So I saw it at the Jax last night. It's a Marvel comic book movie. If you liked your Marvel comic books you will like this one. There are a few plot holes, but not too bad. It's right in tune with the times. Everything, Shield, the World Security Council, the DC cops, you name it, is secretly infiltrated by bad guys, (Hydra?) and turns on Nick Fury and Steve Rogers. Shades of NSA, CIA, and BLM.
Technically superb. Lighting and color first rate. No under lit dark interior shots. Non of that irritating fade-to-black-and-white post processing. Good camera work, they use tripods, they skip the "shake-the-camera" shots. Decent sound man, I could hear and understand all the dialogue. Special effects utterly convincing. Even Shield's vast flying aircraft carriers look real. The textures of the huge machines is right, like painted metal, flat paint, no gloss, a touch of weathering. The carrier's huge lift engines really look powerful enough to boost the massive thing into the air.
Incredible amount of hand to hand fighting. Gymnastics, back flips, leaps up and over things. Any of these fights would have taken gold at Olympic gymnastic competition. Capt America's shield gets a fine workout. Mixed martial arts, or is that mixed movie martial? It goes fast and furious right up to the last reel. The girl friend, Natasha, is as fast and deadly a fighter as Capt America. Car chases and car crashes better than I have seen before. The scene where the DC cops, driving Ford Crown Vic's, try to take Nick Fury, driving a black Chevy Suburban, in DC traffic, is good, lotta seriously bent Fords. Every car chase involves fender-to-fender contact, and visibly mangled body and fender work. And lots of bullet holes. If this is CGI work, it's very well done.
A few goofs. Nick Fury, reminiscing about his childhood, mentions his old man's "22 Magnum". Not cool. Back then, .22 anything was a kid's gun. Everyone carried at least a .32. Cops and serious guys carried .38 Special or .45.
Actors were run of the mill, except for Robert Redford, who played a treacherous senior bureaucrat. Chris Evans and Scarlett Johanssen are competent leads playing comic book hero and heroine parts. They both have the looks and the figures the parts call for. Scarlett flaunted real cool shoulder length red hair, I still wonder if it was her own, or a wig. Although they are together for most of the scenes, they don't real seem to be girlfriend and boyfriend. Scarlett (Natasha) gives off some vibs that she likes Steve Rogers, Steve doesn't seem all that interested.
Anyhow, a fun flick, worth the price of admission. Fine for older (say age six and up) children. No bad language, no nudity, lots of slam bang violence, little to no blood, the good guys win in the end.
Wednesday, April 16, 2014
Tuesday, April 15, 2014
It's Snowing, Again
On the 15th of April, it's snowing. What ever happened to that worthless groundhog?
Update, next morning. We got four inches, I just measured it. It's 20 F. I see flocks of unhappy birds looking for food, shelter, warm, anything.
Update, next morning. We got four inches, I just measured it. It's 20 F. I see flocks of unhappy birds looking for food, shelter, warm, anything.
Who's in charge here?
This morning the TV news announced that the IRS would be publishing new rules for non profit organizations, such as Tea Parties.
Where does a bunch of pure democratic civil servants get the right to set that kind of policy? By rights, Congress should pass a law. In real life, Congress is so split, and so partisan that it is incapable of passing anything.
Especially on something like this. First Amendment freedom of speech and press, means organizations can say and publish anything they like. IRS and FEC want to change that rule, into "You cannot say anything political, any time. This led to the famous Heller decision, the Supreme court ruled that corporations and labor unions could politick as much as they like.
Anyhow the IRS wants to make a rule, defining just about everything as political activity and therefore forbidden to nearly every organization in the country. We are talking about Tea Parties, Sierra Club, Boy Scouts, Red Cross, NRA, NMRA, Elks, Chamber of Commerce, Shriners, Republican Party, Democratic Party, Consumers Union, Campfire Girls, Masons, VFW, churches, AMA, ABA, SAE, Salvation Army, USO and on and on.
These "non governmental organizations" do immense amounts of charitable work They bring Americans together, they set up civic events, and they form the civic glue that holds the country together. And, they lobby for their political interests. Wise Congressmen listen to them, laws they support get passed, laws they oppose don't pass. Much of the work of democracy is guided by these non governmental organizations.
And now the IRS is trying to take them all over.
Where does a bunch of pure democratic civil servants get the right to set that kind of policy? By rights, Congress should pass a law. In real life, Congress is so split, and so partisan that it is incapable of passing anything.
Especially on something like this. First Amendment freedom of speech and press, means organizations can say and publish anything they like. IRS and FEC want to change that rule, into "You cannot say anything political, any time. This led to the famous Heller decision, the Supreme court ruled that corporations and labor unions could politick as much as they like.
Anyhow the IRS wants to make a rule, defining just about everything as political activity and therefore forbidden to nearly every organization in the country. We are talking about Tea Parties, Sierra Club, Boy Scouts, Red Cross, NRA, NMRA, Elks, Chamber of Commerce, Shriners, Republican Party, Democratic Party, Consumers Union, Campfire Girls, Masons, VFW, churches, AMA, ABA, SAE, Salvation Army, USO and on and on.
These "non governmental organizations" do immense amounts of charitable work They bring Americans together, they set up civic events, and they form the civic glue that holds the country together. And, they lobby for their political interests. Wise Congressmen listen to them, laws they support get passed, laws they oppose don't pass. Much of the work of democracy is guided by these non governmental organizations.
And now the IRS is trying to take them all over.
Monday, April 14, 2014
Why we cannot simplify federal income tax
What makes federal income tax such a bear to fill out? It's all the special interest benefits built in thru out the law. Mortgage interest deduction, the darling of realtors, home builders, and mortgage banksters. Special deduction for school teachers who buy their kids pencils. Capital gains to benefit stock holders. Medical expenses deductions, favorite of the ill, and the medical industry. A 12% tax break for manufacturing inside the United States. And the liberal's favorite ploy, the variable tax loophole, the wealthy have to pay more. For instance social security benefits used to be non taxable. Then some slippery democrats added stuff making them taxable to the wealthy. The incomprehensible Earned Income Tax Credit. And on and on and on.
And we are doomed. Each special interest will fight to the death to keep their special tax benefit. Us ordinary tax payers have to wade thru the special little worksheets, the gobble-de-gook instructions, and the never ending new tax forms. We never get up on our hind feet and demand "Drop all this malarkey, give me one straight percentage to pay and be done with it".
We should not have to purchase $80 software packages to do our taxes. It didn't used to be this bad. I can remember a time BC (before computers) when I did my own taxes with a ball point pen. I couldn't do that now.
Those special interests ought to to be hunted down and tarred and feathered.
And we are doomed. Each special interest will fight to the death to keep their special tax benefit. Us ordinary tax payers have to wade thru the special little worksheets, the gobble-de-gook instructions, and the never ending new tax forms. We never get up on our hind feet and demand "Drop all this malarkey, give me one straight percentage to pay and be done with it".
We should not have to purchase $80 software packages to do our taxes. It didn't used to be this bad. I can remember a time BC (before computers) when I did my own taxes with a ball point pen. I couldn't do that now.
Those special interests ought to to be hunted down and tarred and feathered.
Sunday, April 13, 2014
Inventions of the Dark Age
History books, at least those that cover the period, shed lots of tears about the fall of Rome, and call the next 1000 years the Dark Ages. Starting with Gibbon (Decline and Fall) most historians treat the medieval period as a huge setback to civilization with no redeeming features. Perhaps.
Dark they might have been, but the medievals were inventive. In the thousand years we call medieval, they invented a lotta good stuff. What they didn't invent they imported from elsewhere and placed it into service.
1. Trebuchet. Weight driven catapult, powerful enough to break a masonry wall, something which the spring driven catapults of the Greeks and Romans could not do.
2. Wooden barrels. Shipping container that completely replaced the heavy and fragile pottery amphora used in antiquity. Stronger and lighter than pottery
3. Magnetic Compass. The odds of your ship returning safely are much better if she carries a compass.
4. Stern rudder. Much stronger and less likely to break in heavy weather than the steering oar. Moderns who have sailed replica vessels of antiquity (Thor Heyerdahl and Hodding Carter) always write about their steering oar breaking at sea.
5. Spectacles (eye glasses)
6. Stirrups. Without stirrups, it's like riding bareback. You can do it, but you have to pay all your attention to staying on the horse. With stirrups the horseman's seat is firm enough to fight effectively. With stirrups the mounted knight, who dominated European warfare, becomes possible.
7. Heavy plow. A big strong plow, often wheeled, with an eight ox team, which could turn the heavy bottomland soil, which the lighter "ard" used in antiquity could not.
8. Three field rotation. Let only one third of the land lie fallow, as opposed to the two field rotation practiced in antiquity. Increases cropland by one sixth (17%)
9. Water mills. Although a Roman invention, the Romans never built very many of them. Whereas the Domesday book records 5 to 6 thousand water mills in England by 1087
10. Blast furnace. Water wheel powered bellows made a fire hot enough to actually melt iron, so that it could be poured and cast in molds.
11. Printing. Gutenburg and all that.
12. Gunpowder. and firearms.
13. The University.
14. Crossbow. Although known to the Romans (there is an engraving of one on a Roman tomb) it wasn't used much. Major advantage of the crossbow; it is as simple to shoot as a modern rifle. Any recruit could be trained to shoot well enough to be useful in a few weeks. The long bow took a lifetime of practice to make an archer.
15. Spinning Wheel
16. Mechanical clock.
17. Gothic cathedral
18. Horse collar. Before the horse collar, law limited the load horses could pull to 500 pounds. With horse collars medieval wagoneers could move 2500 pound loads of building stone.
19. Windmill
20. Arabic numerals
21. Double entry book keeping.
22. Scientific method (Roger Bacon)
23. Wheel barrow. Simple, but highly useful.
Dark they might have been, but the medievals were inventive. In the thousand years we call medieval, they invented a lotta good stuff. What they didn't invent they imported from elsewhere and placed it into service.
1. Trebuchet. Weight driven catapult, powerful enough to break a masonry wall, something which the spring driven catapults of the Greeks and Romans could not do.
2. Wooden barrels. Shipping container that completely replaced the heavy and fragile pottery amphora used in antiquity. Stronger and lighter than pottery
3. Magnetic Compass. The odds of your ship returning safely are much better if she carries a compass.
4. Stern rudder. Much stronger and less likely to break in heavy weather than the steering oar. Moderns who have sailed replica vessels of antiquity (Thor Heyerdahl and Hodding Carter) always write about their steering oar breaking at sea.
5. Spectacles (eye glasses)
6. Stirrups. Without stirrups, it's like riding bareback. You can do it, but you have to pay all your attention to staying on the horse. With stirrups the horseman's seat is firm enough to fight effectively. With stirrups the mounted knight, who dominated European warfare, becomes possible.
7. Heavy plow. A big strong plow, often wheeled, with an eight ox team, which could turn the heavy bottomland soil, which the lighter "ard" used in antiquity could not.
8. Three field rotation. Let only one third of the land lie fallow, as opposed to the two field rotation practiced in antiquity. Increases cropland by one sixth (17%)
9. Water mills. Although a Roman invention, the Romans never built very many of them. Whereas the Domesday book records 5 to 6 thousand water mills in England by 1087
10. Blast furnace. Water wheel powered bellows made a fire hot enough to actually melt iron, so that it could be poured and cast in molds.
