Why results matter

People hate Trump because he’s not an idealist, he’s a realist. The thing that matters most to the Donald is results. He’s also not a statesman, a healer, a bring-us-together guy, or much of a nice guy. He’s a sonavabitch. He probably secretly wants to be liked but he seems to be oblivious to constant, withering criticism levelled at him not just from true conservatives, all liberals, most mainstream media and a lot of the rest of the world. From the moment he announced he was running for President he was the target of attacks from just about every corner of the establishment. The attacks continued unabated up to and through the election process. The week before November 8th, 2016, the New York Times gave him about a 10% chance of winning. He was a clown. A pretender.  A homophobe. A racist. A xenophobe. It would be a disaster. A catastrophe. This was true by rule. It was an a’ priori truth. Nothing else mattered. He was wrong. He was opposed. He couldn’t win. In fact, even though he won, it’s still likely the Times would have not changed their prediction. In their opinion, he couldn’t win because he shouldn’t win. Hell, I believed it. I’ve shared before and I’ll share again, I voted for Hillary Clinton for lots of reasons. Part of it was reading columns written by people I trusted who considered him dangerous and well, he was. Then, I was amused beyond-what’s-proper when the clown won. Why? Part of the reason is it’s always fun to watch a pin jabbed into the big, over-inflated, self-righteous balloon called bi-coastal liberalism. The idea that a candidate can label “fly overs” as “deplorable” for their beliefs in God and guns is part of that bi-coastal prejudice. A prejudice for which they are proud. Seeing mainstream media look sick was kinda fun. They also can’t be wrong, (by rule of course) so watching them rationalise the whole thing was a scream. Because the left believes in “whatever means necessary.” I get it. They’re righteous. The far right is no less crazy, believe me. But something came out the day of the election. The New York Times printing that Trump had no better than a 10% chance of winning on the eve of the election he won, showed they were oblivious to results and reality. They knew, or should have known, it was a lot closer than 90/10. It just didn’t matter. They would oppose him on principle. The 4th estate was driven to distraction by a reality distortion field. It may not be fake news but it is distorted news. It is distorted by that reality distortion field which says "it doesn't matter what results may come, we believe in our principles and that's more important than any reality." Don't be surprised if fly over deplorables take notice but then the Times isn't aimed there, is it?

The main reason I get nervous over a’ priori (true by definition) “truths” is large bureaucracies are run by process. Government is a large bureaucracy. Process is it’s most important product. Results aren’t the issue. If the rule says lunatics will be released into society to reek havoc, it will be done. Right wing politicians believe in less government. Laissez faire capitalism rules. Standard Oil drives everybody else out of business. That’s not important. Less government is better. If African Americans are denied the vote in the south, or access to schools, well that’s okay because less government says, stand back and let it be. If welfare (ADC) over decades leads to generations of illegitimate children and absentee fathers and rampant crime, so be it. It’s the right thing to do. If the war in Vietnam costs millions of lives and is virtually unwinnable, so what? It’s what we do. Let’s keep it up. Process based decisions made by rule alone aren’t dangerous to the deciders. But they are still right by rule and wrong by result. Those who die or denied their rights by the result do kinda' notice however.

So?

Trump’s not interested in right or left rules? He wants to the know the bottom line? Yeah, I get that feeling. Pisses off the establishment? Yeah. Refuses to apologise for seeking economic independence? I got a kick out of Clinton when he was President because he knew what poverty was all about. A knowledge the Kennedys could never really assimilate because they were theoretical liberals. Bill knew what beanie-weenie tasted like. The results of policies of welfare, like ADC, just didn’t matter to theoretical liberals. It would be done forever because it was a’ priori truth. Bill knew what the RESULTS of long term welfare relief were. Bill was also a results oriented politician when it came to the economy and he made necessary changes not based on theory but on results. Obama was a a social idealist. Militarily he was results oriented. He served two terms.

The conservative establishment is rules based. The liberal establishment is rules based. The majority of the citizens of the United States are more interested in results than rules. You want to know who people are going to vote for in the next election? Some will lock step to the polls and vote for liberals or conservatives, no thought needed. By any means necessary. But most will wait and see and vote what they think is going to work for them. Not everything Trump will author will be the advantage of liberals or conservatives but if he authors enough policies that are to the advantage of most of the voters in the United States don’t be surprised if principles are less important than results. That shouldn’t surprise the New York Times but believe me it scares them to death.

