NH Senate Ed Committee hearings 9 April

Tuesday, Ed Committee hearings.  We heard four bills, none of them very important in my view.  There was HB 689, a bill to set up a system of educational savings accounts for most, perhaps all students in New Hampshire.  The state would kick in $250 per kid.  This would be funded by a $100 per account tax on brokerage houses.  This is enough to drive most brokerage houses out of state.  Advocates claimed that kids with an educational savings account were seven times more likely to go to college than kids without.  Tied in with the savings account deal was a requirement to teach “”financial literacy” starting in SECOND grade.  I asked about that, when I did second grade we were still learning to add and subtract.  How do you teach balancing your checkbook, or discuss how interest hurts you on loans and helps you on savings (when the banks pay interest on savings, which few do today). 

Next was HB 489 setting up rules and procedures for children to change schools.  The system in HB 489 seemed unobjectionable.  I asked why we needed this bill this year.  Surely kids have been transferred over all the years the Republic has stood.  Why do we need to re write the rules now?  No good answer was forth coming.

And yet another fund creeps out of the woodwork.  There is a “Public School Infrastructure Fund”.   HB 357 would extend the life of this fund.  From the testimony, the money has mostly gone to hardening school buildings against school shooters. 

And another house keeping bill that should have been handled administratively.  Apparently the state collects as stores higher ed transcripts, in case the higher end institution goes out of business, graduates will still be able to get a couple of their transcript.  The state has been keeping the transcripts forever.  HB356 would let the state throw the transcripts away after 40 years.  We amended that to 50 years. 

  So fresh bills all heard, we went into executive session and declared previously heard bills HB 357 HB 171 HB 356 and HB 719 ought to pass. 

   I went to the afternoon senate commerce committee meeting and spoke in favor of HB 540, a deal to finance restarting the Balsams resort up in Dixville Notch.  The entire North Country is in favor on account of the jobs and the tourists involved.   After hearing all the testimony, Commerce voted it Ought To Pass 5-0 and put it on the Fast Track calendar, which means to bill is almost sure to pass the full senate. 

  And for my last trick of the day, I testified in favor of SB 138 over in the House.  This bill would grant degree granting authority to Signum University, a small new startup offering courses over the internet.  I have spoken with the Signum people, and they mean well, they are not a diploma mill. 

   It was snowing north of Concord.   I 93 was unplowed and slippery.  I spun out, did a 360 and wound up in the ditch.  Luck was with me, I didn’t hit anything, car was unbend, and I was able to pull out backwards onto the shoulder.  It got worse; snow was 3-4 inches deep at Plymouth. 

737 MAX, the engine swap that become a nightmare

The Boeing 737 is the plain vanilla single aisle airliner that flies most airline routes, the ordinary routes that don't, will never, generate enough traffic to fill up a bigger plane.  It's been in production for decades.  Under competitive pressure from Airbus, Boeing decided to do an engine swap on the trusty long serving 737.   Metallurgists have come up with better hot section metals over the years, the better metals allow the engine to run hotter, which gives better fuel mileage, as much as 10% better.   And, Boeing and the FAA promised that the re-engined 737 would fly just like the good old 737 and not require retraining pilots to fly the new aircraft.
   The new engines are good, and do deliver better fuel economy.  They are also bigger, so much bigger that they almost drag  on the runway.  Which means the new engines mount lower beneath the wings.  Which means you get a stronger nose up motion when the throttles are advanced.  Boeing, with FAA approval, decided to modify the autopilot to apply some nose down force using the trim tabs to make the 737 MAX fly like the good old 737.   And something went wrong, and two brand new 737 MAXs dove into the ground right after takeoff, killing all on board.   Aviation Week hasn't told us just what went wrong, but two smoking holes in the ground are enough to convince most of us that something is wrong. 

NPR talks about lowering drug prices

NPR did this piece a few days ago.  They described a number of complex deals that might or might not work.  They totally failed to talk about one simple act that would lower US drug prices a lot, right now, and it is 100% legal. 
   All we have to do is allow duty free import of drugs from any reasonable first world country, Canada, Britain, the EU, Japan, probably some others.  Drugs are cheaper overseas because the national health authorities are permitted to bargain over price.  The US medicare and medicaid are not allowed to bargain, by law they have to accept whatever price big pharma asks.  Result, a lot of drugs, many of them manufactured in the US, are a lot cheaper overseas, like half the US prices.  If we allowed import, we could take advantage of those lower prices here at home.
   FDA will cry and scream, but they don't get to vote.  They will claim that foreign drugs haven't been inspected, and their makers haven't been  harrassed by FDA.  Far as I am concerned, if the authorities in any reasonable first world country think the drugs are good enough for their own citizens, I think they are OK for US citizens as well.
   Big pharma would go into orbit.  but they don't get to vote.  They do spread a lot of money around in DC, and they would threaten the pols with a cutoff of  "campaign contributions/bribes".  The intelligent pol would vote his district, and with some support from the MSM, the districts would be in favor. 
   That NPR totally ignored this issue is a measure of either their ignorance, or big pharma has got to them.

