First of all, you gotta vote for one of 'em. I'll grant that Hillary and The Donald aren't anyone's idea of a dream team. But, one is better than the other. It's a citizen's duty to pick the better of the two and vote for him. Staying home is for wimps.
It looks like we will be faced with Hillary vs The Donald this time. This isn't cast in concrete, yet. There is a chance Trump won't have the votes for a first ballot win, and the convention goes for someone else, Cruz, on later ballots. But don't bet on it.
So, do you vote Republican, or vote for Hillary?
Hillary is untrustworthy. Weird things keep happening around Hillary, going way back. There was Vince Foster, old Rose Law Firm friend and White House something-or-other, found dead in a Washington DC park one night. They said it was suicide, but it sure is suspicious. There was "Travelgate" when Hillary got upset with the employees at the White House travel office. The employees got fired and replaced with people of Hillary's choosing. There was Whitewater, an Arkansas real estate deal that the Clintons participated in. They even got a special prosecutor onto that one, years of "investigation" let the Clinton's off, even though a fair number of other Whitewater participants went to jail.
Then there was the Monica affair. Hillary should have divorced Slick Willy over that one. She didn't, God knows how the Clinton marriage has been doing since then, but it cannot be warm and loving.
Then there was Benghazi where four American diplomats were killed by Islamic terrorists. Clinton, (and Obama) refused to sent rescue missions. In fact they fired two US general officers that very night for declaring that they would lead rescuers to Benghazi. Hillary basically wrote off the Americans serving in Benghazi.
Then there was Hillary's tour as secretary of state. She has the reverse Midas Touch. Everything she touched turned into disaster. Syria, Libya, Iraq, North Korea, South China Sea, Ukraine, and some more I have forgotten. Add in the private email server by which she hoped to keep all her emails private, forever.
And Hillary wants to take our guns away, leaving us at the mercy of whatever criminal or terrorist might happen by.
Set this against The Donald. The Donald is politically incorrect, vulgar, inexperienced, and unwilling to take advice from anyone (my way or the highway is The Donald's style). I'd druther have that than Hillary. At least The Donald is loyal to the United States of America.
Friday, April 22, 2016
Thursday, April 21, 2016
Energy Bill
They are doing one. The house passed its version a while ago, the senate just passed their version. They now gotta do the conference committee bit and weld the two bills into one. Obama has said he will sign it. It's gonna spend $10 billion or so.
On what? There is some unspecified research and development money. Probably another try to convince people that solar or wind power is worthy and green, rather than a scam on tax payers and rate payers. I, and a lotta other people and industries, need the power to stay on all the time. We cannot stand hearing the electric company calling to say, "Sorry, the wind dropped, (or the sun went down) and we are going to shut your juice off for six hours." For me, that means the furnace won't work and my pipes will freeze. For industry it means that batches of product under going various heat treatments will be ruined. Every something as old and well understood as baking bread cannot tolerate the oven going cold before the bread is baked. High tech processes are even more sensitive.
And there is money to work on "storage" of electricity on a utilities scale. That's batteries which are ridiculously expensive. A lead acid battery big enough to crank my V-8 car engine for a couple of minutes costs $50. A lithium battery big enough to run my laptop for a couple of hours costs $50. A battery bank big enough to run a small town would cost billions. For that sort of money I can build a nuke plant, or two or three natural gas fired plants. How do you say total waste of money?
And there is some unspecified subsidy for those evil fossil fuels. The ones that produce dependable power. Even at today's price of oil, they don't need a subsidy.
They tried to slip in a provision to clean up Flint Michigan's city water problem. Worthy but hardly an energy concern. There is probably a good deal more pork buried in it, which is why Obama said he would sign it.
The TV newsies haven't said a word about it.
On what? There is some unspecified research and development money. Probably another try to convince people that solar or wind power is worthy and green, rather than a scam on tax payers and rate payers. I, and a lotta other people and industries, need the power to stay on all the time. We cannot stand hearing the electric company calling to say, "Sorry, the wind dropped, (or the sun went down) and we are going to shut your juice off for six hours." For me, that means the furnace won't work and my pipes will freeze. For industry it means that batches of product under going various heat treatments will be ruined. Every something as old and well understood as baking bread cannot tolerate the oven going cold before the bread is baked. High tech processes are even more sensitive.
And there is money to work on "storage" of electricity on a utilities scale. That's batteries which are ridiculously expensive. A lead acid battery big enough to crank my V-8 car engine for a couple of minutes costs $50. A lithium battery big enough to run my laptop for a couple of hours costs $50. A battery bank big enough to run a small town would cost billions. For that sort of money I can build a nuke plant, or two or three natural gas fired plants. How do you say total waste of money?
And there is some unspecified subsidy for those evil fossil fuels. The ones that produce dependable power. Even at today's price of oil, they don't need a subsidy.
They tried to slip in a provision to clean up Flint Michigan's city water problem. Worthy but hardly an energy concern. There is probably a good deal more pork buried in it, which is why Obama said he would sign it.
The TV newsies haven't said a word about it.