Welome to Paris

Flew in on Aer Lingus through Dublin. Big hit was being 20 yards from a couple of cows who were checking me out sitting on the runway, looking out my plane window at them, awaiting take-off to Paris. They were standing in mud behind a old wooden fence. I got us window seats on the right hand side so we could see the Eiffel Tower as we approached the city and we did.

Wanted to ride their version of the Airport Downtown Express (hello Johnny Wilson, Norman Naquin and Leonard “Shadow” Parfait) to town. The people at the airport thought we were crazy (we are) because it takes forever but we had time to kill before we could check in. The RER B train gets to town in half the time but is no fun.

Actually found the 350 bus after some conversation. Was told it wouldn’t stop at terminal one (international terminal) by the info desk. (Of course after we went to terminal 3 it went back by terminal 1 and stopped) Bought a Carte De Dix (ten ticket T+ paper electronic tickets which is good for two zones - you need three tickets to get to central Paris on the bus) with Euros we purchased/dollar exchanged from our bank back home. The gal at the tourist desk spoke very good English and had a good sense of humor. The ongoing joke is I say something like (written in my Franglish) Es ca vous  comprene l’anglais and the funny answer is no and then watch your reaction as you realize you’re screwed. We both laughed though, it’s a good one. Took the tickets and boarded the shuttle train (CDGVAL)to go to terminal 3 and Roissypole. Asking a few people who work the concessions we figured out how to walk outside and we found the 350 taking a stand at the bus terminal. The driver was pre-occupied and a passenger helped us run the six tickets through the firebox reader. We walked to the back stored our bags under the seats and waited. During the ride to town we got to see the melting pot that greater Paris is. Lots of people from all over the world got on and off. I had to sit with my feet on my bag to make room for all the standees. The disability accessible low floor bus means most of the seats face the aisle or backwards. Better getting on and off but not so good to see the sights. The open wheelchair access areas were taken up with kids in strollers most of the way. Some went up front and paid, some didn’t. The operator was more concerned with traffic, which was considerable. The firebox is behind the driver behind a panel. I’m not sure he can even see it.

We walked along Canal St. Martin (beautiful canal, beautiful day) from Gare d’est (which is a fairly short distance from Gare d’Nord - nobody seems to know why the north and east terminals are so close together) to our hotel (about 3/4 mile) and voila’ our room was ready for us - scare bleu!

I went for a walk over to Republique Square and Ruth laid down to recover from the marathon plane ride and massive jet lag.

Then the fun began.

Several times the door opened (while I was there and while I was walking) with people checking into their room, which we already occupied. This went on for hours Ruth was lagged so bad she was only half awake. I finally went down to the desk and the night clerk said we weren’t in 305, even though I had the electronic keys and a folder with 305 on it. Then he said somebody must have made a mistake. It was he that was making the mistakes, nes pa? Eventually he blamed the computer and finally left us alone to sleep. He couldn’t understand why we were sleeping so much. There was quite a lot he didn’t understand.

Anyway, next day I asked the weekend clerk for some help in booking a double decker bus tour. I asked for a two day ride voucher. He (un-be-knownest to both of us, apparently) sold me a one day with a bateau ride, which the driver at BigBus pointed out to me in writing (French of course) and I just argued for a few minutes and went with the flow. We rode the red route, got off to board the blue route and it started to rain. Then the Blue bus (which is Red, of course) refused to show up. Then the police showed up, Somebody claimed to have planted a bomb down the street and everything was halted. In Republique, the day before we watched a dozen police vehicles with swat show up to respond to a bomb threat. The people at BigBus walked us down three blocks in the driving rain and when we got down there he walked us back three blocks to wait for Godot. Ruth decided to shop. Later the bus showed  up and Ruth showed up and we rode around in the rain.

