Islamic Terrorists have killed 12 US service men

 They used an IED.  Question for Joe Biden.  How many Islamic terrorists have we killed in response??

Lessons from Afghanistan

Never vote for a democrat is my take away from the Afghanistan disaster.   

Shameful

 Biden's announcement that we will pull of of Afghanistan on the 31st of this month, only a week away is totally shameful.  We will be abandoning our people to the Taliban.

The proper answer is "We will get all our people out to safety.  If the Taliban gets in our way we will kill them."

 The TV is doing all Afghanistan, all day. Biden comes off as a senile liar. A bunch of administration spokesmen are no better. We need to get our people out of Afghanistan, US citizens (native born or naturalized) and Afghans who worked with us and fought with us. We owe them.

Ivanhoe 1982

 

Just watched another Ivanhoe movie.  This one made in 1982 originally for TV.  It’s pretty good.  None of the cast names mean anything to me except John Rhys Davies who plays Front de Boeuf.  Anthony Andrews plays Ivanhoe and does it well.  He is blond, which is correct for a medieval Saxon.  He is cute, clean shaven, and it is clear why Rowena and Rebecca fall for him head over heels.  I would rate this version of Ivanhoe right up there with my favorite version, the 1952 Taylor and Taylor version.  Robert Taylor, long time Hollywood leading man, played Ivanhoe and a young ultra cute Elizabeth Taylor played Rebecca.

   In the 1982 version the Black Knight (King Richard) gets a good long role.  We get a better look at Robin Hood and the Merry Men running off cookouts in Sherwood Forest.  A good watch.

 

Fablehaven Brandon Mull 2006

A young adult (YA)   fantasy.  Must be doing well, I think the author got four sequels published.  Kendra and Seth get sent to their grandparents place while their parents go on a cruise with a lot of family members.  The children are not enthusiast about spending a month with grandparents they hardly know.  The place turns out cooler than expected, a sanctuary for magical creatures, fairies, satyrs, a witch and others.  Seth doesn’t listen well and gets turned into a walrus and later imprisoned in a huge glass jar for ignoring plain English instructions from his grandfather.  After Seth opens a window on Midsummer’s eve (after he was told not to) a bunch of evil creatures fly in, wreck the house, and kidnap all the adults.   With as lot of wandering around and guessing, Kendra comes up with a save for all the fallen. 

   We never hear of a mission that Kendra and Seth are supposed to go on.  No scene where Gandalf explains the power of the Ring to Frodo.  Far as I could see all Kendra and Seth wanted to do was wait for their folks to get back from that cruise and take them home again. 

 

  Not as good as the Rick Riordan YA fantasies.  

Biden is not showing up well

 They had Biden on TV this afternoon.  He spoke for 4 minutes and answered questions for 17 minutes. He did himself a lot of harm with me.  He told lies, he showed frightening ignorance of Afghanistan, he showed a touching belief in the word of the Taliban.  He was evasive on the matter of getting our supporters out.  How did we ever elect this turkey??

Big Pharma loves the idea of a booster shot for Corona virus vaccine

 They have already sold 150-200 million Corona virus shots.  Add on a booster and they can sell another 100 million shots.  Nice work if you can get it.

The claim has been made that the new delta variation is slipping by conventional vaccines.  I want to see real evidence of this before handing big Pharma a 100 million shot good deal.  Data that has been published shows only 10 thousand "adverse reactions" over the 150 million or more shots given.  That makes the vaccine 99.99% effective.  Few things work that well in the real world.  

  And, I want to see data on the adverse reactions.  Are we talking about a real corona virus case where the patient runs a fever, feels bad, and gets hospitalized?  Or are we talking about cases where a new and poorly tested medical test shows a positive reaction on an other wise well patient?  False positive anyone?

We ought to get our people out of Afghanistan

 Native born Americans, Afghans holding US passports, Afghans who have helped us, we owe them.  We fly in enough infantry to secure one or more airports, and hold open roads and streets leading to the airport[s].  We fly out anyone who has any kind of paper work, or who just wants to leave.  They will make loyal citizens.  We tell the Taliban if they interfere we will kill them.  For that matter if they show their faces we will kill them just for grins and jollies.  

   Too bad Biden lacks the stones and the brains to do this.  I am so glad we elected that turkey.

Dodging shameful questions.

