Trigger Happy Tree in my backyard

 I got one tree

that thinks it is fall.  Most tree don't go along with the idea and are staying green.  That will last another week or two.  This tree is checking out the red scene.

We need a 9 judge Supreme Court

 Right now, after Justice Ruth Bader  Ginsburg's death, we only have eight justices on the Supreme court.  Should a difficult case, say a case about the 2020 presidential election, come before them, they might well deadlock in a tie 4 to 4 vote.  In which case the lower court decision that was appealed to the Supremes will stand.  Probably not good, the federal appeals courts only have jurisdiction over sections of the United States.  If the Supremes cannot come to a decision then we will have sections of the country with one law and other sections with a different law.  Not good.  We ought to have the same federal law for the whole country.  

   Of course Trump will appoint the same sort of judge that he did for his previous two Supreme Court vacancies.  That is a strict constructionist judge who will hew to the original intent of the Founders and not try to make new law from the bench.  And to be fair, Trump appointees will either be Republicans, or at least be sympathetic to Republican viewpoints, and thus anathema to Democrats.  No matter, I think the country will be better off having nine justices on the Supreme Court to rule on any 2020 election cases, which I judge likely to happen. 

 Ruth Bader Ginsberg.  May you rest in peace. 

Battery lore for motorists.

 

A fully charged car battery will read 13.2 volts.  Draw just a very small amount of juice from the battery, say turn on the headlights for a few minutes, and you will find the battery voltage has dropped down to 12.8 volts.  So most of us call a 12.8 volt or better battery fully charged.  Starting the engine, especially in winter, takes a lot of juice and as the battery charge is used up the battery voltage will drop off.  Once the battery voltage drops below 12.0 volts the battery may not have enough charge in it to start the engine. 

   When the engine is running, it turns an alternator under the hood to charge the battery.  The alternator has to supply current at a slightly higher voltage than the battery in order the charge it.  A properly working alternator will keep the car’s electrical system at 14 to 15 volts.  Cars have a built in voltmeter which you can see.  You may have to read the car’s manual to find it and turn it on.  On new cars (anything less than twenty years old) the voltmeter is digital and you can easily see your system voltage accurate to a tenth of a volt.  With the engine running the voltmeter ought to show 14-15 volts from the alternator.  With the engine off, the voltmeter will read battery voltage.  If battery voltage is above 12 .0 volts it’s good. 

   If the battery is below 12 volts either the alternator isn’t putting out enough voltage, or the battery is old and shot.  Winter is hard on car batteries and 4 or 5 winters is all they are good for.  A new battery is only fifty bucks at the auto parts store and you put it in yourself.  Assuming the alternator belt is nice and tight and not too worn, you have to replace the alternator.  Rebuilt alternators are every bit as good as brand new alternators and a lot cheaper. 

Hang Adolph Hitler from a sour apple tree

 

World War II could have been avoided.   It was an unnecessary war that cost 60-70 million deaths.   It laid important cities, Dresden, Hamburg, Leningrad, Cologne, Stalingrad, Berlin, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and more in ruins. The war broke out; actually Hitler attacked Poland, a mere 21 years after World War I ended.  Men who had been infantrymen in their twenties for World War I were in their forties in 1939.  Every one in Europe remembered the four year agony in the trenches and no one wanted to do that again.  No conceivable political objective was worth doing another four years of trench warfare.  Everyone in Europe agreed on this, except for one man, Adolph Hitler.  Somehow, Hitler had taken control of a great power and used that control to start World War II. 

   Using hindsight, it is clear that we could have eliminated Hitler and spared the world six years of agony and death.  Hitler would have had to be taken out sometime between 1932 and 1938 to do any good.  We (France, Britain and the United States) could have marched our armies into Germany, over thrown Hitler and put him on trial for war crimes, violations of the treaty of Versailles.  Or shot him “trying to escape”. That would have required French and British governments with some backbone, which was lacking in those years, plus solid support from the United States, to the point of dispatching at least one American division of troops to back up the Europeans and serve as a token of American support.  Unfortunately the United States was sunk deep into isolationism, and then the Depression and did not want to exert itself or take any risks.  It took the unprovoked attack on Pearl Harbor to snap us out of it. 

  Or, we could have sent one or two good men with rifles into Germany and had them shoot Hitler at one of those massive Nazi rallies.  We had some guys who could have done it.  The name Alvin York, (Sergeant York) a good southern boy from Tennessee, comes to mind.  And there were certainly other Americans who were just as good shots. 

   We need to keep this history in mind as we go forward into a dangerous world.   

Is anything happening besides the US elections???

 The TV is playing all election news and nothing but election news.  And most of it is charge and counter charge, both sides being highly unlikely.  As far as I can tell, the entire world has come to a halt, waiting on the outcome of the US elections. 

Peaceably to assemble

 "Congress shall make no law ... abridging ...  the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."   First Amendment.  

