Detroit Iron

 Detroit is hurting.  Last couple of car postings, 20 hottest cars of 2022 and the like, were all foreign cars, mostly Japanese or Korean.  Except for single mentions of Corvette, nothing made in Detroit.   It didn’t used to be that way.  Ads and TV shows needing wheels now a days always show a nice Detroit car, usually a convertible, from the 60’s or 70s.  Never a Toyota or a Honda. 

   You would think one of the big three could pull the old tooling out of storage and knock off a few thousand classics from the old days and sell them.  AND, cars from the old days did not need semiconductors, except for a handful of simple ones in the car radio.

   Far as I can see, Detroit doesn’t make real sedans any more, just little econoboxes.  Closest you can come to a real sedan is a “crossover” SUV.  Crossovers are built on car chassis, the body extends the roof clear back to the rear bumper.  You don’t get a trunk, but you do get some storage space behind the rear seat.  Some models allow the rear seat[s] to fold down or come out to allow big stuff like sheets of plywood to fit inside. 

   The “crossover” name is historical.  The early SUV’s, Chevy carryalls and Jeep Wagoneers were built on pickup truck chassis, which yielded a big SUV that rode like a truck.  The “crossover” SUV’s built on car chassis are smaller, gas mileage is better and the ride is better.

War on Menthol cigarettes.

The Biden administration wants to ban menthol cigarettes.  They have not presented any evidence that menthol cigarettes (Kools) are any worse for your health than ordinary cigarettes.  The Biden people said that menthol cigarettes were favorites among the black community and outlawing them would encourage/force blacks to give up smoking. Speaking as someone who started smoking in college and smoked two packs a day for 20 years before giving it up, trying to force people to give up smoking is a lost cause.  The urge for a smoke can be extremely strong, far too strong to resist.  And, smoking tobacco has been legal in the US since Jamestown.  Trying to force people to give it up strikes me as tyranny, a specialty of Democrats. 

   I know, and they know, that smoking (with or without menthol) is bad for you.  Over the years a lot of people have given it up, and lot of people had not.  I think this country has bigger fish to fry than getting smokers to give up smoking. 

What is gonna happen in November?

 The Wall St Journal had two op ed pieces about this.  One piece by Daniel Henniger of the Journal and the other piece by Karl Rove, political advisor to George Bush.  Both of these guys have been in the business for a long time.  They usually get it right.  I trust them both. 

   They both think the democrats are gonna get creamed in November.  So do a lot of other political pundits, both the newspaper kind and the TV kind. 

   I am all in favor.  Far as I am concerned Biden is responsible for $4.25 a gallon for gasoline, 8.5% inflation, the disastrous bug out from Afghanistan last August, and shortages and outrageous prices at the grocery store. I hope the voters are sensible enough to vote a straight Republican ticket in November.  We need 10% margins in Congress to get anything done.  That is 40 house seats and 10 Senate seats. 

Let’s get that FBI warning off the DVDs

    Every DVD I play still has an image of the FBI’s badge above a copyright warning that threatens to sick the FBI on anyone who duplicates the disk or plays it over the air or some other obscure crimes.  Let’s be real, the FBI exists to investigate crimes and enemy spies, and over just the last few years they have been taken up investigating Republicans.  Copyright infringement of a DVD is a minor civil offense, which should be investigated at the copyright holder’s expense.  The FBI doesn’t have to time or the inclination to go after teenagers who duplicate DVDs. 

    And, the younger generation feels it is perfectly OK copy anything they like, music, movies, games, Mickey Mouse or whatever.  When they get old enough, they will vote against parties and politicians who support copyright law.  The Republicans could gain a foothold with the younger generation by supporting sensible copyright reform, such as copy right lasts for only 17 years, for music, movies, and Mickey Mouse.  The labels would scream and cry and threaten to hold their breath, but the labels don’t have the vote.  The younger generation does have the vote.

   At a minimum we could tell the labels that the FBI badge is copyright to the government and it will cost the labels $5 a DVD to use it. 

 May I offer my sincerest sympathies to the family of that brave Texas soldier who lost his life attempting to rescue some illegals crossing the Rio Grande.  That soldier should be awarded a medal.

Howitzer.

   Up til, or perhaps thru WWII artillery was composed of guns and howitzers.  Guns had longer barrels and longer range.  Howitzers were built the same as guns but had shorter barrels and could elevate them higher than guns.  The shorter barrel made them lighter and easier to move.  Forty five degrees of elevation gives best possible range for artillery. After WWII, since the pieces were mostly the same, parts would interchange, we stopped making much talk about the differences.  The 155mm (6 inch) howitzers we are sending to Ukraine can fire a 95 pound shell a tad more than 7 miles.  I am using figures from “Shells and Shooting” by Willy Ley published way back in 1942.  I am not aware of any technical improvements since then that would increase range or weight of shell much. 

   For artillery fire to do any good at seven miles you need recon to spot your target, and ideally a forward observer to report where the shells are falling and allowing the artillery to correct its aim.  Seven miles is a long way out for recon and a long way to push out forward observers.  The 7 mile range of the 155mm howitzers is probably plenty.

Election Strategy for Republicans

The woman’s vote is more important than the black vote, the Hispanic vote, the Asian American vote or any of the other groups.  Women are 50% of the population, which is more than all the blacks, all the Hispanics and all the Asians all put together.  Last couple of elections the Democrats won the woman’s vote by 10%.  That wins the election for Democrats, right there. 

  As a party we Republicans need to win the woman’s vote if we want to win the midterm elections in November.  Despite all the happy talk on the TV about a Republican year, if we don’t get the women to vote Republican, we are stuck with Democrats, including that clueless Biden.

   One thing to do, don’t talk about abortion.  Some woman are for it and some are against it and no matter what side a Republican takes it will hurt, not help.  If there are other issues we Republicans need to address, I don’t know what they might be.  There ought to be some pollsters who might know something.  We ought to find them and listen to what they have to say.