11. Printing. Gutenburg and all that.
12. Gunpowder. and firearms.
13. The University.
14. Crossbow. Although known to the Romans (there is an engraving of one on a Roman tomb) it wasn't used much. Major advantage of the crossbow; it is as simple to shoot as a modern rifle. Any recruit could be trained to shoot well enough to be useful in a few weeks. The long bow took a lifetime of practice to make an archer.
15. Spinning Wheel
16. Mechanical clock.
17. Gothic cathedral
18. Horse collar. Before the horse collar, law limited the load horses could pull to 500 pounds. With horse collars medieval wagoneers could move 2500 pound loads of building stone.
19. Windmill
20. Arabic numerals
21. Double entry book keeping.
22. Scientific method (Roger Bacon)
23. Wheel barrow. Simple, but highly useful.
Saturday, April 12, 2014
Washing Windows, Taking out the Trash
Doing a little housecleaning on Antique Laptop the other day. Ran WinDirStat, a cute program that shows you where all your hard disk space has gone. Lists all the directories in order of size and draws a neat little map of the disk, with each directory in a different color. WinDirStat is on the web, Google can find it.
Anyhow, WinDirStat showed this big plump directory Windows/SoftwareDistribution. It was plump, nearly 500 Mb. Question, can I zap it and have my XP system survive the event? Google drew a lot of hits on this one, ranging from don't touch it, your system will melt, to blow it away, it's worthless. Sorting thru the answers it turns out that Windows Update is busily finding and downloading patches behind your back. The patches come over the net in a compressed form. Windows update decompresses the patch, applies it, and leaves the compressed version and some stuff needed if you ever want to back the patch out, in Software Distribution. Lets be real here, nobody ever backs out a patch, unless it is killing their system. Assuming your system is working well, you don't need the stuff in SoftwareDistribution.
So how do you get rid of it? It's a little more complicated than just deleting it from Explorer. Windows Update is a "service" a privileged piece of code that is always in RAM, and gets control of your machine when ever it likes, for as long as it likes. Windows Update puts some kind of unbreakable protection on SoftwareDistribution so you cannot zap it in the ordinary way. How to cope?
Open a DOS window. You do this from the start menu, hit the run box and type in "cmd". For those of you who never had the pleasure of running DOS, it can be a little awkward. The mouse doesn't work in DOS. Your first job is to navigate to the c:/windows directory using the CHDIR (CD for short) command.
Do CD .. until you reach the c: root directory.
Do CD windows and you should be there.
Do NET STOP wuauserv to turn off windows update and unprotect the SoftwareDistribution directory.
Do RENAME (Ren for short) softwaredistribution anynameyoulike (I used softtrash) .
Do NET START wuauserv to turn windows update back on.
Exit DOS and check your system to make sure it still works. Run a program or two. Visit a website. Then reboot to be sure that still works. When you are satisfied, go back and zap the old softwaredistribution and recover quite a chuck of disk. You will notice that Windows Update has created a new, and smaller SoftwareDistribution all by itself. The RENAME trick is a way to let you back out. If something should go wrong, you can put things pack the way they were.
Not only does this trick recover a lotta disk, it speeds things up. Antique Laptop boots faster, fast enogh to notice. I think Windows Update had been wasting time riffling thru 500 Mb of patches going back to the year 2000.
I did this trick on XP, but a lot of the net rumor I read tells me Vista, 7, and 8 has the same problem only worse. There is a tool, DISM, in the newer Windows to deal with the ever growing Windows trash directories. I'm still on XP so I cannot tell you much about that.
Anyhow, WinDirStat showed this big plump directory Windows/SoftwareDistribution. It was plump, nearly 500 Mb. Question, can I zap it and have my XP system survive the event? Google drew a lot of hits on this one, ranging from don't touch it, your system will melt, to blow it away, it's worthless. Sorting thru the answers it turns out that Windows Update is busily finding and downloading patches behind your back. The patches come over the net in a compressed form. Windows update decompresses the patch, applies it, and leaves the compressed version and some stuff needed if you ever want to back the patch out, in Software Distribution. Lets be real here, nobody ever backs out a patch, unless it is killing their system. Assuming your system is working well, you don't need the stuff in SoftwareDistribution.
So how do you get rid of it? It's a little more complicated than just deleting it from Explorer. Windows Update is a "service" a privileged piece of code that is always in RAM, and gets control of your machine when ever it likes, for as long as it likes. Windows Update puts some kind of unbreakable protection on SoftwareDistribution so you cannot zap it in the ordinary way. How to cope?
Open a DOS window. You do this from the start menu, hit the run box and type in "cmd". For those of you who never had the pleasure of running DOS, it can be a little awkward. The mouse doesn't work in DOS. Your first job is to navigate to the c:/windows directory using the CHDIR (CD for short) command.
Do CD .. until you reach the c: root directory.
Do CD windows and you should be there.
Do NET STOP wuauserv to turn off windows update and unprotect the SoftwareDistribution directory.
Do RENAME (Ren for short) softwaredistribution anynameyoulike (I used softtrash) .
Do NET START wuauserv to turn windows update back on.
Exit DOS and check your system to make sure it still works. Run a program or two. Visit a website. Then reboot to be sure that still works. When you are satisfied, go back and zap the old softwaredistribution and recover quite a chuck of disk. You will notice that Windows Update has created a new, and smaller SoftwareDistribution all by itself. The RENAME trick is a way to let you back out. If something should go wrong, you can put things pack the way they were.
Not only does this trick recover a lotta disk, it speeds things up. Antique Laptop boots faster, fast enogh to notice. I think Windows Update had been wasting time riffling thru 500 Mb of patches going back to the year 2000.
I did this trick on XP, but a lot of the net rumor I read tells me Vista, 7, and 8 has the same problem only worse. There is a tool, DISM, in the newer Windows to deal with the ever growing Windows trash directories. I'm still on XP so I cannot tell you much about that.
Friday, April 11, 2014
SEC bigwig blasts the agency at his retirement party
This was on NHPR this morning, although a quickly Google did not confirm it. I missed the guy's name (NHPR is bad on names, they only use them once and go with pronouns for the rest of the piece).
Anyhow they had him in the studio and he used some fairly tough language to condemn the SEC for not prosecuting the biggies on Wall Street, and going after the small fry. Which is true enough. Nobody of consequence has been prosecuted over the 2007 crash that kicked off Great Depression 2.0.
This guy totally didn't understand what te SEC is supposed to be doing. He thinks the agency's mission is to prosecute Wall Streeters. Not so. The SEC was created after the 1929 crash with a mission to prevent another crash. The 1929 crash caused 10 years of misery (the Great Depression) and was a major factor in kicking off WWII. The Great Depression traveled to Germany and had a lot to do with bringing Hitler to power in 1933. The 2007 crash was as bad as the 1929 one. The SEC failed to prevent it. That's total mission failure. We ought to disband the SEC, fire all the employees, burn all their files. And start up something new.
Prevention, means regulations forbidding risky practices such as mortgage backed securities, credit default swaps, derivatives, high speed trading, excessive leverage, and banks playing the stock market with FDIC insured money. Wall Street is supposed to be a place where companies go to raise money for expansion. It is not supposed to be a casino.
Any how, all this retiring SEC big wig can find to complain about is a lack of high profile scalps. This is a man who doesn't understand his job.
Anyhow they had him in the studio and he used some fairly tough language to condemn the SEC for not prosecuting the biggies on Wall Street, and going after the small fry. Which is true enough. Nobody of consequence has been prosecuted over the 2007 crash that kicked off Great Depression 2.0.
This guy totally didn't understand what te SEC is supposed to be doing. He thinks the agency's mission is to prosecute Wall Streeters. Not so. The SEC was created after the 1929 crash with a mission to prevent another crash. The 1929 crash caused 10 years of misery (the Great Depression) and was a major factor in kicking off WWII. The Great Depression traveled to Germany and had a lot to do with bringing Hitler to power in 1933. The 2007 crash was as bad as the 1929 one. The SEC failed to prevent it. That's total mission failure. We ought to disband the SEC, fire all the employees, burn all their files. And start up something new.
Prevention, means regulations forbidding risky practices such as mortgage backed securities, credit default swaps, derivatives, high speed trading, excessive leverage, and banks playing the stock market with FDIC insured money. Wall Street is supposed to be a place where companies go to raise money for expansion. It is not supposed to be a casino.
Any how, all this retiring SEC big wig can find to complain about is a lack of high profile scalps. This is a man who doesn't understand his job.
Thursday, April 10, 2014
Obama says nice things about LBJ
He is on Fox News, making a speech about how great the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was. And how great LBJ was for pushing it thru the Congress, over the dead bodies of the Southern Democrats. And I agree, it was a good thing.
On the other hand I remember LBJ was the man who took the country to war and worse, to defeat, in Viet Nam. That was a bad thing.
On the other hand I remember LBJ was the man who took the country to war and worse, to defeat, in Viet Nam. That was a bad thing.
Greeks selling new bonds
This was on NHPR this morning. For the first time in five years, the Greek government is offering bonds. And people are buying them. I'd like to interview some of those buyers, just to see if they are as stupid as they look. Greece is still an economic disaster, 25% unemployment, a vast civil service drawing their pay to impede economic growth, with a neo Nazi party (Golden Dawn) gathering strength, and a mountain of debt equivalent to many years of GNP. And these "investors" think they will get paid back? And are willing to accept this kind of risk for a mere 5% interest? When they can buy the soundest investment on the planet (US T bills) for 3%? They are willing to take all the risks in Greek bonds for a measely 5%?
Lots a Luck.
Lots a Luck.
Wednesday, April 9, 2014
Boston Marathon goes off this month
Which sparked a few rehashes of the Tsaernov (the bomber) case. In actual fact, the Russians tipped us off the the Tsaernov's were mixed up with Chechen terrorists, in fact had visited Chechnia and attended a terrorist training camp. US authorities botched the tip. Tsaernov was never investigated. The feds didn't bother to talk to the Cambridge police (Tsaernov lived in Cambridge). Fox News has been complaining that the Boston police were never notified. Forget that. Boston is another town. I doubt a Boston cop would even know where Webster Avenue is, let alone know anyone to talk too in the neighborhood. Whereas the Cambridge cops, local boys all, probably have a couple of guys on the force who went to high school with the Tsaernov brothers, or who lived on their street.
Anyhow, we blew a solid tip from the Russians.
Anyhow, we blew a solid tip from the Russians.
Tuesday, April 8, 2014
Words of the Weasel Part 39
We have been hearing "investment" as a replacement for "spending" from Democrats. This morning I heard a new one from Steney Hoyer, House Minority leader. He talked about "disinvestment" where real people would have said "spending cut". Does "disinvestment" sound better than "spending cut"? Depends I suppose, on whether you believe in more spending or less spending.
What's the matter with Common Core?
Beats me. I took the trouble to find Common Core in the Internet. It's wordy. Written by Ed majors ignorant of Strunk and White. Since it was so wordy and so tedious, I just read the mathematics section. I didn't see anything terribly wrong there. It covered most of what I had in high school. It was a little watered down from what I remembered, but then I was lucky to attend a truly top flight high school and I was happy with math. It's probably not the end of the world to set the bar a tad lower for a national standard.