Wednesday, April 20, 2016
How come we need bathroom laws now?
We have had men's rooms and women's rooms since the invention of indoor plumbing. (sometime after the civil war). How come just this year we suddenly need new laws about them? How did we survive 150 years or so with out laws about bathrooms?
Could it be that the foerever-looking-for-a-cause crowd has just discovered a new cause, a wedge issue no less, that they hope to stir up more social unrest?
I saw an internet ad showing a school shower room with the caption "How would you feel about a boy joining your 12 year old daughter in the shower?" I thought about that for a minute. I used to have a 12 year old daughter (she is much older now). I know my daughter was tough enough to handle such a situation, had it arisen. She would have hauled off and slugged the boy. I watched her do something like that back when she was only six.
So I think the republic will survive without passing bathroom laws.
Could it be that the foerever-looking-for-a-cause crowd has just discovered a new cause, a wedge issue no less, that they hope to stir up more social unrest?
I saw an internet ad showing a school shower room with the caption "How would you feel about a boy joining your 12 year old daughter in the shower?" I thought about that for a minute. I used to have a 12 year old daughter (she is much older now). I know my daughter was tough enough to handle such a situation, had it arisen. She would have hauled off and slugged the boy. I watched her do something like that back when she was only six.
So I think the republic will survive without passing bathroom laws.
Tuesday, April 19, 2016
Trusty Desktop is getting old
He is at least ten years old, still running strong, still running XP. I gave him a new power supply maybe five years ago. Lately, the DVD drive stopped working, jammed solid, won't open. I pulled the drive out and got the covers off, but couldn't get it to open.
So I googled for a new one. They are really cheap, $35. There was a time you had to pay more than that for a 5 inch floppy drive. I was about to click it into my cart and go thru the checkout business, when I noticed an acronym, SATA. A vague memory of SATA as a high speed serial interface surfaced from all the sludge sloshing around in my memory. Trusty Desktop used the old flat cable IDE interface.
Ayup. Times have changed, all the new optical drives are SATA, nobody makes the old IDE drives anymore. Maybe E-bay? I'd hate to junk trusty desktop and suffer thru Windows 10 on a new one.
So I googled for a new one. They are really cheap, $35. There was a time you had to pay more than that for a 5 inch floppy drive. I was about to click it into my cart and go thru the checkout business, when I noticed an acronym, SATA. A vague memory of SATA as a high speed serial interface surfaced from all the sludge sloshing around in my memory. Trusty Desktop used the old flat cable IDE interface.
Ayup. Times have changed, all the new optical drives are SATA, nobody makes the old IDE drives anymore. Maybe E-bay? I'd hate to junk trusty desktop and suffer thru Windows 10 on a new one.
Puerto Rico is broke, but cannot declare bankruptcy
Puerto Rico is a US territory, acquired from the Spanish American War of 1898. It's still a territory because several referendums on state hood were voted down over the years. As a territory, Puerto Ricans are US citizens and can leave the island and settle on the mainland anytime and anywhere they wish. Puerto Rico doesn't have to pay federal income tax, but they don't get representation in Congress.
Over the years, the government of Puerto Rico has be spending more than they take in from taxes. They have been covering the shortfall by borrowing, largely from New York banks. The money has run out, and Puerto Rico can't make payments due this year. There just isn't any money in the treasury.
And, thru some lawyer's technicality Puerto Rico cannot declare bankruptcy. Apparently when they wrote the US bankruptcy code they forgot to make any provisions for territories, as opposed to states, cities, corporations and individuals. Puerto Rico has been agitating to get that fixed.
I'm not so sure. Let things work themselves out. The foolish lenders who offered loans to cover operating expenses to a government that would never be able to repay, ought to loose their money. Maybe a good stiff loss will teach bonehead banks a lesson.
And then Puerto Rico will have to figure out how to live within their means. They won't be able to borrow, so they will have to cut spending and hike taxes and collect the taxes on the books. All of these are good things. I hear that half the population of Puerto Rico is drawing some kind of salary from the government. Which is ridiculous.
And I sure don't want to spend my tax money bailing them out.
Over the years, the government of Puerto Rico has be spending more than they take in from taxes. They have been covering the shortfall by borrowing, largely from New York banks. The money has run out, and Puerto Rico can't make payments due this year. There just isn't any money in the treasury.
And, thru some lawyer's technicality Puerto Rico cannot declare bankruptcy. Apparently when they wrote the US bankruptcy code they forgot to make any provisions for territories, as opposed to states, cities, corporations and individuals. Puerto Rico has been agitating to get that fixed.
I'm not so sure. Let things work themselves out. The foolish lenders who offered loans to cover operating expenses to a government that would never be able to repay, ought to loose their money. Maybe a good stiff loss will teach bonehead banks a lesson.
And then Puerto Rico will have to figure out how to live within their means. They won't be able to borrow, so they will have to cut spending and hike taxes and collect the taxes on the books. All of these are good things. I hear that half the population of Puerto Rico is drawing some kind of salary from the government. Which is ridiculous.
And I sure don't want to spend my tax money bailing them out.