Migrating Thunderbird Email to a new computer

I wanted to bring years of  Thunderbird email, addresses, mail folders, macros to sort incoming email in the proper folders, lotta stuff over to the new computer.  Thunderbird keeps all this stuff in “profiles”, disk files, stored in each users space.  This way each user of the computer can have his own email, address book and all that other stuff.  The executable Thunderbird code is kept in Program Files (86), but the mail and address data are kept in a folder name Thunderbird in Documents and Settings in XP renamed Users in Win 10.  The Thunderbird profiles are folders in the Thunderbird folder. Along with a key file named profiles.ini.  Profiles.ini has a pointer to the profile that Thunderbird has been using.  There may be more than one profile, but the one you want to move to the new computer is the one Thunderbird is using at the minute.  The other profiles are older ones, or ones copied in from other computers, or just plain obfusticators.  No matter, bring them all over to the new computer.  I assume you understand how to move files from computer to computer using flash drives or CDs or DVDs or network connections.  Assume the new computer is running Win 10.  Put the Thunderbird folder in the users/your name/appdata/roaming/ directory on Win 10.  Copy the entire Thunderbird directory. 

   Now you need to get the Thunderbird code, the executable, onto the new computer.  I would just download the whole thing from the Mozilla website (Google will find it for you).   That way you get the latest code.  If you are migrating off something really ancient like Win XP, you want the latest version, which they probably have not been making available to ancient OS’s.   Run the new Thunderbird.  It will pop you to a new accounts page.  Cancel that.  Click on the nameless “Bars” button to get to the Thunderbird functions.  Click on Help.  Click on Trouble Shooting.   This displays a bunch of obscure data about Thunderbird.  Go to “Profile Folder”.  Clicking on “Open Folder” opens a window with explorer.  Navigate to the Thunderbird folder on the new machine’s hard drive, the folder that contains profiles.ini.  This points Thunderbird to your profile.  Then exit Thunderbird.  Count to ten.  Start up Thunderbird again.  Navigate  Help/Trouble Shooting Info like you did before.  Check “profiles” the very last entry.  Click on “about: profiles” and you ought to see Profile Home pointing to the Thunderbird folder you brought over from the old machine. 

This ought to be all you have to do to get Thunderbird to see your old email, your email addresses and start working like it always did. 

 

NH Senate session 27-28 March.

Senate session 27 AND 28 March.  Heavy load this week in the Senate.  We met in the afternoon of Wednesday and then all day Thursday.  Thursday session ran until 8 PM.  Crossover day is bearing down on us and we must deal with all the senate bills before crossover day. 

    For Wednesday we passed 24 bills on the Fast Track (consent) calendar in one quick voice vote.  That left 11 bills on the regular calendar, none of which struck me as very important.  The democrats passed SB 267, the reveal student names bill 13-10.  This bill is symptomatic of deeper problems in the testing business.  The yearly assessment test is so tricky that only the test vendor can score it.  So they send the tests out to the vendor.  We have state law on the books requiring student privacy and so they remove the student's names from the tests and replace them with code numbers.  Thru some blunder or other they can only match up 80% of the code numbers with students when the tests come back from the vendor.  So the Ed department wanted to solve this problem by just leaving the kids names on the tests.  I think we need more straight forward tests that can be scored by the home room teachers.  The other ten bills we passed were routine.  That got us up to only 4PM so we tackled another 5 bills.  And tabled all 5. 

   Thursday we started at 9AM, an hour earlier than usual and ran until 8 PM. Arghh.

We had 42 bills on the calendar.  Highlights.  Passed SB 100 which forbids questions about criminal background checks on job applications.  You can ask the applicant about criminal background during the job interview but not on the application.  Democrats passed SB 8 requiring a redistricting committee.  Not a terrible idea, but the state constitution clearly says redistricting shall be done by the legislature.  Lotta constituents feel strongly that this should have been done by constitutional amendment rather than just an ordinary bill.  I agree with them. 

