Got a call from my old Alma Mater

It was a young female student, a senior, getting in some work for the alumni office, calling to thank me for a contribution I made a few weeks ago.  We got to chatting, about majors and the job market and how things were back when I graduated better than 40 years ago.  She thought things must have been better back then, especially after I mentioned that I had a job offer before I graduated.  I asked here what shw was majoring in.  "International relations" she said.  I refrained from saying anything while I thought to myself, "A real dead end major unless you want to join the State Dept or the CIA."  So I asked her if she had taken a course in computer programming.  "No, but I wish I had" was the reply. 
   After the phone call was over, I thought to myself, "There goes a nice young woman who is graduating with a major that won't help her get a job.  Let's hope she can marry the right guy."
   Lesson: if you are a student, or a parent of a student, you need to do some serious thinking about your college major.   The right major will get you a job upon graduation.  The wrong major and you are out of luck.  Decide now what you want to do for a living when you graduate.  Pick your major to make you employable in your chosen field.   Engineering (real engineering, chemical, electrical, mechanical, or civil) worked for me,  is fun to do, plenty of jobs, and decent pay.  The sciences, computer programming, business administration, and mathematics are also good bets.   
   Avoid the talky-talk "sciences" (sociology, anthropology, psychology, ecology) and anything with "studies" in its name (ethic studies, gender studies and so on). 
   If you just cannot stomach a STEM major, learn to write.  There is a tremendous demand for good English writing in business, industry, and government.  An English major or a history major will teach you how to write. 

Words of the Weasel Part 46

"What did he know and when did he know it".  The old Watergate cry.  Congressional Democrats are in full cry on TV this morning.  This is an accusation of thought crime.  And I don't believe in thought crime.  Liberty means the right to think anything you please.  Crime has to be action of some sort. 
  The proper questions  are "What did he do?  When did he do it?  Where did he do it? And what evidence do you have? "  To be a crime it has to be an action.  Thought (or knowledge) is never a crime.

$3000 health insurance vs $12000 health insurance

Used to be, before Obamacare, you could purchase health insurance for your and your family for about $3000 a year.  It was "hospitalization only" insurance, it only paid if you got really sick and got put into the hospital.  Routine stuff, yearly physicals, taking the kids to the doctor for earaches and such, you paid for out of pocket.   The savings, $9000 a year, paid for a lot of trips to the doctor and a lot of yearly physicals.  If you had some money in your checking account to handle the routine stuff, hospitalization only made a lot of sense.  You were protected against catastrophe, at a price you could afford.
   The medical community detested hospitalization only.  It led to patients asking how much that recommended CAT scan might cost, and checking prices on pills and getting prescriptions changed over to cheaper drugs. 
   When they slipped Obamacare over on us, they remembered  how opposition from the medical community had killed Hillarycare.  They remembered those Harry and Louise radio commercials, and decided to get the medical community on board by giving them everything they ever wanted in Obamacare.
  And so, Obamacare outlawed hospitalization only insurance.  No more would medical providers have to explain how much treatments would cost to patients.  Since every thing was all paid for, patients didn't care what stuff cost.  While they were at it, Obamacare made all kinds of weird and wonderful medical scams mandatory and all paid for, like osteopathy.  The practitioners love it.   

In like Flynn

Some things I don't understand.   It's perfectly reasonable for Trump's national security advisor to talk to some Russians.  Flynn is an old intelligence guy, knows some Russians, and contacting our biggest international problem is a good idea.  Let 'em know that we won't nuke 'em, that we could make a deal, pass on a bit of sweetness and light, is always a good idea.  We aren't at war with the Russians, reaching out and schmoozing them is a good thing.  Far better than calling them names. 
   How did Flynn manage to get himself cross threaded with Mike Pence?  Just what was it that he failed to say, or "misspoke" ?  And why would a senior retired Army general officer not live up to the code of the services and tell the truth? 
   And, who in the intelligence world leaked the phone taps on Flynn?  And leaked them to the press, not just Congressional Democrats?  You tap a senior guy's phone and that's serious business.  When the senior guy finds out, he will retaliate.  Clearly Trump has a heavy duty leaker on the loose.  He needs to call a plumber ASAP.  
  

Words of the Weasel Part 45

"Border Tax".  A euphemism for tariff.  I listened to some talking head on Fox News spend five minutes explaining why Trump's proposed "border tax" was not a tariff.  Tariffs have been a hot subject thru out American history.  And the history books all use the word tariff.  We are doing our children a disservice to introduce a new  buzz phrase for an old old concept.
   Could it be that a century of free trade agitation has made people think that tariff's are bad for them?
   In real life, tariffs are good for domestic makers of stuff, for obvious reasons.  Tariffs are bad for everyone else because they have to pay more for stuff.  Everyone else is more people than the makers (both labor and company) of any one kind of stuff.  Since this is a democracy, it is reasonable to support free trade since more people benefit from a free trade regime. 

Father of Dodge Viper says it died because it ran out of reasons to live

Bob Lutz, product champion of the Viper, back some years ago, said the idea of the Viper was to have more power and go faster than anything else.  When Chevy put out some Corvettes that were even faster than Viper the car lost its reason for being.
   Piffle I say.  When the competition comes out with a product hotter than yours, it's time to soup up your product.  Chrysler just didn't want to spend the money. Or didn't have the money.
   If some car maker was looking for a new product, how about a sporty car that can handle driving in snow? I've driven Camaros and Mustangs, a lotta fun on a dry road but totally worthless after the first flake hits the road.  Up here in NH, people laugh at you if they see you driving a sporty car in winter.  Which cuts into the market for sporty cars.
  What someone ought to make is a sporty car that works in winter.  Fifty fifty front rear weight distribution is a good starting place.  Then it needs four wheel drive, with limit slip differentials fore and aft.  Maybe a built in ski rack that doesn't whistle at 65 mph.  Decent tires with rubber that sticks in snow.  They make 'em.  Plenty of defroster heat.  Good strong windshield washer to cope with the salt spray.  Bleed some engine heat to the washer bottle to keep it from freezing.  Outside thermometer so you can tell if that glittery black stuff up ahead is ice or just wet asphalt.   Give it some decent styling and I'd buy one. 

Ivanka Trump and her clothing line.

All I know about Ivanka Trump is what I see on TV.  She sure looks like a nice, good looking, pleasant, mother of three.  The sort of young woman any father would be proud to call his daughter.  And so, when Nordstroms and some other retailers drop her clothing line,  her doting father says a few words.  What does anyone expect him to say?  And Kellyanne Conway says a few more words, good for her. 
   The newsies are making a federal case out of this.  Which is one reason why polls show president Trump has more credibility than the newsies do.