Hurricane with strange name peters out

We are pretty far inland for hurricanes to reach us.  But this one, with an unpronounceable name beginning with I, that I have never heard of before, was forecast to run right up the Connecticut river valley and hit us dead center. Well, we did get some rain and wind last night, but nothing extraordinary.  And its all gone this morning, sun is out, nice day.

Does it make a difference if Microsoft buys Tik-Tok?

TikTok is a wildly successful Chinese company, specializing in (I think) swapping video clips between teenagers. They have been accused of gathering intelligence data for the Chinese government.  From what I hear, the Chinese government puts the arm on companies to do this and that, and it is pretty hard for a company to resist.  The government requests are backed up by the secret police and concentration camps.  And, I don't expect a Chinese company to have many scruples about spying on the Yankees.  Things have gotten so bad that the Trump Administration is talking about banning Tik Tok completely. 

  To avoid Trump's hammer, Tik-Tok is talking about selling itself to Microsoft, hoping that as a wholly owned subsidiary of a US company, they would avoid an open break with the Administration. 

  Perhaps.  But an internet company like Tik-Tok (or Facebook or Twitter or any of them) is largely software.  The software controls how much information is gathered, where it is stored on disk, and who has access to it.  And the software is controlled by just a few software programmers.  Presumably these guys are Chinese nationals, living somewhere in China.  And they work for the Chinese CEO of Tik-Tok.  Would Microsoft buying up all the stock give them control of the software heart of Tik-Tok?  Or would the Chinese software guys keep on doing what they please, or what pleases their boss regardless of what Microsoft might like?

   We might be better off just banning Tik-Tok completely.

I got a new laptop yesterday

Poor old laptop (Flatbeast) died.  Pressing the power button failed to start him up. So I did some Web crawling, looking at laptop ads.  There are a lot of 'em.  Judging from the ad volume you would think that industry has produced plenty of laptops. I decided I wanted to touch the product and check it's key feel.  So, off to Best Buy in Lebanon I go.  They are open on Sunday.  And they had some, but not many laptops in stock.  The salesman told me that they would sell out of everything within days.  So maybe laptops are not so plentiful.  Anyhow I get out of the store with a brand new Acer Nitro R5 1650, only $669.99.   Hmm.  Poor old deceased Flatbeast only cost $300 and change five years ago.  Progress.

   So I plug it in and power it up.  It does not boot up into Windows, it boots up into Curtana, a user hostile interface from Microsoft.  Curtana forces me into opening a Microsoft account, something I didn't want to do.  I have not figured out how to dump that.  After some fiddling around I managed to link up with my desktop and start transferring files.  I got one good file transfer and then the home networking broke.  It is now demanding passwords and hints but rejecting them after I enter them.  And refusing to transfer any more files.  Gotta work on  that.  Half the reason for getting the laptop is to backup my desktop. 

Herman Cain

I am very sorry to hear of Herman Cain’s death.  I heard him speak back in February of 2011.  He came up to Plymouth and spoke at our Lincoln Reagan dinner, held in the old Plymouth railroad station.  Since Plymouth no longer has passenger rail service, the railroad station is now a senior center.  Herman was a dynamite speaker; he got repeated standing ovations from the white, middle class, Republican, rural audience.  If we could have held the election that February night, we would have elected Herman right then and there by unanimous consent.  I heard Martin Luther King speak once, many years ago.  Herman was every bit as good a speaker, the best speaker I had heard since hearing MLK. 

   It was cold that February night.  I remember Herman standing in the parking lot, looking at the 12 foot high snow drifts all around the place.  He clearly felt he had traveled to the North Pole.

   I am sorry the Corona virus killed Herman.  He was one helova good guy.  He will be missed.

Grilling High Tech CEO's, medium rare

Congress hauled the CEO's of Google, Apple, Facebook, and a couple of others up in front of a Congressional committee today.  Questioning ran from hard to hostile.  Republicans accuse them of censoring conservative posts and advertisements.  Some Congresscritters want to regulate them.  I doubt that will work.  The only people who really know what the sites will do are the software guys who write the code.  Those people all work for the company management and will conceal anything that management wants concealed, and keep on doing in secret things the regulators want stopped, like gathering user data and selling it.  I don't see how any government regulators could ever understand what was happening and control what is going down.  Those regulators will come to work, put in 8 hours a day, draw their pay, and put out press releases telling how great they are doing, but they won't actually control anything important. 

More effective would be to use the old Sherman Anti-Trust act to break the big boys up into smaller pieces, like they did to Standard Oil better than 100 years ago.  The new pieces would have to compete with each other for users and advertisers.  If users and advertisers want a platform that does not censor them and does not sell their data to other advertisers, such a platform will emerge, rapidly.

The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, Howard Pyle, 1883

This is the Ur-Robin Hood book.  It has all the Robin Hood stories that I ever heard of, Robin Hood’s quarterstaff bout with Little John on a log over a stream, Robin Hood winning the Sheriff’s archery contest, Meeting Friar Tuck, slaying Guy of Gisbourne.  The only story left out is Maid Marion, her name is mentioned once but that’s it.  The language is middle English, thee and thou, everything is merry, withal, and more.  Gives the stories some flavor.  This is a new edition that turned up at the good old Village Bookstore.  We had a copy of this in the family way back when.  I don’t remember (or never knew) what happened to it. 

   The book is a telling of the Robin Hood stories.  It just tells them without any attempt to discuss whether Robin Hood really lived or is he just an English legend.  It doesn’t really matter, the stories are good stories, be they legend or real history. 

The pilots should have gone around.

Pakistani International Airlines crashed an Airbus A320 (flight PK8303) back on 22 May of this year.  The aircrew got out of position on the approach to landing.  They should have gone around again to get themselves at the right altitude, but they did not.  Where they should have been at 3000 feet, they were actually at 7500 feet.  The tower suggested that they go around to loose some altitude but the aircrew did not want to.  They managed to get the plane on the ground, but it was doing 200 miles per hour, a dangerous and ridiculous landing speed for any sort of aircraft, especially a passenger carrying aircraft.  Hot jet fighters have a landing speed of only 180 mph, to land a transport at that speed is very dangerous.  What is worse, for some reason the crew had retracted the landing gear and forgotten about it, so they made a wheels up landing at 200 mph.  After which, the crew decided to try for a go around.  They got the plane back in the air, but the engines had been banged around so hard when the plane landed wheels up that both of them failed.  The plane clobbered into a residential area less than a mile from the airport.  All but two of the 99 passengers and crew died.  One person on the ground was killed too.