We had ridden the #9 to the #7 Metro from Oberkampf to l’Opera and was going to reverse the process to go back. We took a close by elevator down to the Metro, found the entrance to the 7. We had purchased another carte de dix the day before and had ridden down to the Seine and walked around and went from Gare de Austerlitz to Champ du Mars. Funny thing is, the best way to go was the RER C. We went to the boarding area for the C and a bunch of people in red suits explained to us the there was no RER C. Of course there are signs everywhere. It’s on the map. It has a station but we were told no, there is no RER C. I later learned that the people who operate the RER C were having a picnic in a park. They were on strike that day. Nobody seemed to want to acknowledge it. We went around on the Metro and took a few Metro lines and walked a quarter mile as an alternative.

Anyway this day, going back from l’Opera, I got out two tickets we fed them into the turnstile, the turnstile flipped and we walked forward an opening and closing barrier which immediately closed. The turnstile released and let us through but we were trapped between the turnstile and the barrier. A local gal saw our predicament and used her pass to free us. We walked up two flights of stairs and was met with a cordon or blue jump suited transit police? (They had name tags and little hand held machines but didn’t identify themselves) doing a spot check and and asking for tickets. A guy scanned Ruth’s and said, okay, go ahead, then another gal got my ticket and said it was expired. I showed her the ten tickets we had recently purchased. She looked at the writing and said they were for next week but the one I used was from last week. At that point it just got weird like something out of Clockwork Orange. They told us the machine wrote letters on the tickets (it doesn’t),

 [note: actually it does...I was wrong]

 the tickets were for timed periods (they aren’t). Anyway, long story short they mugged (officially) us for 75 Euros apiece for not having a valid tickets on the platform. Ruth was livid but what are you going to do? We were processed by their bureaucracy and found wanting. It is true  saw numerous people jumping the turnstiles and that is what they were trying to catch. It is also true they didn’t seem to fully understand much about the tickets or the situation, nor did they care. Approach the people coming up the stairs, electronically swipe their ticket and see if it said valid or not. What might have happened or what intent or any human concerns were irrelevant. But hey, this wasn’t Disney Paris, where is you’re a paying customer and show your tickets they try to figure out what happened this was a system run by people who are guaranteed employment for life and who are not really concerned about “customers” only about following orders and collecting fines. Like I said, we were mugged by the system.

Also.

There is a high fence all the way around the Eiffel Tower and security braces everyone who has pre-purchased a ticket and goes through turnstiles and glass walls. You no longer can walk anywhere close to it. The city is almost under siege. The transit workers are staging a protest most days with open fires and smoke, etc. The labor government has promised them everything they want which includes a laundry list of guaranteed everything. Now they recognize they don’t have the funds to fulfill the promises as employees grow older and expect to be paid for life with benefits. I will say the Metro trains pretty much ran like they were supposed to. The 350 bus had electronic signage to show where you were enroute.

Transit buses have side windows that pop out in case of fire or if they lay over. They are a pain in the rump. The M.A.N. bus (German) we rode in had little red sharp pointed hammers mounted between all the windows. Each window has a decal showing a hand breaking the window with the little red hammer. So you save on needing pop out windows but you arm the populace with little red hammers with sharp little steel points. Amazing.

Anyway. Paris is big. Old. Ornate. Gilded. Napoleon still stands as a statue with a wreath of laurel on his head pretending to be a Roman Emperor. Hubris abounds. Many people are nice and accommodating and most wear tight black clothes, frown and act like insufferable a**holes while they power walk over you. Big city people? Maybe. At some point you do what you can to enjoy yourself and try to deal with the incompetence, which I guess is epidemic, not just in France. I came to see and take photographs. I have accomplished that and will be posting photos soon. That has been fun for me. I drag Ruth along but she has enjoyed seeing the city from the top of the double decker

Anyway Bon Jour from Paris. We shall overcome it. The best revenge is forgiveness and generosity. Welcome to Paris.

Post Script
Tried to ride back to Republique from Hotel de Ville on the 11 and none of the turnstiles worked. Tried to find a bus stop to no avail and went back down and went through the turnstiles that weren't functioning with hundreds of others. Normally if the thing quits working it lets people in. I tried to contact them on the intercom and no one answered. Modern problems. We did ride the bus this morning and it was a great ride on an IVECO.

