A Peaceful, Easy Feeling

People seem to be getting on with it. Time to get back to work, to play,  plan a vacation, start a new job , normal life stuff. We dodged a bullet and while Washington is still a sucking , festering swamp, it is not out to kill us every day. I no longer worry about some new thing that will make another part of my life illegal or worse. Time perspectives are moving longer, people are not expecting results every day. I sense it in the conversations I have with folks. The greeter at the car dealer, the office manager at the excavation company, the waiter at the local diner, the eye doctor and the lathe operator. A calmness , a feeling that things are okay. People are… Continue reading

Small Pleasures In Living

I am one of those folks who really needs to avoid carbs. I found out the hard way that if I cut out carbs and do moderate exercise I lose weight and feel great, and if I eat carbs and do moderate exercise I gain weight. It gets worse as I age. So I got into paleo eating and found it cut my arthritis pain by 80% and for those stretches where work has me sitting too much, I do not gain weight. It also serves my predilection for grilled meat. A crisis had me cut a deal with the Red Headed Irish Wisecracker, when I needed her to get back in the saddle and run a client’s office who lost a long time employee while teetering on… Continue reading

Just Curious About Russiamania

 Is it me or are we getting as a nation a bit crazy on the Russian thing? They are a people badly led who are trying to get some for their country with a lousy hand of cards. Is anyone here worried that they are doing anything we do not expect? The fix to beat back Russia is letting them know where we will stop them and oil in the $40 range. Are they going to play cyber games? Of course, along with every other nation and private groups, including us. What am I missing? If Trump was a Russian stooge, his moves on oil , gas and coal are about as bad as can be for Russia. Someone tell me where I am wrong here. I am… Continue reading

A Curmudgeon Drives With A Flux Capacitor.

This weekend was fun living in the future. My vehicle strategy is a bit off the norm, I have a tendency to buy new, well equipped and heavily warrantied vehicles near each other in time and then proceed to drive them for ten to twenty years.  Our faithful companions are being retired, one going to number one son who has had his eye on it for years -(2000 Lincoln LS V8)  and the other either being donated or sold to a needy family who is desperate for basic transportation (1998 Ford Expedition). My   F-150 crew cab is on order at the factory, but today’s treatise is about the Red Headed Irish Wisecracker’s  new ride, the Explorer Platinum Edition. I ended up with this one because it was: A:… Continue reading

C-ship

C-ship: Exploring special relativity

Here’s what I’ve been doing the last week.  I’m not going to call this a Saturday night science post lest I find myself on a treadmill like at the other place, and besides it’s Sunday morning and before long the silly clock changing thing will kick in.  I’d hoped to wrap this up hours ago, but little did I expect that a bizarre confluence of IPv6, Gmail anti-spam filters, and obscure sendmail.cf configuration parameters would devour my entire day. In 1995, I posted C-ship, in which I used a notional ship able to accelerate at a constant rate of up to 100 metres per second per second and ray-traced images and animations to provide an intuitive sense of how one perceives spacetime when travelling at a substantial fraction of… Continue reading

Winning

We just won a huge victory on the health care bill, and most people don’t even realize it yet.   The failure of the current bill was a godsend for those who are serious about repealing Obamacare.   Going forward, Trump can now say that he did everything he could to support the GOP establishment version of this process.   It will cost him nothing to now turn around and try and alternative approach. On the other hand it will cost to Paul Ryan everything to resist that. Paul Ryan and his guys tried to cram this thing down our throats with threats and blackmail. Trump supporter at it, no matter what, to the hilt. Nobody on the hill can say that they were not supported by the… Continue reading

Told Ya So…

Bend Over, Here It Comes! I like Trump, but he blew it like you read about. We’ve all known since 2010 that Boehner/Ryan/P.Sessions/McCarthy/Cornyn are a bunch of rent-a-democrats dressed up in Republican suits. Trump bought their bullshit hook, line, and sinker. His admin is weakened and stained and he has nobody to blame but the guy watching him shave in the mirror tomorrow morning. Trump ran on repeal and free market replacement. Republicans have both houses primarily because of their promise to repeal the ACA. Republicans had one job: repeal Obamacare. This was a layup, a 6″ putt, etc. just do it. These clowns couldn’t even start a rock fight, let alone screw one up. I can’t wait until Aetna, United Health, Blue Whatever are all begging for MediTarp… Continue reading

Next Round

Joel Pollack has an interesting take on the President. He has been a calm and unfevered supporter for a while and is worth reading. His latest on the health insurance  fubar in the House is  here: http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/03/24/health-care-bill-failure-art-of-the-deal/ I do know Trump had been signaling the message to the voters that if this failed, they would get stuck with what they had. A lot of folks made the perfect the enemy of the good on this one, but given the lack of will it was too cumbersome too succeed. I recommend they keep OCare for those that want it and let the rest of us have real insurance. “If you like your overpriced coverage and limited doctors and high deductables, you can keep it until no one offers it.”… Continue reading