Retraining for workers whose jobs have fled overseas

NHPR was pushing retraining for the jobless this morning. But if there are no jobs, all the training or retraining in the world won't help.  We gotta do the hard stuff, create new jobs, foster new business formation, drive off the hordes of bloodsucking paper pushers and their job killing regulations, make taxes lighter and fairer.  Keep the NIMBYs and BANANA's from stopping projects. 
    Liberal NHPR isn't going to understand any of this.

I watched The Donald's foreign policy speech yesterday

It was fairly sanitary, no gratuitous slams on Mexicans, women, Chinese imports and other things that have made the headlines over this campaign.  He used a teleprompter, which means he took this one seriously and didn't want to make off-the-cuff blunders.
   It was pretty vague.  He came out for defending and advocating American interests, with out ever saying what those interests might be.  He said ISIS would be gone, soon, but he never said how, or how far he would go to waste them.  Would he send in the US Army to deal with them? Would he nuke them?  Who knows?  
   He never did really say where he stood on free trade, although he made disparaging remarks about NAFTA.  He is against "nation building" but he never addressed the problem of weak or failed nation states that revert to wildlands, harboring terrorists.  You need to remember that Osama Bin Ladin settled into the wildlands of Afghanistan, where there was no effective national government.  From this safe haven Bin Laden set up the 911 operation.  This would not have happened had the United States done some nation building in Afghanistan after the mujahedin drove out the Soviets in the 1980's.  Go watch the movie "Charlie Wilson's War". 
   The Donald made few to no concrete promises in this speech.  Applause sounded kinda thin, to the point where I wondered how full the room was. 

Democratic Turnout Down 4 million

So says the Drudge Report.  Does this show a significant party switch in the electorate?  Or does it show four million democrats who wanted to vote in the Republican primary, but will vote Democratic in the general election?  Who knows? 

Progress in DVD burners

After ten years of service, the DVD burner in Trusty Desktop stopped playing.  Something got jammed and the tray would no longer open.  Even after pulling the drive from Trusty Desktop and prying it open, I could not get to tray to move, at least not with the amount of force I dared apply. 
  So ho, for a new one.  A bit of internet research disclosed that the design of DVD burners changed a year after Trusty Desktop left the factory.  The DVD burner that came with him has an IDE connector, a parallel interface with 40 odd pins in the connector.  The new DVD burners have a serial interface (only four wires).  They haven't made the DVD burner that fit Trusty Desktop for the last ten years. 
  OK, so there is a salvation.  They now make USB DVD burners, USB is universal, Trusty Desktop has plenty of USB ports.  So I bought a Verbatim model down at Staples, only $50.  Very small, only 1/2 inch high, compared to old one and 1 1/2 inches high.  It's faster too.  Burns a 4.7 Gig DVD in about half the time the only one needed.

To Alpha Centauri in just 20 years?

Sounds good.  Ultra small spacecraft, one big silicon chip containing camera, radioactive thermal electric generator, comm and nav systems, to weigh a couple of grams.  A light sail one meter square.  A 100 Gigawatt laser plays on the light sail for 10 minutes and accelerates the micro probe to 20% of the speed of light.  That will get it the four light years to Alpha Centauri in 20 years.  Then it radios back what the camera's see. 
   One sticky point, how does a micro probe, weighing only grams, have enough transmitter power to drive a radio signal back to earth? 
   Idea comes from internet investor Yuri Milner.  He is making grants to fund research.

Weak Tea from The Economist

Cover story this week "Can She Fix it?"  Cartoon on cover shows Hillary, dressed in mechanic's coveralls, holding a monkey wrench, studying a beat up engine hanging on a chain hoist.  Said engine's outline is the lower 48 of the United States.  Of course no mechanic has used a monkey wrench since WWII, real mechanics all use Snap-on socket wrenches.  But that's all right, the guys who write for the Economist were never hot rodders. 
    The think piece article goes on for three quarters of a page laying out the woes of the American economy, low growth, growing unemployment, stagnent wages, and all the rest.
    But the Economist doesn't suggest any serious fixes for all this woe.  They call for "slashing unnecessary regulations" without naming a single regulation in need of slashing.  "Ensuring big firms no longer operate in protected markets"  without naming a single protected market or big firm wallowing in one.  And they call for more government bailouts to companies going down the drain.  And retraining for workers in down the drain companies. 
   Some how I had expected better from a newsmag named "The Economist".
   

North County Do, The Lincoln Reagan dinner

We do this once a year up here in Grafton county.  It's a big deal, everyone who is anyone in the state comes.  This year we had all four republican candidates for governor, and both candidates for US senate. and both candidates for NH senate.  And some candidates for NH house. I've been kicking around NH politics long enough now that I knew most of the people there. 
   For governor we have Frank Edelblut, youn guy, first term NH rep, enterpreneur,  talked about making live better for business.  And we have Ted Gatsas, four term mayor of Manchester, older guy, didn't talk much, I was sitting next to him.  And then Chris Sununu, comes from a good family, good name recognition, made a good talk, probably best of the governors.  And Jeanne Forester, current NH senator, well liked and respected, she has been around for a while and everyone speaks well of her. 
   The we come to the US senate race.  We have a primary challenger (Jim Rubins) to well liked incumbent Kelly Ayotte.  Far as I can see, Rubins is a loser, if he wins the primary, the democrat Maggie Hassan, current governor, will beat him.  Kelly Ayotte is sincere, hard working, and with luck and a lot of help, she can win. 
   I see men's fashions are changing.  Half the men there, myself included, were wearing blue blazers, the kind with brass buttons, and khaki slacks.  The other half were wearing dark business suits.  And some untraditionalists, like Jim Rubins, showed up in blue jeans.