I've seen a lot of talk about who created Common Core. Some say it's a state effort, some say it's a federal government effort. This "origins" argument seems petty to me. Doesn't matter where it comes from, is it any good? Does anyone know? Has anyone contrasted Common Core with what New Hampshire does now?
I've heard a fair amount of opposition to Common Core coming from teachers. I tend to discount this, as many teachers dislike anyone setting any sort of standards to which they might be held.
I've also heard talk that Common Core is a conspiracy among the publishing industry to sell books and test materials. The sales pitch would be, "You need to supply your students with this up-to-date Common Core text book." "You need to buy these Common Core compliant tests." I suppose. I still remember beginning school years with teachers handing out well worn textbooks from previous years. I always felt lucky to get a copy that still had both covers attached to it.
Common Core seems to heating up. Someone on Fox News commented the Jeb Bush might be hurt politically by his support for Common Core.
I've seen a lot of talk about who created Common Core. Some say it's a state effort, some say it's a federal government effort. This "origins" argument seems petty to me. Doesn't matter where it comes from, is it any good? Does anyone know? Has anyone contrasted Common Core with what New Hampshire does now?
I've heard a fair amount of opposition to Common Core coming from teachers. I tend to discount this, as many teachers dislike anyone setting any sort of standards to which they might be held.
I've also heard talk that Common Core is a conspiracy among the publishing industry to sell books and test materials. The sales pitch would be, "You need to supply your students with this up-to-date Common Core text book." "You need to buy these Common Core compliant tests." I suppose. I still remember beginning school years with teachers handing out well worn textbooks from previous years. I always felt lucky to get a copy that still had both covers attached to it.
Common Core seems to heating up. Someone on Fox News commented the Jeb Bush might be hurt politically by his support for Common Core.
Monday, April 7, 2014
Why the Roman Empire Fell.
This chart by Dr. A.J. Parker shows the number of Mediterranean shipwrecks by date of sinking. The number of wrecks is proportional to the number of sailings. And the number of ship sailings is a measure of economic activity, especially so in an age when everything moved by water.
Most interesting is the dating. Notice the steady, almost exponential grow that starts 500-600 BC and keeps growing strongly until the first century BC. About then, the Roman Republic came unglued and the Roman emperors, Julius, Augustus and company take over. Notice also the decline in shipping that sets in at about the same time. By the time we get to Constantine, commerce is down by two thirds from its peak. In short, Constantine, who starts the retrenchment of the Empire, had only a third of the wealth to pay his armies and support his government that Augustus had at his disposal.
With this chart one can make a good argument that the freer and more democratic institutions of the Republic encouraged commerce and industry, whereas the policies of the emperors was hostile. It is generally agreed that the Empire fell when it was no longer able to pay the professional Roman Army that had kept the barbarians out for hundreds of years.
Sunday, April 6, 2014
Fifty nervous heads, fifty loaded machine guns
Way back during the Viet Nam war, I was assigned to a jet fighter wing in Thailand. We were bombing North Viet Nam twice a day. We had a poorly defended air base, lacking even a perimeter fence and about 5000 young airmen on base. Some young troop wrote a letter to his Congressman saying "Here I am in a combat zone, and the Air Force won't let me have a gun." In those days, Congressman spoke loudly AND carried a big stick, and so orders came down from AF HQ requiring every unit on the base to draw enough M16's out of base supply to arm every man in the unit. More orders from the base commander, requiring each unit to build an arms room and keep the M16's locked up therein. I remember taking the squadron pickup truck up to Base Supply and loading 400 brand new M16's, still in cartons, and 1200 new magazines, all full of ammo, and driving back to squadron headquarters, feeling VERY well armed. Meanwhile the men had built gun racks out of Dexion, and a gun room out of 3/4 inch plywood, and all the guns were safely locked inside.
And they stayed locked up for the rest of my tour at Korat Royal Thai Air Base. And a good thing too. I can still visualize the scene if we had been attacked and issued all those guns. It would happen after dark, of course. The troops would take shelter in the numerous sand bag bunkers we had in case of attack. In each bunker you have fifty nervous troops, fifty nervous heads sticking up and looking all around, and fifty loaded machine guns. These were the old style fully automatic M16s, pull the trigger and BRAP, 20 rounds are gone. Sooner or later, someone's gun would go off, he forgets to put the safety on, he drops it, he's fiddling with it. BRAP. Over in the next bunker, they hear the firing. Someone shouts "They're over there, let 'em have it." BRAP. Someone else shouts, "They're shooting at us from over there." BRAP. I figure firing would continue until the last round was expended. Should I have survived that night, the next morning would have been bad. Bullet holes everywhere. All the aircraft shot up. All the hootchs full of holes.
Fortunately it never happened, but it could have.
So, when I hear that the military forbids the troops from carrying guns on base, I can understand where they are coming from.
And they stayed locked up for the rest of my tour at Korat Royal Thai Air Base. And a good thing too. I can still visualize the scene if we had been attacked and issued all those guns. It would happen after dark, of course. The troops would take shelter in the numerous sand bag bunkers we had in case of attack. In each bunker you have fifty nervous troops, fifty nervous heads sticking up and looking all around, and fifty loaded machine guns. These were the old style fully automatic M16s, pull the trigger and BRAP, 20 rounds are gone. Sooner or later, someone's gun would go off, he forgets to put the safety on, he drops it, he's fiddling with it. BRAP. Over in the next bunker, they hear the firing. Someone shouts "They're over there, let 'em have it." BRAP. Someone else shouts, "They're shooting at us from over there." BRAP. I figure firing would continue until the last round was expended. Should I have survived that night, the next morning would have been bad. Bullet holes everywhere. All the aircraft shot up. All the hootchs full of holes.
Fortunately it never happened, but it could have.
So, when I hear that the military forbids the troops from carrying guns on base, I can understand where they are coming from.
Silence gives assent
Something any candidate should understand. If the opposition slimes you, you MUST reply. The voters, most of whom have real lives to live, don't pay close attention to the political fray. Many of them still make up their minds while standing in the voting booth. When they hear an attack on a candidate, they assume it's just campaign skirmishing and don't pay much attention.
BUT. If the victim never responds to the slime, people begin to think "Gee maybe there is something in that slime. If it wasn't true, he would have denied it.".
Way back when, Mike Dukakis, governor of Massachusetts was running for the presidency against George Bush. Willie Horton, an ugly convict, was out of prison, on some kind of parole, and he committed another atrocious crime. Bush ran a bunch of TV ads claiming that the Duke was soft on crime. Dukakis never said anything. There were a bunch of things he could have said, but he decided to just say nothing. The mud stuck.
Just last time, Obama accused Mitt Romney of being a blood sucking vulture capitalist, who bought of companies, laid everyone off, canceled their health insurance, and stole the office furniture. Romney never said anything. Romney should have said "At Bain capital we financed the start up of this company and that company and these other companies. They are all still in business, They are employing umpteen thousand workers, with health insurance, and a combined payroll of a many zillion dollars." Romney didn't say a thing, and Obama's slime stuck.
And we are stuck with Obama for three more years.
Motto of the story, when they slime you, you gotta fight back.
BUT. If the victim never responds to the slime, people begin to think "Gee maybe there is something in that slime. If it wasn't true, he would have denied it.".
Way back when, Mike Dukakis, governor of Massachusetts was running for the presidency against George Bush. Willie Horton, an ugly convict, was out of prison, on some kind of parole, and he committed another atrocious crime. Bush ran a bunch of TV ads claiming that the Duke was soft on crime. Dukakis never said anything. There were a bunch of things he could have said, but he decided to just say nothing. The mud stuck.
Just last time, Obama accused Mitt Romney of being a blood sucking vulture capitalist, who bought of companies, laid everyone off, canceled their health insurance, and stole the office furniture. Romney never said anything. Romney should have said "At Bain capital we financed the start up of this company and that company and these other companies. They are all still in business, They are employing umpteen thousand workers, with health insurance, and a combined payroll of a many zillion dollars." Romney didn't say a thing, and Obama's slime stuck.
And we are stuck with Obama for three more years.
Motto of the story, when they slime you, you gotta fight back.
Saturday, April 5, 2014
Turbotax
I hate doing my taxes. Boring. And, the amount of money taken by Uncle Sam is always a downer. And the mountains of paperwork, 1099, W-2, 140, Schedule A,B,D,E... X,Y,Z. Aargh!
For years I have been doing them with an Excel spreadsheet. But this year I gave up, I bought Turbotax, and got on with it. I have to say, Turbotax reduces the pain enough to justify the program's cost. It comes in four levels. Lowest and cheapest level only does fairly simple returns. I had to buy level 3 ($90) before the program would handle the capital gains you get when you sell some stock. The interface is pretty user friendly, like 100% better than anything you find in those IRS instruction sheets. The program offers to download your 1099 forms from your stock broker, but for this feature to work you have to have "opened" a web window, complete with username and password into your stock account. I never did that, fearing hackers would get in and steal everything I own. So I had to type in all the numbers from the 1099s. But that's not too bad, I touch type, once it's down, you are golden.
Turbotax urges your strongly to efile. I don't, 'cause when you efile, your return can go right into the IRS computers, and if you screwed up, those computers will be on your case for more money quicktime. If IRS has to hand key your return into their computers, or even just run it thru an optical scanner, they may not bother if your return looks reasonable.
Don't ask Turbotax to "print" your return. When I did so, it printed out 44 pages of return and then fell into a loop printing page after page of pure gibberish. Instead ask Turbotax to make a pdf file of your return. Then print it out using Adobe.
Turbotax understands all the obscure extra forms that you can file to get little tax breaks here and there. It did a couple of forms I'd never seen before and saved me bits and pieces of money.
For years I have been doing them with an Excel spreadsheet. But this year I gave up, I bought Turbotax, and got on with it. I have to say, Turbotax reduces the pain enough to justify the program's cost. It comes in four levels. Lowest and cheapest level only does fairly simple returns. I had to buy level 3 ($90) before the program would handle the capital gains you get when you sell some stock. The interface is pretty user friendly, like 100% better than anything you find in those IRS instruction sheets. The program offers to download your 1099 forms from your stock broker, but for this feature to work you have to have "opened" a web window, complete with username and password into your stock account. I never did that, fearing hackers would get in and steal everything I own. So I had to type in all the numbers from the 1099s. But that's not too bad, I touch type, once it's down, you are golden.
Turbotax urges your strongly to efile. I don't, 'cause when you efile, your return can go right into the IRS computers, and if you screwed up, those computers will be on your case for more money quicktime. If IRS has to hand key your return into their computers, or even just run it thru an optical scanner, they may not bother if your return looks reasonable.
Don't ask Turbotax to "print" your return. When I did so, it printed out 44 pages of return and then fell into a loop printing page after page of pure gibberish. Instead ask Turbotax to make a pdf file of your return. Then print it out using Adobe.
Turbotax understands all the obscure extra forms that you can file to get little tax breaks here and there. It did a couple of forms I'd never seen before and saved me bits and pieces of money.
Why Nations Fail by Daron Acemoglu & James Robinson
The title is intriguing. Does this book reveal the secrets of national economic success? Point out things that lead to national poverty? Read on.