   During the investigation following this accident, it was discovered that 262 of Pakistan's licensed airline pilots were flying on bad licenses.  It seems that those 262 pilots had not taken the written exam, but had paid someone else to take the exam for them. 

Is your college offering on-campus instruction this year?

A lot of colleges, many in California, won't open classrooms on campus this fall.  They will expect students to watch videos online, read their textbooks, and absorb the necessary knowledge to pass the tests, assuming they bother to test, sitting at home and web surfing it.  And to pay full tuition for the privilege. 

Was it me, especially if I was an entering freshman, I would opt for an out of college year.  Take a job, enlist in the armed forces, hike the Appalachian trail, work on a ranch, rebuild a classic car, do a winter as a ski bum, ride a bike across the USA, sail around the world, anything rather than pay outrageous tuition for the privilege of watching U-tube videos. 

Assuming you have not sent in the tuition check yet, you can tell the college you are taking an off year, and will be back next year.  And the colleges will have to grin and bear it. 

"Studies" to be required of California Students

The rule of thumb for college students is "avoid any major with "studies" in it's name.  Like gender studies, black studies, ethnic studies, ecology studies, etc, etc, ad nauseum.  Stick with real majors like English, History, Engineering, French, Chemistry, Spanish, Physics, Russian, Business administration, premed.  Even the ultra boring education major, if you can stand the boredom, it will get you a teaching job upon graduation.  Now, in contradiction to years of wisdom, the California legislature wants to require every college student be subjected to a course in "ethnic studies" as a requirement for graduation.

Casablanca Bogart and Bergmann, 1942

Released in 1942, just after Pearl Harbor.  Black and White.  Rick Blaine, played by Humphrey Bogart, is running a nightspot in Vichy France controlled Morocco.  The Nazi’s are muscling in on this nearly orphaned French colony after they defeated and occupied France in 1940.  Rick’s Café Americain has an American jazz band, brass and piano, fine dining, and casino gambling.  Rick’s place is full of refugees from the Nazi’s all trying to get to America, where the streets are paved with gold, and the Nazi’s cannot reach.  Rick looks all sorts of American, wearing a tan trench coat and a Fedora hat. 

   Into Rick’s café walks Ilsa Lund, played by Ingrid Bergman, looking like a million dollars.  Ilsa is Rick’s old flame.  They were to flee Paris by train just ahead of the Nazi takeover of Paris.  They were to rendezvous at the railroad station.   Ilsa never shows.  Heartbroken, Rick is dragged on board the train by his trusty retainer and band leader Sam.  When Ilsa arrives at Rick’s café in Morocco she is sporting a tall handsome Resistance hero, Victor Lazlo, as a husband.  For the rest of the movie we watch Rick and Ilsa come to terms with the situation.  We see slippery Vichy chief of police, Captain Louis Renault, played by Claude Rains, maneuver between the Nazis, Vichy France, Rick, Victor Lazlo, and assorted low lifes.  We hear classic movie lines such as “Round up the usual suspects.” and “Play it again Sam.” and “Here’s looking at you Kid.”

  One of the best flicks old Hollywood ever made, a flick for grownups, rather than teenaged boys.  Eighty years have gone by and it still works.  I just finished sorting and inventorying my collection of VHS tapes and decided to watch this classic last night.  My aging VHS player still works. 

New drinkable beer

Great North Aleworks. IPA India Pale Ale  7% alcohol.  Pretty decent.  India ale and beer was originally brewed in England, barreled, and shipped by sailing ship around the Cape of Good Hope to India.  To keep it from spoiling on the long voyage it was brewed with an extra dose of hops.  Modern India ale and beer still has the extra hops, giving it a good strong beer flavor.  Presby's market carries it, in cans, with some kind of high tech six pack yoke made of black plastic. 

The Hacker's strike again.

Last year I got an apologetic letter from Uncle Sam.  The hackers had gotten into the government personnel records and taken them.  I didn't get too upset, all they could have gotten was my old Air Force service records from 50 years ago, and records of the security clearance I held up until about 10 years ago. 

Today a got an apologetic letter from by stock broker, Morgan Stanley,  about a hack at their place.  The story as Morgan Stanley told it in the letter, they retired an aging data center.  The hired a contractor (did not give contractor's name) to erase the disks in the data center servers.  Something went wrong, they were not too clear on what, and the data, names and social security and more, stayed on the hard drives and turned up somewhere, later.  Morgan Stanley has offered to pay for two years of an identity theft monitoring program.  I suppose I ought to take them up on that. 

The A10's are back

I have been getting a nice airshow, right over the house these last two days.  They fly up the Notch, at low level, less than 1000 feet.  I get a good view of the aircraft.  It's a little noisy, but I don't care, watching them fly low is fun.  The A10's used to do this, maybe 5-8 years ago, and then they stopped.  And they used to give is a flyover for the Franconia 4th of July parade.  I assumed the A10 unit had been rotated off somewhere.   Anyhow they are back, it's cool.  Glad to see them.

Everyone honors John Lewis

John Lewis, black civil rights leader, US representative from Georgia, died last night at age 80, from cancer.  It is good to see leaders from both parties and the news media doing him honor.  At least we can come together over something.

John Wick Movie 2014

 

Played by Keanu Reeves, John Wick is the toughest movie hit man ever.  Tougher than James Bond, tougher than Paul Kersey, tougher than any role Chuck Norris ever played, tougher than Arnold.   He is retired from the nameless agency he used to work for, happily married.  Suddenly his wife dies of mysterious causes and a bunch of thugs take a fancy to his 69 Mustang and beat him up, kill his dog and steal his car.  The rest of the movie is straight revanchism that leaves nobody alive.  John Wick shoots straight for the heart and kills them with every shot.  He uses a lot of ammunition before the end of the movie.  It’s a pretty stripped down movie, no love interest, no good one liners.  John Wick does get to drive a couple of cool 60’s Detroit hot rods, the Mustang and an Olds 442.  The bad guys drive SUV’s.  The formula must work since they made two sequels.  I watched it to the end, even stayed awake.  But it wasn’t as good as say Terminator 2.

