F35 Turns the Corner

Cover story in Aviation Week.  The F-35 A (the Air Force model, no V/STOL)  made it to the Paris Air Show this week.  Le Bourget outside of Paris.  It flew, showed off some really impressive low and slow manuvering close to the ground.  With 40,000 pounds of thrust, it's hard to stall this baby, just pull the stick way back, shove the throttle all the way forward, and the engine will make the plane go up, even if the wing isn't doing much in the lift dept.  Apparently they have done some work in the engine, the plane is now certified for 7 G.  Used to be limited to 5 G (not much) because any more G caused the engine rotor to rub on the engine casing, which caused a fire, resulting in the total loss of one F35.  They have done something about the problem, and 9G is promised in the future. 
  Up beat article.  No talk about lack of software, horrible costs, ridiculously long development cycle. 

You cannot pay for healthcare by taxing healthcare

Every dollar sucked out of health care by Obamacare taxes, causes the health industry to raise prices to get even.  Obamacare had a bunch of taxes on healthcare, there was a medical device tax, a cadillac plan tax, personal tax for being uninsured, and some others that I have forgotten.  The healthcare reform bills before Congress would zap all the Obamacare taxes.
  The democrats are crying and calling this "a tax cut for the wealthy".  Yeah right.  Democrats always say that any tax cut is "for the wealthy". 
   They ought to pass a one page bill that says "Obamacare is completely revoked, repealed, null and void.  All Obamacare offices are closed, their personnel must be laid off, their files burned, and the buildings are to be sold.  All Obama care regulations are hereby rendered null and void. 

Pass that.  Then if you have the votes, pass separate  laws on pre-existing conditions, children remaining on the parent's policies,  make health insurance premiums deductible on income tax, fund opioid treatment, and any other little Obamacare goodie you like.  If you have the votes. 

Ivanhoe (1952) Great Costume Drama

The story is set in Merrie Old England, right after the Third Crusade.  It's in Technicolor which means the color is bright and solid, none of this modern arty "fade-the-color-out-to-black&white" stuff.  I first saw this flick at age nine in the old Cinema at Shoppers World out on Rt 9 in Framingham Mass.  Loved it back then. I'm much older now.  I popped a DVD of Ivanhoe into the DVD player last night.  It's still a fine movie.  It has a very young Elizabeth Taylor as Rebecca of York, ultra cute, forceful, with a serious crush on the leading man.  That's Ivanhoe, played by Robert Taylor (no relation) who was a solid, competent, decent looking leading man in a bunch of movies back then.  Ivanhoe is one of the best roles Robert Taylor ever had.  And we have Rowena of Rotherwood, blonde, beautiful, played by Joan Fontaine, an old childhood sweetheart of Ivanhoe's and bound and determined to wed him, and not let that ultra cute Rebecca make off with him.
   Costumes are great, they look extremely medieval.  Workers and peasants are dressed in drab browns and grays.  Nobility dresses in brighter colors, each actor wears a distinctive costume that makes it easy to tell who is who.  Rowena and Rebecca have very nicely tailored medieval gowns which show off their figures to great advantage.  The cast all speak clearly and distinctly, every line of dialogue is sharp and understandable.   Dialogue has a proper medieval sound to it, a bit of Shakespearean flavor, no jarring twentieth century turns of phrase.  For instance Locksley  (Robin Hood) cries out to his merry men "Away Arrows",  no anachronistic cries of "Fire".  You never "fire" arrows, that only works on firearms.  You shoot or loose arrows. 
   The camera man does it right, every scene is properly lit, none of this modern turn off the lights and let the audience struggle to figure out what is happening stuff.  And no annoying "shake-the-camera" shots.  The sound man places the mikes properly so we can hear everything, and avoids mixing the score or the sound effects over the dialogue.  
   The movie has a great love interest, lots of medieval politicking, and lots of action.  Great scenes of jousting on horseback, with lists, and spectators, lances and shields, solid lance hits hurling the bad guys off their horses and into the dirt.  We see Locksley and his archers take Front-de-Beouf's castle by escalade and flights of arrows.  Single combat on horseback between Ivanhoe and Brian Bois Gilbert.
   All in all, a great flick.  You can get it from Netflix.  

$82,000 per year for Nursing Home??

From Wednesday's Wall St Journal.  Headline "Nursing Homes Balk at Senate Bill".  The nursing home industry is largely paid for from Medicaid and the industry fears the reductions in Medicaid funding will cut into their revenue.  Tough.
   I can send a child to college for only $40,000 a year.  You'd think all those PHD college profs, and all those overpaid and useless administrators would be more expensive than staffing a nursing home.  Put another way, that $82,000 a year comes out to $224.65 a day.  I can rent a first class Washington DC hotel room for half of that.  I means these are nursing homes, not hospital ICU's.  They provide a room with a bed, maid service, three squares a day, and somebody on the front desk 24/7 in case of emergency.  Somehow I think you could do that for  DC hotel room rates. 
   Note to self.  Hope my health holds up so I can die peacefully in my bed at my home.  Plead with my children to take me in should I no longer be able to shop and cook for myself. 

McConnell lacks the votes to pass Healthcare reform

Might have guessed it.  As of this morning's TV some ten "Republican" senators won't vote for McConnell's health care bill.  These "Republicans" are throwing away Republican chances in the 2018 election.  Us voters voted Republicans in to get Obamacare out.  We know that Obamacare has doubled the price of insurance and thrown a lot of people out of work.  Once we figure out that Republicans cannot do anything, they are gone and the Democrats will be back in charge.  
   And, to add insult to injury, these ten "Republicans" haven't told anyone (voters, newsies, McConnell) what is wrong with McConnell's bill.  Does it cut too much from some pet program?  Is it really just a patch on Obamacare to keep it running a while longer?  Does it lack something they care  about?  They ought to have some reasons they can express on TV for scuttling their own party and turning the country back over to the Democrats in 2018.  To say nothing of ruining their personal chances of re-election. 

US spends 19% of GNP on healthcare

That's twice as much as any other country in the world spends.  And American health, as measured by life expectancy and infant mortality, is not a good as about 10 other countries.  In short, for spending twice as much, we don't get any healthier.
  So  Congressional attempts to cut the expense of Obamacare are the right thing to do.  We ought to cut healthcare spending down to 10% of GNP, from 19% today.  Every other country in the world offers health as good as in the US, and spends only 10% of GNP doing it.  It they can do it, so can we. 
  

Anti Russian voter hacking measures we ought to take

Go to paper ballots.  Keep them after the election in case of a recount.  Get rid of voting machines which are nothing more than desktop computers running a ballot program.  And could be hacked at the factory, at the polls, over the net, every which way, and you could never figure out what happened. 
   Let's have some security on voter registration lists.  If hostile hackers managed to erase say 10% of all Republicans registered, that would throw the election to the Democrats.  A voter shows up at the polls, and he isn't on the registration list, he doesn't get to vote.  Ten percent of either side is enough to decide most elections. 
   Since we cannot do any paperwork without putting it on computer these days, we need some security on the machines that hold  the voter registration lists at cities and towns.  The machine[s] that store and modify the voter registration lists must NOT be connected to the public internet in any way shape or fashion.  Keep the machines in a locked room and only allow a minimum of people access to them.  Backup the voter registration list[s] every week or so, and store the backups off line and off site.  When  new voters are registered give them a printed certificate of registration that they can use to prove they registered should the computers mess up some how.