Break up Amazon. Bring back Dr. Seuss

 First we have the Dr. Seuss publisher announce that six good Dr. Seuss books are "offensive" and they will stop publishing them.  Then today we have Amazon announce that it will no longer sell them.  We can fix this.  Amazon is a monopoly, has most of the book selling market.  Sherman anti trust act allows the government to break up monopolies.  The US justice department has a whole anti trust division staffed with well paid lawyers.  They could break up Amazon into two or three pieces.  Divvy up the office buildings, the advertisers, the customers, the shareholders equally.  Let the pieces compete with each other.  One piece will decide they can make money selling Dr. Seuss, after all he dominates the Wall St Journal weekend reviews of books.  Dr. Seuss usually comes in first in sales, beating out all the other books on sale all over the country.  

   They did this to the Standard Oil  company about 100 years ago. 

Dr Seuss ain't dead yet

 Walking thru WallyMart today.  They had a big stand full of Dr Seuss books right in the middle of an aisle.  Celebrating National Book Month.   Good Show.  Dr. Seuss is a best selling author, shows up as such in plenty of Wall St Journal pieces. 

She should have slapped him in the face. Hard.

 Her name escapes me, it was the chick who had a picture in the NY Post of Cuomo placing both hands on her shoulders.  My mother would have done so. What do they tell young chicks about getting along in the world now a days?

New Hampshire needs real power plants

 Real power plants will produce electric power when ever it is needed.  Fake power plants (aka "alternate energy") only produce power when they feel like it, when the sun is up or the wind is blowing.  We get plenty of cold dark calm nights up here and we need enough real power plants to carry the full load of the entire state.  We cannot depend upon fake power plants.

It would be best if the real power plants were owned by New Hampshire electric companies and located in New Hampshire.  The present deal where companies like PSNH are expected to buy electricity on the open market from out of state generation operations is dangerous.  When power becomes short the out of state operators may not sell to us up here.  If we owned the generators, and they were located in New Hampshire we could be assured of receiving the plant's full output in times of shortage.  

And  while we are at it, we ought to built a decent gas pipeline out to the Bakken.  Out there they have so much natural gas that the frackers are paying people to get rid of it all.  Private industry would be happy to build such a pipeline if we could keep the greenies off their backs. 

I like art and the arts

 On the other hand, good art sells for enough to support the artist.  Art that requires a government subsidy is bad art.  If the art was any good people would spend good money to buy it.  So, I gotta wonder about money for the endowment for the arts tucked into the Corona virus relief bill.  I think that is pork.

Paperpushers wreck Arecibo radio telescope

 On 10 August one of the cables holding up the 950 ton suspended instrument platform broke.  They spent the next three months doing paperwork (a plan for temporary repairs).  On 6 November a second support cable failed.  More paperwork was accomplished.  Then finally on 1 December the last cable failed and the 950 ton suspended instrument platform fell, busting a huge hole in the parabolic reflector and destroying all the instruments in the platform.  

What they should have done, back in August when the first cable failed, is simple. Get about six big rolls of good stout steel cable.  Run six cables out to the suspended instrument platform to hold it up even if all the original cables broke.  The should have been able to get that done in less than three months, even out in Puerto Rico, where everything has to be shipped out from the mainland.  Instead they accomplished paperwork while the Arecibo radio telescope fell into ruin.  They are going to abandon it now. 

Trump speaks at CPAC

 He was about an hour late.  He spoke for and hour and a half.  Never at a loss for words.  Got a lot of enthusiastic applause.  The room was fairly full although I could see  blocs of empty seats here and there. The room was not all that large.  It was not much larger than the theater at my old high school, a decent size room but not all that large.  Trump said he will not do a third party. Trump suggested that he MIGHT run for president in 2024 but it was just a MIGHT, no solid commitment. Which is fair, 2024 is a long way off, lots of things might happen. Trump is getting old, in four years he might not have the energy he has now.  He spoke about all the good things he has done in his one term, and it was a fair summary.  

  In summary, Trump inspires a lot of enthusiasm.  His past policies are popular, at least with the people who go to CPAC.  Of the 75 million people who voted for Trump back in November, a lot of them, maybe half, say 37 million, voted for Trump the personality not for the Republican party.  Without Trump they are gone.  That makes Trump the guy who brings a lot more votes to the table than anyone else.