Watched Biden on TV. Sounded much better.

Last couple of times Biden was on TV, speaking from his basement, he did not sound good at all.  Lost his train of thought, mumbled, and generally looked and sounded like the Alzheimers was getting to him.

Just now on TV, he sounded much better.  Spoke up properly, looked straight ahead at the audience (and the TelePrompter).  Gave a position speech that was coherent, stayed on topic.  Looked and sounded like he was in control and not the Alzheimers.  I wonder how he managed that?  New doctor?  Some new drug or treatment?  Practice and coaching?  Good strong coffee?

Roger Stone got his sentence commuted

They convicted Roger Stone on some mickey mouse charges, lying to Congress and some other lawyer stuff.  This was not perjury, lying under oath.  Interrogate anyone long enough and sooner or later he will forget what he said weeks ago and tell it differently this time.  Gotcha, lying to Congress, or the FBI.  Far as I am concerned, "lying to" should not be a crime in the first place.  It's a law that prosecutors lobbied Congress to pass to make life easier for themselves.  You cops want to convict someone, get off your duffs, hit the bricks, and find some real evidence, or some witnesses that will testify. 

   Anyhow, I think the president did right by commuting the sentence.  The guy is in his sixties, he isn't going to assault anyone, keeping him in jail is cruel and unusual punishment. 

Lies, Damn Lies and statistics. Corona virus statistics

We hear a lot of ‘em on the TV.  For a scare tactic the newsies tell us that Corona virus cases are going up.  Not a good sign.  They finish off by calling to quarantine every body and shut everything down.  Then a few newsies tell us that Corona virus deaths are going down.  They finish off by calling for re opening stores and restaurants, getting back to work and ending stay at   home orders.  “There are lies, damn lies, and statistics” to quote Mark Twain.  

   The increase in the number of cases is probably because we are testing more.  And the test is pretty trigger happy.  A lot of people don’t have the disease, feel fine, and the test calls them sick.  The medics call these cases (and there are a lot of them) “asymptomatic” a nice buzz word that means “no symptoms”.  And they count them as Corona virus cases.  We could just as easily say the test has shown a false positive and not a Corona virus case.  And we don’t know if the asymptomatic cases are infectious or not.  Nor do we know if the asymptomatic cases will actually come down with a real case of Corona virus after a few weeks.  Anyhow, the number of Corona virus cases reported by the TV newies might be off by who knows how much.

   The number of deaths is perhaps a little more solid.  You need a death certificate and a body in order the say a death has occurred.  I have heard from a number of places that the medics are under great pressure to call every death a Corona virus death because the hospitals get a larger reimbursement for Corona virus deaths than for other causes of death. At any rate the number of deaths is going down.  It might be that Corona virus has already killed the most vulnerable among us and those of us that are left alive are more resistant to it.  In that case we could expect the death rate to fall some more. 

  Corona virus is going to be around for ever.  Unless we want to live hunkered down at home for the rest of our lives, we have to get out of the house, go to work, go out to eat, travel,  go to the beach, all that stuff.  Sooner or later we will encounter Corona virus.  Mostly we will survive.  I hear that once you have Corona virus you are immune to it from then on in.  I have not heard any real studies of this, but it is likely and it is the general belief right now. 

Lay off the statue bashing

The current craze for busting statues is bad.  Even if the statue is of someone who did bad stuff, it is better to leave the statue unmolested and teach about the person so commemorated.  History is past, we cannot change it now.  Knocking down the statues of historical figures erases the history that those people figured in.  For example, the Civil War is an important part of American history; you cannot understand America today unless you know about the Civil War.  And you need to know about the leaders on both sides of the Civil War.  Robert E. Lee was an honorable man, who fought a clean war.  In 1860 Lee was offered command of the Union army.  When Lee thought about leading Union troops against his beloved home state of Virginia, he simply could not do it.  Instead he resigned his Union army commission and joined the Confederacy.  To understand the Civil War, you have to know who Lee was, and what he did. Likewise you have to know who Stonewall Jackson was and what he did.  You don’t have to approve of them, but you do have to know who they were.  If we knock down statues of both men because they fought for the Confederacy, a lot of citizens, who don’t read history books, will be deprived of key bits of history that they would profit from knowing. 

   So if you really think that so-and-so was a no-good-nick, write a paper, write a letter to the editor, write a textbook, write a post on your blog, make a U-tube video, anything. But leave so-and-so’s statue up.  People see the statue and they are more likely to read your pieces explaining why he was bad.  They will at least know the name.   

Presidential Debates for 2020

We will probably have them.  We have done presidential debates on TV ever since Nixon debated Kennedy back in 1960.  The Trump people need to insist on decent moderators.  We have had some really terrible moderators in the past.  Right now, the only moderators that I know of, that are fair, and well educated and smart enough to think up good questions would be Brit Hume, Bret Baier, Victor Davis Hanson, and Glenn Harlan Reynolds (otherwise known as Instapundit).  I personally would be OK with Rush Limbaugh but I can understand the Biden side being reluctant to go with Rush.  I would be OK with Paul Gigot or Daniel Henninger of the Wall St Journal, but again I can understand the Biden side having serious reservations.  And right now I cannot think of anyone else. 

USAF mulls cargo planes for bombers

With money getting short and costs of the, just on paper, long way from flying, new  B21 bomber rising, a study group has suggested loading up cargo planes like the C17 with cruise missiles  They carry the missiles in the cargo bay and they launch them in flight out the cargo bay doors.  Nifty.  The cargo planes are all ready bought and paid for and flying now.  If we need more, they are a LOT cheaper than the B21 will be.  They have the range to get to most places we might care about.  The cruise missiles can reach out maybe 1000 miles.  If we give the cargo planes a bit of ECM and have them fly low they can penetrate all but the toughest air defenses. 

   Only real drawback is that cruise missiles are a lot more expensive than iron bombs.  For example Tomahawks go for $1 mil a shot.  For a short war, the cruise missile carrying cargo planes are effective.  For a long war, the stealthy B21 can get in close enough to drop cheap iron bombs, offsetting the higher cost of the B21 airframe. 