It is an infuriating read. Glittering generalities, vague language. Few real examples. Some of the few examples given are plain wrong. Other examples are taken from obscure times and places unfamiliar to all but a few specialists. The authors settle down to condemning "extractive policies" and praising "inclusive policies" without either defining these ideas or giving many examples. They do tell us how the Spanish Conquistadors stuck it to the conquered Indians, but that is about it for examples. They speak disparagingly about Jared Diamond's theory but it is clear that they don't understand what Diamond was saying. They claim the English Civil War was a turning point that set England upon the course to the industrial revolution. But they don't discuss the sides, the issues, the winners, the losers, the connection with the industrial revolution, or the outcome.
The thesis of the book is that national wealth or poverty is determined by government policy, but things break down there. "Inclusive policies" adopted by governments lead to wealth, extractive policies lead to poverty. Which sounds like " The gostalk distims the doshes" to me. The best examples given are the two Korea's, and an obscure town on the US-Mexican border. With the same history, geography, natural resources, ethnicity, North Korea lives in poverty whereas South Korea is one of the richest nations on earth. The only difference between North and South is the government. The border splits Nogales in two, the town on the US side is healthier, wealthier, and better served than the town on the Mexican side. All of which is well known and obvious, but no details are given. What specifically makes the successful ones successful.
One of the authors, Robinson, is a Harvard professor, the other ,Acemoglu, is an MIT professor. I don't expect much of Harvard professors, but I am disappointed that an MIT faculty member would put his name to such an unsatisfactory piece of writing.
It is an infuriating read. Glittering generalities, vague language. Few real examples. Some of the few examples given are plain wrong. Other examples are taken from obscure times and places unfamiliar to all but a few specialists. The authors settle down to condemning "extractive policies" and praising "inclusive policies" without either defining these ideas or giving many examples. They do tell us how the Spanish Conquistadors stuck it to the conquered Indians, but that is about it for examples. They speak disparagingly about Jared Diamond's theory but it is clear that they don't understand what Diamond was saying. They claim the English Civil War was a turning point that set England upon the course to the industrial revolution. But they don't discuss the sides, the issues, the winners, the losers, the connection with the industrial revolution, or the outcome.
The thesis of the book is that national wealth or poverty is determined by government policy, but things break down there. "Inclusive policies" adopted by governments lead to wealth, extractive policies lead to poverty. Which sounds like " The gostalk distims the doshes" to me. The best examples given are the two Korea's, and an obscure town on the US-Mexican border. With the same history, geography, natural resources, ethnicity, North Korea lives in poverty whereas South Korea is one of the richest nations on earth. The only difference between North and South is the government. The border splits Nogales in two, the town on the US side is healthier, wealthier, and better served than the town on the Mexican side. All of which is well known and obvious, but no details are given. What specifically makes the successful ones successful.
One of the authors, Robinson, is a Harvard professor, the other ,Acemoglu, is an MIT professor. I don't expect much of Harvard professors, but I am disappointed that an MIT faculty member would put his name to such an unsatisfactory piece of writing.
Friday, April 4, 2014
Ivan Lopez?
How does a man get a Russian Christian name and a Spanish surname? The newsies haven't looked into this at all.
Thursday, April 3, 2014
Jeanne Shaheen casts 96 votes so far this year
That's about one vote a day. Actually the Senate has this quaint custom of requiring two votes on every issue. First they vote to take a vote, and then they vote on the issue. So less business than you might think got transacted. So what did our democratic senator vote for?
Top vote getter, with 55 voters, was nominations. Judges mostly but some administration appointees like Janet Yellen for the Federal Reserve chairman. The rest of 'em were just middle weight judges for all over the country. The constitution does require the "advise and consent" of the Senate for judicial appointments, but I never expected anything like that number of judges.
Next , there are the 9 votes cast to extend unemployment benefits beyond two years. Used to be, un employment only lasted a few weeks to tide you over til you found a new job. Now it runs for two years, and Jeanne voted 9 times to make it even longer.
Then there a 8 votes for the "doc fix". Some years ago, Congress voted a sizable cut in medicaid/medicare rates. The doctors all screamed. Rather than repeal the cuts for good, Congress votes a postponement of them, every year. Nothing is ever really final in Washington.
Then we come to 8 votes for mystery bills. The website said "No short title submitted for this bill". So it could be anything. The Senate should never pass a mystery bill. If we don't even have a title, it could be anything, and is probably harmful. Jeanne voted for these concealed time bombs 8 times.
And now we get to flood insurance. Private companies refuse to write flood insurance because it's a loser. Everyone knows which land will get flooded and which won't. Homeowners liable to getting flooded buy flood insurance. Homeowners on higher ground don't. All flood insurance policies have to pay off after the flood happens. In response to the cries of owners of waterfront property, and realtors, and mortgage lenders, Congess passed a federal flood insurance plan years ago. You can buy flood insurance from the feds, the premiums aren't cheap, but the coverage is first rate. And Uncle Sam looses barrels of money after every flood. It got so bad, that the Biggert-Waters reform act was passed in 2012 to try and limit taxpayer losses.Since nothing is ever final in Washington, the flood insurance lobby keeps bringing up bills to repeal Biggert-Waters. Jeanne Shaheen voted for Biggert- Water repeal 4 times.
And we have 4 votes in favor of assorted waivers to Obamacare. Three votes in favor of reforms that are supposed to do something about sexual assault in the armed forces. 2 votes in favor of the farm bill, and a single vote each for Ukraine aid, raise the federal debt limit, and to kill parts of the Budget Control Act.
So. We have 55 votes for democratic judge nominees, 27 votes that give taxpayer money away, 8 mystery votes, 6 miscellaneous votes.
Scott Brown is looking better and better,
Top vote getter, with 55 voters, was nominations. Judges mostly but some administration appointees like Janet Yellen for the Federal Reserve chairman. The rest of 'em were just middle weight judges for all over the country. The constitution does require the "advise and consent" of the Senate for judicial appointments, but I never expected anything like that number of judges.
Next , there are the 9 votes cast to extend unemployment benefits beyond two years. Used to be, un employment only lasted a few weeks to tide you over til you found a new job. Now it runs for two years, and Jeanne voted 9 times to make it even longer.
Then there a 8 votes for the "doc fix". Some years ago, Congress voted a sizable cut in medicaid/medicare rates. The doctors all screamed. Rather than repeal the cuts for good, Congress votes a postponement of them, every year. Nothing is ever really final in Washington.
Then we come to 8 votes for mystery bills. The website said "No short title submitted for this bill". So it could be anything. The Senate should never pass a mystery bill. If we don't even have a title, it could be anything, and is probably harmful. Jeanne voted for these concealed time bombs 8 times.
And now we get to flood insurance. Private companies refuse to write flood insurance because it's a loser. Everyone knows which land will get flooded and which won't. Homeowners liable to getting flooded buy flood insurance. Homeowners on higher ground don't. All flood insurance policies have to pay off after the flood happens. In response to the cries of owners of waterfront property, and realtors, and mortgage lenders, Congess passed a federal flood insurance plan years ago. You can buy flood insurance from the feds, the premiums aren't cheap, but the coverage is first rate. And Uncle Sam looses barrels of money after every flood. It got so bad, that the Biggert-Waters reform act was passed in 2012 to try and limit taxpayer losses.Since nothing is ever final in Washington, the flood insurance lobby keeps bringing up bills to repeal Biggert-Waters. Jeanne Shaheen voted for Biggert- Water repeal 4 times.
And we have 4 votes in favor of assorted waivers to Obamacare. Three votes in favor of reforms that are supposed to do something about sexual assault in the armed forces. 2 votes in favor of the farm bill, and a single vote each for Ukraine aid, raise the federal debt limit, and to kill parts of the Budget Control Act.
So. We have 55 votes for democratic judge nominees, 27 votes that give taxpayer money away, 8 mystery votes, 6 miscellaneous votes.
Scott Brown is looking better and better,
Wednesday, April 2, 2014
CIA pleads its Behghazi case
They are on TV as I write this. They had a CIA guy name of Morell (a good name in mushrooms) in front of a Congressional committee. Morell was acting CIA director at the time. He had a group of (unnamed) DC based CIA pundits (analysts he called them) gin up a report on Bengasi, day after it happened. He says the analysts never talked to the White House, no pressure was ever placed on them, and they came up with the "It was a protest that got out of hand" story. Some hour later, a report from the CIA station chief on the ground in Benghasi came in, the station chief called it a terrorist attack. Morell claims he passed the station chief's report on the the analyists, and the analysts stuck with their story. So Morrell decided to go with the DC based chairborne warriors rather than the field officer on the scene. And that's how Susan Rice went on the talk shows that Sunday and peddled the "demonstration that got out of hand" story to the country.
Good work Morell. Anyone knows that first hand reports from a responsible man on the scene are more dependable than vaporings from DC pundits.
Good work Morell. Anyone knows that first hand reports from a responsible man on the scene are more dependable than vaporings from DC pundits.
What's wrong with making political contributions?
I dunno. But Harry Reid thinks it is unAmerican for the Koch brothers to contribute money in support of their political beliefs. Far as I am concerned, putting money behind your political beliefs is a commendable act of good citizenship.. Especially when I agree with some of those beliefs. There are plenty of left wing rich guys giving money to Democrats (the name George Soros comes to mind ).
America is a two party country. Supporting either party is a public good.
America is a two party country. Supporting either party is a public good.
Tuesday, April 1, 2014
It's acceptable even if it doesn't meet spec.
This from Mary Barra, new GM CEO to a Congressional committee investigating the GM ignition switch failures.
In all my career in engineering, I never heard anyone ever say anything like that. The rule anywhere I ever worked was simple, if it doesn't meet spec, back it goes and we don't pay for it. That's what incoming inspection is about.
To hear the CEO of GM, a long time engineer there, say that GM would accept parts that don't meet spec means that GM doesn't believe in written quality standards. Apparently GM will ship anything, whether it is any good or not.
Talk about a dysfunctional corporate culture.
Mulally at Ford would never say anything like that.
My next car won't be from GM.
In all my career in engineering, I never heard anyone ever say anything like that. The rule anywhere I ever worked was simple, if it doesn't meet spec, back it goes and we don't pay for it. That's what incoming inspection is about.
To hear the CEO of GM, a long time engineer there, say that GM would accept parts that don't meet spec means that GM doesn't believe in written quality standards. Apparently GM will ship anything, whether it is any good or not.
Talk about a dysfunctional corporate culture.
Mulally at Ford would never say anything like that.
My next car won't be from GM.
Artichokes
An amusing veggie to eat. Actually a thistle. You pluck off the leaves one by one and nibble the tender part off the bottom of the leaf. With mayonnaise. You discard the tough and fibrous upper part of the leaf. They are in season, not too expensive, and tasty. One artichoke can make a nice light meal, and many of us find a light meal plenty filling. The impressive size of the artichoke, and the amount of plucking and nibbling makes them seem like more of a meal than they really are. Note. DO NOT put the used leaves down the disposal. They are tough and stringy and will clog your drain, but good, every time.