The word peaceably is important.  Peaceably means marching a route coordinated with local authorities.  It means carrying signs and flags and banners.  It means singing and chanting and speech making.  These days it means TV coverage.  And dispersing when the demonstration is over and going home.  First amendment requires government to permit these peaceable assembles.

Then we have riots.  Setting fires, beating people up, smashing shop windows, and looting.  Riots ought to be suppressed, rioters arrested, and held in arrest until all the paperwork is completed.  Use non-lethal weapons, tear gas, water cannon, pepper spray, tasers to break them up.  Start breaking up the riot as soon as possible to prevent it from getting bigger.  Many of the stores and businesses we see burning on TV belonged to people who had put everything they owned into starting the business, and keeping it going.  Burning the place down ruins those small business owners.  They expect law enforcement to protect their shops and businesses from being burned to the ground by rioters.  

And I have to wonder about the lack of common sense among the voters, who elected mayors and governors who permit riots to grow large and refuse offers of federal aid to suppress them.   Let's hope the voters have learned something over these last few weeks and make better choices this November.  At least they ought to vote the incumbents who have permitted this rioting out of office.   

Victory at Sea

 This was made shortly after WWII and it was on TV when I was in grade school in the 1950s.  They gathered up all the news reel and movie film of the war, including film captured from the Germans and the Japanese, and spliced it all together to tell a coherent story.  Richard Rodgers of Rogers and Hammerstein fame did the musical score, and it is a spectacular score.  It's a good watch and it does not only the naval side of WWII but a does a fair job on the land and air wars too.  It moves right along and kids will enjoy watching it.  Your kids will have a better understanding of what WWII was about and how it was fought for watching it. 

   I picked up a 5 DVD set that has every episode from the "Cheap Old DVD" bin at Walmart some years ago.  I don't know where you might find it today, but Googling for "Victory at Sea DVD" might turn something up.  

The video is all black and white.  Partly because color TV did not become widespread until the 1960s and largely because the color film of the day (Kodachrome) was so achingly slow, and only really worked out of doors on bright sunny days.  The available black and white film was much faster (more sensitive to light) and less fussy about exposure settings.  Even so, many of the video clips have the tops of everything burned in white and the sides and undercarriages solid black.  

Anyhow, if you can find it, your children will enjoy it and they will learn something. 

Pelosi suggests Biden not debate Trump on TV.

 Wow.  I (and lot of other people) expect the two presidential candidates to debate each other.  We have been doing this since Kennedy debated Nixon back in 1960.  Pelosi's suggestion to kill this year's debate strongly suggests that Pelosi fears that Biden is not up to debating Trump.  It is a reasonable fear.  But I think they have to debate, to pull out is a sign of weakness that everybody in the country will notice.  I saw that the Biden people said that Biden would indeed debate no matter what Pelosi thinks.  I think Biden made the right move there. 

So how effective was the Democrats TV only convention?

 So why do we hold political conventions.  Way back when, say John Kennedy's time, we chose the party's candidates at the convention.   Now we hold primary elections in every state to chose the party candidate, certainly more democratic, but it kinda took away the reason for conventions.  However, going to the national convention was so much fun for the delegates, that the parties still hold conventions, partly 'cause everyone has such a good time and partly hoping that TV coverage will win them votes.

   This year was a dry season, due to Corona virus, nobody went to the convention, it was all on TV.  So, did the Democrats convention say or do anything that won them votes?  I was not impressed, but then I am not a Democrat. 

Yellow Can Raid, slays 'em left and right

 The last can of Raid came in black can.  This Raid can is bright yellow.  And it is potent, like you would not believe.  I gave a couple of house flies a few squirts and got 'em.  Next morning, I find my rug covered in dead flies, must have been a hundred of 'em.  So bad I pulled out the vacuum cleaner and sucked 'em all up.  They must have added something to the insecticide to make it more potent.  Good for Raid.  The only good bug is a dead bug.

Campaign Rhetoric

 

I listened to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris doing their what-do-you-callit speeches on the car radio last night while driving up to Lancaster for a VFW election event.  They both talked a lot, using the vague generalities dialect of English.  They spent a lot of words trashing Trump, never a specific accusation, just blaming him for everything under the sun.  And a few outright falsehoods.  Kamala accused Trump of destroying American jobs just a week after the government released the jobs report showing 1.8 million new jobs this quarter.  Biden said that Trump inherited his good economic from Obama.  And a couple of other whoppers that slip my mind right now.

   No campaign promises.  No Statements like “If elected I will do thus and such to make your life better.” No promises to lower taxes, increase spending on pet programs, open the borders, reform criminal justice, increase EPA regulation, subsidize battery powered cars, protect forests and wild lands, insert your favorite Democratic program here.

   In short, the only reason Biden and Harris gave us to vote for them is to get rid of Trump.  Nothing else. Will this work in November??