To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever,

over such District, (not exceeding 10 Miles square), as may by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance by Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States… 

US Constitution Article I Section 8.

This was an issue back in 1789.  The one lucky state that got the federal capital in its territory, Philadelphia, or Boston or Baltimore or even New York, would gain humongous influence over federal policy and lawmaking.  And benefit from federal tax money getting spent in their state and hotel bills paid by all the federal lobbyists.   To prevent an unseemly squabble and endless bad feelings, and not jeopardize acceptance of the Constitution by having such a clear fighting point in it, the Founders decided to create a new green field federal capital city, not to be part of any existing state, location to be specified later (TBSL). 

Now, in 2020 we have a bunch of DC people whining that they don’t get any votes in Congress.  I don’t feel sorry for them.  The river of federal money pours into DC and gives the city a subway, best museums on the planet, Secret Service and FBI and who knows what else for law enforcement, good paying federal jobs that will not quit, Navy Yards, and the home office of every federal agency that ever was.  In the face of this avalanche of largess, I don’t feel sorry for DC.  And, any DC residents who really really want to have a vote in Congress can jolly well move a couple of miles into Virginia or Maryland and vote from there. 

Now I hear the Democrat US House as passed a bill to make DC a state, with two senators and one representative.  They say that DC has a larger population than several long standing states.  It got them a lot of favorable press from all the Democratic operatives with bylines.  It would give the Democrats two safe senate seats and one safe house seat.  As a matter of pure politics, as a Republican, I am against the idea.  As a matter of process, I think they would have to do a Constitutional amendment to rewrite Article 1 Section 8.  I don’t believe they can change the Constitution with just an ordinary federal law.

  With Corona virus loose in the land, the economy shut down tight, and George Floyd riots every night, does the country have time for this kind of Mickey Mouse legislation from Democrats? 

What is "Qualified Immunity" for police officers???

I hear the phrase.  Police reform bills in Congress mention it.  I never heard the phrase before a couple of weeks ago.  Just what is "qualified immunity"? 

Should the police department be enforcing some law that some people don't like, they ought to vote the mayor out of office, and if they want to bypass the democratic process, they can sue the police department, which has a budget, lawyers on staff, and can defend itself.  It is unfair the sue the individual officers who are merely carrying out department policy.  I'm OK with that.

  I am not OK with offering immunity to cops who kill arrested citizens in handcuffs.  Or other lesser bad stuff. 

  For all the bloviating on TV about institutionalized racism raging across the land, I have not yet heard a clear definition of "qualified immunity".  Could it be that the newsies lack the education needed to explain a legal buzzword? 

Absentee Ballots cannot show picture ID.

When the voter goes down to the polls to vote, we can check his picture ID, make sure the face in front of us matches the photo, we can ask for address, we can check him/her off on the voter rolls.  It may not be perfect, but we can do a first order reasonableness check on the voter to see if he/her is legitimate. 

  When a mail in ballot arrives at town hall, we cannot do any of this, except maybe check that the name on the ballot is on the voter list.  Anyone could have filled out the mail in ballot.  I think we should restrict mail in ballots to only the most necessary cases, say a member of the armed forces stationed overseas, or even just stationed on the far side of the country.  For the elderly and infirm, both political parties are more than happy to provide a ride to the polls, if family cannot do it. 

They oughta make

A car remote with a "roll up all the car windows" button.  I could be sitting  on the deck or in the kitchen.  On hot summer days I like to leave the car windows down to get some air in the car and keep the in car temperature down.  Come rain, or nightfall, it would be nice to punch one button on the remote and all the car windows roll up to keep the rain out. 

   The safety freaks  make this hard to do.  They claim that some child in the car with its head out the window might get hurt by the power window  rolling up and strangling it or worse.   That has prevented the car companies from offering a "roll them all up" button on the drivers power window control panel.  But there ought to

Executive Action. Tom Clancy 1996

One of the last Tom Clancy novels.  Jack Ryan gets to be president of the US.  Iranian bad guys infect the country with Ebola.  President Ryan takes most of the quarantine steps that modern US governments have taken against Corona virus.  There are a few bits of dialog that date the book.  Such as "He owns a blue Oldsmobile wagon.  Every cop in the state is looking for it."  Wagons used to be in, my family's first wagon with a 1949 Chevy Carryall, the last one was a 70's Oldsmobile.  But I haven't seen one on the road for years. 

President Ryan's America is paralyzed be an Ebola outbreak that kills only 9000.  Our America is paralyzed by Corona virus that kills 120,000 so far and shows few signs of letting up. 

Words of the Weasel Part 60

"Gun violence"  vague term indicating the writer supports more anti gun laws.  Try "Shooting" or "shot".  I is clearer and it does not take sides in the gun law political wars.  Or try "gun fight".  That's what you get after a no-knock raid at 0 dark thirty.

Xmen, Dark Phoenix

  Latest Xmen flick.  Released last year.  I didn't hear about it.  Efficient work of publicity there.  I came across it browsing Netflix the other day. 

  It has a whole new cast.  No more Patrick Stewart or Hugh Jackman.  They had a couple of names in the new cast that I had heard of before, Jennifer Lawrence and Michael Fassbender.  Jennifer had a low speed part.  Michael played Magnito but wasn't very good at it.  The rest of the names in the cast mean nothing to me. 

   Special effects in plenty.  We see a child Jane Grey survive a terrifying car crash.  They show the whole big old 70's sedan flipped clean up into the air, to come down with a serious crash.  Lots of battle scenes, hand to hand and laser zaps. 

   I rate this Xmen flick as meh.  Not is good as the first one.  Died in the wool Xmen fans will see it, but us ordinary fans need not bother.

So I got a bigger monitor

It was a deal, a used 27 inch Sceptre monitor for only $88.  It replaced my 19 inch Dell which was working fine but I'm finding it hard to read the teeny tiny lettering thrown up by my ancient version of Word and Excel.  I ordered the monitor thru Amazon.  They told me if I signed up for Amazon Prime, I would get a $100 gift card that could be applied to the monitor immediately.  That dropped $188 down to $88.  What else Amazon Prime might do for me or cost me is unclear. 