   The democrats voted to drop the requirement to have a NH driver's license and NH plates in order to vote in New Hampshire (SB67).  This is part of their plan to allow out of state college students to vote in New Hampshire because college students mostly vote democratic.  Me, I think you ought to live in New Hampshire in order to vote in New Hampshire.  Anyone who lives in New Hampshire has a NH driver's license and NH plates.  Other wise they are visitors.  Always glad to see visitors, they bring money, but I don't think they should be allowed to vote in New Hampshire. 

   SB97, fiercely opposed by my constituency, passed on a voice vote.  But we watered it down so it is harmless now.  All mention of critical care hospitals and a 15 mile radius was removed from the bill.  The urgent care clinics just have to get a license like every other health care facility. 

   SB7, the motor voter bill was pushed thru by democrats on a roll call 13-10.  This bill will register to vote anyone who visits DMV for a license or plates.  Far as I am concerned any citizen who doesn't bother to visit town hall to register BEFORE the election is so unmotivated that we don't want their votes.  I guess the democrats think young drivers will vote democrat.

   And some science fiction bills.  SB 216 to set up a New Hampshire council to approve auto driving vehicles safe to allow on NH roads.  Total waste of time.  There will have to be a single national auto driving car safety commission to test and certify auto driving cars as safe.  Detroit cannot afford to submit their auto driving cars to 50 separate state safety commissions, there will have to be a single national commission or we won't get auto driving cars to market.  And SB 283 about voting machines and ballot scanners.  We ought to be voting on paper ballots. They cannot hack paper ballots over the internet.  And you can recount them.  You check a ballot scanner by hand counting a stack of ballots.  Then feed the stack thru the scanner.  If the scanner's count doesn't match the hand count, the scanner is broken.  No legislation required. 

  SB 213 which would limit liability of campground owners got tabled on a roll call vote 12-11.  Lotta campground owners in my district tell me they are getting sued by campers who stumble over stones in the dark. 

   And a final budget buster, SB 263 which would permit school students to sue the school if they think they have been discriminated against by the school or at the school.  Welfare for lawyers.    No definition of discrimination  No age limits.  Can a kindergarten student sue?  Any court awards will come out of local taxpayer's hides. And the money will all go to the lawyers. 

Mueller report driving the TV newsies bananas

All the TV newsies have been talking all weekend about the Mueller report.  Mueller released it to the Attorney General late Friday afternoon.  They say ( without having had access to the report, yet) that it exonerates Trump.  Barr, the attorney general, released a very short summary Sunday afternoon that backs that up, sort of.  The democrats were hoping the Mueller would provide them with ammunition for an impeachment of Trump.  I think they are disappointed, although they might press ahead with impeachment anyhow.  Lot of heavy duty pols  from both parties  are calling for the entire report to be released to them, and the press, ASAP.  Probably a good idea, just to settle the matter.  To me, the idea that any American would cooperate with the Russkis is absurd. 

Getting ready for high school

Regardless of whether your high school starts in 9th grade or 10th grade, you want to start thinking about what you want to do to make a living after you graduate high school or graduate college.  Probably you don't have a clue.  I didn't at that age.  But you want to think about it.  Talk to people about their jobs.  Read up.  But unless you are born into a lot of wealth, you will have to make a living doing something after you make it thru school. 
   Since you probably don't know what you want to do yet, you want to keep your options open. One large option is a career in  Science Technology, Engineering, or Math  (STEM).  It can be fun, I did electrical engineering myself, it was a lot of problem solving, customer contact, lab work, software coding.  Beats selling real estate or used cars.  STEM jobs pay well and you will stay employed, layoffs are very rare.
   To do a STEM major in college, you have to take integral calculus freshman year.  The STEM courses are all taught with calculus, if you don't have your calculus you simply cannot understand the coursework.  To take integral calculus, you have to have already taken trigonometry, two years of algebra, and preferably plane geometry.  You have to take these in high school.  You gotta start taking the algebra in 9th grade.  Plane geometry (Euclidean geometry) is not absolutely essential, but it is very useful.  You learn how you can start with a few simple ideas, use some logic and prove some remarkable theorems, using nothing but pencil and paper.  And the proofs are intellectually satisfying, after doing a proof, you know it's true.  This entire concept is so valuable that the plane geometry course is well worth it. 
   Right now, as you start high school, you probably don't know what you want to do to make a living after school.  It is a shame to lock your self out of all the STEM fields because you didn't take the required math courses in high school.