Cooking is simple. Boil or steam them until tender. About 45 minutes. The Barefoot Gourmet has an entire chapter explaining how to prepare them. Barefoot is into garlic, and recommends slicing up a whole fresh garlic clove and placing slivers of garlic in between the artichoke leaves. Me, I'm not a real garlic fan so I skip that part. But do slice off the stem and the top 1/2 inch or so, leaving a round spot about the size of a silver dollar. Put them in a pot, sprinkle a generous amount of salt on the cut off tops, dribble some olive oil on top of the salt. Add cold water and go for it.
Virtuous. And tasty.
Cooking is simple. Boil or steam them until tender. About 45 minutes. The Barefoot Gourmet has an entire chapter explaining how to prepare them. Barefoot is into garlic, and recommends slicing up a whole fresh garlic clove and placing slivers of garlic in between the artichoke leaves. Me, I'm not a real garlic fan so I skip that part. But do slice off the stem and the top 1/2 inch or so, leaving a round spot about the size of a silver dollar. Put them in a pot, sprinkle a generous amount of salt on the cut off tops, dribble some olive oil on top of the salt. Add cold water and go for it.
Virtuous. And tasty.
Monday, March 31, 2014
How to destroy your civilization
Simple. Start World War I. In 1913, the last year before the war, Europe ruled the world. Her technology, steam railroad, telegraph, steamships, repeating firearms, telephone, machine woven textiles, electricity, and mass production was totally dominant. Non European countries could not even duplicate European technology, they had to import it, from Europe. The less advanced regions of the world were "colonized" (taken over) by European countries and run for the benefit of the colonizing countries.
After four years of slaughter and destruction on the Western Front, the Russian revolution, and the destruction of the Austro-Hungarian empire the European countries were too shattered, too broke, and too demoralized to keep it up. What's worse, the seeds of the second world war, and the following cold war had been planted. In 1918 the Allies were too exhausted to invade and occupy defeated Germany, and convince the Germans that they had truly lost the war. The Communists had seized power in Russia and would keep it for 70 years. The majority of Germans felt they had not been beaten fair and square and were ready to try it again twenty years later. This brought Adolf Hitler to power and kicked off WWII, which was as bad, or worse, than the first one.
What went wrong? First. The Austro-Hungarian empire could see and feel it's power crumbling in the face of nationalist feeling among it's massive subject peoples. The German speaking Austrians and the Hungarians had struck a deal to share power and run the empire. The rest of the empire, the Balkans, Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, Moldavians, Bohemians, and others were second class imperial citizens, and wanted out. The ruling Austro-Hungarians knew that when the subject peoples got out, they would be reduced to running a third class eastern European now-wheres-ville. They saw the Sarajevo assassinations as the pretext for a sharp little war that would teach their subject peoples to shut up and do what they were told. The ruling eleite believed that unless they took drastic action they were doomed, so they were strongly motivated toward war. War was their salvation.
Second. Germany, a brand new country created just 45 years before, lacked national institutions with the power to constrain the central government, a monarchy with a nut case monarch. The nut case liked international crises, the Sarajevo killings looked like a fine crisis, he decided to stir the pot. When the Austrians came the Berlin asking for support in their hassle with the Serbs, he told them to go right ahead, kick some Serbian ass. With that backing, the Crush-Serbia-Now faction in Vienna was able to silence their opponents and kick off the war.
Lessons learned. First, if you run an Empire, you want to give everyone in the empire a stake in it. The Romans understood this; they would make anyone a citizen of Rome. Even the Apostle Paul was a Roman citizen. The Austro-Hungarians might have survived and not needed a brisk little war to shore up the empire, if they had worked harder on giving everyone in the empire a fair shake. Second, you want to require assent from everyone in the country before going to war or taking steps that lead to war. If approval in the Reichstag and in the foreign ministry had been required for the infamous "blank check" that Wilhelm II issued to the Austro Hungarians, it would not have approved. And WWI would have been avoided.
After four years of slaughter and destruction on the Western Front, the Russian revolution, and the destruction of the Austro-Hungarian empire the European countries were too shattered, too broke, and too demoralized to keep it up. What's worse, the seeds of the second world war, and the following cold war had been planted. In 1918 the Allies were too exhausted to invade and occupy defeated Germany, and convince the Germans that they had truly lost the war. The Communists had seized power in Russia and would keep it for 70 years. The majority of Germans felt they had not been beaten fair and square and were ready to try it again twenty years later. This brought Adolf Hitler to power and kicked off WWII, which was as bad, or worse, than the first one.
What went wrong? First. The Austro-Hungarian empire could see and feel it's power crumbling in the face of nationalist feeling among it's massive subject peoples. The German speaking Austrians and the Hungarians had struck a deal to share power and run the empire. The rest of the empire, the Balkans, Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, Moldavians, Bohemians, and others were second class imperial citizens, and wanted out. The ruling Austro-Hungarians knew that when the subject peoples got out, they would be reduced to running a third class eastern European now-wheres-ville. They saw the Sarajevo assassinations as the pretext for a sharp little war that would teach their subject peoples to shut up and do what they were told. The ruling eleite believed that unless they took drastic action they were doomed, so they were strongly motivated toward war. War was their salvation.
Second. Germany, a brand new country created just 45 years before, lacked national institutions with the power to constrain the central government, a monarchy with a nut case monarch. The nut case liked international crises, the Sarajevo killings looked like a fine crisis, he decided to stir the pot. When the Austrians came the Berlin asking for support in their hassle with the Serbs, he told them to go right ahead, kick some Serbian ass. With that backing, the Crush-Serbia-Now faction in Vienna was able to silence their opponents and kick off the war.
Lessons learned. First, if you run an Empire, you want to give everyone in the empire a stake in it. The Romans understood this; they would make anyone a citizen of Rome. Even the Apostle Paul was a Roman citizen. The Austro-Hungarians might have survived and not needed a brisk little war to shore up the empire, if they had worked harder on giving everyone in the empire a fair shake. Second, you want to require assent from everyone in the country before going to war or taking steps that lead to war. If approval in the Reichstag and in the foreign ministry had been required for the infamous "blank check" that Wilhelm II issued to the Austro Hungarians, it would not have approved. And WWI would have been avoided.
Sunday, March 30, 2014
NLRB claims workers need approval to unionize?
This came up in respects to the "unionize college football players" hooray. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) granted permission to the players to form a union.
Eh? I thought anyone could form a union. "Congress shall make no law abridging the right of the people to peaceably assemble... " First Amendment. Forming a union, I call that peaceable assembly. Why should government approval be needed for that? Of course the Obama people think that government approval is needed for breathing, eating, and drinking.
Not that I am in favor of changing college athletes from students who do sports to workers for pay. What does need to be looked into is the current deal. Playing sports in return for an all expenses paid degree is a fair deal. But if the player fails to gain the degree, that's a swindle. I don't know just what the athlete graduation rate is, but if it's less than 95%, heads ought to roll. Granted, the kinds of kids that go out for football and basketball (jocks we used to call 'em) are not the most promising students. But with decent guidance, some tutoring, and some serious motivation, they ought to graduate. "You can't play unless you have a C average" is serious motivation.
Eh? I thought anyone could form a union. "Congress shall make no law abridging the right of the people to peaceably assemble... " First Amendment. Forming a union, I call that peaceable assembly. Why should government approval be needed for that? Of course the Obama people think that government approval is needed for breathing, eating, and drinking.
Not that I am in favor of changing college athletes from students who do sports to workers for pay. What does need to be looked into is the current deal. Playing sports in return for an all expenses paid degree is a fair deal. But if the player fails to gain the degree, that's a swindle. I don't know just what the athlete graduation rate is, but if it's less than 95%, heads ought to roll. Granted, the kinds of kids that go out for football and basketball (jocks we used to call 'em) are not the most promising students. But with decent guidance, some tutoring, and some serious motivation, they ought to graduate. "You can't play unless you have a C average" is serious motivation.
Running for US Senate in the Northwoods
. Jeanne Shaheen had
a prominent piece on the Littleton Courier's editorial page last week complaining that
Scott Brown won't sign an agreement to limit out-of-state political
contributions. Which is interesting inside baseball, but it doesn't really
matter to me. I care about what the
candidate, if elected, might do for me, rather than where his/her campaign
money comes from. With Scott Brown, I
figure I'm getting a reasonably dependable vote against Obamacare. With Jeanne Shaheen, I know she cast the vote
that gave us Obamacare. This is the
stuff that matters, what the candidate[s] did, or might do, in office. Whether the candidate raises out-of-state
money or not just doesn't matter. At
least not to me.
And let's be real,
Scott Brown undoubtedly has a whole bunch of Massachusetts
friends who just might chip in a little money to his campaign up here. I don't see anything wrong with that. After all, I sent Scott a modest campaign
contribution back when he was running for Senate from Massachusetts.
Saturday, March 29, 2014
Fantasy Model Railroading
Model railroad hobbyists used to be sticklers for prototype accuracy. The models had to match the prototype exactly, and long discussions would ensue among hobbyists regarding such matters as the proper style of headlamp on this or that type of steam engine, or the proper shade of paint for certain rail cars. But, hobbyists would be more fanatical fans of certain railroads, more fanatical than baseball fans.
And so, we now have model companies offering models of up to the minute locomotives painted for railroads that went out of business generations ago. Truly fantasy modeling.
My latest copy of Model Railroader contains an ad for ultra modern GM and GE diesel locomotives painted in the tuscan-with-five-gold stripes scheme of the Pennsylvania RR and the green and cream scheme of the Erie RR. Both the Pennsy and the Erie went out of business in the 1960's. The locomotive models didn't go into production until the 1990s. Talk about anachronisms. Oh well, its a hobby.
And so, we now have model companies offering models of up to the minute locomotives painted for railroads that went out of business generations ago. Truly fantasy modeling.
My latest copy of Model Railroader contains an ad for ultra modern GM and GE diesel locomotives painted in the tuscan-with-five-gold stripes scheme of the Pennsylvania RR and the green and cream scheme of the Erie RR. Both the Pennsy and the Erie went out of business in the 1960's. The locomotive models didn't go into production until the 1990s. Talk about anachronisms. Oh well, its a hobby.
Friday, March 28, 2014
Retraining airline pilots
Fundamental duty of a pilot is to keep the plane in the air. "Keep the shiny side up and the greasy side down" the truckers say. When an aircraft slows down, the air flowing over the wings slows down, reducing the lift. To keep the plane in the air, you pitch the nose up, tilting the wings up (increasing the angle of attack) which makes the wings take a bigger bite of the air. This can go on for quite some time, but sooner or later, the wing stalls, airflow becomes turbulent, lift vanishes, and the plane falls out of the sky. This is a stall. They have been known since Wilbur and Orville's time, and they are very dangerous. If the plane keeps falling, it will hit the ground.
In 2009 there were three bad fatal airline accidents, all caused when the aircraft stalled, the pilot was unable to recover, and the plane hit the ground. In all three cases, the pilot's failed to fly out of the stall. You fly out by pushing the stick forward, lowering the nose, trading off some altitude for speed. The extra speed gives you more lift, the reduced angle of attack reduces drag, which makes you go faster. The worst case was the Air France crash in the South Atlantic. With three pilots on the flight deck, they had the stick pulled full back right up until the plane hit the water. Not one of the three pilots attempted to push the stick forward, get the nose down, and get some airspeed.
