Did we get Soleimani like we got Adm Yamamoto?

During WWII we broke the Japanese radio codes and read their messages.  We came across Adm Yamamoto's planned itinerary of an inspection trip to the forward areas.  We sent a squadron of P-38 Lightening fighters to intercept him.  They shot down Yamamoto's plane killing the admiral in the crash.  This removed Japan's best admiral, the man who planned and executed Pearl Harbor, and the only senior Japanese leader who understood the United States.  A carefully arranged plan based upon solid intel.
    Was the hit on Soleimani like that?  Did we have the necessary intel?  Or did we just get lucky, putting a Hellfire anti tank missile into a suspected Iranian headquarters, or safe house or whatever and Soleimani just happened to be there at the wrong time?  Someone knows and so far has kept his/her mouth shut to preserve the secrecy of our intel operations.  We will see how long that lasts. 

Cannon Mountain ski weather

Today, 5 Jan, Cannon got 2 inches of new snow.  It's still falling.  It's 27, maybe 28 F.

Counter Cyberattacks with lawyers

Since Friday's Iranian dustup, which snuffed Suliemani, the newsies have been warning of cyber counter attacks from Iran.  If that happens, and if they put anything important down, we have a vast surplus of lawyers sloshing around the country looking for something to do.  We should sic 'em on the companies careless enough to fall to cyber attack.
   There is no excuse for a company to fall victim to a cyber attack.  Straight forward simple procedures will keep Iranian hackers from putting out the lights in the US.  Some rules follow
1.  Never use the public internet, or the public phone system to remote control or monitor anything.  If you just have to have remote control, string your own fiber optics.  In most cases this is the power company, which owns their own poles and has their own line crews to string new fiber optic cable.  This way you have to climb a pole and splice in an optical signal splitter to tap into the control signals.  Hackers don't climb poles.  If they cannot get to the target over the public internet, sitting comfortably in their offices, they don't go there.
2.  Don't run Windows for anything important.  Go with Apple or Linux or anything other than Windows.  Windows is like Swiss cheese, holes every where.  Windows does autorun, any media (floppy disc, CD, DVD, flashdrive) plugged into a Windows computer is checked for  music and code.  Music gets played. code gets run. Malicious code gets loaded onto disk and run.  That's how we spread the Stuxnet virus onto Iranian computers controlling centrifugal uranium isotope separators.  Stuxnet ordered the centrifugal separators to run full speed until they self destructed.  We put the Stuxnet code onto flashdrives and scattered the flashdrives over Iranian parking lots. Sharp eye Iranian workers spotted them on the way into work, picked them up, took them into work, and plugged them into work computers.  The centrifugal isotope separators started blowing up shortly there after.
  Should Iranian hackers knock out anything we care about, we should sic our vast surplus of lawyers on the stupid company.  They ought to be able to sue them, and get convictions for pure stupidity.  The thought of an army of hungry lawyers suing them down to their socks ought to stimulate even Dilbert's pointy haired boss into action.

So we snuffed Iranian big wig Sulimani (sp?)

I never heard of this guy before today.  But the TV newsies are claiming he was a big deal, and snuffing him will cause a war with Iran.  Far as I am concerned Sulimani was just another Iranian terrorist, and we did good to kill him.   It should send a simple message to the Iranians, namely "Mess with the American and they will mess with you".  Are the Iranians smart enough to take the hint?

Let's keep private health insurance

Something like 3/4 of Americans have pretty decent health insurance thru their company or their union.  I enjoyed it for 40 years.  It covered everything, and it covered my wife and my three children.  I'd still be on it if I had not retired and gone onto Medicare.  
   I am listening to most (all?) of the Democrats calling to kill private health insurance and force us all onto "medicare for all" or "single payer" schemes that do not exist yet.  So we have no idea what we are getting into, but anyone who has ever had to deal with departments of motor vehicles to register a car has the deepest suspicions.  Most of us want to keep our private health insurance.
  I will grant that the self employed who have to go out and buy individual family policies are getting screwed.  We could fix that.  All it would take is a law requiring the insurance companies to sell the same policy they sell to big companies, at the big company price, to ordinary citizens.  Probably a federal law.  Having the 50 states each enact such a law, good only in state, would be extra messy.  And welfare for lawyers.
   Somehow I don't think the Democrat approach to health insurance this year is going to get them elected.

Keeping the narative alive. Trump Impeachment version.

As long as Nancy Pelosi keeps sitting on the Great Impeachment Show (GIS) paperwork the newsies keep the subject alive.  Should she send the paperwork over to the Senate, the Republicans will do their best to finish it up as quickly as possible.  They have the votes to do it.  Then GIS is done and gone and we can move forward. 
   Chuckie the Schumer  and some other Democrats are complaining that the Senate won't call this witness or that witness and it's all unfair.  Jeez.  If they had such terribly important witnesses they should have had 'em testify during the months long House version of GIS. 
   Could it be that the Democrats like it this way?  As long as GIS is in town they don't have to do any real lawmaking. 

Keeping consumer spending alive and well

Consumer spending is 70% of American GNP.  That's a lot and it is what keeps the US economy humming.  And consumer spending has its ups and downs.  When it is up, things are good all over.  When it is down people are thrown out of work, business profits disappear and gloom covers the land.  The financial pundits at least understand this, and they have devised theories to account for swings in consumer sentiment and even indexes of consumer sentiment that claim to predict consumer behavior. 
   Most things consumers spend money on are discretionary.  They don't have to buy a new car, at least not this year.  They can postpone buying a new house.  They can put off home maintenance projects like new siding, remodeling the kitchen, or reroofing.  They can skip back to school buying and send the kids to school in hand-me-downs.  They can put Santa in the closet and put the Grinch in charge of Christmas buying.  About the only things consumers absolutely have to buy are groceries, utilities, and the rent.  When consumers feel stressed, they cut back spending as much as they can, which sends the larger economy into a tailspin. 
   A powerful driver of consumer spending is the job market.  If the consumers fear loosing their jobs, they will cut back everywhere they can.  If they feel their jobs are safe and secure, then they are willing to spend on stuff.  Obama and Obamacare made everyone fear layoffs which kept GNP growth down around 1%.  With Trump everyone feels secure in their jobs and we have GNP growth up around 3%. 
    Not to panic the American consumer.  Bad things happen if you do.