So how bad is that Corona Virus?

Hard to tell.  Today's TV news listed 244 known cases in the US with 12 deaths.  That yields a death rate of 0.5%.  That may change.  In patients, the Corona virus looks like plain old flu.  The only way to tell that the patient has Corona virus is a blood test, which up until the other day was only done by CDC in Atlanta.  Only patients with recent travel to China or other hot spots, or had contact with other Corona virus cases got tested.  Those 244 know cases represent the few patients who have been tested.  That's getting fixed, as I write this.  As of maybe Monday test kits will be widely distributed, and the number of tests will soar.  Expect the number of cases to climb, a lot.  That will reduce the computed death rate, a lot. 
   My sources tell me that the test coming out is pretty good at detecting Corona, but it also gives positives for a number of other common viruses (virii).  These false positives will further increase the number of cases, again reducing the death rate.  Some experts expect the final death rate for Corona will come out lower than for plain old ordinary flu. 
   The TV news has been yammering about Corona cases popping up in people with no travel and no contact with known Corona virus patients.  A likely explanation is some people are mostly immune to Corona and although infected, they don't show symptoms, and don't feel bad.  So they are out there, going about their business.  But they can infect other people.  I expect wide spread testing will find these people (if they exist). 
   And, based on the mere 244 cases that we know about today, we have been doing a pretty fair job keeping Corona virus out of the US.  The Democrats ought to get off Trump's case.  On the evidence he is doing a pretty good job keeping Corona out of the country.

I wonder where their voters will go. The Bern? Uncle Joe?

Been some thinning out over in the Democrat party.  Buttigieg, Steyer, and Klobuchar  have all thrown in the towel.  They all had some voter support.  Those voters will now move over to one of the surviving Democrat contenders.  Where will they go and are there enough of 'em to make a difference on Super Tuesday, which is upon us, polls ought to open in about four hours.  I'd expect these freshly orphaned voters would go for either The Bern, or Uncle Joe.  Somehow Mike Bloomberg doesn't look all that attractive.  Elizabeth Warren is coming from the same place as The Bern but she doesn't look as electable as The Bern.  There must be a couple of others still in the race but I cannot think of their names right now.

USAF tanker boodoggle[s]

Air refueling tankers are a range extender.  The KC 135's were purchased way back during the Eisenhower administration to refuel the B-52's.  The B-52's and their nuclear weapons were kept on US stateside bases for security reasons.  To bomb Moscow, the B-52s would be refueled somewhere over Europe before pressing on to Moscow.  And refueled a second time on the way back.  In Viet Nam the KC135s refueled our F105s just before they penetrated North Viet Nam air defenses, and a second time on the way home.  Without the tankers, the Thuds simply could not reach Hanoi from our bases in Thailand.  I expect that we will need the tankers to strike just about any foe we may encounter. 
   USAF has been trying to buy a new tanker to replace the 60-70 year old KC135s.  The KC135 is a good plane but 60-70 years of hard flying is asking a lot from it.  It's time for a new one.  And, a new tanker is a straight forward job, pick a jet liner in mass production for civil airlines.  Buy a bunch of 'em, take out the seats and the galley, put in fuel tanks and a refueling boom.  After  couple of bidding catastrophes, USAF managed to get a contract with Boeing to do just that.  They would take a Boeing 757 or 767 (can't remember which) and call it KC-46.  Except, USAF (or perhaps Boeing, they love gold plate as much as anyone)  speced a fancy TV system to allow the boom operator to sit up front with the rest of the crew and steer the boom out to meet the customer aircraft by TV.  The TV system has been unsatisfactory, (and unacceptable to USAF).  Last year they bitched about low contrast when the camera was looking into the sun.  This year they are bitching about "the rubber sheet effect" some kind of distortion of the image.  The Air Force is refusing to fly the plane.  Boeing is delivering them, USAF is withholding $8 or $12 million from the price of each KC46 until the TV system is satisfactory.  Aviation Week has a big color photo of  five finished KC46's parked on the ramp, canvas covers over the engines to keep out the rain. 
   This entire boondoggle could have been avoided by putting the boom operator in the tail and giving him a nice big window, glass or plexiglas, no moving parts, no contrast or "rubber sheet" distortion.  This worked just fine on the old KC135, and the much newer KC10.  But that was beyond USAF and Boeing, so we have Boeing loosing $8-$12 mil per aircraft, and they are just cluttering up a ramp somewhere, not flying missions.  Aviation Week has the story in the 24 Feb issue.

Cannon Mountain Ski Weather

Sob.  No snow all night.  All we got was and inch maybe an inch and a half from yesterday.  It helps, mountain ought to be quite skiable.  But we were anticipating a lot more snow. 

Cannon Moutain Ski Weather

Today (Thursday) started out raining.  Cannon decided it was too miserable to open.  It has cooled down, we are now (3 PM) below freezing.  We have had two serious snow flurries, between the two they laid down an inch, maybe inch and a half.  More snow is forecast for tonight.  Cannon was hoping for 4 to 8 more inches.  I will post again tomorrow when we know what happened.  The weather forecasters are talking about more snow in the White Mountains tonight.  Lets see if they know what they are talking about.

FISA court is a rubber stamp. Let's stamp it out.

The TV news is jubilating over Justice Department news/leaks about "improper" FBI testimony to the FISA court that caused said court to OK snooping on the Trump campaign during the election.  Bear in mind that of the thousands of requests to snoop on American citizens only a dozen are rejected.  99.9% of all requests to snoop are approved.  This is a rubber stamp.  What's worse, the FISA court is secret.  We don't know who the judge[s] are, where and when it meets, where it's records are kept, nothing.  A FISA judge can rule any old which way and we citizens will never know.  And they have rubber stamped a helova lot of snooping over the years.
  We ought to shut the whole FISA court thing down.  Intelligence and police agencies wanting to snoop will have to get their warrants from a real judge in a real court, one that tries cases and is open for business 9/5  five days a week. 

Democratic Debate. A lot of bashing.

Politicians usually don't bash or trash each other, the thinking being that they might need the guy for something in the future.  But at the last debate before the South Carolina primary and Super Tuesday they figured their only chance of winning was to convince the voters not to vote for The Bern.  So The Bern had a lot lotta stuff dumped on his head this time.  A lot of it was old old old.  Some of it I didn't believe.  I'm a Republican, I don't have to vote for any of 'em.  Just between thee and me, I would love for the Democrats to select a candidate that would be easy meat for Donald Trump.  The Bern will do just fine.  Actually all of 'em look highly defeatable.