Investigation found that stall recovery pilot training emphasized adding power and not losing any altitude, rather than putting the nose down to gain speed. Trouble with the add power strategy is simple, the engines probably don't have enough power to increase airspeed much. By the time the aircraft is close to stalling, it already has pitched up quite a bit, increasing the angle of attack, which increases drag as well as lift. The engines of airliners don't have the kind of power you find in fighter planes, they lack the power to accelerate the plane at high angles of attack. In USAF we called this "Getting behind the power curve".
Anyhow, the industry is revamping pilot training, telling the pilots to push the stick forward, get some airspeed, and accept a loss of altitude.
In 2009 there were three bad fatal airline accidents, all caused when the aircraft stalled, the pilot was unable to recover, and the plane hit the ground. In all three cases, the pilot's failed to fly out of the stall. You fly out by pushing the stick forward, lowering the nose, trading off some altitude for speed. The extra speed gives you more lift, the reduced angle of attack reduces drag, which makes you go faster. The worst case was the Air France crash in the South Atlantic. With three pilots on the flight deck, they had the stick pulled full back right up until the plane hit the water. Not one of the three pilots attempted to push the stick forward, get the nose down, and get some airspeed.
Investigation found that stall recovery pilot training emphasized adding power and not losing any altitude, rather than putting the nose down to gain speed. Trouble with the add power strategy is simple, the engines probably don't have enough power to increase airspeed much. By the time the aircraft is close to stalling, it already has pitched up quite a bit, increasing the angle of attack, which increases drag as well as lift. The engines of airliners don't have the kind of power you find in fighter planes, they lack the power to accelerate the plane at high angles of attack. In USAF we called this "Getting behind the power curve".
Anyhow, the industry is revamping pilot training, telling the pilots to push the stick forward, get some airspeed, and accept a loss of altitude.
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
Why Obama's executive orders can overrule acts of Congress
Well, it's 'cause most of 'em are delaying bits of Obamacare that nobody likes. I think people would raise a bigger stink should Obama overrule something everyone likes, say the first amendment, or the second for that matter.
At least I hope so. It's frightening to see so much personal rule by decree from an American president.
At least I hope so. It's frightening to see so much personal rule by decree from an American president.
Atlas V booster flies on Russian engines
Atlas V, one of America's three big booster rockets, is powered by RD-180 rocket engines supplied by NPO Energomash in Russia. Aviation Week ran a piece speculating upon the effects of a Russian embargo upon these engines. Due to worries about the reliability of Russian suppliers, USAF maintains a two year stockpile of the engines. That's gotta be expensive, although Aviation Week didn't comment upon the expense. Anyhow Atlas V could keep flying until the stockpile is exhausted. And launches could continue using the Delta IV rocket, which is powered by US built RS-68 engines. Both Atlas and Delta are built and operated by United Launch Alliance, a spinoff/merger of the booster operations of Boeing and Lockheed Martin. Pentagon sources say it would cost $1 billion and take five years to set up production of the Russian RD-180 in the US. Which is prohibitively costly. They would scrap Atlas V before spending that sort of money.
Elon Musk of SpaceX says that his Falcon 9 booster could handle all the launches. Falcon has made several successful flights to the International Space Station carrying supplies. USAF is "certifying" Falcon to launch national security payloads. Certification could happen anytime USAF feels like it. It's just a paperwork exercise.
All three boosters, Atlas, Delta and Falcon are in the same class. They can all boost the same payloads, give or take maybe 10%. So loss of Atlas isn't the end of the world.
The Russian have made no threats to cut off RD-180 engines. Presumably they are making good money selling them to the Americans, and they don't want to ruin it. I doubt that the Russians want to let a little unpleasantness over the Crimea mess up a good thing.
Elon Musk of SpaceX says that his Falcon 9 booster could handle all the launches. Falcon has made several successful flights to the International Space Station carrying supplies. USAF is "certifying" Falcon to launch national security payloads. Certification could happen anytime USAF feels like it. It's just a paperwork exercise.
All three boosters, Atlas, Delta and Falcon are in the same class. They can all boost the same payloads, give or take maybe 10%. So loss of Atlas isn't the end of the world.
The Russian have made no threats to cut off RD-180 engines. Presumably they are making good money selling them to the Americans, and they don't want to ruin it. I doubt that the Russians want to let a little unpleasantness over the Crimea mess up a good thing.
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
Group of 8 now back to Group of 7
The world's rich country club, originally the US,France,Germany, Italy, Japan, and Canada, just black balled its newest member, Russia, over the Ukraine invasion.
So it is back to being the G7. There is room for more members. Brazil and India come to mind. Brazil's GNP is actually larger than Russia's. India's is right behind Russia, and ahead of Canada's. Both countries are democracies, and believers in the things we care about, like freedom, capitalism, free markets, human rights, self determination, and not invading other countries. And they are friendly to us.
The other potential member, based on GNP size is of course China. Unfortunately, the Chinese do not believe in the things we deem important, and in fact are actively hostile to them. And they are not very friendly, to us, or to anyone else for that matter. So, we don't have to invite them in.
So it is back to being the G7. There is room for more members. Brazil and India come to mind. Brazil's GNP is actually larger than Russia's. India's is right behind Russia, and ahead of Canada's. Both countries are democracies, and believers in the things we care about, like freedom, capitalism, free markets, human rights, self determination, and not invading other countries. And they are friendly to us.
The other potential member, based on GNP size is of course China. Unfortunately, the Chinese do not believe in the things we deem important, and in fact are actively hostile to them. And they are not very friendly, to us, or to anyone else for that matter. So, we don't have to invite them in.
Monday, March 24, 2014
Game of Thrones, Season 3 [Caution spoilers}
I've watched it all. Ten episodes, which doesn't seem like very many. After all there are 52 weeks in a season. Used to be, they would make 25-30 episodes. Season opened in September, and there would be new episodes enough to last til spring, before reruns started.
It's entertaining. Better than CSI, or "reality" TV, or cop shows or Walking Dead. The medieval setting is well done, convincing costumes and sets. It's dark, very dark. Plenty of scenes of outright cruelty. Interpersonal relationships all have strong elements of coercion, oppression, and violence. Nobody is happily married, at least not since they beheaded Lord Eddart Stark (Sean Bean) back last season. John Snow's relationship with a wilder girl ends with the wilder girl shooting him full of arrows. Rob Stark and Catlin, his mother, are treacherously slain at the red wedding. Dani Targaryen is still the single war queen leading the Dothraki hordes, no consort for her.
I've previously commented on the poor soundtrack, lack of distinctive costumes, and lack of personal names. The show would be better if all three failings were improved. But the non stop action, the swords and sorcery theme, and attractive characters (those who are still alive) make it quite watchable. The Imp (Tyrion Lannister) emerges as perhaps the most well rounded and interesting character. He's born on the bad side (Lannisters are bad guys), he drinks too much, but he is a decent sort, ingenious and brave.
It's entertaining. Better than CSI, or "reality" TV, or cop shows or Walking Dead. The medieval setting is well done, convincing costumes and sets. It's dark, very dark. Plenty of scenes of outright cruelty. Interpersonal relationships all have strong elements of coercion, oppression, and violence. Nobody is happily married, at least not since they beheaded Lord Eddart Stark (Sean Bean) back last season. John Snow's relationship with a wilder girl ends with the wilder girl shooting him full of arrows. Rob Stark and Catlin, his mother, are treacherously slain at the red wedding. Dani Targaryen is still the single war queen leading the Dothraki hordes, no consort for her.
I've previously commented on the poor soundtrack, lack of distinctive costumes, and lack of personal names. The show would be better if all three failings were improved. But the non stop action, the swords and sorcery theme, and attractive characters (those who are still alive) make it quite watchable. The Imp (Tyrion Lannister) emerges as perhaps the most well rounded and interesting character. He's born on the bad side (Lannisters are bad guys), he drinks too much, but he is a decent sort, ingenious and brave.
Sunday, March 23, 2014
Jimmy Carter uses snail mail
Because he thinks NSA is snooping his email. He said this on Meet the Press this morning. He might be onto something....
To pay college athletes
David Gregory's Meet the Press spent a lot of time discussing this one today. With the Russians invading Ukraine, the US economy in the doldrums, the missing airliner still missing, the Democrats in a tailspin, Gregory figured this was his topic for the morning. Good pick there Gregory.
It's not an issue that resonates with me. After paying to send three children thru college, the thought of an athletic scholarship picking up the $100,000 four year tuition tab sounds like plenty of compensation to this veteran parent. So I don't really feel that college athletes are exploited. You play ball, we pick up tuition room and board, sounds like a pretty good deal to me. Too bad none of my kids was athletic enough to get such a deal.
There was some talk about low graduation rates among athletic scholarship students, although nobody mentioned any numbers. Like how bad is the problem? Newsies are innumerate.
Failure to graduate student athletes is shameful. The college is reneging on it's part of the deal. Granted, teen aged boys with an athletic bend, from poor backgrounds, may not be very motivated to crack the books, study, turn in the papers on time, and get to class. But I do feel it is the college's job to motivate them. A simple rule, you must maintain a C average in order to play, ought to be plenty of motivation. Plus, student athletes should be required to take a major with some economic value. Science, math, computer science, business administration, English, History, a foreign language. Nix on black studies, gender studies, phys ed.
It's not an issue that resonates with me. After paying to send three children thru college, the thought of an athletic scholarship picking up the $100,000 four year tuition tab sounds like plenty of compensation to this veteran parent. So I don't really feel that college athletes are exploited. You play ball, we pick up tuition room and board, sounds like a pretty good deal to me. Too bad none of my kids was athletic enough to get such a deal.
There was some talk about low graduation rates among athletic scholarship students, although nobody mentioned any numbers. Like how bad is the problem? Newsies are innumerate.
Failure to graduate student athletes is shameful. The college is reneging on it's part of the deal. Granted, teen aged boys with an athletic bend, from poor backgrounds, may not be very motivated to crack the books, study, turn in the papers on time, and get to class. But I do feel it is the college's job to motivate them. A simple rule, you must maintain a C average in order to play, ought to be plenty of motivation. Plus, student athletes should be required to take a major with some economic value. Science, math, computer science, business administration, English, History, a foreign language. Nix on black studies, gender studies, phys ed.
Saturday, March 22, 2014
Canon SX170 IS, My new camera
Since elderly Kodak ZX1485 was getting flaky after some 5 years of service, I bought a new, jazzier Canon point-n-shoot. Fixed zoom lens, LCD view finder, built it flash. Comes with a non standard lithium battery and a battery charger. Won't run off AA cells like the Kodak would. Needs you to purchase a memory card. Comes in black, the proper color for a camera IMHO. I'm down on pink for cameras, hand tools, electric trains, or handguns.
Memory card is 16 Gig, and will fit into the memory card slots on my Compaq SR1750 NX desktop. A "card present" LED even lights up. But Windows XP does not recognize the card. Same slot, had recognized the lesser 2 Gig memory card from the Kodak. Some web surfing discovered the existence of a Microsoft patch to handle memory cards greater than 2 gig. Said patch came with a lot of weasel words about not guaranteed, and you ought to wait for the next service pack, and some other stuff that says, "We Microsoft, made this patch 'cause they demanded it of us, but we don't like it, we don't trust it, proceed at your own risk."
