An Islamic terrorist is an Islamic terrorist

 Doesn't matter if they call themselves Taliban or Hakani Network, or ISIS or ISIS K or whatever.  They all hate the United States, they all want to create a caliphate to rule the entire world, they all want to impose medieval Islamic laws on everybody, especially women, and they all want to drive the Israelis into the sea and they all like suicide bombing. 

The TV, even Fox News, has been talking about these various Islamic terrorist groups like it really matters.  It doesn't

We need to hunt them all down and kill them.  Maybe the younger ones could be re educated, but the hard core will remain our enemies until the day of their deaths.  

Islamic Terrorists have killed 12 US service men

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

Lessons from Afghanistan

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

Shameful

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

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

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

Ivanhoe 1982

 

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

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

 

Fablehaven Brandon Mull 2006

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

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

 

  Not as good as the Rick Riordan YA fantasies.  

Biden is not showing up well

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

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

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

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

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

We ought to get our people out of Afghanistan

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

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

Dodging shameful questions.

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

Charlie Wilson's War

 

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

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

So where have I been these last ten days??

 

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

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

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

Prompt and speedy trial

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

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

Do we want this kind of health care worker?

 

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

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

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

Where are the voters??

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

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

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

Infrastructure. Need for

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

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

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

Covid vaccines and masks

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

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

Car ads on facebook that fail

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

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

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

More Global Warming. I light the fireplace in mid July

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

Latest radar goes into F16 vintage jet fighter.

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

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

Biden badmouths China for hacking Microsoft email servers

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

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

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

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

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

Nissan is running teaser ads

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

How the Constitution came to be

 

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

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

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

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

Why should I care who gets vaccinated??

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

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

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

Wild life moves in

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

You never tell the enemy when you are pulling out

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

US District Judge dismisses anti trust suit against Facebook

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

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

What is with US voters?

 They keep electing really terrible people to high office.  De Blasio in NYC, Cuomo in NY state, Biden, Lightfoot, and many more.  We gripe about lawlessness, but the lawlessness is aided and abetted by elected officials who defund the police, call off prosecution, allow shop lifting of anything less than $950 a misdemeanor and get out of jail free.  If US voters were on the job they would vote these bums out.  Until the US voters shape up, the country is in for a bad time.    

How to loose your shirt USAF.

Or loose the next war.  In 2011 USAF let a $35 billion contract to Boeing for 179 KC 46 tankers.  In 2021 USAF finally decides that they can fly the KC 46 for "limited operations".  That is ten years pissed away on a job that should not have taken more than 2 years.  The job was simple, take an existing, well proven airliner, take out the seats and install fuel tanks and a refueling boom.  A lot of this time was sucked up with USAF paperwork.  More was consumed by gold plating the design.  Every year the program runs it sucks up more money without getting us more tankers.  

Back in WWII we could go from a paper specification to mass production in a year.

Way to go USAF.  Note: I am a USAF veteran. 

That Florida condo should not have collapsed.

 Writing up here in NH, I have no real idea of what failed.  Could have been a lot of things

1.  Design failure going right back to when the building was constructed.  Not enough stout in the framework.  

2.  Concrete deterioration over the years, water, especially salt water, attacking the concrete of the building frame.  

3.  Failure of building inspectors to insist on repairs, expensive repairs, after building inspection found weakened concrete structural members.

4. Subsidence of the land upon which the condo was built. 

5. Something else??

 My Tiger Lilies bloomed two days ago.  It was rainy and overcast so I waited until I had a bit of sunlight to photograph them.  This entire bed of Tiger Lilies came from my mother's Tiger Lily patch. Due to all the rain on the last two days they are looking a little bit peaked.  Hopefully a little sun will perk them up.

Where is Global Warming when we need it?

It's July and my furnace is still firing.  It is only 60F, cold.

 

America is the finest country in the world.

 American created democracy in the modern world.  When we ratified our Constitution in 1798 all the other countries in the world were hereditary monarchies.  Two hundred thirty years later that Constitution is still working for us with only 27 amendments.  Of those 10 were part of the original deal and passed the same year that the Constitution was ratified, so we really only have 17 amendments as later thoughts on how things ought to be. 

   We ended slavery.  It took the worst war we ever fought to do it, but the Union won, and they abolished slavery.  We lost 600,000 men fighting the Civil War, worse than all the other wars we ever fought, all put together.  We followed up with the civil rights legislation of the 1960s.  

   We showed the world what capitalism could do.  People believe the streets are paved with gold in America.  That is because of the wealth American capitalism created.  American labor unions defeated communism by winning decent wages for the workers.  America (with a good deal of help from the Russians and the British) defeated the Nazis and the Japanese in WWII. 