The monitor showed up a few days later.  I plugged it in and it works fine.  No dead pixels.  It's bright, so bright I thought I might turn brightness down a notch.  That does not work.  The monitor has 5 black on black buttons hidden on the back of the screen to control those things we used to have knobs on side of our TV sets to adjust.  Brightness is set to 80 and the setting is grayed out, meaning you can look but not touch.  PITA  And the stand is flimsy.  The entire screen rocks gently back a forth every time you touch it. 

  Anyhow the bigger screen is nice.  My eyes are not what they used to be.  I can read everything now without squinting.  Nice. 

Law enforcement

Our society is composed of law abiding citizens and lawless citizens.  We need police to keep the lawless citizens in line and out of trouble.  Without police the lawless will form gangs and loot and pillage and worse at will.  Defund the police is just a weasel’s way of saying abolish the police.  The cops I know are decent, hardworking, well informed, polite and professional, and brave.  And we need them, on duty.

Needless to say, there are a few things we could do to make law enforcement better and fairer. 

First we ought to forbid no-knock raids.  A no-knock raid simply provokes a gun fight.   Bust down some one’s door at o’dark thirty and that some one will shoot to kill every time.  The no-knock raiding cops are up, dressed, had their coffee, and are juiced for the operation.  They outnumber the victim, and they are usually better shots.  Most of the time the cops shoot the victim dead.  That’s how Breonna Taylor died this year.  Occasionally the victim gets lucky and kills some cops.  Which gets him put on trial for murder. 

   The usual excuse for no-knock raids is to surprise the drug dealers before they can flush the evidence down the toilet.  In real life a lot of no-knock raids are conducted simply to give the SWAT team something to do.  Neither reason is a decent excuse for putting every one to extreme risk of their lives.

Second we need an effective method of purging the few bad apples off the force.  Cops stick up for one another.  A plucking board, or internal affairs unit, manned by cops is not going to discipline fellow cops, and the cop’s union will defend the guiltiest cop to the death.  We need an organization that can take complaints, investigate, prosecute, and press the paper work thru to conclusion to get the few bad apples off the force before they do something awful.  This organization must be made up of responsible civilians, not cops.

Third, cops should wear blue uniforms, not black.  Black uniforms look like the SS in Nazi Germany.  We don’t want cops to look like that in America.  Smokey the Bear hats are good.  Crash helmets should be limited to motor cycle officers.

Fourth we need to purge unneeded laws from the books.  Eric Garner in New York died as a result of cops enforcing a city ordinance against selling single cigarettes (loosies) on the street.  That ordinance should never have existed.  In a free country citizens are free to sell any legal product.  There has got to be a lot more trouble making laws on the books that ought to be removed. 

 

 

CHAZ out in Seattle

Had a phone conversation with eldest son, who lives out in Tacoma Washington, about the CHAZ situation.  He said the west coast TV isn't giving it all that much coverage and that nobody he knows thinks it is all that big a deal.  He figures it will blow over in a few more days.  He sees it as more street fair and long term demo than gang takeover of a Seattle neighborhood. 

  All I know is what I see on TV here on the east coast.  Eldest son is only 20 miles away, I am 3000 miles away.  His opinions are as good as mine. 

Confronting the Civil War.

  We fought it.  It was the worst war we ever fought.  Casualties in the Civil War were higher than casualties from all our other wars all put together.  It took the South 100 years to recover from the physical and psychic damage of the Civil War.  Down there, south of the Mason Dixon line, they still  called it the War of Northern Aggression when I was going to school.  It was fought for a noble cause, ending slavery.  It succeeded in that.  There were other reasons, but ending slavery, goal of the Abolitionists, was the real driver, without that cause, the North-South differences would not have come to war.  Civil War is a formative event in American history; you cannot understand how America got to where it is today without knowing about the Civil War. 

   It has been over for 150 years since Appomattox, but every single New England town still has a Civil War memorial on the town common listing the names of all the fallen.  If we northerners can do that, I think it is OK for southerners to put up statues to Civil War figures like Lee and Jackson and Jefferson Davis. I do remember visiting the Texas capitol years ago and walking up to the building past a solid line of Confederate statues.  I think we ought to leave them in peace to remind future generations just what happened back in 1860.  I don’t like Nancy Pelosi’s call to remove Confederate statures from the US Capitol.  I think President Trump has it right saying that places like Fort Bragg have their own history and should be left alone.  Once a place gets a name it ought to stick. 

   Somehow we managed to patch over the wounds of the Civil War back in the 1800’s.  By WWI time the old South was as loyal a part of the country as any other.  Naming some US Army bases after Confederate officers had something to do with this.  Seemed like a good idea at the time.  Let’s leave it that way. 

So what do we do about "CHAZ" out in Seattle?

A what do we call them (a gang? terrorists? rebels?)  has taken over a dozen blocks in downtown Seattle and is thumbing its nose at Seattle city government and the state of Washington.  And they are shaking down businesses in the CHAZ  (acronym for the 12 block area) for protection money. The Seattle police have withdrawn or been driven out of the CHAZ area.  Neither the mayor of Seattle nor governor of Washington wants to tangle with the gang.  They fear attempts to drive them out by force, police or National Guard, could be bloody.  Which would make them look bad.  President Trump is on TV making noises about cleaning the place up using federal troops.  He hasn't actually moved any troops into place and he is probably hoping that some threats and some pressure will cause the CHAZ group to break up and disappear.  Like the mayor and the governor, Trump probably fears that moving in on the CHAZ could  lead to bloody street fighting, lots of people getting hurt, and generating endless unfavorable TV coverage.  Certainly all the TV people are anti Trump and would do their best to paint the whole scene in the mot unfavorable light possible.

  Stay tuned for film at 11.

Speech

When did our ancestors begin speaking?  Myself, I always think in words.  Thinking about how to fix this device, or where is the game lurking or how to exert leadership of a hunting band, or how to chip flint, or how do I fell this tree without dropping on top of my dwelling or how do I get across that river short of swimming it, all these things I think of in words.  Raw emotion, love, fear, hatred, awe, does not need words, but thoughts such as “why is this engine running rough” or “How do a fix this bug” I always do in words.  I assume most other people do too. 

