Ivanhoe 1952 Taylor and Taylor

Too bad Hollywood has forgotten how to make movies as good as this one.   It stars a young Elizabeth Taylor as Rebecca of York.  The movie is a love triangle with Joan Fountaine (Rowena) and Elizabeth Taylor (Rebecca) competing for the attentions of Robert Taylor (Wilfred of Ivanhoe).  Elizabeth Taylor is ultra cute, has good lines, speaks them well, and nearly snags Ivanhoe away from Rowena.  Robert Taylor plays a fine knight, brave, chivalrous, and a stout fighter. The movie is based on a historical novel by Sir Walter Scott, published way back when, sometime in the 19th century.  It is set in the 12th century and revolves around ransoming King Richard Lion Heart from the Austrians and preventing his brother John from taking over England.  The history isn't bad, a few names have been changed but most of the stuff in the movie really did happen.  Richard's minstrel Blondell did actually go from castle to castle looking for Richard.  In the movie Ivanhoe gets Blondell's job, but heh it's a movie, a little poetic license is perfectly legitimate.  We have real jousting, on horseback and with long lances.  The knights wear period correct chain mail rather than gleaming plate armor which didn't come in until a couple of hundred years later. We have a castle stormed and taken by Robin Hood and his merry men.   We have King Richard returning in time to save the day in the last reel.  It's in Technicolor which always gives the best red rendition and good color saturation.  The costumes are good looking, and everyone wears a different color, so we can keep track of who is who.  Sound is excellent, I can understand every line.  In it's day Ivanhoe won three Oscars, and was nominated for four more. 
    Netflix has it.  Enjoy.

TV Newsies starting the 2020 presidential campaign right now.

I'm watching Beat the Press on NBC with Chuck Todd.  He said some nice words about President Bush, now deceased, and then moved on to prognosticating about 2020.  First of all, I am tired of election horse race talk, we have had too much of it for the last two years.  Second of all, nobody knows what's gonna happen in 2020.  Pure speculation, and I am tired of that. 
   Surely something real happened somewhere in the world worth a little air time?  

I don't understand all the Manaport and Cohen talk

The TV newsies are all excited about it.  Even Fox News who ought to know better. Me, I don't understand what either of them are accused of doing, I don't know if what they are accused of is a real crime, and I don't understand how this relates to Trump, other than both of them used to work for Trump.   Back in 2016, before Trump got elected, it isn't illegal to do a real estate deal in Moscow.  Might be stupid, because you cannot take Russian real estate out of the country, and inside Russia there are no courts that can protect your investment from seizure by the government.   But it ain't illegal for Americans to do business in Russia. 

What costs $1 million a pound?

Answer,  the Insight Mars Lander.  The lander weighs 850 pounds.  The Insight program cost $829 million.  How much of all that money went into engineering and manufacturing Insight and how much went into NASA paper pushing?

Orientation Day for new NH legislators.

First day on the job as NH senator. Tuesday was on-the-job training day at the Statehouse. Due to winter storm warnings, snowmageddon stories and general excitement on the TV I left for Concord half and hour earlier than I usually do. I swept about 2 inches of snow off the car. I93 was nice and clear, well plowed. Just a few slippery spots. All the flashing light signs were flashing "Slow Down" and "Speed limit 45". Traffic was moving at 70 all the way to Concord. Heaviest snow, maybe 6 inches, was south around Franklin and Tilton.  Heavy wet snow, it was bending the trees in U shapes with the treetops touching the ground.  I got to the Statehouse a half an hour early, Joe Burke, chief of security, was standing outside in the rain to wave me into a parking spot in the statehouse garage, real luxury.

The program for the day was lectures on legislative process, ethics over view, a walking tour of the statehouse, pitches by the council of state governments, and then the national conference of state legislatures, a nice lunch, how a committee works, media relationships.

I finished off the day by meeting with a guy from the NH homebuilders association in the restaurant across the street.

Drove home, got their after dark. Driveway unplowed, although one of Ken King's people came by this morning and shoveled out the car.

Do the Brits understand Brexit?

Surely the Economist (a Brit publication if there ever was one) seems pretty clueless.  They ran a 4 page piece in the current issue about "no-deal" Brexit.   The deal that Theras May has gotten thru her cabinet and was approved by the EU according to this morning's Wall St Journal, was a pretty mild Brexit.  Britain would retain her current membership in the EU customs union, which I think means she retains duty free access to the rest of Continent.   She would have to abide by a lot of EU regulations about labeling and  lead free solder and safety and radio frequency emissions and the like, she would have to pay up some $50 billion of previous committments, and a lot of other stuff.  She get to keep duty free entrance to the EU.  The Economist is all in favor.  A lot, nobody knows just how many, members of parliament don't like it, they think it is Remain disguised as Brexit. 
   Numbers I have seen show 30% of Britain's economy is exports to the EU.  If all those British exports have to pay the going EU tariff of 10%, a lot of that business would go to continental suppliers.  The Economist dosn't talk about this at all. 
   They do kvetch about Parliament rejecting the Theresa May deal in favor of a "no deal" Brexit.  They wrote about all sorts of unlikely problems, like banning of air service to the continent,  problems with electric power exports or imports, a Northern Ireland customs border, lotta other stuff, all of which seemed sorta second rate to me.  The Economist piece never talked about the effect of 10% EU tariffs on British exports to the continent, which to my way of thinking is the major problem with the "no-deal" option of Brexit.

Turkey day travel

Drove from Franconia to Bowie Maryland on Friday.  Took 11 hours.  I left Franconia at 6 AM after brushing an inch of snow off the car.  Did the backwoods shortcut to North Haverill and then took I93, to I84, to Tappan Zee bridge.  Rpads were clear.  Hit the New York border and then encountered my first potholes, on an interstate no less, and then my first traffic jam.  Good work New York State.  Found the old Blue Colony diner at I84 exit 10.  In the old days the Blue Colony had signs up and down I84 for fifty miles in either direction.  Those are gone now, but exit 10 looked familiar, and when I pulled off, there she was.  So I had brunch, coffee and a Belgian waffle with strawberries and whipped cream. 
   Looks like the American sedan is going extinct.  I saw a lot of econoboes, pickup trucks, cross over SUV's and 18 wheelers.  very few sedans.  Ford said they were going to stop making them. 
   New York signage is as bad as ever.  I only saw three signs for the Tappen Zee bridge.  I also saw three signs for the Mario Cuomo Memorial Bridge.  I guess the guv'nor wants to rename a landmark bridge after himself.  That will confuse the tourists but good.
   I started off with the car heater set to full hot.  Every 100 miles or so I would set it a couple of notches toward cool.  But the time I got to Delaware I turned of the heater and set "Vent" forfresh air.  A couple of printed Google maps got me to Bowie and onto my daughters street, but I had to use the celery phone to call and find her house.