Send Your Name to Mars on the Mars 2020 Mission

N.A.S.A. is placing anyone's name that cares to on a chip aboard the Mars 2020 mission. The little Rover will see the sights and report.

This is the website... https://mars.nasa.gov/participate/send-your-name/mars2020

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Isn't It Time to Rethink Shoes

Isn't it time to rethink shoe manufacture in the United States? American shoes for ordinary people have been made in China, Thailand or elsewhere far too much since the end of the Sally Fields-Paul Newman era. Bring shoe manufacture back to the United States with three-part designer print on demand shoes.

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-48360373

Every shoe-store and Wal-mart could have print on demand three part shoes made for the customer live. It would end the need to send so many jobs overseas.

Store shoe production could have pre-fabbed mesh with spray on materials. There could be air-filled inner soles. Modular pieces could snap or lock together, perhaps be removable-even transformative. Innumerable ways and menus for custom and standard models could be selected by a customer.

For Democrats It's 'How Do I Hate Thee Trump, Let Me Count the Ways'

The title holder for that dubious honor must be Abraham Lincoln. He might have been qualitatively hated as much as quantitatively. After that maybe people thought rudely of Herbert Hover. President Trump is hated by Democrats, yet that is very partisan. They hated Richard Nixon equally well. George W. Bush was badly thought of by many Democrats and even some Republicans.

People even hated Ronald Reagan. Riding a Greyhound bus from Reno circa 1981 I remember a guy with a Bohemian accent saying aloud the first ten miles- “Ronald Reagan, Donald Duck, Ronald Reagan, Donald Duck…”

Can Pres Trump Fix the V.A. or Would House Democrats 'Gin to Spite Him?

Why the V.A. hospital system doesn't work is an enigma wrapped in a mystery. Various Presidents have appointed generals to lead it that work and drift to retirement without making it resemble any sort of state of the art facility. President Trump might be the right guy to fix the system yet House Democrats might vote against any sort of upgrade of the system just to spite the President.

Why the system is broken at least is part could be something related to the inability of administrators at particular hospitals to hire and fire their own people to work there. In the private sector hospital administrators can hire and fire people without concern for civil service and union sorts of things that make personnel choice non-discretionary for the administrator. Maybe President Trump could design some kind of work around so hospital staff can be improved in quality.

Not all V.A. staff are over-promoted bureaucrats by any means. Some are quite good. Often they soon move on. Why? That is beyond my knowledge. With all the money they need apparently, the hospitals just don't have a good patient trough-put rate at least for dentists. Maybe the President needs to find some highly qualified hospital administrator and systems analyst to discover why individual hospitals cannot be upgraded in efficiency and patient satisfaction.

US Bridgework Outreach to Former Foreign Allies

Russia was an ally in the Second World War. Democrats have made them feel less than best friends. England was an old adversary from the war of 1812 and for their support of the confederacy, yet that was overcome when we blundered into WW I. Even so the Muslim mayor has put out the I hate Trump sign in London.

China routinely hates on America but loves the way capitalists are fulfilling Lenin’s maxim about selling us the rope we hang them with. Mexico has tended to be an adversary as was Canada yet the later was on the allied side in WW II, so we forget that war was only necessary because of our blundering into the first war.

Switzerland has been a good ally receiving deposits of rich people that don’t want to be traced. Australia is sometimes a friend for practical reasons concerning China and England. Poland is and ally because it is obsessive about Russia. Germany is like an ally because it declared war on us in the Second World War yet graciously lost so became good friends. The same applies to Japan I guess.

Eastern Europe is a good place to look for allies. Transylvania should be skipped perhaps since it is probably a Democrat stronghold.

Iran was a friendly nation; mildly, until the C.I.A. coup to get rid of the Prime Minister and restore the Shah in 1953. The Iran parliament had nationalized British oil fields so the fear of communism led to the paranoid response. The Saudi did the same later and no coup was launched. After the next conflict with Iran is over and the dust settles maybe Islamic radicalism can be overcome and a new age of decadence be constructed, some would think destructive, in Teheran.

France is a good ally because its women sound so nice speaking that language. The guys should speak German perhaps to sound more macho. France is more of a neutral in military affairs, yet is wedded to the European Community these days while England is in the midst of a sloppy, contested divorce with that clan.

Building bridges to those people will have to wait until the bridges are paid for in Afghanistan and Iraq where our new friends are, if something less than allies.

Make the China Trade War Become a 50-Year Trade Ban

American farmers had plenty of customers before the China trade took off. There are still plenty of hungry people on Earth, so the China trade war may actually be a blessing in disguise to American farmers as it may require some intelligent political work to provide some cooperative leadership making adjustments.

China is a large market as well as producer, so taking it off-line from the United States can only be for the good for Americans concerned about getting global capitalists to locate state-of-the-art manufacturing technology in the United States if they want to sell to American consumers.

Nearly fifty million Americans have less than a half of one percent of the national income. Wealth is largely concentrated in the United States in the hands of a small minority of the people. 

What I mean is that there are perhaps one-hundred million citizens that could use a pay increase, stable employment with benefits and good wages. The 1% that own everything have gutted benefits and job stability in the midst of all of their outsourcing and downsizing. They have let the national infrastructure decay and failed to invest in America. They have even had vast tax cuts in order to invest in China. They hide behind the middle and upper middle class in order to prevent tax increases for themselves too.

The most wealth have transferred so much technology to China as well as manufacturing that the United States is losing its creative edge. America has some of the slowest internet and train speed in the first world. There is vast public debt- 22 trillion dollars of it. People would like to see the United States actually get better technologically, economically and environmentally becoming leaders again in mass social improvement. Quitting the China trade could help accomplish that. Hopefully the trade war will escalate to a trade ban for half a century.

