There are a lot of brain dead manufacturers out there

Those are the ones who fail to put their company name on their product.  If they had two brain cells firing they would always put their name and Made in USA on everything they make.  It's good for sales.  It's the best advertising they can get.
   We consumers ought to understand that products that are not marked Made in USA are probably made in China.

Why I don’t trust computer models.

A computer model is nothing more than a computer program that computes how something will change over time, Global warming, Corona virus, you name it, is going to work out.  I have written and tested plenty of computer models over a long career in R&D and programming.  When you start programming a computer model, you already have a clear idea of what you want the model to say.  If the model doesn’t say what you want it to say, you start fixing the code.  Work hard enough and the model will say what you want it to say if especially if you are willing to cheat.  One greenie climate change program had a line of code that read “If date younger than 1945 add a few degrees.  If date younger than 1955 add a few more.”  This bit of code came from the Hadley Climate Research Unit (CRU) and created Mann’s “hockey stick” plot of world temperature. 

   Any how a model (or two or other models) predicted massive infection rates of Corona virus world wide.  It is beginning to look like that model’s frightening predictions of infection, need for hospital beds, ventilators, and what ever, are not true, and the Corona virus epidemic is not as bad as the model predicted.  It is still pretty bad, but not as bad as the model predicted.

Mail in balloting is voter fraud.

What with Corona virus keeping everybody indoors, the Democrats are calling for mail in voting.  They figure the massive voter fraud this would cause will help the Democrats.  In this day and age of Xerox machines, PC's with very decent ink jet and laser printers, digital camera's everywhere to photograph any real paperwork (ballots, ID's what ever) needed to vote.  A simple program running on a  PC can crank out authentic looking ballots for every registered voter in the state.  And print address labels, or even envelopes with return addresses up in the left hand corner for them.  Add some stamps,  or go business reply mail, and you can swamp the electoral commissions with truck loads of good looking, but fake  ballots.  God help the voting commission when some one, appearing in person, demands to vote, and the town clerk refuses because the mail in ballot box stuffers have already voted that voter by mail. 
   Far as I am concerned, voters ought to brave the Corona virus infected streets, get to the polls, show their NH drivers licenses to poll workers who know everybody in town by sight,  and fill out an official ballot in a secure voting booth.  And get checked off on the voter rolls one by one. And personally drop their ballot into a ballot box.  Up here we still use antique wooden ballot boxes. 

Trump's daily Corona virus updates preempt Fox News

Used to be Brett Bauer and Britt Hume came on at 6 PM with the news of the day.  Now Trump comes on  a little of 6 PM, and briefs on the virus, zaps obnoxious lefty reporters, and takes hostile questions for about an hour.  Fox news doesn't get a shot at the audience until Trump is finished close to 7 PM.

Season 8 Game of Thrones

Meh.  So far I have watched the first three episodes.  First episode opens with Jaime Lannister on trial at Winterfell, before Sansa Stark and Danaris Targarien, neither of whom like him very much.  Jaime is explaining that although his sister Cercei is reneging on her promise to send troops to defend Winterfell against the invasion of the White Walkers, he feels he must come and join the fight.  After that opening not much else in the episode.  Episode 2 the army of the White Walkers has surrounded Winterfell and far outnumbers the defenders. Everyone knows that battle starts in the morning.  They gather round and do some serious drinking.  Lighting is so bad that I could only identify who was who by listening for distinctive tones of voice.  Best short part, perennial tomboy Arya decides that since she will probably die in battle tomorrow she might as well get laid for the first time this evening.  She hooks up with former king Robert Baratheon’s bastard son, good looking young guy who is into black smithery.  They kiss, clothes come off, and they get into bed.  The scene ends before we can hear any pillow talk between them.  Episode 3 is the actual day of battle and is remarkable for having absolutely no lines of dialog between any characters, for the entire hour long episode.  Attack begins at 0’dark thirty, and the sun never does come up.  It is too dark to figure out what is going on, except for a couple of short scenes of dragons swooping down and doing the flame thrower thing on the enemy.

   Not sure if I have the energy to watch the rest of the season.

Toy Boat Woodshop for the Kids.

    Running out of things to keep the kids interested?  Teach them some wood shop.  Make some toy boats.  Make the hull from a board, or even a bit of 2 by 4, what ever you have.  Cut a bow.  Mark the middle of the board.  Lay a square (any kind, T-square, combination square, Speed square, what ever you have) across the hull, some inches back from the bow end, and draw a pencil line clean across the hull.  They draw diagonal lines to mark the bow from the middle of the end back to the square line.  That will give a symmetrical bow when you saw both sides of it.  You can cut the bow with any kind of hand saw, cross cut, miter, hack, coping; use what ever you have.  You can leave the stern square, or you can make a pair of 45 degree cuts to round it off a bit.  You can use a plane or a spoke shave to smooth and round the hull. 

   You need a cabin, a piece of wood nailed on lengthwise.  You need a bridge that is a short piece of wood, atop the cabin and cross wise up front.  You ought to have a smoke stack, although we left that detail off a lot of toy boats we built in the distant past.  For a stack you need something round, a bit of dowel, a bit of broomstick, a bit of PVC pipe, whatever.  Drill a hole in the cabin top.  Secure it with glue, white glue of yellow carpenters glue for wood, epoxy or superglue for PVC pipe.  The glue will bond better to PVC if you clean it with hot water and soap, or solvent (alcohol, paint thinner, acetone, lacquer thinner). 

Do I believe Corona virus numbers coming out of China???

I ought to say "No" but lets just say I am deeply suspicious.  I think the communist government has total control of the news coming out of China, and I suspect that they make up what ever Corona virus numbers they think makes China look good.   If you are making up world statistics, like how many cases or how many deaths world wide, I would be tempted to simply leave out the numbers from China.