Iowa has forgotten how to count

It's after 8 AM on Tuesday and Iowa still hasn't counted up Monday's caucus results.  The Bern released his own count, which shows him winning, but even the Bern admits it is only a partial count.
NHPR radio said that better than 1000 precincts were instructed to punch their results into a smart phone program.  Apparently said smart phone program stopped working (or never worked).  So the 1000 precincts were expected to telephone results into state HQ.  Resulting in busy signals, hour long waits for an answer, and a massive arithmetic challenge at HQ.   Smarter would have been to have the precincts call the results into county, and have county add them up and call the sums into state HQ.  Fewer phone calls and less adding up that way. 

College is too damn expensive

I paid tuition for all three of my children.  They all graduated.  It was expensive.  Like $8000 a year, per child.  It's worse now.
  Big part of the problem, Uncle Sam will loan a student all he/she needs.  If the colleges find things are a little tight this year, they just hike the tuition.  Uncle will pay.  The students will sign, they are so deep in debt that another couple of K doesn't sound so bad.  Students are graduating with $50K debts that cannot be dumped via bankruptcy.  Lot of 'em are putting off marriage, home buying, child raising, everything, until their student debt is paid down.  This might take 10 years.
   Colleges could cut costs.  First off, lay off ALL the administrators.  Administrators don't teach, don't do anything connected with education, but they draw their very handsome pay regularly.   Then lay off the janitors and the buildings and grounds folk.  Have the students sweep the halls, mow the grass, shovel the snow, set the tables, wash the dishes, what ever.  We did that at Westtown school, it worked out well.  Lay off the IT department.  Have the computer science majors keep the school computers humming. 

Massive turnout at Trump campaign events

Watching the crowd at Trump's NJ rally the other night.  NJ is a blue state, but Trump filled the sports arena and had crowds who could not get in watching on big out door TV screens.  Can they really impeach a president with that kind of intense political support?  And so much of it? 

Winter Hot Rod

I need one.  My Buick is up to 90K miles and might not make it to 200K, you never know.  I will be looking for another car in a few years.  I would like to get a hot rod, Mustang, Camaro, Challenger.   Except all of those are terrible snow cars.  They cannot pull up three mile hill, they are totally squirrely after the first flake hits the asphalt.  They are so bad the people laugh if you turn up driving one at a ski resort.
  A good snow car has 50 50 weight distribution, same weight on both the front and back wheels.  And four wheel drive.  And limited slip differentials fore and aft.  And a manual transmission so you can rock the car back and forth between 1st gear and reverse gear to get unstuck. And door handles big enough to get all four fingers around them, even wearing gloves to tug open a frozen door.  Good strong defrosters, fore and aft.  No turned up rear edge of the hood that makes a snow dam around the wipers.  Windshield washer container big enough to take a whole gallon of windshield washer fluid.  Good snow tires.  Good solid way to mount the ski rack.  Battery mounted under the hood in case you need to jump start it, or jump start a friend.  And an outside thermometer so we can tell if that dark spot up ahead is black ice or just a puddle.
  You would think a good sporty car that was good in winter would sell.

Watching Chuckle the Schumer on TV

Chuckie was summing up the Democrat case for impeaching Trump.  He spoke at length.  He never mentioned a specific act of Trump's worthy of impeachment.  He did a lot of bad mouthing, name calling.  He kept saying "lots of facts" and "proves beyond the shadow of a doubt" and other such platitudes.  Schumer never said "Trump did thus and so, on such and such a date, as proved by this witness or that document,"  That makes me think the democrats don't have anything on Trump, except for hatred. 
    It might be that Trump pressured  the Ukrainians to dig for dirt on the Bidens. Trump denies it, the Ukrainians deny it and who do we believe? Maybe I don't approve and maybe I don't believe.  But compared to Abraham Lincoln (suspended Habeas Corpus ) and Franklin Roosevelt (placed Japanese Americans in concentration camps)  pressuring an ally to dig up a little dirt is petty change.  And I still think Abraham Lincoln was a great American President.  And, despite the fact that one of my oldest and dearest friends was born in an American concentration camp, I still think Franklin Roosevelt was a great president. 
   So when I hear Chuckles deriding Trump as an existential threat and worst president ever, I tune him out.

More Adventures in TVland

Yesterday, as I was watching the TV, the digital audio output, which drives my stereo and gives nicer sound than the tiny speakers crammed into the TV set, died.  Cut my sound to a whisper.  PITA.  This morning I messed with it, cycled power on the digital audio gizmo, and powered up the TV, and magic happened.  The digital audio sound was back.  Hurrah.
   I think power cycling the digital audio gizmo was what did the trick.  Might have been just turning the TV off overnight but I don't think so. 

In Harm's Way, movie, 1965

In Harm’s Way, an oldie but a goodie.  I just finished watching it (again). It is World War 2, in the Pacific with John Wayne as tough and competent Navy admiral Rockwell Torrey.  We have a lot of action, Admiral Torrey is sent out to capture a couple of key Japanese held islands and turn them into US Navy bases.  We have a parachute assault, by US marines to take to first target.  Followed by a sea battle featuring a PT boat attack on the Japanese fleet followed by a broadside to broadside gunnery duel between the heavy ships.

   Torrey spends much of the movie forming a relationship with Maggie Haynes, a tough Navy nurse, played by Patricia Neal. She is reasonably good looking, although I would not call her cute.  She likes what she sees in John Wayne and works to catch him.  For cute, John Wayne has a son, just graduated from college, just into the Navy as an ensign.  Played by Brandon DeWilde, Jere Torrey is young, blond, slim, and cute.  Jere is establishing a relationship with an equally cute young Navy nurse.  She is Annalee Dorn, played by Jill Hayworth, and has her hands full coping with Jere who is pushy.  She manages him with a firm hand.  Jere was raised by his mother after she and Rockwell split when Jere was only four.   Initially Jere takes his mother’s side in the marriage split, but over the course of the flick he comes to appreciate his father.    The movie moves right along, good pacing.   Each scene contributes to the story and lasts long enough to get its point across. 

   The movie is based upon a novel of the same name, written by James Basset and published in 1962.  Much of the action in the book and the movie is based on real WW2 events, but loosely based.  The movie was made in 1965.  A reasonable number of WW2 aircraft and ships were still in commission in 1965 and were placed at the disposal of Otto Preminger and his crew.  The costumes and uniforms are realistic WW2 styles.   The whole movie gives the flavor of 1943 very nicely. 

    The movie is in black and white.  That was the custom for war movies back then.  Probably because we were all used to watching black and white newsreels, which were always played in movie theaters before the main attraction.  Since the movie was made back in the 1960’s, the technical work, lighting, filming, and sound is all superb.  You can hear and understand all of the dialogue, something I cannot do for modern movies.  No shake-the-camera shots, no turn-the-lights-out scenes.

  All in all, a good flick.  If you haven’t seen it, you can rent it from Netflix.