 That video of USAF transports taxing out with desperate Afghans clinging to the aircraft and falling to their deaths after take off is the most shameful stuff I have ever seen. The "journalists" are questioning a Pentagon snivel servant back in DC.  No "journalist" reporting from Afghanistan.  No interviews of US military commanders from the combat zone.  Pentagon weenie dodges every question. 

Charlie Wilson's War

 

If you want a good fairly recent story about Afghanistan you will enjoy Charlie Wilson’s War.  Charlie Wilson is a hard drinking, trouble getting into Texas congressman.   On a trip to Pakistan they fly Charlie up to an Afghan refugee camp.  The poverty, the misery, and the willingness to fight won Charlie’s heart.  Back in DC he hooks up with Gust somebody or other, old gutsy CIA agent.  Charlie produces the money; Gust turns the money into weapons and gets them to the Afghans.  Cool shots of ultra modern American surface to air missiles going into Afghanistan on mule back.  Despite being light enough to man carry, they had enough punch to take down anything the Russians were flying.

   After victory, Russians driven out, Charlie was unable to get all the Afghan factions to join a single Afghan government.  We decided the Afghans were too childish to spend time or money on and let the place go to pot.  We gave to place away to Osama Bin Ladin who used it to train up his troops to do 9-11.  That did get our attention.

So where have I been these last ten days??

 

   At death’s door.  Wednesday last I noticed a LOT of blood in my stool (poop to you ordinary mortals.)   I went to see my doctor.  I drove over to Littleton and parked in the first row of cars.  I nearly failed to make the emergency room door.  My knees just buckled leaving me on hands and knees in the rain.  Fortunately some Littleton people saw my troubles and brought a wheel chair. Dr Silva had me admitted.  Things went down hill and the last thing I remember was the helicopter ride down to  Dartmouth Hitchcock Saturday night.  The rest of that week is blank.  By Thursday I was recovered enough to telephone my children. 

   They never did figure out what hit me.  After 10 pints of red blood, the bleeding out my fanny stopped.  There were a couple of exam experts who wanted to run some kind of camera down my nose to look around.  I suggested that since the blood was coming out my fanny they ought to start there and do a colonoscopy.  Look around the place that patient is having trouble first.  The exam experts didn’t listen to me.  I am pretty sure they did the nose thing AND a colonoscopy.

   To my great joy they let me out of stir on Friday (two days ago).  I am home.  My brother John Starr drove me home.  I would not have survived without his support.

Prompt and speedy trial

 I hear a lot of talk on the TV today about district attorneys turning criminals loose because of newish laws requiring a criminal be brought to trial (or at least a grand jury hearing) within a reasonable length of time (many weeks)  The talkers imply that these laws ought to be repealed so that they can hold arrested criminals pretty much forever.  

I don't hold with that.  I think district attorneys need to get the lead out, reduce the paperwork, increase their staffs, what every is necessary, to try the criminal or at least get him before a grand jury within the statutory limits of time.

Do we want this kind of health care worker?

 

Long chit chat on NPR this morning.  Several health agencies like the VA have begun requiring their workers get the Corona virus vaccine.  The workers (or perhaps just their unions) are pushing back on the requirement.

Far as I am concerned, health care workers so ignorant of health care as to resist vaccination should not be working in health care.  The vaccines are extremely effective, (99.99%) and ill effects after administering 100's of millions of doses are extremely rare.  

  Workers in health care are extremely likely to be exposed to patients with full blown cases of corona virus.  If they are unvaccinated, they will catch it.  And spread it.  Ask granny killer Governor Coumo about that.  As for me, I would be unhappy to have an unvaccinated worker even sweeping the floor in the ward I was in.  Let alone fetching meals or treating me for anything.

Where are the voters??

 Big city crime is way way up.  Chicago is reporting 100 shootings a weekend.  New York is not far behind.  These are cities where the Democrat leadership has defunded the police, passed troublesome laws reducing the power of the cops to enforce the law, and runs public prosecutors offices that refuse to prosecute anyone.  

What ought to happen, the voters ought to vote the miscreants out of office.  Should have happened by now, and more needs to be done next fall.  Wanna bet the voters do little to nothing??

Dunno what is wrong with US voters but they sure are not bothering to turn the rascals out. 

Infrastructure. Need for

The state of New York has been neglecting road maintenance for years and doubtless could use a nice big federal handout to fill some potholes.  It's really noticable driving down thru the eastern states.  Roads in New Hampshire, Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and others are in fine shape.  Cross the New York border and the pot holes attack.  Many of the TV commentators (those that are not working from DC) are stationed in New York City.  They have to drive on New York's beat up roads every day.  They seldom get out of New York into real America and so they think that all the roads in America are as bad as New York roads.  