Monday, April 18, 2016
Windows Washing Time
Youngest son was up for the weekend. Good time. Anyhow he used my trusty desktop to do some email, and then he said "Dad, your computer is REALLY slow." Well, yeah it had been slowing down bit by bit over time. Youngest son suggested blowing Firefox away and then re installing clean.
So last night I started in on it.
Ran Spybot Search&Destroy. It found and zapped a buncha cookies, and some registry keys, none of which sounded particularly dangerous, but you never know. Zapped them all.
Then go for a clean install of Firefox. Fire up Internet Exploder, Bing for firefox, click on the first reply, and then leave. Click on Start->Settings->AddRemoveProgram. Hit remove on Mozilla Firefox. That goes OK. Double check. Fire up regedit and search the registry for keys containing Firefox. Zap most of 'em, skip keys that look like pointers to Firefox for other programs to use.
Go back to Internet Exploder and click on Download. This is not so good. It tries to get me to download a couple of suspicious programs, a driver updater and a speed-me-up program. Won't take no for an answer, both Yes and NO buttons get you to the download page. Finally get to the Firefox download. That trundles along for minutes, and then croaks.
So, restart Internet Exploder, Bing for Firefox again. Read the dozens of hits. Second hit down is the official Mozilla website. Click on that, and Firefox downloads and installs smoothly. No suspicious extra programs. Click on Help and then About, and Firefox updates it self to version 45. And my bookmarks still work. Moral of the story, If you Google for a something and get a bunch of hits, read each hit, try for the hit that looks like it's the maker's website. By this time Trusty Desktop is running faster. More like his old self.
Download MalwareBytes, and run it. It gets 11 hits, all on something names PUP.whatever. Zap those.
Start up Microsoft's Malicious Software Removal Tool. Select "all files". It's been running for 20 minutes now and has four hits. It's still running. I'll zap all hits when it finishes.
So, Spring Cleaning for Windows.
1. Empty the recycle bin and delete any files you don't need/want
2. Run every antivirus you have, and you trust.
So last night I started in on it.
Ran Spybot Search&Destroy. It found and zapped a buncha cookies, and some registry keys, none of which sounded particularly dangerous, but you never know. Zapped them all.
Then go for a clean install of Firefox. Fire up Internet Exploder, Bing for firefox, click on the first reply, and then leave. Click on Start->Settings->AddRemoveProgram. Hit remove on Mozilla Firefox. That goes OK. Double check. Fire up regedit and search the registry for keys containing Firefox. Zap most of 'em, skip keys that look like pointers to Firefox for other programs to use.
Go back to Internet Exploder and click on Download. This is not so good. It tries to get me to download a couple of suspicious programs, a driver updater and a speed-me-up program. Won't take no for an answer, both Yes and NO buttons get you to the download page. Finally get to the Firefox download. That trundles along for minutes, and then croaks.
So, restart Internet Exploder, Bing for Firefox again. Read the dozens of hits. Second hit down is the official Mozilla website. Click on that, and Firefox downloads and installs smoothly. No suspicious extra programs. Click on Help and then About, and Firefox updates it self to version 45. And my bookmarks still work. Moral of the story, If you Google for a something and get a bunch of hits, read each hit, try for the hit that looks like it's the maker's website. By this time Trusty Desktop is running faster. More like his old self.
Download MalwareBytes, and run it. It gets 11 hits, all on something names PUP.whatever. Zap those.
Start up Microsoft's Malicious Software Removal Tool. Select "all files". It's been running for 20 minutes now and has four hits. It's still running. I'll zap all hits when it finishes.
So, Spring Cleaning for Windows.
1. Empty the recycle bin and delete any files you don't need/want
2. Run every antivirus you have, and you trust.
Sunday, April 17, 2016
What does NASA do that is worthwhile?
Worthwhile like Apollo say. Apollo worked, and put America into the history books for ever. What is NASA doing today? Paying $30 million a seat to the Russians for a ride to the ISS? Buying Russian made rocket engines for the ULA Atlas booster? Launching a few robot probes?
Are we getting our money's worth?
The only real history making mission left is a manned Mars mission. This is within today's technology. I've seen plans to send the assent stage to Mars, making a soft landing under remote control. Then sending a second one just in case something breaks. Then setting up a nuclear powered chemical plant to synthesize fuel for the return trip from Martian air, soil, and perhaps water. Then using five Space-X Falcon 9's to boost a Mars mission, crew capsule, and lander into orbit. Four man crew. Doable out of the current NASA budget. Within a few years.
This would be a history book mission. Why don't we do it?
Are we getting our money's worth?
The only real history making mission left is a manned Mars mission. This is within today's technology. I've seen plans to send the assent stage to Mars, making a soft landing under remote control. Then sending a second one just in case something breaks. Then setting up a nuclear powered chemical plant to synthesize fuel for the return trip from Martian air, soil, and perhaps water. Then using five Space-X Falcon 9's to boost a Mars mission, crew capsule, and lander into orbit. Four man crew. Doable out of the current NASA budget. Within a few years.
This would be a history book mission. Why don't we do it?
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