Sunday, August 28, 2016

Things I would like to hear Trump say.

1.  Repeal Sarbanes-Oxley.  It's a huge law on corporate governance.  Requires corporations to furnish thousands of pounds of paperwork to the feds.  It is so onerous that it decourages creation of new companies, startups.
2.  Allow health insurance companies to sell policies in every state of the union.  WithOUT having to do another thousand pounds of paper work for each of the 50 state governments.  I can get a cheaper policy if I can choose from many companies instead of being limited to one. 
3.  Allow duty free import of any medicine from all reasonable first world countries.  Starting with Canada and the countries of the EU and Japan.  If the health authority of a first world country has approved the medicine for its own citizens then it is OK for American citizens too.  FDA will scream and shout, but they don't vote.  Many medicines are available overseas or in Canada for half the price changed in the US.
4.  Stop the war on coal.  It throws miners out of work and raises the price of electricity for all.
5.  Lease federal land for oil exploration.  Obama has totally shut off  oil exploration on federal land at the behest of the greenies. 
6.  Approve the Keystone XL pipeline project.  We need the oil.  Pipelines spill less than oil tanker trains.
7.  Repeal the "Corporate Average Fuel Economy" (CAFE) rules.  Consumers will apply plenty of pressure for better fuel economy on Detroit.  We don't need  complicated and expensive federal regulation that establishes impossible-to-meet goals.
8.  Repeal the alcohol mandate on gasoline.  It takes nearly as much energy to make the alcohol as we get back when we burn it.  The corn farmers will  cry loudly but there aren't all that many farmers any more.
9.  Close down the federal department of education.  Let private lenders furnish student loans.  State and local governments run  and pay for all the schools anyway.  We don't need to pay for a bunch of federal bureaucrats to look over their shoulders and get in the way.

There is probably more, but this will do for a start. 

Saturday, August 27, 2016

The Double NIckel Rides Again

Back after the 1973 oil shock, a cry went up that we could save fuel and cut accidents with a national speed limit of 55 miles per hour.  And so it was.  Congress passed it, the president signed it, and every speed limit sign the length and breadth of America was replaced with new ones reading 55 MPH.
    And everyone hated it.  No one drove any slower, and traffic cops had a field day.  Since everyone was driving well over the limit, they could ticket everyone on the road.
    It took a while, years actually, but the double nickel speed limit was finally repealed.  In a matter of a few days all the speed limit signs were changed back to 65 and 70.
    Yesterday the bureaucrats decided to try again.  They limited their efforts to trucks and buses to avoid political backlash from everybody in the country.  Rather than a speed limit, they want to install speed governors on all big trucks and buses.  The bureaucrats claim it will save fuel and reduce accidents.
  Yeah right.  The professional drivers of heavy trucks and buses are the safest on the road.  They signal, they yield the right of way, they stay in lane, they don't tailgate.  The accident rate for heavy commercial vehicles is far lower than for private automobiles.  And who can make a better tradeoff between fuel economy and getting the cargo delivered on time, trucking companies or federal bureaucrats?
   Question.  How much money did the makers of governors contribute to the Clinton Slush Fund? 

Friday, August 26, 2016

Is This For Real???

Shrink claims 60% of college students are crazy.   
   This shrink has a pretty low standard, he clearly thinks everyone needs a head shrinker. 

Record sales don't count anymore

Records (and CD's) aren't selling much anymore.  So they are now counting the number of Internet downlords.

Thursday, August 25, 2016

Corn is as high as an elephant's eye....

Drove down to Nashua (NH) Monday afternoon.  A good deal of backroad driving mixed with a bit of I91.  On the back roads, stands of fresh green corn, 6 or 7 feet tall, looking very good indeed.  Caught my eye they did.  These corn patches looked as good as ones I saw in Nebraska many years ago. 
  So this morning National Progressive Radio was wailing about the drought up here, claiming that all crops in NH and MA had been ruined, how farmers were switching to "sustainable" crops, and in general lamenting the ruination of New England farming.  They didn't come right out and blame it on global warming, but they wanted to. 
   How come the corn crops looked so good when all else is going to rack and ruin?  NPR never bothered to furnish us listeners with numbers, like average rainfall (inches) and this summer's rainfall (inches).  Numbers repel newsies. 

Wednesday, August 24, 2016

What I might say to kids going off to school

My three children all made in thru college in one piece, so I don't have to make these points to them anymore.  But I thought I might share some of them with my blogoverse.

1.  Don't get falling down drunk at parties.  You go to parties to meet people, to chat, maybe dance, to show yourself off, to have a good time.  None of this works if you pass out on the floor, drunk.  Plus it makes a negative impression upon everyone there.  Plus girls are likely to get raped after they get drunk.  If you just have to drink til you are wasted, do it on dorm, with some trusty friends around.

2.  Know that everything you post on line, email, facebook, twitter, blogs, what ever, never goes away.  And everybody can read it, friends, enemies, future employers,  the FBI should you go for a security clearance, robo callers, everybody.  So don't post things that might be embarrassing after you graduate.  No racy pictures, no ethnic jokes,  stories of sexual encounters, nothing that you wouldn't feel good about showing to your parents, and posting on the down town bulletin board.

3.  Do your homework, do it the afternoon or evening it is assigned.  Start with the first day of class.  Classwork is mostly a discussion of how to solve the homework problems.  If you haven't at least tried the homework, the entire class discussion won't mean diddly to you.

4.  Think hard about how you will make your living after graduation.  Pick a major that makes you more employable in your chosen field.  There is little to zero demand for art history majors, sociology majors, gender studies majors, anthropology majors, or ethnic studies majors.  And a bunch of other majors.  Talk your major over with someone you trust.  DO NOT trust a college advisor, they know little, and try to steer you into their favorite major.  

5. Go out for a sport, everyone needs the exercise.

6.  Guys need to be super careful in relationships with girls.  The girl can turn on you, accuse you of rape, haul you in front of a campus kangaroo court, and get you expelled, with a rape charge on your record.  The careful guy gets to know the chick before having sex with her.

Good luck.

Tuesday, August 23, 2016

MacBeth the 2015 version with Michael Fassbender

It turned up on Netflix and I rented it this weekend.  They obvious spent a lot of money on it, but the curse of the sound man ruined it for me.  I simply could not understand the dialog.  The actors mumbled or whispered, the mikes were poorly placed and the soundman mixed the score and the sound effects over the dialog.  It was so bad I gave up and turned the DVD player off before it finished.  
   Hollywood is hurting if they cannot even do Shakespeare.