Republicans need to do a RINO hunt.  Nineteen House RINOs denied the Republican party a Speaker of the House from the Republican party.  Dunno what happen next.  This could be the start of two years of  deadlocked votes in the House.  Democrats could not have hoped for anything better for them.  I don't have a list of the RINOs, none of them are from New Hampshire.  We don't have an Republican House or Senate members.  We had chance to vote out three Democrat Congresscritters last month, but it didn't happen.  Too bad.

Watching the crowds at midnight.

 Usually I fall asleep long before midnight on New Years Eve (or any other night for that matter).  This year I took an evening nap at 4:30.  I woke up at 11:30 so I turned on the TV and watched the New Year’s festivities at Times square and at Nashville.  Big crowds both places.  Everyone looked happy, smiling and laughing, some hugging and kissing, a little singing.  I came away thinking America is still in fairly decent shape if we can put forth such large happy crowds. 

Trump’s Taxes

   Democrats forced Trump’s income tax returns into public knowledge.  Trump managed to pay a surprising low income tax.  Absolute zero one year, and just a few hundred dollars in other years. 

Of course, Trump does not do his own taxes.  He hires the best tax lawyers and tax accountants that money can buy.   They found loopholes and special deals scattered throughout the tax code, and used them all. They probably stretched one or two of them farther than anyone else ever did. 

  The IRS is supposed to check or even audit the tax returns of wealthy taxpayers to keep them straight.  IRS never objected to the Trump returns.  It may be the IRS failed to check Trump’s returns, or Trump’s tax people were smarter than the IRS tax people (not unlikely).

   It is a long standing principle of US law that is a perfectly legal to arrange one’s affairs to minimize your tax liabilities.  Trump obviously did a fair amount of this.  It’s perfectly legal.

   Until the IRS comes right out and accuses Trump of tax evasion (they haven’t)  I am going to believe that Trump’s tax returns are legal. 

   We should straighten out the incredible complicated US tax code.  The whole thing fills shelf after shelf.  It is written in lawyer speak which confuses us regular people.  Those of us who still do our own taxes only have J.K. Lasser’s book.  In one 8 ½ by 11 paper back only ½ inch thick, J.K. Lasser gets every thing we need to know packed into a lot less that the shelves and shelves of binders holding the whole tax code.  Those who don’ use J.K. Lasser take their records down to H & R Block and they get them out in good enough shape to prevent an IRS audit of the tax payer. 

Happy New Year

 What more can I say? 

They got 'em.

 

They got someone for the four Dakota murders.  I missed the name, but the cops are charging a student in Pennsylvania.  Glad to hear the cops have a suspect.  They have not said what evidence they have to charge this guy.  Could be anything, tire tracks from the white car, fingerprints in the murder house, bloodstains that have traceable DNA, or anything.  I hope whay ever evidence it is, it sticks. 

Old Line Science Fiction authors.

 H Beam Piper wrote “Space Viking” way back in 1963. I reread it the other day; Lucas Trask is the Vice Roy ruling a frontier planet on the edge of the old Terran Federation.  The Federation crashed centuries before and many of its planets reverted to a pre industrial medieval state.  Trask has decided to make Tanith a base for Space Viking.  This means getting native workers to do the heavy lifting clearing wreckage from the long abandoned space port, suppressing banditry, establishing a planetary government and so on. 

  Somewhat later in the story Trask meets up with planet Marduk.  Marduk is fully civilized, it maintained its civilization even as the Federation fell.  Anyhow Lucas Trask is discussing problems keeping civilization going with a member of the royal family of Marduk.  As the discussion goes on, Marduk’s problems sound distressingly similar to the problem we are having in modern day America.  This in a science fiction novel written in 1963, 60 years ago. 

Army goes for replacement for UH60 Black Hawk.

   Black hawk is a conventional helicopter that has been flying for years and is quite satisfactory.  Back in 2014 the army asked for a fly off between the Bell Helicopter V280 tilt rotor design and the Sikorsky-Boeing Defiant a more or less conventional design with a pusher propeller for better speed. 

 

   After 8 well paid years of testing and tinkering the Army finally picked the Bell V280 which was faster.  The V22 Osprey is the only tilt rotor currently in service.  It can do 300-400 knots, but large conventional helicopters have better range and bigger payloads.  Osprey has a poor safety record, a lot of crashes, some with troops on board and many deaths.  It is not clear to me why the services care about speed.  In Viet Nam we arranged for the troop carrying helicopters to arrive all at the same time.  We had enough troops in the first wave to overwhelm the enemy, especially with gun ships supporting the infantry. 

 

    The Bell 280 is flying, at least the Aviation Week article shows it in the air.  There is a juicy $7.3 billion of “startup money” for the V280.   Actual production of V280’s will cost $70 billion.  Aviation Week did not mention how many V280s that $70 billion will buy. 

  

   The Army said very little about the contract award, like why they picked Bell.  Sikorsky-Boeing is thinking about suing to reverse the contract award.  That ought to suck up another year or two.