   So, now that Biden is appeasing the road contractors and welfare recipients with a big juicy federal "infrastructure" bill, the TV people are all in favor, even when the "infrastructure" bill is nearing $4 TRILLION and is mostly welfare spending and not anything you or I would recognize as infrastructure.

    Anyhow the TV people are talking about the infrastructure bill and how we ought to pass it. 

Covid vaccines and masks

 The only thing masks do is contain that spray of yuckiness should you sneeze or cough.  They don't protect you, they do protect people around you.  If you have had your shots (two in most cases)  you won't spread Corona virus because the vaccine has killed it off in your system.  The only reason to wear one after vaccinations is to make the people around you feel safer.  For grade school kids, this doesn't really matter, the kids don't believe that they will catch corona virus.  And they are largely correct in this belief.

  As far as the people who don't/won't get vaccinated, let 'em.  All they are doing is exposing them selves to infection.  We should encourage them to get vaccinated, but if they are hard core in their beliefs that the vaccine might harm them, so be it.

Car ads on facebook that fail

 My trusty Buick is up to 99K miles, I plan to drive it til it drops, but I been taking an interest in car ads, just to see what's out there now that Detroit has stopped making sedans. And just in case trusty Buik drops dead tomorrow.

Used to be, facebook would show a picture of a nice car and I would click on it and get to see some more photos, some specs like engine power and displacement, availability of a stick shift, price, how many does it seat, stuff like that.  Now, all I get amounts to Google searches on the car name pointing to dealers who want to deal.  Not very interesting, I am not at the stage of wanting to make a deal, yet. 

And some of the nifty car pictures don't work out.  Nissan has been running ads showing a low sleek sedan "Nissan Rogue" they call it.  Clicking on the racy photo gets me to a dowdy SUV rather than the racy looking sedan. 

More Global Warming. I light the fireplace in mid July

 It's cold, it's overcast, it's threatening rain, and I am cold.  I light the fire.  Very warming and cheerful.  So much for summer warmth in the up country.  Must be global warming.  They blame it for everything these days.

Latest radar goes into F16 vintage jet fighter.

 Nice color photo in Aviation Week shows them mounting the Raytheon APF-79(V) 4 phased radar in the nose of the F16.  The array elements are gallium nitride which yields more power than the older gallium arsenide technology.  A phased array can generate a good tight radar beam.  If all the array elements are excited simultaneously, the beam goes out straight ahead.  If array elements on one side are excited a little bit earlier than elements on the other side, the beam goes out angled toward the early side.  Some trigonometry will show that the beam can be steered thru 90 degrees, which is about as good as the older technology could mechanically scan a parabolic antenna.  Major benny of the phased array is speed of scan.  The beam can be deflected from hard over left to hard over right in a millisecond.  It is fast enough to track multiple targets.

 The accompanied write up skipped a few things that I would have liked to know.  How much power can the new gallium nitride elements deliver?  The airborne radar I used to work on used a cavity magnetron to generate 50 kilowatts of X-band (10,000 MHz) power.  That radar could reach out 200 miles.  I don’t expect a single gallium nitride element to generate that kind of power, but I sure would like to know how much power all the elements in the phased array can generate.

Biden badmouths China for hacking Microsoft email servers

 This is is front page news on the Wall St Journal for Tuesday.  The US has indicted four Chinese nationals, three of them identified as Ministry of State Security (MSS) officials, for hacking Microsoft Exchange service going back ten years.   The fourth individual worked at a Chinese front company that aided in the hacking.  Apparently the hack allowed China to read all the email on Microsoft Exchange servers going back ten years.  

  I would suggest anyone running Microsoft Exchange look for some other email server.  We must suspect the Microsoft had the Windows software people, creators of the most insecure operating system in the world, do the code for Microsoft Exchange Server.  

My other suggestion to all is to consider email to be compromised.  Never put anything in email that you would not want to post on the bulletin board down at the local supermarket.  Use a phone call, or go out to the customers site rather than expose damaging data by email. 

An Olympics with no spectators in the stands????

