Guard Dog

Western Alienation was something we heard a lot about from Canada back in the 90's. Quebec is always rumbling about secession but in their case they are a country within a country. But the western provinces have been in the same situation as our "deplorable" "flyover" states. The costal liberals look down their noses at them with a mixture of disgust and patronizing contempt. Looks like this is still a thing: https://www.politico.com/news/2019/10/29/justin-trudeau-victory-canada-wexit-060634

That will never happen when you remove the accountability of cost from the provider away from the end user. People want widgets. Some people can't afford widgets. So the government subsidizes the ability of the people to pay for widgets. The cost of widgets does not go down. Costs go down when widget sellers are competing with each other. When consumers buy more widgets from places that sell widgets cheaper. I can reduce the cost of health insurance right this very instant: let any seller sell any policy to anyone who wants it anywhere from sea to shining sea. The other reason it will never happen is nothing has ever been suggested about lowering operational costs for providers. Reduce their regulatory burden. Pass tort reform that limits punitive damages. That will lower their insurance costs. All costs are ultimately paid by the end user. Including taxes, fees, regulatory costs and things that have nothing to do with the service rendered that day. There are numerous places the government jack boot can be eased off the necks of providers that lower their costs and ultimately end user costs. Not happening. The ruling class is very, very jealous of it's powers and prerogatives and will never give anything back once they have passed it. No matter how much it might help. The government is not in the business of helping people.

Info on Medi-Care for all funding in the US. I'll save you some reading: you won't get there by taxing the rich. If you took every penny they had, killed them and sold their organs on the black market and made wallets from their skin to sell on EBAY it would not even get you half way there. If you want free health care you are going to have to pay for it. And pay dearly. (No I was not being intentionally ironic). http://www.crfb.org/papers/choices-financing-medicare-all-preliminary-analysis

I watched the Dolphins/Steelrs game last night. Wow the Dolphins are terrible. That is actually only the second NFL game I watched this season. I see what everyone means about poor attendance though. Pittsburgh is not a place I'd expect to see so many empty seats. Maybe the NFL has priced the average fan right out of the stadium. Not sure what is going on. I know I've largely lost interest in it. Still LOVE college ball. My Saturdays in the fall are sacrosanct. But Sundays... just other things I'd rather do than watch a great game played without passion.

The irritating thing about US politics is, as someone mentioned earlier, "whataboutisim". You cannot speak about Trump's wrongs, faults, and flaws without hearing about the Democrats. Everyone is just on the cusp of saying it.... why don't they say it???? So I'll do it.: "Yes the Democrats are f----d up. Yes they are greedy, power hungry, overbearing, would-be-tyrants. Yes they mean to let the ANTIFA and "Democrat" Socialists set push them into power and then ignore them until the next election (thank God for that part). Yes they do hate freedom and the Constitution (except when it benefits them). Yes, they do want to kick down your doors and take things away from you they would never deprive themselves of. Yes they are clueless about economics and only view political power as a path to personal enrichment. None of that makes Trump OK. And yes, he actually did do all the things he's accused of doing. Just calling it a witch hunt does not mean there isn't a witch! And this is the most important part of all... everything I said about the Democrats is equally true about the Republicans!. They still have the gall to call themselves the champions of liberty while handing down laws that put people in prison for life for non-violent offenses. They call themselves the defenders of the 2nd Amd while passing Red Flag laws. Imminent Domain? Civil Asset Forfeiture? Opposing Gay Marriage? None of these are the positions of "defenders of personal liberty". Add to that they are actually defending Trump when they KNOW he's wrong means they haven't a shred of integrity between them. Except people like Justin Amash whom they pointed towards the door. The D & R are all bad. The promise things they cannot, and have no intention of delivering. They are not fighting for you. They do not "care" about you. Hell they don't even like you. The only like money. And both parties will and do sell you out for it. Who is the biggest beneficiary of Obamacare? The "evil" insurance companies! They are selling a product you are now required to buy and other people are forced to help you do it! You see where I'm going here?" And do you all know WHY that is all true? Because no matter how selfish, divisive, ineffectual, hell downright evil they become 40% of the country is going to fight a different 40% over which one gets the power to do whatever they please. The only way to stop it is to vote 3rd party candidates into office. Break the D&R monopoly. Make elections competitive where the support of the partisan 40% can no longer be taken for granted and the Donkeys and Elephants will clean up their own houses. Those third party candidates don't even need to be good. And IDGAF which party they come from. It's not about them. It's about breaking this two party finger trap we are in. OK, rant over.

Doesn't that sound like something on of Kim Jong Il's minions would say?

Nuts to that! Once the government is out of the way I'm going to dam Cold Creek and use the spillway to turn a turbine. I'll take kinetic/piezioelectric energy over this photoelectric crap any day!

