Dune, Frank Herbert, the 2000 miniseries

This miniseries was the second attempt to bring Frank Herbert's huge novel to the screen.  It's not bad, it's at least as good as the 1984 movie.  The the long three episodes allows a fuller development of Herbert's long and complex novel. Sets and costumes are good, which can be expensive in a science fiction movie.  Casting is metza metza.
   William Hurt gives a fine performance as planetary Duke Leto Atreides.  Too bad Frank Herbert killed him off early in the book.  Alex Newman is less satisfying as Paul Muad'dib.  He is too old, too tall, and too burly.  Paul Atreides was written as a teen age boy, somewhat small for his age, and lightly built.  Which gave a tug on the heartstrings as his beloved father is killed and Paul must pick up the load of being a planetary Duke before he is fully grown.  And Paul has to meet both fremen and imperial enemies, hand to hand in gladiatorial duels, and prevail by speed and cunning.  Reading the book, you root for the smaller younger lighter Paul to survive each deadly encounter.  Watching the miniseries there is no doubt that Alex Newman is taller, stronger, and buffer than his opponents.  You know he is going to win the knife fight just by looking at him.  In the book, young Paul Atreides does an enormous amount of coming of age.  In the miniseries he enters the action fully come of age. 

Graduates of "research universities" earn more than liberal arts colleges

This from today's Wall St Journal.  Well, we sorta knew this, graduates with real engineering degrees earn more than graduates with art history degrees.  It's been a cliche that engineers make good well paid husbands.  For numbers, liberal arts graduates pegged out a $50,000 a year ten years out of college where as "research university" graduates made $65-70K at the median.  All of them made more than $50K.
    The Journal article skated over a couple of key points.  The never did define what they mean by "research university".  That's a new one on me.  I assume they are thinking of places like MIT, Georgia Tech, and CalTech.  Place which mostly grant engineering degrees and have strong STEM programs.
   Then they didn't pin down liberal arts.  Do they group the talkie-talkie majors (gender studies, art history, ethnic studies) or the wannabe sciences (sociology, anthropology, psychology, etc) in with the traditional seven liberal arts (English, foreign languages, history, mathematics, music, art, philosophy). 
   The traditional seven liberal arts ought to lead to better jobs than the talkie-talk majors and the wannabe sciences. 

Questions they ought to ask and have not so far

1.  What would you do to get America's GNP growth up to 3.5% or better?
2.  Will you authorize the Keystone XL pipeline?
3.  Will you lease off shore parcels for oil exploration, on the east coast, and the west coast?
4.  Will you stop the EPA's war on coal?  and the new and very expensive ozone limits?
5.  How will you reform personal and corporate taxes?
6.  Will you authorize interstate sale of health insurance?
7.  Will you authorize duty free imports of drugs from any reasonable first world country?
8.   Explain your reforms of the Pentagon procurment bottle neck.
9.   Explain how large our armed forces need to be.How many soldiers, warships, warplanes?
10. Explain what you will do to increase the ratio of tooth to tail in our armed forces.
11. Explain how the Trans Pacific Partnership will increase US exports and jobs.
12. As president what will you do about ISIS?  Send them nastygrams? Use the armed forces to destroy them?
 13. Will you defend NATO countries from Russian aggression or invasion?
14.  Will you defend South Korea from Chinese or North Korean aggression?
15.  What will you do about dredged up Chinese islands in the South China Sea?
16.  Will you authorize oil exploration in the "Arctic National Wildlife Area"?

Anyone got any more?

$43 Million for an Afghan gas station?

Not only is$43 million a ripoff, but the gas station was not a gasoline station, it was a compressed natural gas (CNG) facility. 
  Who in their right mind would have a CNG vehicle in Afghanistan?   You cannot find CNG stations in America right now to keep a CNG vehicle running.  In a backwater like Afghanistan, there are even fewer.
   Aside from making the greenies feel all warm and fuzzy, a CNG station in Afghanistan is a total waste of money.  Even if we didn't get ripped off.

Getting ready for a trip

Pack the laptop, and its charger.  Pack the cell phone, and its charger. Pack the camera, and its charger.  That's three chargers just for a weekend trip. 

Cats have nine names, as well as lives.

This cat came to me bearing the name Hecate.  My daughter's choice, which I found a bit pretentious for a mere house cat.  After a few amusing mishaps, such as falling off a table, falling off the deck, I took to calling her Stupid Beast.  This worked, the cat would even come when I called Stooopid Beast from the deck.  As time went on, Stupid Beast spent more and more time racked out flat on the rug.  I began calling her Flat Beast.  I considered Flat Cat, but I feel Robert A. Heinlein has some ownership on that name.  Variations such as Her Flatness, just plain Flat, followed.  Also Round and Flat, abbreviated to RAF.
   This might be family tradition.  We had a family cat, a Siamese, who came into the family named Cleopatra.  This did not last, and we kids called her Puddy Tat.  Then after Puddy Tat put on weight, my Father started calling her BasketBall.

Flat or Graduated?

Tax that is. A lotta Republicans pitched a flat tax during the CNBC debate last week.  A lotta TV lefties claimed that a flat tax would never produce the revenue they want for all the lefties redistribution plans and free stuff.
  I been figuring and paying my own income tax for 50 years.  Each year, after doing all the crazy worksheets and capital gains and deductions and bulls--t on the 1040, I wound up paying 17%, every year, for the last fifty years.  If everyone paid 17%, Uncle would have plenty of money.  Especially when you consider that under the current system, about half the taxpayers pay nothing at all due to "Earned Income Tax Credit".  When half the population starts paying 17% instead of zip  that's not revenue neutral.
    So arguments against a flat tax based on lack of money are wrong.  The true argument against a flat tax is fairness,  the idea that the wealthy ought to pay more than the poor.  17% income tax when you are just scraping by hurts a lot more than it does for Donald Trump. As a matter of fairness, the wealthy ought to pay a higher rate than the poor.
   Which is what we have now a graduated tax.  We have seven or eight or maybe too many to count tax brackets.  Last time the wealthy paid a huge slice of tax money, far far more than the middle or poorer classes.  This is a graduated tax.  In my estimation, it's too graduated.  I strongly feel that everyone ought to pay something.  From the poor, a few percent, from the wealthy, a lot more, maybe 25%.  Everyone ought to feel the pain of taxes, so they understand that voting for more free stuff is gonna hurt them.  When we allow half the population to escape tax free, they will march right out and vote for more free stuff, 'cause it doesn't cost 'em anything.
   Then, we come to the issue of tax breaks aka loopholes.  There are a lot of 'em.  We get a tax break for having children, for paying a mortgage, for calling it capital gains instead of ordinary income, for health insurance some times, for buying professional books and equipment, for paying state and local taxes, for charitable contributions, for being over 65,  and a ship load of other stuff that I forget, but Turbo Tax can remember for me at tax time.
   I think I'd like to abolish every single one of 'em.  That would cause a mighty howl from parents, the real estate industry, H&R Block, and every other special interest group in the land.  If the howling is too great, maybe I'd compromise on charitable contributions and the tax break for having children.  Set the middle tax bracket to 17%. and revenue would stay about the same.