Why Should Congress Be Free to Use Tax Returns to Harass a President?

Should a party of losers (the Democrats) in the last Presidential election be free to demand the President's tax returns in order to have more material to harass him with? If there was anything criminal in the tax returns the I.R.S. should have caught that the past few decades. Exploiting tax returns without plain evidence of a crime is a fishing expedition to harass the President and to try to do him financial and political injury while they can.

Sure the most rich should pay higher taxes. Using the President's tax returns to learn his business practices better and to have material to use against him in the 2020 Presidential campaign is simply hitting below the belt.

Democrats in Congress have shown a lack of class and integrity in pursuing the President through any and all means after the Mueller Report was not able to recommend some sort of indictment or plain proof of Donald Trump working with Russians through some illegal means to snatch the job of President from Hillary Clinton's outstretched hands.

 The talk of impeachment before an election is even worse; there are no impeachable offenses, or a single impeachable offense that anyone is aware of. Democrats just don't like President Trump. Democrats were the party of slavery, and the master mentality seems to infect the party leadership still such that they feel a right to have their way all the way to hell. Impeaching the President not for getting blow jobs in the Oval Office or lying under oath to Congress, but for defending himself lawfully against a year's-long Democrat hate party seeking to cut off his nuts politically with the full mob leadership mentality of the broadcast media (though not 100% of that group), is the work of a desperate party without good ideas that would get them elected for-themselves,

Salt and the Confederacy

Salt being necessary for preserving meat was important to the southern forces. Before refrigeration curing meat meant salt. Mobile troops required transportable preserved meat.

Before the war the southern states imported most salt from the Caribbean. It used vast amounts of salt- 450 million pounds annually according to one author.

The Salt Wars

During the war a Union naval blockade stopped that. The south had to scramble to keep the food supply viable.

“Starving the South: How the North Won the Civil War” by Andrew F. Smith

Florida was a slave state that contributed 15,000 troops to the war effort. The state with several salt works produced much southern supply. The largest salt works were at St. Andrews and Apalachee Bay.

The working conditions at salt works was often very hard. The confederates employed slaves at some sites in harsh conditions. Many died on the job. Alabama had an especially cruel salt works.

Alabama Civil War Site: Bon Secour Salt Works

Another important salt works was at Saltville VA. Union General George Stoneman twice attacked it. In the second battle he tore up the works and railroad tracks and took out the production a couple of months. The damage to the tracks lasted longer. It was the main eastern producer for the rebels.

Salt in the American Civil War - Wikipedia

I have wondered if one of the causes of General Lee’s starving troops was the damage to various salt works and the broken supply lines. Some confederate soldiers of the Army of Virginia went barefoot toward the end while thousands of pairs of boots were in warehouses in North Carolina that capitalists would not surrender to the war effort. Mass quantities of salt and food production sights, hog farms and so forth became scarce toward the end perhaps, comparable to Nazi production and supply attrition.

Democrat Candidates Seek Formation of Fake Christian Left

Some Democratic Presidential candidates are seeking to establish a fake Christianity for leftists that is non-trinitarian and basically Socinianism with worldiness substantial enough  to normalize favorite Democrat Party sins.

The problem of fake version of Christianity that allow sin as doctrinally hunkie dorrie is that the followers may well be, and most likely are lost. With universal literacy it would require fake Bibles with fake gospel to support homosexual marriage and abortion as sound doctrine for anyone to avoid knowing that the Christian left doctrines are godless.

Socinianism formed about the same time as the reformation and accepted the outward forms of Christianity stripped of the Trinity. It promoted reason over Biblical common sense interpretation. The pastors of Geneva took it as an insult to be called Socinians during the 16th century. Later of course, even the Unitarian Church of Transylvania accepted Socinian doctrine. The evolution of the Democratic Party faithlessness toward expropriating and gutting sound Christian doctrine is a logic progression.

Put Economic Sanctions on China Permanently?

There are some solid issues that need to be resolved regarding China trade policy. It is unfortunate that a trade war was needed to get the attention of the Chinese Dictator for Life.

There are short, middle and long range repercussions for failing to solve unfair trade practices and bring them to an honest and balanced footing. A Business Insider article said there were three primary issues of the trade war; intellectual-property rules, government subsidies, and enforcement mechanisms.

https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/us-china-trade-war-major-sticking-points-2019-5-1028215587#intellectual-property-rules1

One cannot just ignore the corruption of China’s communist party permisiveness for disregarding patents, copyrights and so forth with lax enforcement or support for illicit use of proprietary material. There is a great information transfer going on from the west to China. That is all good for China and not so good for western producers of proprietary material. If that situation continues it is a reason to stop doing business with China and instead work with just Taiwan and Vietnam.

American businesses that want to produce in China are required to have a majority Chinese partner and open all technology accounts to the Chinese. It is a forced technology transfer in effect. That Communist redistribution rule is the cost of doing business in a Communist ruled nation. If China cannot bring itself to respect property rights of intellectual products the Trump administration might need to simply ban doing business with China eventually.

China also has government subsidies for business and that is unfair for western corporations. Honestly though, that is what communist or socialist governments do so it seems irrational to expect something else. American businesses want the cheap Chinese production costs and access to the large and growing Chinese consumer market for sales. President Trump has noticed that China isn’t willing to budge on just doing business western-style without government support for business (although America offers subsidies to businesses with (for example) the oil depletion tax allowances that are perhaps a form of back-door subsidy. A proper Confucian rectification of business would eliminate both Chinese government business subsidies and the oil depletion tax allowance.