Winter is coming.

I got a half and inch of snow up here in the White Mountains.  Enough to make the ground white.  And it's cold, 20F. 

Is it a middle class tax cut? Or a taxcut for "The Rich"???

Who knows?  The Democrats claim it's a tax cut for "The Rich".  Republicans say it's a tax cut for the middle class.  Who to believe?   The bill is still secret, and is probably 1000 pages long and written in deep gobble-de-gook, so even if I found it on the Web, it wouldn't mean anything to me.  I only read English.  I cannot focus on 1000 pages.  The Journal favors the bill, but it prints a chart showing that a few classes of taxpayer will be paying more ten years from now. 
   The Journal says that a lot of its provisions have time limits of less than ten years.  That hurts economic growth.  Lots of projects, even just buying a home, let alone building a new factory, take more than ten years to pay off.  And the payoff always depends upon the tax burden laid on the project.  If we don't know what the tax burden will be ten years out, we are less likely to do the project. 
   
   Living in NH, which fortunately lacks a state income tax and state sales taxes, I'm all in favor of ending the deduction for state and local taxes.  My mortgage is paid off, so the mortgage interest deduction does me no good.  My children are grown up, married, living in their own homes, so child deductions don't do me any good. 

   The Republicans have to pass something or they get voted out of office next year.  They already failed to repeal Obamacare, failure to pass tax reform will confirm voter belief that the Republicans are a bunch of blow hard RINO's, no different from Democrats.   And they deserve payback at the polls for failing to live up to their promises to reform taxes and repeal Obamacare. 

  

Nobody uses hammers anymore

At least not on "This Old House".  I watch an episode of the antenna day before yesterday.  Which was nice, the cable doesn't carry "This Old House".  What caught my eye was nobody was using hammers and nails anymore.  Not even air powered nail guns.  Everything gets fastened with drywall screws, driven in with battery drills.  No pilot hole drilling, just drive right into the wood.   As fast as hammering in a nail, not quite as fast as a nail gun. 

Daylight Savings Time, the biannual hassle

So I have to reset all my clocks today.  Antique Tiffany mantle clock, bedside clock radio,wristwatch, car clock, celery phone, VCR, and two Windows computers.  I have been told you should never push the hands of antique clocks backward, it will confuse the striking mechanism and other badnesses.  So I open the back, stop the pendulum, wait an hour, and then restart the pendulum.  The bedside clock radio has a straight forward "Set Clock" button, no problem.  Celery phone, bless its little silicon heart,  handles the time change automatically, so does Windows.  The car clock is so confusing that I have to dig out the car instruction booklet and re read how to set clock.  The human factors department at Buick was out to lunch when they designed that car clock. 

Hand Tools. Round Handles

There oughta be a law against round handles.  When you set the round handled tool down on your bench, it promply rolls off the bench and bangs on the floor.  Unless your bench is dead level.  Few people level their work benches.  Tool companies out to put hexagonal or square or triangular handles on tools, any shape that won't roll of the bench.

Xacto, the hobby knife company is a prominent offender. 

Over The Air TV

Gotta have something on the TV.  While my TV cable was still broken, I hooked up my roof antenna to the big Sony flatscreen TV. That antenna is pretty beat up, a lot of fingers have broken off over the years.  . They were still broadcasting analog TV when I put that antenna up on the roof, and that was a long time ago.  Beat up as it is, it still gets enough signal to run my FM radio.  And it gets enough signal to provide 17 digital and 2 analog channels for the Sony TV to tune in.  Hurrah.  Both of the analog channels are WMUR, the NH TV station (ABC) which at least has some local news and weather. The digital channels are all high def which gives lovely video, at least if you like watching Thomas the Tank Engine, Sesame St, the View, Jeopardy, and some other  loser programming.  No Fox News, no Sci-Fi channel, no CNN.  Arggh.  I want my cable TV back. 

Celery Phones

  What with my land line broken in two,  I used my celery phone to call the power company.  That didn't work.  I dialed, got thru to the faraway call center, and listened to their auto answer machine.  It got around to saying " Press ONE to report a power outage." Tough luck, my celery phone (Lucky Goldstar 305C) won't do that.  Soon as it connects, the number keypad goes away.  Without that keypad, there is no way to press ONE, or any other number for that matter.  PITA.  I had to drive down to Mac's Market in the ville to call in my power outage.  I even dug up the celery phone instruction booklet off my laptop and read it thru.  When all else fails read the instructions. No luck.  Not a word about dial ONE or dialing an extension, or dialing anything at all after the celery phone places a call.