So, I went back to Staples to buy a USB cable for the Canon. They had one in stock! It was a Staples branded Mini USB cable. Even cooler, the cable came in a clever blister pack that left the "Mini USB" connector open to touch, and even plug into the camera, just to make sure it really fit. Cute packaging design. To my surprise, Canon had used an industry standard connector on the camera. Plugged 'er in, and Windows recognized the camera and good old Picassa photography program was able to down load photos from the Canon. Cool.
After uploading the photos to my desktop and labeling them I noticed that the camera date was off by seven months. I had set the date during the get-acquainted-and-power-up session. I had to refer to the camera manual to get back to the date setting menu. Somewhere in the camera manual it mentioned that there was a separate tiny battery to hold the date while the main battery was out of the camera for recharging. And it takes four hours for the date holding battery to charge off the main battery. Result, I had set the date before the date holder battery had charged, so the date didn't stick.
Memory card is 16 Gig, and will fit into the memory card slots on my Compaq SR1750 NX desktop. A "card present" LED even lights up. But Windows XP does not recognize the card. Same slot, had recognized the lesser 2 Gig memory card from the Kodak. Some web surfing discovered the existence of a Microsoft patch to handle memory cards greater than 2 gig. Said patch came with a lot of weasel words about not guaranteed, and you ought to wait for the next service pack, and some other stuff that says, "We Microsoft, made this patch 'cause they demanded it of us, but we don't like it, we don't trust it, proceed at your own risk."
So, I went back to Staples to buy a USB cable for the Canon. They had one in stock! It was a Staples branded Mini USB cable. Even cooler, the cable came in a clever blister pack that left the "Mini USB" connector open to touch, and even plug into the camera, just to make sure it really fit. Cute packaging design. To my surprise, Canon had used an industry standard connector on the camera. Plugged 'er in, and Windows recognized the camera and good old Picassa photography program was able to down load photos from the Canon. Cool.
After uploading the photos to my desktop and labeling them I noticed that the camera date was off by seven months. I had set the date during the get-acquainted-and-power-up session. I had to refer to the camera manual to get back to the date setting menu. Somewhere in the camera manual it mentioned that there was a separate tiny battery to hold the date while the main battery was out of the camera for recharging. And it takes four hours for the date holding battery to charge off the main battery. Result, I had set the date before the date holder battery had charged, so the date didn't stick.
NH Republicans NEED candidates
Here we are, going into what looks like a very good year for Republicans. Obama and the national Democrats have stuck us with Obamacare, and even the dimmest voter is beginning to sense that Obamacare is bad for him. We need candidates to run for both US representative seats, the governor's office, and Shaheen's US senate seat.
So far, the only really competitive Republican candidate is Scott Brown, from MA, who is running for US senate. I haven't met Brown, but he managed win Ted Kennedy's senate seat in 2010. That's impressive in deep blue Massachusetts. I have met Jim Reubins the other declared candidate, nice guy, but I don't think he is setting the voters on fire. The talk down at the local breakfast place (The Coffee Pot) was not encouraging for Brown. Just about everyone called him a carpetbagger, and disparaged his Massachusetts background. Let's hope he can do some fence mending, quick.
We have Frank Guinta running in the other US rep district against Shea Porter. Frank might be able to do it, he held the seat once, and lost to Shea Porter in 2012. Maybe he can do a comeback like Charlie Bass did in 2010. As far as the other US rep district (my district) we don't even have a candidate.
We do have a candidate for governor, Andrew Hemingway, nice guy. I've met him. He is pretty young, and hasn't even gotten elected to the State House of Representatives yet. He has only held town offices. I'm thinking a successful governor has to have better name recognition and know more people that Andrew does.
So far, the only really competitive Republican candidate is Scott Brown, from MA, who is running for US senate. I haven't met Brown, but he managed win Ted Kennedy's senate seat in 2010. That's impressive in deep blue Massachusetts. I have met Jim Reubins the other declared candidate, nice guy, but I don't think he is setting the voters on fire. The talk down at the local breakfast place (The Coffee Pot) was not encouraging for Brown. Just about everyone called him a carpetbagger, and disparaged his Massachusetts background. Let's hope he can do some fence mending, quick.
We have Frank Guinta running in the other US rep district against Shea Porter. Frank might be able to do it, he held the seat once, and lost to Shea Porter in 2012. Maybe he can do a comeback like Charlie Bass did in 2010. As far as the other US rep district (my district) we don't even have a candidate.
We do have a candidate for governor, Andrew Hemingway, nice guy. I've met him. He is pretty young, and hasn't even gotten elected to the State House of Representatives yet. He has only held town offices. I'm thinking a successful governor has to have better name recognition and know more people that Andrew does.
Friday, March 21, 2014
Wishful Thinking at the Atlantic
Plan could finally free New York-city traffic congestion. Dream on Atlantic. The plan amounts to hiking bridge tolls, and putting tolls on the four free bridges. Jack the toll up to the point where people stop driving into Manhattan.
First of all, when you are running a city, you WANT people to come into town. They shop, attend shows, eat at restaurants, spend money. They are customers. You want customers. Without customers you have Detroit.
People will drive, 'cause driving is convenient, and much faster than bus or subway. No matter how many roads you build, traffic increases to fill road available. And, when traffic gets bad enough, people will take the bus or the subway. For instance, I seldom take my car into Boston. I take the T. It's faster, and cheaper than parking in town. I don't go into Manhattan very often, mostly 'cause the traffic is horrible, and the subway is complex for out-of-towners to master.
First of all, when you are running a city, you WANT people to come into town. They shop, attend shows, eat at restaurants, spend money. They are customers. You want customers. Without customers you have Detroit.
People will drive, 'cause driving is convenient, and much faster than bus or subway. No matter how many roads you build, traffic increases to fill road available. And, when traffic gets bad enough, people will take the bus or the subway. For instance, I seldom take my car into Boston. I take the T. It's faster, and cheaper than parking in town. I don't go into Manhattan very often, mostly 'cause the traffic is horrible, and the subway is complex for out-of-towners to master.
Thursday, March 20, 2014
Will the US act when Putin moves on NATO?
Lot of the newer NATO members are ex-Soviet Union or ex Warsaw Pact. Putin has shown that he wants them back, part of Russia, under his thumb. Ask anyone in Ukraine. Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, Czech Republic, and some others share borders and history with Russia. Putin might make a move on any one of 'em.
NATO is a military alliance, with a "Three Musketeers" clause, One for all and all for one. An attack on one is deemed an attack on all. We set up NATO right after WWII when it looked like the Soviets wanted to take over all of Europe. Back then, with Hiroshima and Nagasaki still smoking, no one doubted American resolve and willingness to use force.
How about today? Take Estonia for example. It just managed to pull itself out of the Soviet Union in the shakeup after Mikhail Gorbachev hauled down the red flag of the Soviet Union in 1991. Lot of ethnic Russians in Estonia. Some of them are unhappy about things like school being taught only in the Estonian language. Putin has already made noises about this.
So, what happens when the Russians move into Estonia like they did in the Crimea? Will the US honor NATO treaty obligations and send troops to defend it? Obama doesn't want to. That's pretty clear to everyone in the world. If we let the Russians eat up Estonia, is NATO membership worth the paper it's printed upon?
The question before European countries, both eastern and western: What do you say to an 800 pound gorilla? Answer: Sir!
NATO is a military alliance, with a "Three Musketeers" clause, One for all and all for one. An attack on one is deemed an attack on all. We set up NATO right after WWII when it looked like the Soviets wanted to take over all of Europe. Back then, with Hiroshima and Nagasaki still smoking, no one doubted American resolve and willingness to use force.
How about today? Take Estonia for example. It just managed to pull itself out of the Soviet Union in the shakeup after Mikhail Gorbachev hauled down the red flag of the Soviet Union in 1991. Lot of ethnic Russians in Estonia. Some of them are unhappy about things like school being taught only in the Estonian language. Putin has already made noises about this.
So, what happens when the Russians move into Estonia like they did in the Crimea? Will the US honor NATO treaty obligations and send troops to defend it? Obama doesn't want to. That's pretty clear to everyone in the world. If we let the Russians eat up Estonia, is NATO membership worth the paper it's printed upon?
The question before European countries, both eastern and western: What do you say to an 800 pound gorilla? Answer: Sir!
Wednesday, March 19, 2014
Noscript, Cleaning up Firefox
Firefox has been getting flaky. It will get stuck in loops, sucking up all CPU time, hogging humungous amounts of memory, and slowing to a crawl. Plus opening unasked for ad windows. That last is scary, if Firefox will open an ad window just 'cause a website asked it too, it can plant a virus, or do anything else bad that you can imagine. Standard Firefox allows websites to load code into your browser and execute it on your computer. Which is a gaping security hole. This code is called "a script" which doesn't sound so bad, but it is bad.
There is a fix. Get NoScript, a Firefox "extension". Google will find it for you. NoScript blocks all scripts, along with other flaky things like Java. Properly coded websites will continue to work properly. Cheap ass websites, such as blogger, stop working 'cause they rely on scripts to make 'em work. Noscript allows you to re enable scripts for the websites that have to have scripts.
Since installing NoScript on both Trusty Desktop and Antique Laptop the Firefox lockups have ceased, the unasked for ad windows have gone away. Re enabling scripts for the low speed websites that rely upon them is easy.
The Mozilla help pages say good things about Noscript, clearly the Firefox programmers know about NoScript and consider it a good thing.
There is a fix. Get NoScript, a Firefox "extension". Google will find it for you. NoScript blocks all scripts, along with other flaky things like Java. Properly coded websites will continue to work properly. Cheap ass websites, such as blogger, stop working 'cause they rely on scripts to make 'em work. Noscript allows you to re enable scripts for the websites that have to have scripts.
Since installing NoScript on both Trusty Desktop and Antique Laptop the Firefox lockups have ceased, the unasked for ad windows have gone away. Re enabling scripts for the low speed websites that rely upon them is easy.
The Mozilla help pages say good things about Noscript, clearly the Firefox programmers know about NoScript and consider it a good thing.
NRA cuts another notch on its gun butt
Obama has given up on his surgeon general nominee, a Dr. Vivek Murthy, who is anti gun, and considers gun ownership a disease. NRA said a vote in favor of Murthy would be reported to the membership, a serious threat. NRA has some 5 million dues paying members, it gets the word out to the membership via a monthly magazine, American Rifleman, and the membership takes a word from the NRA very seriously, far more seriously than they take a word from the MSM.
Anyhow, nervous democrats from red districts decided that voting for Obama's surgeon general might get them voted out of office in November. There were enough democrats seeing the light that Obama has given up on the nomination.
Anyhow, nervous democrats from red districts decided that voting for Obama's surgeon general might get them voted out of office in November. There were enough democrats seeing the light that Obama has given up on the nomination.
Tuesday, March 18, 2014
Aviation Week on Malaysia Flt 370
My copy arrived in the mail this morning. Aviation Week reports a few details, like the aircraft tail number, how old it is, and it's last trip thru heavy maintenance (periodic inspection we called it in USAF) All this was quite unexceptional. They gave a map of radar coverage in the area. They did not speculate on the cause of the loss. They went on at some length about electronic reporting and tracking systems the could be installed, if there was funding, but are not present today. That's about it.