    Thinking is our magic wand.  Looking at the fossil record we see brain size increasing as time goes on.  This was a successful evolutionary strategy that has made homo sapiens master of the planet.  Would increasing brain size do us any good without words to put our thoughts into?  I always think in words.  If I didn’t have words, I could not think.  Does this mean that our earliest ancestors could speak too?  Without speech would our larger brains do us any good? 

This is all pure speculation of course.  I am not aware of any evidence one way or the other.  And I cannot imagine finding speech in the fossil record. 

 

D-Day

D-day was an incredible Allied achievement that hastened victory over Nazi Germany.  American officers were unanimous in their belief that only a huge army, landed as close as possible to the German border, to drive on Berlin, and hang Hitler from a sour apple tree, would bring victory.  Americans, backed by a large and loyal population, endless fertile farmlands, plentiful natural resources, and the world’s largest industrial base, felt that this was possible,  If German resistance was stiffer than anticipated, it could be crushed by sending more troops and tanks and guns, of which America had a goodly supply. 

   The Brits, who put up many of the troops for D-day and much of the airpower and shipping and naval support, had been fighting Hitler for five long years.  They had learned, first hand and to their sorrow, how effective the German army was.  Norway, Dunkirk, Tobruk, and The Blitz were not happy memories for the Brits.  They counseled caution and thought the Americans were reckless in their outlook. 

   By 1944 the Allies had accomplished two major successes, both of which wee absolutely vital to the success of D-day.  First they had solved the U-boat problem.  In the “happy days” of 1941 and 1942, the U-boats were sinking hundreds of merchantmen every year.  But in the winter of 1943 the Allies got their act together and drove the U-boats out of the Atlantic.  They had allocated just a few B24 bombers, with extra fuel tanks in their bomb bays, to close the Atlantic air gap, the black pit the merchant seamen called it.  The B24’s could supply good air cover to convoys all the way across the Atlantic.  And all the destroyers had been equipped with good radar, Talk-Between-Ships (TBS) radio, and High Frequency Direction Finders (Huff-Duff) which gave a vector pointing right at any U-boat that used its radio.  And two years experience at sea had trained up the escort vessels to a high pitch of effectiveness.  A couple of vicious convoy battles in the winter of 1943 resulted in the Allies sinking more U-boats than the U-boats sank merchant vessels.  For the rest of the war U-boat sinkings remained heavy.   This victory allowed the Americans to build up a huge army on the British Isles.  Had the U-boats sunk half of this traffic on the way across, D-day would have been impossible. 

   The second victory was the extermination of the Luftwaffe.  This was done by the P-51 long range escort fighters that accompanied the bombers all the way to the target and shot down the Luftwaffe fighters that rose to attack the bombers.  There is a scene in “The Longest Day” where a Luftwaffe fighter pilot complains that his was the only sortie flown against the Normandy beaches.  Had the Luftwaffe been strong, the JU-88’s would have been dropping 500 pound bombs into the open landing craft as they approached the beaches, and on the Allied destroyers.  For larger naval targets the Luftwaffe had Fritz-X, an early model smart bomb that had put an American cruiser out of action at Salerno and sunk an Italian battleship in the Mediterranean.  But due to the RAF and USAF actions the Luftwaffe no longer had the planes, or the pilots, or the gasoline to oppose the D-day landings. 

 

Have we arrested any Antifa members? Yet?

The Administration was saying that Antifa was organizing and leading the riots.  Have we arrested any Antifa members connected with any of the riots?  Perhaps someone who attended Antifa meetings and paid Antifa dues?  I am perfectly happy to believe that all the rioting and property destruction is caused be some evil and secret organization.  But how about some proof, some evidence, some Antifa members arrested for doing bad somewhere.  Any one caught carrying an Antifa membership card?  Like the commies were thought to do back in the day? 

  I have no trouble believing that the riots started the old fashioned way.  A lot of people gather somewhere in town.  A bunch of our lawless citizens join the mob.  Shop windows get smashed, stores get looted, fires get set, stuff gets thrown at the cops.  No evil secret organization required. 

   The cops ought to move in and arrest everyone they can catch looting and burning.  And people arrested should be kept in custody until all the paperwork is completed.  That might take a week, or even longer, you know how it is with paperwork.

40 Million Out of work. Probably free to go to a riot.

This week’s riots were probably made worse by 40 million out of work people who need some entertainment after a couple of months on lockdown at home.  That 40 million is out of work because of state government orders closing down their employers. 

Many of our citizens are law abiding.  I don’t have any numbers, I hope that the law abiding are the majority.  A large number of citizens are lawless.  Again, I lack numbers but I sincerely hope we have more law abiding than lawless citizens.  The most lawless have close encounters of the cop kind and wind up in jail.  The medium lawless will take advantage of a riot to pick up a new TV or a new computer, but usually don’t engage in burglary and shop lifting for fear of getting caught.  Only the police and the courts keep the lawless citizens in check.  I am hearing calls from the left to abolish the police.  God help us if that ever happens.  The lawless will over run the country.  We need police and courts to keep the lawless in check.

   The police have a strong sense of comradeship.  They stick together.  It is extremely hard for a police department to lower the boom on misbehaving cops, because the department is made up of cops and all cops feel they need to protect and defend fellow cops from hostile citizens groups.  I’m thinking every department has a few, one or two, maybe more, bad cops who ought to be off the force.  But they don’t get the boot like they should because of the feelings of solidarity with everyone on the force.

  The only fix for this problem is an independent group of non-cops running an agency that finds bad cops and indicts them and pushes the paperwork thru to get them kicked off the force.  Maybe a federal agency like the anti-trust lawyers group at the Justice department. 

  Or we could use the Cambridge solution.  Cambridge MA, better than twenty years ago, had a very offensive Officer De Luca.  He patrolled the public housing projects in Cambridge and was a real pain in the ass to project residents.  One fine day Officer De Luca’s cruiser became stuck in Cambridge traffic.  Suddenly the doors of his cruiser were yanked open, Officer De Luca was pulled out of the cruiser, and the locals beat the stuffing out of him.  It was noticed that Officer De Luca’s behavior in the projects improved greatly after that.