 They are gonna do it in Tokyo.  The very recent discoveries of athletes coming down with Corona virus after traveling to Tokyo and settling into Olympic athlete quarters was unnerving.  Not disclosed by the ever clueful  MSM, did these poor athletes actually get sick?  Or did they merely test positive even though they did not show any symptoms.  Some (perhaps all?) of the tests are very trigger happy, and have called a lot of perfectly well people to be infected with Corona virus.  False positives the medics call it. 

Nissan is running teaser ads

 They are coming thru on my facebook page.  The photo shows an incredibly racy and cool low slung car.  Click on the  ad and you get taken to a plain jane SUV ad.  Nice enough I suppose but a far cry from the really jazzy looking car  I clicked on.  I wonder why Nissan is bothering.

How the Constitution came to be

 

The most unlikely thing happened right after the revolutionary war.  Each of the thirteen colonies, only we can call them states now, had all the things they needed to be independent countries.  They had armies, navies, courts, governors, legislatures, universities, newspapers, churches, and establishments who ran the place.  The armies and navies all had combat experience gained from winning the revolution.  Each state could have stayed independent.  The establishment of each state liked that idea; it meant their position in society would be retained. 

   The only fly in that ointment was Great Britain.  It was obvious to everyone that the British would like to reverse the revolution and return the American states back to being colonies, with the crown running each one of them.  And it was clear that no one American state could hold off the redcoats, we only won the revolution when every one banded together.  “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.” said Franklin.  Most Americans thought Franklin had that right. 

   And so, the thirteen states agreed to the Constitution.  In doing so each of the thirteen states gave up a lot of sovereignty to the new federal government.  States could no longer have their own armies and navies.  They could no longer establish diplomatic relations with European countries. They gave up the right to levy tariffs against each other.  They gave up control of the vast western lands to the feds.  And the establishment in each state feared that the federal government would replace them. 

   But a small miracle occurred.  They created an amazing new government, the first democracy in the world, and the Constitution they created is still in use today 230 years later. 

Why should I care who gets vaccinated??

 Me, I got my two shots, Moderna.  Published figures on the internet show that out of 100+ million vaccinations, only a few thousand vaccinated people came down with Corona virus.  That gives the vaccine a 99.99% effectiveness.  You can't get better than that.  So I am protected.  If other citizens choose not to get vaccinated, I don't really care.  I won't catch it from them.

  Speaking as an idealist, I think everyone should get vaccinated.  The vaccine works and won't hurt them.  It can save their lives. But it is a free country, people can do what they want to do.  Other people going unvaccinated does not hurt me.  

So I am luke warm to the idea of government people going door to door advocating the vaccine.  Surely there has been enough coverage on TV to get the word out.  I am against "vaccine passports" which you would have to show to get into baseball games or even restaurants. 

Wild life moves in

The wild life is all around up here.  This nice yearling bear strolled by my front lawn yesterday.  He looks hungry and not well fed.  The bears don't usually wander thru Mittersill unless they can't find food back in the woods.  Or for this young bear maybe he doesn't know how to forage for his lunch.  Anyhow I am glad I never stack my trash out on my deck. 
 

You never tell the enemy when you are pulling out

 It just tells them how long they have to lay low.  Biden just announced we want to be out of Afghanistan by the end of August this year.  The Taliban must be overjoyed to hear that.  Low low for a couple more months and then the country is theirs.  Last time that happened they allowed Osama Bin Laden to set up the 9-11 attack on New York from Afghan soil.  Good thinking Joe Biden. 

US District Judge dismisses anti trust suit against Facebook

 The FTC and 46 states filed an anti trust suit.  The judge dismissed it on vague reasoning including that the plaintiffs had not shown that Facebook was a monopoly.  Duh.  Anybody knows that.  I only picked up on this extraordinary fact by reading a piece in Wired, a less than reliable source.  I did a search with Duck Duck Go and found supporting pieces in CNET and the Manchester Guardian.  Funny, I never saw a single mention of this in the Wall St Journal, a paper to which I subscribe, and which you would think would be interested in this sort of thing.  It might have been there and I missed it, but it probably was not there.  

   I have posted before that we ought to use the Sherman Anti Trust Act to break Facebook up into two of three pieces.  Divide the assets, readers, posters, advertisers, shareholders, buildings, computers, cash evenly.  Dunno what to do about Zuckerburg, we cannot cut him in half.  This way the pieces have to compete with each other and if one piece does things the public or the advertisers  do not like, they can move over to the piece that is more satisfactory.  This ought to work better than any kind of regulation.