Spring must be coming

 Just bought a box of fresh strawberries, ONLY $3.99 for a box.  Last week they were asking $7.99 a box for fresh strawberries from who knows where.  They were all the giant berries, big as lemons, but they tasted OK.  Sweet, an improvement in strawberry breeding from a few years ago when the giant berries tasted more of straw than a sweet berry did.

Impeachment hearings. Jan 6 was terrible terrible and all Trump's fault.

 Been a lotta Democrat  speakers saying how horrible the Jan 6 riot at the Capitol building was.  Worst thing that ever happened and it's all Trump's fault.  Trump egged on the rioters, and we ought to impeach him for it.  Un spoken agreement, if we can impeach him we can forbid him from ever running for dog catcher, let along President of the US, for the rest of his life.  

I hear all this.  But after a summer where BLM and Antifa burned down Milwaukee and Seattle, and some other places, a few broken doors and windows, a few screwballs sitting in Nancy Pelosi's office, and a lot of trash dumped all over the Capitol building doesn't seem all that bad to me.  They could have set the place on fire, but they didn't.

How to open the schools.

 To get the schools open again is very simple.  Unlock the schoolhouse door in the morning.  Inform students and parents that school is open.  They will be there, no question about it.  Inform the teachers that school is open.  If they don't show up for work, their paychecks will stop.  

I know that the teachers want all sorts of stuff, remodeling, protective equipment, vaccine, ventilation, new heating plants, all sorts of stuff.  Well, we might do some of it, when we come up with the money, but, school will open NOW, and if they don't show, they don't get paid. 

Florida town's water system gets hacked

Wanna bet that water system's computer was on the public internet?  And was running Windows, world's most vulnerable operating system?  The public internet allows hackers from all over the world to try their luck on your computers.  If you just have to have remote control of something, do it over a private fiber optic link.  To hack that, they have to climb a pole, and splice an optical splitter into the fiber link.  Few people know how to splice fiber.  Few hackers climb poles.  And your system will be far more secure if it runs Linux, or Apple, or anything but Windows.

Join the National Rifle Association.

 The Democrats, currently controlling the US federal government, want to forbid private ownership of firearms and in fact take all of our guns away.  If you are a gun owner, you really need to join the NRA if you want to remain a gun owner.   It is the most effective organization defending our right to keep and bear arms.  Right now there are around 5 million NRA members, enough to give NRA leaders some clout when they negotiate with lawmakers.  They are a lot more than 5 million gun owners in the country.  If all of us joined the NRA it would give the NRA enormous clout. 

    NRA runs a big website, at which you can join up.  It’s www.NRAila.org. Or just Google for NRA, that will get you there.  Dues are modest, and they will cut special deals for needy folk.

Whither the Republican Party?

 There are some internal strains, differences, factions, and infighting inside the Grand Old Party.  Of the 75 million people who voted for Trump, a lot of them did so because of Trump.  They liked his attitude, they liked his style, they trusted his word, they liked the economy he created, and they liked the taxes he cut.  They showed up at Trump’s rallies in vast numbers.  I am guessing that about half of them, say 37 million, are there for Donald Trump, and without Trump, they are gone.   In short, the Republican Party needs Trump because he brings in the votes better than anyone else in the party.

   Then we have the RINOs.  These guys are Democrats at heart, they believe that hiking taxes let’s them spend money on pet programs, and they don’t worry about tax hikes messing up the economy.  They don’t like private enterprise very much.  For example, given a choice between contracting with SpaceX and doing it in-house in NASA, RINOs will go for giving the work to NASA civil servant people every time.  RINOs don’t like Trump.  We ought to vote out as many RINOs as we can. 

   And we have the old line upper crust of the Republican Party.  They don’t like Trump much because he is too rude and crude for them.  Trump tends to hang out with, and hire, working class and ex military folk that the old line upper crust cannot stand.  They think Trump’s habit of tweeting every day is silly. 

   And finally we have the professionals, guys who hold elective office, party officials, and community organizers, appointed officials.  These guys just want to win the next election.  I think they are smart enough to recognize that the Republican Party needs Donald Trump and the 37 million voters that he can bring into the party.                  

  I cannot tell how the various Republican factions will sort things out.  They could screw themselves up and hand the next election to the Democrats.                  

VAMS comes to life

 Being well over 65 years old, I make it into Corona virus vaccine phase 1b, eligible right now.  I visited the NH web site back on the first day it was open, 22 Jan.  I got a nice reply saying a link the the "VAMS" website would be coming in 3 to five days.  Nothing showed.  I revisited the NH website 2 more times.  Each time a link to "VAMS" was promised but never showed.  Couple of days ago governor Sununu said that "VAMS" was seriously broken and NH would junk it and create a replacement.  I saw somewhere on the web the "VAMS" had been created by the feds with a sole source contract for $16 mil, and later had a cost overrun of $28 mil.  Lesson for dumb as rocks government types, never do sole source contracts for anything.  Get three bids every time.  Anyhow,  the long promised link to "VAMS" came finally came thru yesterday.  I managed to get an appointment up in Whitefield for early May.  Littleton was not accepting appointments at all.  

   Haverill is working on starting up a vaccination site.  I told them if I could get vaccinated before early May, I would be right there.