Do-Nothing US House claims "Progress" on USMCA

The Democrats are saying they have made progress on the USMCA agreement. This is a NAFTA enhancement or replacement that the Trump administration managed to negotiate with Canada and Mexico last year.  It has been sitting in the US House for a year while the House plays around with fun and games and impeachment.  Everyone, even AFL-CIO, thinks it ought to pass. 

   The Democratic claim to have amended the bill and made it better sounds like fake news to me.  This is an international treaty, agreed to by Canada and Mexico.  I don’t think the US house has the power to modify a treaty without getting Canada and Mexico to say OK.  Which they probably won’t.  Any changes dreamed up by Democrats in the US House will make things better for the US and worse for our trading partners. 

   So to show that the do-nothing House is actually doing something, the Democrats now say they are "making progress".  I say they are do-nothings until they actually vote to pass the USMCA.  Which they should have done a year ago.

Origin of Species. House cats are a species.

Those small furry carnivores who chase mice really ought to be classified into two distinct species.  House cats have taken up with humans and get food and shelter from the humans, and alley cats who live out of doors.  Anyone can see that the house cats are doing better than the alley cats.  House cats are well fed, fur is nice and clean, they stay indoors, warm and dry during bad weather.  Alley cats are skinny and ill fed, their coats are in terrible condition, and they have to survive out of doors in snow storms. 
   We used to think that house cats adopted their first humans back in ancient Egyptian times, say 5 to 6  thousand years ago.  Lately a grave was excavated on Cyprus with a cat buried along with its human.  This site was dated to 9000 years ago.  But  either date is not all that long ago, compared to dogs who have been domesticated for 50,000 years. 
   House cats, in addition to having the right attitude about people, have a couple of things that endear them to us humans.  First of all, purring.  We find  a purring cat, sitting in our laps, creates a wonderful feeling of peace and warmth.  And cats have the finest, silkiest coats of any common animal.  It is a pleasure to stroke a cat, far more so than to stroke a dog which has a much coarser coat.  Just how cats managed to evolve both purring and their silky coats, thousands of years before they adopted their first human, is a mystery that evolutionary theory fails to explain. 

Pearl Harbor was a massive Japanese screw up

The United States was solidly isolationist in the 1940's.  We were determined not to get sucked into overseas wars, ever again.  Even Franklin Roosevelt, perhaps the strongest US president of the 20th century, could not move the country toward intervention.  He tried, and he could not do it. 
   Nothing the Japanese were doing in China and Southeast Asia could have caused America to do more than send them diplomatic nastygrams.  No way were we going to do anything of a military nature about Japanese aggression in China.  After the Germans defeated and occupied  the Netherlands and France in 1940, the French and Dutch colonies were pretty much up for grabs.  Japan could have kept on going after the American oil embargo by getting oil from the Dutch East Indies where the crude oil was so pure that it could be pumped into the tanks of warships without any refining. 
   Type 1 less provocative method, send a fleet of tankers with a strong (like really strong) naval escort and some bank guys with a good strong checkbook.  Send the bankers ashore to negotiate a sale of oil. 
   Type 2 more provocative method, send a fleet and land marines and take over the place.  We would have screamed and cried and threatened to hold our breath, but we would not have intervened militarily to save a Dutch colony.  We did not approve of colonies.  We still don't.
   As long as the Japanese did not mess with American possessions like the Philippines or the US Navy, they could have done pretty much anything they liked in China and Indonesia.  Japan's diplomats and intel people failed to clue the Japanese government into the real state of affairs in America at the time.  (Or the government failed to listen to their diplomats and intel people.)
   As it was, Pearl Harbor total destroyed American isolationism, we got good and mad, smashed the Nazis, and nuked Japan, after sending her fleet to the bottom.  Total defeat and occupation.  War outcomes don't get much worse than that.

"Identity Politics" is divisive and destructive of liberty.