Remote learning is really homeschooling

 Been a lot of talk about re opening the schools, especially k thru 12.  Parents are all in favor, with out open schools they cannot go to work, someone has to stay home and look after children.  The teachers are NOT in favor, they claim they will all catch COVID-19 and curl up and die. Most of the medics say this is not a problem, that small children are mostly immune to COVID-19.  And now we have some talk about "opening" the schools to offer "remote learning".   That's not really opening the schools in most people's book.  

The younger children need an adult, Mom, Dad, a grandparent, someone, to teach them.  The adult picks the lessons, finds the textbook or DVD or logs them in.  The children need someone to explain what they are supposed to be learning, and to insist that they sit down and work the home work problems.  The really small children have not learned to read yet, so following written directions is beyond them.  And even teen aged high school students can be exceptionally unmotivated and fail to do any of the "remote learning" work.  They need an adult to push them into learning.  

At this point, I don't see much difference to the parents between "remote learning" and home schooling.  I'm thinking unless your school is really open and the children can go to it 5 days a week, you better set up for homeschooling.  One parent has to stay home and school the kids. To my way of thinking, a good textbook[s] is/are essential.  You explain the lesson best you can.  The kids won't remember everything first time thru it.  They have the textbook to reread the lesson, pick up the points they missed, and lots of homework.  There are some very good lectures out on VHS or DVD.  My little local library has a set of VHS tapes of a course in the American Revolution.  A Gettysburg University professor stood behind a lectern and just lectured.  He was good.  He had some maps, and some prints of period paintings, but none of the fancy re enactment stuff you see on the history channel.  He told it straight, none of that Charles&Mary Beard "Economic Interpretation of the Constitution" stuff.  It was a college course, but it would work just fine for high school.  It was so good I watched all the tapes, on my own time, just for enjoyment.  There has got to be more good stuff like this out there.

Watching the Shakespeare plays is educational, especially if you discuss each one after watching it. Writing an essay every day is excellent.  Word-for-Windows takes a lot of the curse out of writing.  Field trips to historic sites, Bunker Hill, the Constitution, Lexington, Saratoga, what ever is in your part of the country, are great learning opportunities.

    

Robocaller strikes again

 The phone rings, a heavily accented voice says something about a $250 purchase charged to my amazon plus card.  Connection is terrible and the caller cannot tell me what company he works for, or where he is located.  Heavy accent.  So I log into my amazon+ account, and it only shows a few items that I did in fact order last month, no mystery $250 purchase.  So I hung up.  I think this is a scam of some kind.

I need to work on my bill to outlaw robo callers.

Getting thru New York

 Going from here (Upstate New Hampshire) to Pennsylvania or Maryland, you gotta go thru New York.  And get over the Hudson river.  The GW bridge can have one hour traffic backups.  Tappan Zee is a little better but not much.  And the bridge up at Newburg is out of the way.   

Mayor De Blasio has announced police checkpoints going into New York, hassling out of staters to quarantine themselves for two weeks.  That's gonna make a bad traffic situation worse, pulling over all the out of state cars.  Forget using GW bridge at all.  Learn to love the out of the way Newburg bridge. 

Mail in voting

 

Me, I think it is one giant opportunity for voter fraud.  When a ballot arrives in the mail, it lacks a photo ID.  For that matter it lacks a live face for the poll worker to compare with the face on the photo ID.  We have had cases in NH of dozens of absentee ballots showing the same address, namely a Dartmouth dorm room.  I don’t believe going to the polls is any more dangerous than going to the grocery store, something that we all do once a week (or oftener).  At least for voters that is, for poll workers (all volunteers up here) it is a little more hazardous since poll workers have to meet and speak to every one in town, all day.  And then count ballots into the wee hours.  Thankfully that gives us a good result by morning.  If we allow mail in ballots post marked by Election Day, they won’t all trickle in for a week.  So we won’t have a winner or a loser for a week.  For those of us public spirited enough to run for unpaid public offices in New Hampshire not knowing is a real hardship.  

Easy free up of a couple of Gigs of disk space

In win 10, do "disk cleanup".  You can get there from Explorer.  Right click on your C: drive and then click on "properties".  The properties window offers "disk cleanup".  Click on that to run cleanmgr.  Select "Clean up System files"  and hit "OK" to kick things off.  It's quick, and it will usually squeeze a Gig or two out of C:Windows\System32\drivestore.  At least it did for me on new laptop (Redkey)  and old desktop (Smallbox).  Every Gig of storage counts for something, even if laptop has 256 Gigs of solid state drive, and desktop has 2000 gigs of good old rotating hard drive. 

Biden Trump presidential debate[s]

All kinds of TV talk about how/why Biden should avoid debating Trump.  Some in favor, some against.  I don't understand the talk.  We have had head to head debates ever since Kennedy and Nixon in 1960.  We will have them this year.  If we don't, everybody will assume that Biden figured Trump would beat him, badly, and so he pulled out to avoid getting clobbered on live nationwide TV.  Most of us will take that as a sign of Biden's weakness.  Personally I think Biden will debate because he is old enough to understand that he has to debate if he wants to win. 

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.