Words of the Weasel Part 55

We should not call them looters, we should call them "protesters who just happen to carry stuff out of a store".  That's the AP style guidelines this week.  Wow!  For that matter the TV people don't use the word "riot" or "rioter".   Nor have they carried stories of shop owners shooting looters.  I know some shop owners who would put a bullet into a looter without even thinking twice about it.  There has gotta be a bunch more out there. 

Peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government…

 

For a redress of grievances.  First amendment.  We are talking about people carrying flags and signs and posters.  Marching in daylight, down routes coordinated with local authorities.  Singing and chanting.  Making speeches.  Listening to speeches.  Dispersing and going home when the demo is over.  That’s peaceable assembly.

Riots are something else.  Breaking shop windows, looting, setting fires, throwing stuff at cops.   We citizens expect law enforcement to break them up, suppress them.  Surround them; arrest a bunch of ‘em.  Use fire hoses and tear gas on em.  Keep them from destroying our livelihoods.   Authorities that permit, or worse encourage, law enforcement to shirk their duty should be turned out of office at the next election.  Or impeached immediately.

The Radial Arm Saw (RAS)

 

Back in the 50’s, when I was a kid, all the other kids’ fathers had shops, in the garage, in the basement, somewhere.  And at least half of them had a radial arm saw in their shop.  It was clear to all us kids that the RAS was the wave of the future and table saws were for old fuddy-duddies.  My father had a table saw, inherited from my grandfather. The radial arm saw remained popular with do-it-yourselfers up thru the 80’s, maybe the 90’s.   Then the safety freaks struck.  They declared the radial arm saw to be dangerous, that using a standard blade was dangerous, that making rip cuts was even more dangerous, and the blade guard didn’t cover enough of the blade.  The wood shop magazines carried the safety freak stories and stopped doing stories about using and buying radial arm saws.   Today, in 2020 there are hardly any new ones for sale, and the price of used ones has sunk down to 50-100 bucks.  You cannot buy a skilsaw for that little. 

   Me, I bought a radial arm saw back in the 70’s and I still have it.  I never did get a table saw.  I still have all my fingers too.  Major benefit of the radial arm saw is it saves space in the shop.  You can push it up against a wall and it works just fine.  The table saw needs clearance all around it to handle big work pieces.  The radial arm saw will make all the cuts a table saw can except for one not too important one.  It will make all the cuts a chop saw can make and in addition it will rip, which the chop saw will not.  You can also use your radial arm saw as a horizontal boring machine, a disc or drum sander, a shaper, a surface planer, and even as a bench grinder to keep your chisels sharp. 

   You do want to be careful.  The tool is dangerous.  The blade on a RAS or a table saw will sever any body part that comes in contact with it.  I keep my hands three inches away from the blade at all times.  If the work piece is too small to allow for three inches clearance, I throw it in the scrap box and find a bigger piece. 

   When ripping I first tilt the blade guard down on the in feed side to allow just enough room for the work to go into the blade but not any fingers that might be sliding or riding along the top of the work.  Then I always set the anti kickback fingers to dig in and prevent the blade from throwing the work back at me.  And I use a wooden shop made push stick for that last bit of push right next to the blade.  If the piece is too narrow to safely push it thru the blade, I throw it in the scrap box and get a bigger piece.  For tricky or difficult rip cuts I will clamp a feather board to the RAS table to keep the work pressed up against the fence. 

   In short I don’t see the RAS as more dangerous than the table saw.  Both machines will take off fingers with the greatest of ease.  You just have to be careful using them.  Right now, a used RAS can be so cheap that you cannot go wrong buying it.  Craigslist is your friend.  If you are starting up a wood shop a RAS makes a fine start. 

Cannon Ski trails are finally green

Ski trails on Cannon have been white with snow up until yesterday.  They make snow on the trails all winter and pack it down with fancy snow grooming machines every night.  By the end of ski season there is a LOT of snow on the trails.  Takes time for the warm weather to melt it all.

George Floyd Killing and Burning down Minneapolis

The George Floyd killing I saw on TV is outrageous. Floyd, handcuffed, prone on the ground, under a police car, had a uniformed officer stand on his throat until he died.  That officer should be prosecuted for murder.  Minnesota had better find some decent lawyers to prosecute, try and convict the officer.

   The looting and burning of Minneapolis is also outrageous.  Each looted store, each burned building is the work of many people over many years destroyed in a few minutes.  Plenty of small business people have lost all they owned, thru no fault of their own.  Some newsies have tried to paint this riot as a protest against the George Floyd killing.  First amendment protects the right to "peaceably to assemble and to petition for a redress of grievances".  Looting and burning is not peaceable, it's a riot. 

   The newsies do not have any stories of police or National Guard making arrests, using fire hoses or tear gas, or breaking up the riot.  Far as I can tell, the cops and the Guard fled the area.  Back trouble, a big yellow stripe. 

Regulating social media.

Trump declared something about regulating social media on TV yesterday.  I did not understand just what Trump means; I have not researched the relevant laws.  All I have to go on is the TV people’s opinions, which can be ignorant and anti Trump.  So let’s just consider what ought to be done.

   Right now anyone with an IQ above room temperature can log on to Facebook or Twitter or U-tube or the rest of them and post any damn thing he pleases.  And it goes world wide.  A bunch of Islamic terrorists have claimed they were recruited sheerly thru watching terrorist propaganda on Facebook and U-tube. 

   The owners of the platforms are the only ones who know how to delete posts, cancel log in privileges, and post comments.  We have to trust them, or shut their platforms down.  I think the platform owners right along have been deleting material that is clearly offensive, pornography, nudity, sex acts, snuff videos, pedophilia, BDSM, Islamic terrorist propaganda, KKK propaganda and worse.  They ought to keep on doing it.  Maybe step it up some.

   Then we come to individual posters who post all sorts of poppycock, anti Semitic, white supremacy, Nazi, alien invasion, and other weirdo ideas.  I think maybe we ought to just leave them alone.  Much of it is so weird that no body pays it attention.  The offensive stuff can be replied to by those who have been offended.

   And then we come to posters who are elected officials.  Since they got themselves elected they have support from a majority of their constituents.  That’s a lot of people who think they are OK.  Same goes for opposition politicos from the major parties.  As a platform owner, I myself would be extremely reluctant to censor an elected official for fear of offending a lot of people and inviting retaliation.  I think the Twitter people are crazy to censor the President of the US.  He has brought them all sorts of viewers/readers/tweeters.  If Twitter doesn’t like what Trump tweets, surely they can find some anti trump tweeters to respond to the Donald.