A Democratic party speciality.  Appeal to any kind of minority group you can think of (or invent). Do pitches aimed at blacks, Hispanics, gays, men, women, union workers, Indians, non-union workers, anybody.  The essence of these tailored pitches is always "We will do nice things for you, at the expense of everybody else."  and "You deserve some nice things to make up for past inequities."  Identity politics violates Jefferson's statement "All men are created equal".  Identity politicians are advocating unequal treatment of each little identity group.
   Proper politicians advocate for things that improve life for everyone, not just some identity group.  "We are all Americans together" is a better thing to say. 

Shopping around for Cosequin for my cat

In was $30 for a white plastic bottle of 60 doses from a big pet store down in Concord.  It is $18  for an envelope of 84 doses of a product called Dasuquin from my vet in Whitefield.  Whitefield Animal Hospital on Rt 3, right on the steep grade on Rt 3 going north out of town.  It is still doing my cat good, she goes outside more often, can jump up on furniture that she hasn't been able to manage for years, less limping as she slinks around the house. 

Talking Politics at Thanksgiving dinner

NHPR has been running a piece on why you should not talk politics.  Polarization is mentioned.  And, the Number 1 political subject, impeachment of Trump, is all the MSM has been covering.  Fox news runs the Adam Shifty hearings live all day long.
   Watergate this is not.  Watergate started out with the arrest of burglars inside the DNC headquarters.  That was clearly a crime and ought to be investigated, everybody understood that.  And one thing lead to another until Nixon resigned before the House impeached him.  Now all we have is an unknown whistle blower claiming that Trump pressured the president of Ukraine to investigate Hunter Biden and both Trump and the Ukrainian president deny it.  Most of us voters out in the real world don't see a real crime here.
   So what's to discuss?  Lot of people want to impeach Trump, and a lot of people don't want to impeach him, but what's to discuss?   Adam Shifty hasn't given us any real evidence of anything so what can you say?  And what else is there to discuss?  As far as the MSM is concerned, the Trump impeachment is the only thing happening all over the world.  

Electoral College.

  What it is and why we care.   Back when the Founders were setting up our constitution they made a number of decisions to even things out between big states and small states.  They had to; otherwise the small states would not join up.  The concept of the Senate where each state got two votes was intended to put the smaller states on a level with Virginia and Massachusetts.  When the Constitutional Convention met in Philadelphia, the big states were all in favor of a legislature where big states got more votes than small states.  The small states came to Philadelphia planning on a legislature where each state gets the same number of votes.  After a lot of dickering back and forth they adopted our current bi-cameral (two house) legislature.  Neither side was completely happy, but the compromise was enough to prevent anyone from walking out.  

   The Electoral College was another such big state-small state compromise.  Direct popular vote would have made it impossible for anyone to win the presidency who was not a citizen of a big state.  In those days Virginia and Massachusetts were the big states, every other state was small.  The thinking was that any candidate from a big state (a native son) would of course take all the votes from his home state, which would be enough to win the election.  It was believed that candidates from small states would not stand a chance under a direct popular vote system. 

    So they set up the Electoral College system.  The college consists of electors, chosen by the states. Each state gets as many electors as it gets representatives plus senators in Congress.  We have 100 US senators, 435 US house members, and they give the District of Columbia three electors.  Which makes an electoral college of 538 electors.  Of which New Hampshire gets four, or ¾ of one percent.  Not much, but better than what we get in a direct popular vote.  New Hampshire’s population is 1.35 million.  The population of the entire country is 330 million, so New Hampshire’s popular vote is only 0.41 of 1 percent.  In short, the Electoral College system gives New Hampshire a bigger slice of the presidential vote than we would get under direct popular election.  As a resident of New Hampshire, I like the Electoral College system just the way it is. It’s been there since the Founding.  It makes the New Hampshire first in the nation primary work.  Every presidential candidate has to come to New Hampshire and pass muster with the New Hampshire voters, who are a conscientious, well informed, and fair minded bunch.  I like that.  Under a direct popular vote for president system only the primaries in the big states would matter.