Name Signs for Pundits.

What’s in a name?   I watch a lot of TV talking heads, opining upon nearly everything.  Camera will cut in on one or another of them as they talk.   Leaving me wondering About the name of the speaker.  Some names I know and respect.  Other names I know are turkeys.  A lot of names I never heard of. 

   What the TV people ought to do is place a good sized name sign on the table in front of each participant.  Then the news junkies in the audience, like yours truly, would know who is who and be able to sort out good opinions from the not-so-good opinions presented.  And perhaps learn a few new names in the process.

Talking to people with information on your opponent

Now that Mueller has fizzled out, the democrats are scratching around for something else to throw at Trump  (dump on Trump).  They are talking up a meeting at the Trump Tower in New York back in 2016.  A woman, later identified as a Russian agent, turned up, claiming to have some dirt on Hilary.  They listened to her.  They decided that her information wasn't good enough to use, or leak, but they did listen to her.  Which is perfectly normal.  When you are running for office, and someone offers dirt on your opponent, you listen to them.  You may decide, like the Trump people did, that the dirt isn't solid enough to use, but you want to know what is on offer.  Nothing wrong with this.  Except to democrats and the MSM (democratic operatives with bylines)

Words of the Weasel Part 55

Blanding down the language.  Must not offend snowflakes, or anyone.
Substance.  One of the most general nouns in English.  Any solid or liquid is a substance.  So now the newsies use "Substance abuse" or Substance abuse disorder"  in place of the more informative and straight forward "Drug Addiction".  Makes you think they are in favor of drug use. 

Rogue One 2016

There is talk about yet another Star Wars flick coming out for Christmas.  So I thought I might re watch the last batch of them, the later ones after the three "revival" ones of some years ago.  Started with Rogue One.  I had the DVD.  I saw this one live in theater, with my daughter, back in 2016 when it came out.  Medium speed for a Star Wars movie.
   No names.  Watched the whole thing and when the credits finally rolled, I could not think of any character's stage name.  Not like the good old days when names like Leia, Skywalker, Obi-wan, Vader, and Han Solo were on everyone's lips.  Major problem is no character ever addresses another one by name.  Secondary problem, junior sound men who aren't very good at their jobs and the dialog is often inaudible.  Good sound requires good microphone placement, good mikes, and actors who don't mumble their lines.  And good sound mixing.  They must mute the score and the sound effects when dialog is happening.  Anyhow, the sound in Rogue One was mediocre to poor.
   As bad as the soundtrack was , the camera man was worse.  It was 2016 and the cult of the unlit scene was raging thru Hollywood.   A good third, maybe a half, of the scenes were dark, so dark I could could recognize who was in the scene.  Just plain annoying. 
   And the writers missed a few good ideas.  Opening scene where slimy Imperial Count whats-his-face, dressed in white, swoops in to arrest the father, a high powered scientist involved in Death Star development, who has fled the project and is living on a remote farm with wife and young child.  Didn't get his name either.   If the old man is such a hot shot scientist, he should have brought some wonder weapon into play and vaporized Count whats-his-face, rather than submitting to arrest.
   Young chick protagonist acts a pretty good part.  Didn't catch her name either.  Handsome guy is OK but his acting is no better than ordinary.  The writers left out a scene that I would have enjoyed, a scene were the two of them get a chance for a quiet talk, uninterrupted by bad guys with guns,  where we hear what she thinks of him, and vice versa. 
   The was an A movie, huge budget, great box office.  But re watching it makes me understand why Hollywood is dying. 

75 miles of Mueller

Yesterday (Thursday, Mueller report release day)  I set out for Concord.  Turned on the car radio.  NPR talked about Mueller and his report, steady, all the way down, some 75 miles.  I'm tired of Mueller.  Surely something important has happened somewhere in the world?  All we get is Mueller talk.  The newsies love the Mueller story, it's easy to cover, since little has happened.  All the newsies have to do is sit down at the keyboard and pontificate.  That's easier than getting out of the office and talking to real live people.
  I hear the released report, after strikeouts, is still 450 pages.  I don't have the energy, or the interest, to plow thru 450 pages of legal gobble-de-gook.  It would be nice if some trustworthy newsie would do a nice evenhanded summary.  Trouble is, about the only newsies that I see as trustworthy are Brett Bair and Britt Hume.  Somehow I don't think either of them will take on the read-and-report-Mueller job.  Too tedious.  

NH Senate doings.

Senate session 18 April.  Started off with the Fast Track (consent) calendar.  18 bills, including HB 540 which sets up a complex deal to finance the Balsam project.  We pulled HB 369 off the Fast Track.  It allowed HHS workers access to the prescription drug monitoring program.  We felt it was a big privacy violation.  NH keeps a list of people obtaining opioid prescriptions largely so that doctors can check to see how many opioid prescriptions a patient has before writing a new prescription.  Needless to say, opioid prescriptions are something of a black mark with employers and others, so we ought to keep this information confidential.  Allowing HHS people access to it doesn’t help the patients, and may well hurt them. Five of the Fast Track bills were to set up more study commissions.  And then a quick voice vote passed all 17 bills left on the Fast Track.   

   Then we ran thru the 14 bills on the regular calendar.  Passed them all on voice votes.  Only bills of interest were HB365 which raised the amount of power a net metering generator can get paid for to 5 megawatts, up from 1 megawatt.  And HB 572 proclaiming second Saturday in June as Pollyanna recognition day.  Very important bill, trust me on this, cause Pollyanna was written by a Littleton author, and we put up a Pollyanna statue in front of the Littleton public library. 

 After all this heavy lifting we finished up and adjourned by 11:30. 

  

Fixing Win 10 shutdown failures

Fix shutdown failure.  15 Apr 2019

This problem has been with my laptop, Flatbeast, since a Windows update a year ago.  Flatbeast would not shut down all the way in software.  Right click on the Windows icon,( lower right hand corner of screen) select  "Shut Down or Sign Out"  and then select "Shut down" and Win 10 would tell you he was shutting down and the screen would go dark.  But the LED in the power button would stay on.  You could not restart with the power button.  Only way to get the machine running again was to hold the power button down for the count to 9, and wait for the LED to go out. 

Fix.  Turn off "fast startup".  Here is how.  Go to control panel.  Select System and Security.  Select Power options.    Select "Choose what the power button does".  Select "Change settings that are currently unavailable.  Uncheck "Turn on fast startup"  .

Finish up by clicking on "Save Settings".  Done.  Now clicking on shut down makes Win 10 really shut down.  Another Micro$oft "feature" fixed.