    Americans are inventive.  Cotton gin, electric telegraph, steamboats, revolvers and repeating firearms, telephone, incandescent light, gyrocompass, airplanes.  America launched the first missions to the Moon.

   Forth of July is coming right up.  We should be proud of our country.  We have done good work over the years.

Bill Cosby is out of jail

 I have been a fan of Bill Cosby ever since he was  doing "I-Spy" on Philadelphia TV in the 1950's.  I had an LP of "200 miles an hour".  I watched Fat Albert and the Huxtables.  It was a big surprise to me to hear on the radio that Cosby had been indicted.  I know nothing of the facts of the case, only the verdict and the jail sentence.  Now the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has overturned the court findings and ordered Cosby's release from prison.  Only took 'em two years, while Cosby was doing prison time, to get around to it.  No explanation as to just why they did it.  I am sure Cosby and his family are overjoyed.  I am perfectly OK with it. 

We don't do Declarations of War anymore

Last time we declared war on anybody was back in 1941, right after Pearl Harbor.  Now a days we call it "Authorization for the Use of Military Force" and apparently they last forever.  They give the president authority to spend money, dispatch troops, order air strikes and other military action.  The old fashioned declaration of war became moot when the war was over.  Anyhow Congress just decided to cancel out some  Authorizations to kick ass in the Middle East passed some twenty years ago and still being used today.  Not a bad idea.

   The president can use military force to defend the United States which covers the small stuff but probably does not go as far as doing regime change on disagreeable nations.  As a matter of procedure, and a matter of political survival, the president wants to have Congress and the bulk of the nation behind any serious military operations.  They should remember that we lost the Viet Nam war for lack of domestic political support. 

Excaliber 1981

Released in 1981 making it forty years old this year.  It’s long, two hours and twenty minutes.  It tells the King Arthur story beginning with Uther Pendragon’s visit to Igraine, where with Merlin’s magical help he begets Arthur.  We have a young Arthur pulling the sword from the stone, in front of a big crowd and being acclaimed king.  We have Lancelot’s affair with Guinevere.  We have Mordred’s treachery leading to Arthur’s death at the battle of Camlan.  In short all the significant stories from Malory’s La Morte d’Arthur are presented. 

   The movie has a few costume problems.  Everybody wears shining armor, plate armor, all the time.  Makes it hard to tell who is who since they all look alike, and wear helmets that obscure the actor’s faces. Arthur gets marred wearing shining plate armor.  In real life plate armor doesn't breath, making it sweaty as well as heavy.  I am sure armor would have been kept on hooks in the armory and only donned to go into combat, not worn around the house. The other trouble is, in Arthur’s time (late 400’s to early 500’s) armor would have been either old Roman armor or chain mail, or boiled leather.  Plate armor would not be developed for another thousand years. 

   Nigel Terry plays King Arthur, Helen Mirren plays Morgana, and Nicol Williamson plays Merlin.  Patrick Stewart and Liam Neeson have bit parts, so small that I never recognized them while watching the movie. 

Choosing the Right Strategy for WWII.

   Right after Pearl Harbor there was incredible political pressure to do something about Japan.  Natural enough.  But Roosevelt wanted to deal with Germany first.  He saw Germany was more dangerous.  She was bigger than Japan, bigger population, far more heavily industrialized, had her own supplies of coal and iron, had plenty of top flight scientists, and occupied a very strategic location, right in the center of Europe.  Europe was the center of the civilized world in those days, where as Japan was way off in the Far East.  The US Joint Chiefs of Staff and most of the American establishment agreed with Roosevelt and supported his views on the matter.  The British were all in favor.  And, Hitler declared war on the United States.  This was purely off the cuff on Hitler’s part, he had no alliance with Japan, no treaties offering support, and he didn’t own the Japanese anything.  Five million German soldiers were locked in deadly combat with the Russians, the British were bombing the snot out of his homeland, last thing Hitler needed was another enemy.  What Hitler did manage was to convince everyone in America that Germany and Japan were in league with each other (the Axis) and so nailing the Germans was as good as nailing the Japanese. 

   Had we followed our first impulse and thrown everything into smashing Japan we might have given the Germans time to develop nuclear weapons.  We certainly would have given them time to get their deadly Type 21 submarines into action.  We would have given Hitler time to beat down the Russians.  Time for Rommel to stiffen the defenses on the Atlantic Wall.  As it was, the Atlantic Wall was almost strong enough to defeat D-Day.  Another year or two of laying more minefields, building more pill boxes, and it might have been strong enough to hold.

