the Rebel Alliance obtaining the Death Star plans that Luke and Leia will deliver in A New Hope. We have a dynamic and pretty heroine, Jinn sonething-or-other who has a good role and plays it well. We have a handsome hero, whose name escapes me, (whole flick was weak on names) who has a good role but Jinn has a better one. We have a blind and somewhat crazy Jedi master who is into whacking down Storm Troopers with a staff. We have a big ugly mercenary, with a heart of gold and a taste for heavy weapons. And a big long armed long legged Droid with a sense of humor. Lots of booms amd blasts and space combat and special effects, all nicely done. The flick keeps things moving and isn't too long.
A good Christmas flick.
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