If you are gonna do crime,you last longer doing it at home

Three dumb ass UCLA basketball player made the news 'cause they were picked up for shop lifting in China.  President Trump claimed some public relations points by talking the Chinese president (Xi?) into letting them off to go home. 
   Advice.  If you are gonna do a crime, do it at home, in a place you grew up, where you speak the language, where you have some connections that might get you off, where you know the hideouts, the fences, the cops, the judges. 
   Doing a crime in a foreign land, like China, where you don't speak the language, where nobody cares if you get put in slam for 20 years, where you don't know where you can hide, where you can fence stolen stuff, is just plain dumb.  You will get caught, and the locals will have no mercy on you.
   UCLA is admitting some real stupid students.  I guess you don't need brains to play basketball for UCLA.

Artichokes, a light meal in one pot

If you haven't tried an artichoke you are missing a taste treat.  They have a light, slightly nutty flavor, they are an honest green vegetable, of which we all need to eat more, and they are fun to eat.  Allow one artichoke for each diner.  They are eaten by pulling off the leaves, dipping the leaf in a little mayonaise, and putting the broad end into the mouth and scraping off the delicious edible part with your teeth.  The bulk of the artichoke leaf is stringy fiber too tough to eat.  You discard it.  BTW, never put artichoke leaves down a disposal, they will clog your drain but good.  After you eat all the leaves, you still have the artichoke heart to eat.  Cut the furry looking growth off the top of the heart, those are baby leaves waiting to grow, and entirely too tough and prickly for humans to eat. 
   Cooking is straightforward, put 'em in a pot, with a couple of inches of water on the bottom and steam them for 40 minutes or so.  Bring the water to a boil on high heat and then cut back to medium, enough heat to keep the water bubbling gently. Cut the prickly top of the artichoke off, leaving a round spot maybe the size of a silver dollar.  Before steaming them, drizzle some olive oil over the leaves and tuck some slivers of garlic inbetween to looser leaves. 
  One artichoke is enough to make a light meal, say lunch.  And they go well with anything to make a bigger meal. 

Will there be anyone left in public life?

After the sexual assault accusations finally run down?   They sank three newsies on Monday.  Who is next?  How many are next? 

Garage Door Opener goes crazy.

Got home last night and found my garage door wide open, wind and rain blowing into the garage.  I know I had hit the button on the door opener remote control to close the door, and actually seen the door start to close, before I had left.  I tried the close button and the door would start to close, get to within a foot of the threshold, and then pop into reverse, drive full open, and flash the garage light furiously.  I tried a couple ot times, no joy.  Since it was dark and raining, I just pulled the emergency release, unhooking the door from the door opener, and closed the door by hand.
  This door opener has a safety circuit, an electric eye that looks from rail to rail, and if the beam is interrupted by say a child, or a car, or a pet, or whatever, it kills the close cycle and opens the door all the way.  Next day, I heaved the door up by hand and felt a light feathery touch from a twig that was stuck to the bottom of the door.  So I took the shop broom and swept off the entire door bottom, and the threshold for good measure.  Bingo, that did it, the door opened and closed perfectly.  Must have been something stuck to the door bottom that stuck out enough to break the electric eye beam and send the door opener into it's emergency panic open response. 
   And a good thing too.  That door opener has been working steadily for ten years now.  I don't know if I could find the instruction sheet, or even the makers name, let alone a spare parts place. 

Beat the Press

They spent a whole hour talking about sexual assault, Roy Moore, Al Franken, and why they think President Trump deserves more heat over that tape that was dredged up shortly before the election.  Boring.  Probably they ran the hour long piece because it was cheap and easy to produce.
  The suits who run American media think they are running entertainment.  The stories they select are intended to boost TV ratings or circulation, not to inform the public.  The media workers are mostly Social Justice Warriors who see their duty as getting Democrats elected.  Only Rupert Murdock was savvy enough to realize there is a large audience for news without to heavy layer of socialist propaganda you get on the networks and even PBS.

Thor Ragnarok

It had decent reviews, the proceeding comic book movies with Thor had been amusing, and it's run at the Jax Jr is over today.  So I went to see it last night. OK but not great. 
   Chris Hemsworth plays Thor, and plays him fairly well.  They got Cate Blanchette to play the part of Helle, goddess of death, and general purpose bad guy (bad chick?).  I'm surprised she took the part, 'cause she didn't get much in the way of a speaking role.   No sign of Jane Foster, Thor's earthly girlfriend, played by Natalie Portman, back in the first Thor movie. 
   There isn't much in the way of plot in this movie.  It just drifts from fight to fight.  We have Thor going up against The Incredible Hulk, Thor going up against Helle, assorted armies of guys in armor carrying spears going up against each other, and various minor characters hacking and whacking on each other.  The Thor vs Hulk fight takes place on a distant planet, in a huge arena, packed with screaming fans, presided over by a sadistic, but wimpy looking nameless ruler addressed simply as "The Grand Master".  How the Hulk gets transported from Earth to this mysterious distant planet is not explained.
   Other features unexplained.  Asgard now has a civilian population, under attack by Helle, that Thor manages to save, loading them all onto a giant spacecraft, obtained by mysterious means.  Asgard used to be just the home of the gods, now it has a civilian population in need of evacuation.
   Thor has finally wised up about Loki, and out wits him a couple of times.  Thor used to be a sucker for Loki's treachery, in this flick he keeps one step ahead.  Although there is a lot of swordfighting, Thor and Loki both find automatic firearms convenient for clearing out snake infested areas.  And everybody, even Bruce Banner, can fly the numerous aerospace craft that turn up.
   If you like Marvel's Thor character, go see it.  If you are only lukewarm on comic book movies, you haven't missed anything with this one. 

Do I believe in battery 18 wheelers with 500 mile range?

That's what Elon Musk  claims.  He even has a prototype to show.   Of course he didn't demonstrate the range.  Cruising on the interstates at 70 mph such a truck needs 7-8 hours to travel 500 miles.  Which is a good day's run.  I think there are regulations, honored as much in the breach as on the road, limiting driving shifts to 8 hours.  In short that battery, if it lives up to spec,  will keep the truck moving as long as the driver is supposed to be driving it. 
Nor did Elon mention a price.  Last I heard you could get a conventional diesel tractor, new, for maybe $65K.  Can Elon even come close to that?  Who knows?  How long does it take to recharge? 
   On the other hand, heavy trucks have the room for a massive battery pack.  More weight just gives a tractor more pulling power.  And heavy trucks run a lot more miles in a year than private autos, so a small improvement in operating costs will pay off sooner.