No speculation about hijackers, aircrew, Bermuda Triangle, terrorists, bad karma, etc. Aviation Week just reports the facts, of which there are few.
No speculation about hijackers, aircrew, Bermuda Triangle, terrorists, bad karma, etc. Aviation Week just reports the facts, of which there are few.
Obama sanctions Russian officials
In return for invading Ukraine, Obama announced the US will sanction a few Russian officials. Nine, or was it eleven of 'em. Of course he never names these officials, nor explains what they did, that puts them in the US shooting gallery, but Obama did get a lot of press coverage.
Obama has said nothing about increasing US natural gas exports, bouncing Russian banks out of the world financial system, selling arms to Ukraine, offering Ukraine a trade deal as good as we give Canada, or anything else of substance.
Obama has said nothing about increasing US natural gas exports, bouncing Russian banks out of the world financial system, selling arms to Ukraine, offering Ukraine a trade deal as good as we give Canada, or anything else of substance.
Monday, March 17, 2014
Beating up on GM, some more
The get-GM crowd is in full cry. Defective ignition switches on a huge batch of GM cars. The switches would occasionally fail and kill the engine. This has been talked up as a lethal safty hazard with 12 deaths claimed over 10 years. Wow!.
Now I am not a big fan of GM, they have done plenty of stupid things over the years. But to call engine failure a lethal safety hazard? Over the years I have experienced sudden engine failure on the road, maybe three times. Last one, ten years ago, was a Dodge Caravan that broke its timing belt on the way to Blind River Canada. But you know, the engine just dies, and you pull the car over to the shoulder, and pop the hood, get out some tools, and try to fix it. Twice before I got her going again, but the timing belt breakage was beyond my side-of-the-road repair abilities. This sort of thing is a major pain in the tail, but I never considered it dangerous.
Oh well, GM bashers have to get their kicks somewhere.
Now I am not a big fan of GM, they have done plenty of stupid things over the years. But to call engine failure a lethal safety hazard? Over the years I have experienced sudden engine failure on the road, maybe three times. Last one, ten years ago, was a Dodge Caravan that broke its timing belt on the way to Blind River Canada. But you know, the engine just dies, and you pull the car over to the shoulder, and pop the hood, get out some tools, and try to fix it. Twice before I got her going again, but the timing belt breakage was beyond my side-of-the-road repair abilities. This sort of thing is a major pain in the tail, but I never considered it dangerous.
Oh well, GM bashers have to get their kicks somewhere.
Sunday, March 16, 2014
Scott Brown jumps into the race
You gotta love this guy. He is electable with a capital E. Any Republican who can win Ted Kennedy's seat in deep blue Massachusetts, has a way with voters. Although he is a carpetbagger from Taxachusetts, he looks pretty good going up against Jean Shaheen for NH senate. Coming from Massachusetts he is probably more liberal than hard shell conservatives in NH might like, but he is electable. We could win with this guy.
They still haven't found missing airliner
It's still missing. We don't know anything that we didn't know a week ago. But the TV coverage is non stop, every hour on the hour, and lots a time in between. They don't have anything to say, but they are getting airtime. They are even retelling old Bermuda triangle stories. Pack journalism at its most packy.
Saturday, March 15, 2014
They still do gun shows in NH
So my brother and I drove down to Concord to see what was what. They drew a pretty good crowd. Parking lot was full of pickups and SUV's. Virtually no econoboxes. The crowd was older, my generation, few young guys. They had dealers dealing in rifles and handguns and shotguns. Lot of ammunition for sale and being bought. Lots of holsters and fancy knives, some WWII surplus stuff, including jerricans. Did not find anything to buy, the few rifles I might have liked were way out of my price range.
Friday, March 14, 2014
Getting an IP address. With or Without DNS
The entire world now talks to itself using Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol, usually abbreviated to TCP/IP. Back in the distant past other protocols were used, NETBUEI, DECNET, and such. They are all dead now, and TCP/IP rules. Protocol is a set of rules for doing business. For instance protocol for using the plain old telephone goes like this. Lift handset. Dial 1 plus the area code for long distance, otherwise dial just seven digits. TCP/IP, since it is used by computers is more complex, but it deals with the same issues.
Part of TCP/IP is
the IP address, a long string of digits that works like a telephone
number. Each computer has to have an IP
address, and all the IP addresses must be unique. Two computers may NOT have the same IP
address, for obvious reasons. In the old
days, you typed the IP address into your computer. The network administrator for your site gave
out IP addresses, kept track of the ones in use, and reissued IP addresses used
by old computers that were taken out of service. As you can imagine, the Network Administrator’s
job got harder and harder to do in outfits that might have thousands of desktop
PC’s on the Internet.
So they invented an
automatic program running on the server, to take care of it. Each time a desktop powers up, it asks
the TCP/IP server to give it a new IP address, which it keeps until it
powers down. This server program is
called Domain Name Server (DNS) or Dynamic Host Control Protocol (DHCP). Since
Windows XP goes back to the bad old days of typing in IP addresses by hand, it
still supports that, as well as DNS/DHCP.
You, proud computer operator get the choice of which, or both, to use.
Normally all this
complexity just works, and your computer goes on line every time you power it
up. But sometimes, for obscure and
undocumented reasons, DNS fails, your
computer does not get an IP address, and you get a little message down on the
task bar about “limited or no connectivity” and “IP address” .
What to do?
Windows Repair
Built into Windows is a repair program. It will reset the hardware by powering it
down and then up again, and then go thru the “ask-the-server-for-an-IP-address”
song and dance again. This works a good
deal of the time, (but not always). To
start repair, left click on the channel’s icon down on the task bar. This will open up a “status” window that will
tell you what’s broke and offer more information tab. Click and you will find another tab labeled
“Repair”. Click on it and hope. It may take a while, it gives the server
plenty of time to get its act together and issue an IP address. If it doesn’t work, you will have to wait
about a minute to get the bad news. If
it does work, you are home free, at least for today.
IPCONFIG
This is essentially a
manual way of doing what Repair does, with some benefits of extra
information. IPCONFIG is a DOS program,
you launch it from the DOS window. Get the DOS window open from the Windows Run
option on the Start menu. Microsoft
renamed DOS to CMD, for the Run option. That helped everyone, a lot. Thanks MS.
Like all DOS
programs, IPCONFIG works off switches on its command line. Switch /ALL makes it list out all the I/O
channels (Ethernet, Wireless, etc) on your machine. It gives the IP address (if it has one), serial numbers, and other stuff. Switch /RELEASE hangs up your internet
connection, turns in your IP address, and takes you off line. Switch /RENEW
does the “ask-the-server-for-an-IP-address” song and dance. I don’t know what IPCONFIG does with no
command line switches, so I don’t run it that way. Doing IPCONFIG /RELEASE followed by IPCONFIG /RENEW is equivalent to
doing the Windows Repair.
Alternate Configuration
And, sometimes the
server is feeling cranky and just won’t issue an IP address no matter what. My “server” is a little 4 port Belkin wireless
router, it works fine on Trusty Desktop, but just won’t issue an IP address to
AntiqueLaptop.
You can configure
the channel ask for an IP address, but if that doesn’t work, just use an IP address that you
assign. And this works on the Belkin
router, why I don’t know. To set this
up, left click on the taskbar icon of your channel. Get the status window. Click on “Properties” lower left.
This will display a list of all the drivers, protocols, and other bits
of software that make the channel work.
Scroll thru the list and find “TCP/IP”
Click on the properties button that comes up with the selection of
TCP/IP. This accesses the properties of
the TCP/IP software. On the “General”
page of TCP/IP properties, you want to check
“Obtain an IP address automatically” and “Obtain a DNS Server address
automatically”. That will make your computer attempt to do the DNS song and
dance. If that dance should fail, it
goes to Plan B, “Alternate Configuration”.
Check “User Configured”. The
other choice “Automatic Private IP address” is undocumented, but I believe it
only works in XP Professional, which few of us have. Below the “User Configured” are boxes for IP
address, sub net mask, Default Gateway,
and Preferred DNS server. Fill them in.
What to Use? For my Belkin router 192.168.2.4 works for IP
Address. Trusty Desktop, who gets his IP
address from DNS (the router) is 192.168.2.2.
And he is the only other computer in the house, so I figured the .4 IP address
ought to work and not conflict. If you
have a different router, different IP addresses might work. You gotta do some snooping around. Sub net mask is 255,255,255,0. Both Default Gateway AND Preferred DNS Server is 192.168.2.1, again I
got that from Trusty Desktop.
And, Lo and Behold, Antique Laptop is now back on the
net.
Thursday, March 13, 2014
Congress is OK on bailing out Ukraine.
At least that's what NHPR is reporting. A Ukraine subsidy bill, offering $1 billion in aid has passed the House and a Senate committee. The NHPR guys then went on at length about a controversy. The Senate committee attached a rider containing "reform" of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) NHPR reported that Democrats liked the IMF reforms and Republicans did not. And the House bill lacks the IMF reforms and so a House Senate reconciliation and a revote on the final compromise might be necessary. And that will be a big deal. And NHPR does not approve.
Of course, NHPR didn't bother to say just what these IMF "reforms" might be. IMF has been in business of bailing out broke countries since the end of WWII. They seem to do a fairly decent job over all those years.
I wonder what "reforms" might be necessary? I can think of a lot of "reforms" that I would not approve of and few that I would approve. The "reforms" that spring immediately to mind would attach more conditions to bail outs. While we have 'em on their knees, let's make 'em do our will. You gotta do multi cultural things, green things, put in a minimum wage, protect US intellectual property, meet US environmental standards, yadda, yadda, or else, no bailout. Do things our way, or starve.
One other thing the NHPR boys didn't bother to report. The I in IMF stands for International. How does the US Congress get to change the rules of an international organization? We all know that the US calls most of the shots at the IMF 'cause we still have more money than anyone else, but still, out of pure politeness, we ought not to be rewriting the rules in our national Congress.
Of course, NHPR didn't bother to say just what these IMF "reforms" might be. IMF has been in business of bailing out broke countries since the end of WWII. They seem to do a fairly decent job over all those years.
I wonder what "reforms" might be necessary? I can think of a lot of "reforms" that I would not approve of and few that I would approve. The "reforms" that spring immediately to mind would attach more conditions to bail outs. While we have 'em on their knees, let's make 'em do our will. You gotta do multi cultural things, green things, put in a minimum wage, protect US intellectual property, meet US environmental standards, yadda, yadda, or else, no bailout. Do things our way, or starve.
One other thing the NHPR boys didn't bother to report. The I in IMF stands for International. How does the US Congress get to change the rules of an international organization? We all know that the US calls most of the shots at the IMF 'cause we still have more money than anyone else, but still, out of pure politeness, we ought not to be rewriting the rules in our national Congress.
Cannon Mt Ski Weather
I measured an honest 12 inches on my deck this morning. For those of you who don't know, my deck is within walking distance of the Peabody Slopes chairlifts, so it's pretty representative of what they got at Cannon. The snow started mid day yesterday and had put down 4-5 inches by sunset. It snowed all night, and it's still snowing this morning. Temperature is good and cold, 9 degrees so we are getting nice light powder. Very little wind, so the snow is staying on the trails rather than blowing away into the woods. Conditions at Cannon will be the best all year. Don't miss it.
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