The power blackouts in CA inspired me to pick up a project I'd dropped some time ago: making my house energy independent. I've been looking at how to do this for a few years and the solution is actually easy... but expensive and inconvenient. Right now I have two solar panels for a total of 1100' sq. They are connected in series to four 12V lead acid batteries. The whole system in full sun produces 4A to charge the 240AH 48V DC system. That is connected to an inverter. The inverter's output is connected in parallel to the input from the power utility. So the house draws off both sources equally because Kirchoff said it does. It is possible to separate the two by means of a transfer switch. I already have one for my generator. But, if I put the solar system on a transfer switch I can't use it unless I disconnect the utility (via the switch). It is either/or then. The other problem is demand. Inverters are very inefficient because of a pair physical phenomenon called hysteresis and THD. These are problems that inverters, by design, overcome but I'll sum it up this way: it costs you power to make power. So although my battery string has a 240AH (theoretical) capacity the inefficiencies of the inverter mean we really only get a little over half in AC power capacity. As you use batteries their voltage drops. As an inverters input drops it's output drops. Household electronics do NOT like that. So I have a low voltage cut off set at 42V. My house draws between 60 and 75 amps off the utility. Shut down the AC & water heater and you cut that nearly in half. So if I keep the total demand under 40A the solar system can theoretically power the house for 3 hours give or take until the batteries are dead. But because of the LVD they will never run that long. The drain curve on those batteries at 40A has them hitting the LVD after about 50 minutes. After that.... lights out So the trick here is to either reduce demand, increase solar system capacity, or better batteries. Well, solar panels are expensive, bulky and you only get 2A for every 300' sq of surface area. Ideally four panels each charging it's own battery is the way to go, But, they MUST be close to your house because the cabling between them and your batteries has impedance which increases with cable length. There is no perfect transmission medium. Your yard gets cluttered pretty quick. Increasing panel capacity to add batteries isn't the best way to go IMO. I was looking at replacing the batteries with hi capacity (200 AH 12V AGM) models. Expensive. Four GNB Marathon FTX would have a capacity of 800AH with a much more gradual drop curve. At 40A they could power the house for 8 hours give or take. The idea behind using only the solar system to have sufficient capacity to keep the power on until the sun comes back up and charges the system, The question is if the 4A the panels produce is sufficient to charge those batteries. The answer is yes with a "but". The "but" is not in one days charging cycle. If anyone has any ideas I'd love to hear them

Trump is now accusing Obama of treason: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/washington-secrets/trump-accuses-obama-of-treason-for-spying-on-his-2016-campaign It's usually a good idea to know the definition of a word before using it. But, I guess not for elected kings.

Eew. There it would sit then!

Oh yeah, I've read all of McCarthy's works. Blood Meridian was far from his best. No Country For Old Men was far and away his best work. Even the movie was outstanding. The book, of course, more so. All the Pretty Horses and the two that roughly follow the same storyline are pretty good. The Road was really good. His older books from the sixties are just ok. But if you read nothing else from him, No Country For Old Men should not be missed.

Yesterday Trump said they are building a wall in Colorado. Thanks God! Soon we will all be safe from Coors beer, legalized pot and disreputable characters like @ShadySands & John Elway!

Now that is what you call a good news - bad news post!

Oh no argument from me there. I won't even see it until it comes out on Amazon. We're talking next summer here most likely. I actually liked what they did in TLJ though. Luke Skywalker, the hero who was going to save the galaxy grew up to be an embittered man, living alone, and brooding on his failures. A man who did not become the person he thought he would be. Mister, now THERE is a character I can identify with!

Just my opinion. I might be wrong. It is a theory that fits the facts though.

Well, they DID give away who Rey was in the last Jedi. And one line from the trailer of this one confirmed it. To me at least.

Am I the only one that is just expecting them to lay a rotten egg with the new Star Wars movie? Maybe GoT Season 8 has soured my faith.

I have zero love and respect for Hillary Clinton. I hold her in lower regard than a strange insect found on the wall of my house that may or may not be venomous. But she is not stupid. However these groundless accusations that Gabbard, Stein, and apparently others are willing or oblivious Russian agents leads me to believe she has either taken leave of her sense or really thinks the "media" outlets that are subservient to her will carry the water on what she knows is a lie. Well, don't know about the former but the latter is certainly true.

I bought two books this morning: &

Hi Pixies nice to see you here classing the joint up.

I could never really get into Joyce. I read Ulysses and appreciated what he was trying to do with it but is just wasn't my kind of thing. I couldn't do anything at all with Finnegan's Wake. It was just a hot mess IMO. But, there is always this:

I've always found Hemingway very readable. He certainly wasted no words. If you want to live in the 1920's with the Lost Generation for a brief time he's your man. Jack London is one of my all time favorites but my favorite work of his was far from his most popular: The Sea Wolf. But Wolf Larson is one of the best characters in all of American literature IMO. All of London's stores were set in the late 1800's. He passed away during WWI, don't remember the exact date. The Great Gatsby was a great novel. I love the closing line of the novel, absolutely poetic. Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury is a easy read of life in the the American south in the '20's. The Great Depression was actually happening there well before Black Tuesday and that book follows a family through it. If you are interested in classics that put you IN the Great Depression look no further than John Steinbeck. Particularly The Grapes of Wrath.