Your car has to learn how to idle

I don’t miss the old days when you pushed on the accelerator (my grandfather called it the exhilarator, you get a rush from jumping on the gas, I guess) and there was a mechanical connection between how hard you pushed the pedal down with your foot and how far the butterfly valve opened and the slide moved down inside your carburetor to let in more air and fuel to match the fuel pump’s faster pumps to provide more gas to be sucked in using the Venturi effect from the float bowl. Then the points advanced (assuming they were gapped right and locked down a certain number of degrees from top dead center, read with a timing light) and the car ran faster. You set the idle speed through a screw setting and adjusted the air flow through another screw. In 1968 they put a plastic shunt over the idle mixture screw but you could overcome that. You pulled a lever under the dash to close the top of the carburetor when it was cold to “choke” (literally) it until it started. Of course in Model T days you advanced the spark as you advanced the throttle on the steering column, unless, like Mr. Magoo, you had a faulty magneto. You stood there with a screwdriver and adjusted the idle.

Basic, it was... Long term reliable... it wasn’t.

Everything wore. The distributor cap points wore down. The points themselves wore down over time and had to be re-adjusted. Carburetors have a mean hours to failure, like a hard drive. I may miss the simplicity but I don’t miss the result. Older cars aren’t near as reliable as today’s cars. The fact is you don’t need to be a shade tree mechanic to keep a car running in 2018. It just runs. Until it doesn’t.

A thing is a thing until it isn’t any more. When asked, a rich man said, “hey, I had all the money I’d ever need right up to the point I was bankrupt.” 

Recently after a long cold snap the two older cars we let live in our driveway and garage failed to start. The ’99 Jeep, which has been bone reliable since we bought it new, didn’t want to start. Yeah, its battery died but I charged the battery as soon as it got low. I’d done a tune-up recently and I baby it. It only has about 75K miles on it and looks only a couple years old. It’s the one that lives in the garage. I do have a minor problem because I have an Allstate spy device plugged into the diagnostic port so they can watch us drive. I get a rebate check after I pay my premium if we don’t drive like a maniac. The problem is it sucks juice out of the battery. Not a problem in the summer but as it gets colder, the battery don’t like it much and it plays dead. So, charge the battery back up and let modern technology take over again and bang, she starts right up, eh? Well, here’s where logic begins to fail us. The modern car doesn’t need you to do anything to start. You turn the key. No choke. No pumping the gas and flooding it. No flooring it after you pump the gas and flood it. None of that stuff. In fact, there is no mechanical connection between the “exhilarator” pedal and the throttle body carburetor. When you press on the gas you are changing the voltage resistance in a potentiometer located inline leading to an ECM. There is no direct connection. It is all indirect. I knew that? I guess I just never dealt with it much. The reason is cars are so much more reliable now you aren’t out in the driveway with a screwdriver trying to up the idle in the winter time. A computer takes care of that. Until it doesn’t.

Here’s another weird thing. Since you don’t need to do anything to start your modern car, you don’t need to press on the gas pedal to start it, right? In fact you shouldn’t. So when the Jeep and later the Yukon wouldn’t start and I recharged the batteries, they just wouldn’t start. So while I’m cogitating on what’s wrong, Ruth gets in it and gives it more throttle and it starts, runs badly, chokes but then starts to actually run. Won’t idle, but hey, it started. She don’t know not to press on the gas pedal to start it, right? She’s just used to doing it from 1970. I know not to press on the pedal to start it and I’m right. Most of the time. This is after I remove and clean the IAC valve and she still won’t start or idle. This is after I learned that you need a constant 14 volts routed through the battery from the alternator so the ECM can feed enough power to the electric fuel pump in the gas tank to supply an adequate fuel flow to the injector rail. But we had that 14V, measured, and more, after the battery was fully charged and the car was being cranked. If your battery has a bad cell, you’re in trouble but we didn’t.

So?

The car forgot how to idle. Its brain had to relearn it. And no I didn’t change the pentil length when I cleaned the IAC valve. I left it exactly as it had been. Then the same exact thing happened with the Yukon. Its battery got low, got recharged and then wouldn’t start or idle until we manually advanced the throttle (pushing down on the accelerator pedal) then left it run at 2K rpm for a while until the computer relearned how to idle the car at under 1K rpm. Other stuff was happening. Probably also fuel separation between the alcohol and gasoline from sitting for too long? But hey. Your car has to learn how to idle all over again and you have to teach it by applying an adequate amount of throttle for a few minutes. 

The moral: Let it sit idle and your car will forget how to idle.