US Congress should be totally replaced

Congress was created back in the 18th century to give the newly United States a representative government, namely a government that does what the people want. 
Today's Congress is failing.  Instead of addressing issues, they are locked into partisan squabbling, back stabbing, buck passing, and obstructionism.  They haven't passed a thing this year, and from the looks of it, nothing is going get passed for a long long time.
  This isn't what we voters want.  I'll grant that we voters are deeply split on many issues.  But we do all agree that we ought to do something nice for the DACA young people.  Congress has done zip for the DACA folks.  And a whole bunch of other immigration reforms have gone nowhere.  Surely with a little log rolling, something could be worked out that would get enough votes to pass. The voters do agree that we need Obamacare reform, what we got costs too much and is a business killer.  Congress has done zip.   The voters want Congress to confirm more of Trump's appointees, rather than stalling them for months and months.
  In short, we voters ought to vote all the current Congresscritters out this fall and vote in a bunch of new ones that will vote for things that we voters want passed and drop all the partisan bickering.  I know there are plenty if issues where we voters are totally split.  But there are a number that we agree on, and those ought to pass.  

ICE Roadblocks on I93

ICE  is doing it, right around Ashland.  I read that ICE is allowed to put up roadblocks anywhere within 100 miles of a US border.  Ashland is very near to 100 miles from the Canadian border.  ICE claims they are making arrests.  Most of the ones I hear about are for things like drug running or DUI rather than straight up immigration violations.
   I have been thru the Ashland roadblock a couple of times this summer.  Both times the officers just  waved me thru.  I guess they see white hair, a white guy, a four door Detroit sedan, and instate plates.  And they figure I must be clean, at least clean enough to wave thru.  Profiling they used to call it.  I guess profiling is OK when it works to my advantage. 
   I imagine the people who get stopped and searched feel differently about it. 

Jeff Woodburn gets arrested for assault and domestic violence.

Jeff Woodburn is the incumbent Democratic NH Senator of district 1 and my opponent in the November general election.  Neither of us face primary challenges, the general election in November is everything.  He was arrested by the Concord police department late Thursday afternoon and charged with assault and domestic violence.  He will be arraigned in Lancaster county court later this month. 
   Speaking personally I have to feel sorry for Mr Woodburn.  This affair is likely to become a professional and perhaps a  personal disaster for him.  Under American justice, a person must be presumed innocent until proven guilty.  On the other hand, the New Hampshire attorney general must feel he has a strong case to charge a sitting Senator with a crime.  
   I filed for election weeks ago, long before this unfortunate news broke.  I intend to continue to campaign for office.
   I need all the help I can get to win this election.  I need people to put up my yard signs, and people to invite me to any kind of gathering, cook out, barbecue, rally, parade, meeting, what have you.
 
  

Rasmussen says Democrats hate Trump deal with the NORKs

Rasmussen Reports says there is a big split between Republicans and Democrats regarding President Trump's dealing with the NORKs.  Rasmussen doesn't give numbers on this split, but it is right up there in the article's headline.
  I wonder how that happens.  I have some doubts that things will work out with the NORKs, but they might, and that makes it certainly worth trying.  Why should Democrats dislike our effort to denuclearize the NORKs? It is surely better than starting up the Korean War again.  Are the Democrats so anti-Trump that they wish ill toward what might be an important breakthrough?  Just to spite Trump? 
   In the end, the Trump diplomatic offensive may not work.  On the other hand it might.  I cannot tell, and I doubt that anyone else can either.  The chance that it might work makes it worth trying. 

Harley Davidson Goes Hog Mild to Attract Younger Bikers

Headline in Tuesday's Wall St Journal.  Gist of the article, Harley is thinking about introducing smaller bikes. cause sales of the big Hogs are tapering off. 
  This is nothing new.  We bikers have been saying this for 40 years.  The big 1000 cc Harley's are magnificent machines, any biker would like to own one.  But they are pricey, about the cost of a small car.  And they are too big and heavy to take off road.  Most of us got started on much smaller and cheaper bikes.  My first bike was a mere 120 cc Suzuki, which was a little slow for my tastes.  My 2nd bike was a 250 cc Yamaha which had enough power to scare me, even back when I was young and reckless.  At the time, the Yamaha only set me back $500, where as the big Harley's were going for $5000. 
   Harley should have figured out, maybe 30 years ago, that a small, low cost bike would sell, in fact sell more than the big Hogs were selling.  To make a small bike Harley might have had to give up on their beloved four stroke engines and make some other changes to compete with all the well built rice burners on the market, but they could have managed. 
  I hope Harley isn't too late.

Alternate History. What if Japan had NOT attacked Pearl Harbor in WWII?

Japan had a number of aggressive plans for their neck of the woods.  The US did not approve, and eventually embargoed shipment of oil and scrap metal to Japan.  But with Hitler showing us how dangerous Germany was, and isolationism running wild in America, we were not about to do anything to Japan short of diplomatic nasty grams and  embargoes. Had Japan understood this, they could have proceeded to take over places they wanted, like Dutch East Indies oil fields, and more of China.  We would not have gone to war with Japan over this kind of aggression.
   If Pearl Harbor did not happen, we would not have joined the British in the war against Hitler, even if Hitler had the British on the ropes.  Isolationism would have prevented it.  Churchill's entire plan for beating Germany consisted of getting the Americans to help him out.  Without Pearl Harbor, Churchill would have been severely disappointed.
  What's more, if the Nazi's had done some serious diplomatic work on Japan, they might have been able to talk the Japanese into attacking the Russians in the far east.  If this had gone down in the winter of 1941, when Hitler's army was at the outskirts of Moscow, the Russians might have cracked.  As it was, the Russians brought ten divisions back from Siberia and threw them into the battle to save Moscow.  They would not have been able to do that if the Japanese had attacked in the far east.  And the Japanese had memories of the successful (from Japan's viewpoint) Russo Japanese war of 1905.  And the Japanese were still smarting from a sharp defeat the Russians gave them in 1939.  Japan had tried to seize parts of Siberia.  The Russians sent a large army, with plenty of tanks, aircraft and artillery, under Georgi Zhukov, best Russian general of WWII,  and whipped the Japanese thoroughly at a place called Kalkin Gol.
  Any way you see it, Pearl Harbor in our real history, was a key decisive event.

Plastic straws?

Used to be, straws were paper.  They worked.  They issued straws at the soda fountain with milkshakes, frappes, and root beer floats.  Special treats, not every day drinking.  And they issued straws at lunch in school to sip the milk out of those tiny little paper milk cartons, if you had paid in your milk money that week.   Each classroom had a big box of straws sitting on a shelf.  Don't remember exactly just when plastic replaced paper for straws, must have been sometime in the 1960's
   I don't remember drinking soda (tonic in New England) with straws.  You popped the top off the bottle (canned soda was much later) stuck the bottle in your mouth and drank.  You had to learn the trick of putting your upper lip half way down the mouth of the bottle to let the air in as the soda was sucked out.  Most kids mastered the art by the age of three.  My parents didn't approve of soda, they thought it was bad for kids teeth, so I didn't get to enjoy it all that often. 
   The TV newsies have been doing a lotta talking about plastic straws filling the Pacific ocean with floating plastic.  Despite all the talk, I have trouble believing that plastic straws are a serious issue or yet another environmental hazard.  I'm kinda hazarded out these days.