   If we are really unhappy with the platform owners, then we can get the anti Trust lawyers to break them up.  Facebook is clearly a monopoly.  We would be better off with two sites competing for viewers/readers/pageviewers. 

  

 

 

Venezuela crashes and burns

Venezuela has fallen from the richest South American country with the biggest oil reserves in the world to accepting charity tanker shipments of crude oil from Iran.  Hugo Chavez and socialism managed this underwhelming feat.  And I read that half of American young people believe in socialism.  If true, we are in deep doo-doo.

Blogger new version

Blogger has been pushing a new version for some months now. Yesterday they said "you better switch over to the new version or we will do it for you. So I tried it out. Clearly the Blogger software weenies have had a fine time changing the looks of the Blogger page is unimportant ways. And I checked out "comments" where I found half a dozen comments from verious people caught in the comments page awaiting my OK to post them. Some dated back to the beginning of the year. None of had showed in the old version of Blogger. So I OKed them all to print except one really nasty one from a troll. Sorry about that. Anyhow I will keep using the new version of Blogger. I am so glad Blogger has so many software weenies with nothing better to do. They never did fix the 100 pageview burst every midnight.

FISA court takes Flak

As well it should.  FISA is a pure rubber stamp.  Every single time the intelligence agencies (CIA, FBI and the rest of 'em) want a warrant to snoop anyone, US citizen or Russian diplomat, they go to the FISA court which OK's every snooping request.  So when the FBI wanted to snoop the Trump campaign in 2016, the FISA court rubber stamped the request.  Which is wrong.  FISA allowed a partisan FBI to interfere in a political campaign, which should never happen.  The House passed a FISA funding bill a few months ago.  The Senate was thinking about it bu Trump tweeted this evening that he would veto the bill.  Good for the Donald.  We ought to shut the FISA court scam down for good.

If the intelligence agencies want a warrant to snoop, they can go to a  real court, the kind that meets 5 days a week and tries cases every day.

Steam Engines, beloved in song and story

Tootle, The Little Engine That Could, Tom Thumb, Hogwarts Express, Polar Express, Oriente Express, Broadway Limited, Thomas,we still love them.  Diesel locomotives replaced the steamers by 1957 or so but never got into literature or the movies much. Among railroad people steam locomotives were always described by the number of the locomotive's wheels, pilot wheels, driving wheels, trailing wheels.  The standard 19th century steamer was a 4-4-0, four pilot wheels, four driving wheels, no trailing wheels. 
   The earliest steam engines, Tom Thumb is still on display at the Baltimore and Ohio museum.  The design is straightforward, firebox on the bottom, a fire tube boiler mounted  atop the firebox and a stack on top of the boiler.  Flames rose up thru the firetubes, boiled the water, and rose up the stack creating draft to keep the wood fire burning brightly.  Just four driving wheels.  Tom Thumb never went fast enough to need the steadying effect of pilot wheels.  This design was successful and quite a few were built.  But the design does not scale well.  A bigger locomotive needs a bigger taller boiler and the taller boiler won't fit under bridges. 
   New design, that lasted until the end of steam, laid the firetube boiler on it's side, placed the firebox at the rear, where the fireman could reach into the tender for wood, or later coal, and the stack at the front.  Flames from the firebox were led forward thru the firetubes and then up the stack.  Waste steam from the cylinders was vented up the stack to increase the draft and creating that distinctive choo-choo sound. This arrangement needed a pilot truck the carry the weight of cylinders, stack , and the front half of the boiler. 
   In my childhood all small boys knew that you could tell a passenger locomotive from a freight locomotive by looking at the number of pilot wheels.  Freight ran fairly slowly, say 30 mph and a two wheel pilot truck was enough to steady them.  Passenger trains reached 100 mph by 1900 and needed much more weight on the pilot truck to lead the locomotive into switches and curves.  The extra weight needed four wheels to support it. 
    The older smaller 19th century engines located the firebox just over the rear set of drivers.  This worked, but it limited the width of the firebox to 4 foot, eight and a half inches, the track gauge.  Larger locomotives built after 1900 moved the firebox clean aft of the drive wheels and widened it out to 10 feet, the widest it could be without hitting station platforms.  And a pair, sometime two pair of trailing wheels were added under the firebox. 

Toilet Paper is back in stock!!!

Did the week's grocery shopping.  Demand has pulled forth supply.  The empty shelves are now filled with both paper towels and toilet paper.  About time.  They are asking $3 a pound for chicken.  Still showing a lot of strange house brands.  Signature is Shaw's favorite now.  I bought a load of Signature white bread last shopping run.  Not good.  Worse than Wonderbread, mushy, a slight off taste.  Everybody wore a mask.  We all thanked the cashiers.

They ain't including return envelopes in bills

Four of my suppliers did not include a return envelope in their bill this month.  I had to hand scribe a return envelope for each of them. PITA.  A new cost cutting measure?  I'm not talking about a stamped return envelope, just a window envelope that lets the company's billing address on the payment slip show thru.

Middle school was getting bad back then

I wrote this for Youngest Son back when he was doing middle school some ten years ago.  I wonder if things in school are still this bad.


1.  Never say the word "gun" (or shoot or fire or kill or bang-bang or...) 
2.  Never take any thing that looks like, sounds like, or might be accused of being, a gun to school.    Same goes for any kind of knife, even a butter knife.  Don't bite your food into gun shapes.  Don't point a finger, or anything else at anyone.  No toy soldiers, no Lego guns, no books about guns or with illustrations of guns, or people carrying guns (cowboy stories, Johnnie Tremain, Last of the Mohigans, anything like that).
3.  Never say anything angry about anyone or anything.  If something or someone angers you don't say anything about it.  Hold it inside yourself until you get home.  Never threaten anything. 
4.  No touching, no hitting, no hugging. Keep your distance.
5.  They are always watching you and listening to you.  Especially on the bus, at recess and on the Internet.

Forget any of these rules and they will throw you out of school, for good.

School was easier to survive when I was a kid.