Ho Ho Ho. Windows 11 coming for Christmas.

The Wall St Journal ran three pieces on Windows 11 today.  It will start coming preinstalled on desk tops and laptops by Christmas time.  Windows 10 owners will be offered a free update. They say they have not changed the user interface "much" from Windows 10.   Windows 7 and 8 users will NOT get a free update. " Users can choose from Android apps Amazon offers to install on their PC's." to  quote the WSJ piece. I think this means Windows 11 can download and run some, perhaps all, Android apps.  TikTok and Uber ride hailing service were mentioned by  name.  They claim better integration with "the cloud" which is not a feature I care about.  They claim deeper support for Microsoft "Teams".  First I ever heard of "Teams".  I must be loosing touch with the technology since I retired.  They claim 20 million users for "Teams"  a year ago and 145 million users today.  

   Did not talk about how much slower and fatter Windows 11 will be compared to Windows 10.  Every new version of Windows going all the way back to 3.1 has demanded more RAM and more disk space and more time.  Only improvements in PC hardware performance over the years has kept Windows sluggishness within limits. 

So what is critical race theory, really

 Far as I can tell, from web surfing, critical race theory says that skin color is your destiny.  If your skin is white you are a nasty oppressor, if your skin is brown or black then every thing that goes wrong for you is whitey's fault.  White kids should feel guilty.  Brown and black kids should not work hard, they should accept failures in life as white oppression.  

   Forget Jefferson "All men are created equal" and Martin Luther King "Judged by the content of their character".  And if you look deeper, critical race theory looks like Communism or Socialism with the capitalist vs worker conflict replaced with white vs black (or brown and black) conflict.  

Not something that does any kid good to be taught.

Uniforms for Richard Sharpe TV dramas

 I have been watching my collection of the Richard Sharpe videos.  Sharpe, played by Sean Bean, is a British Army officer in the Napoleonic wars.  They have some cool shots of the redcoats, in uniform, in line or column, in action.  The red coats are really red, so red that I wonder if they could dye cloth that bright a red back in 1810 or so.  The redcoats and most of the other troops wear white pants which are nice and white and clean in most of the shots.  I gotta wonder if in real life white uniforms could stay looking that presentable after a bit of scrabbling around in the dirt.  But they look cool for the video.  And the officers get to wear gigantic hats.  I am not a real expert on period costumes so I don't know just how real the ones in the videos are, but they look cool.  

How Long Can America Keep Borrowing?

 Title of a Wall St Journal Op=Ed.  The answer is simple.  The US can keep borrowing as long as people are willing to buy T-bills.  Right now T-bills are selling briskly.  They are considered the soundest investment on the planet.  The US has an enviable record, gong back a couple of hundred years,  of never welshing on its debts.  In actual fact, we promise to repay a T-bill, with interest, after a fixed period of time, 5 years, 10 years, whatever, depends upon the specific T-bill.  We repay the T-bill owners with dollar bills, of which we can print as many as we need.  So as long as the financial community thinks US T-bills are a good investment they will keep buying them.  So long as we don't do anything really stupid to shake world wide confidence in US T-bills and US dollars, we can keep on borrowing. 

Wall St Journal discovers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company

 TSMC we call them in the industry.  They have been around, and important for 20 years that I know of.  Biggest semiconductor fab in the world.  TSMC doesn't design chips, they accept designs from anybody with money and fabricate them.  They specialize in digital parts, 5 volt or 3.3 volt.  Should TSMC go out of production for some reason (Main land china invades Taiwan for example) there would be a semiconductor shortage world wide much worse than the shortages we are having now.  

Anyhow the Wall St Journal ran a story this week indicating vaguely how important TSMC is to the world economy.  First time the Journal has bothered to notice TSMC. 

Driving Home from Maryland

 When I got as far as Massachusetts all the electric road signs were encouraging all the citizens to get vaccinated.  Probably a better use for those signs than flashing simply "Drive Safely" messages.  I found the scenic route I took on the way down is 620 miles, the ordinary route (NJ Turnpike to Delaware Memorial bridge is 580 miles. Trip back took 12 hours, one hour of which was taken up by lunch in Brattleboro VT.  I got on Main St in Brattleboro looking for a restaurant. no luck. just two pizza and fried chicken places with no where to park.  Wound up at a snappy Japanese place on the way out of town.  I even remembered how to use chop sticks, something I have not done for 50 years.  That was yesterday.  Today I reregistered the car ($123.30, Arrgh) and picked up my cat from my sister in law.  Popped cat into the plastic cat carrier and let her cry until I got home, got the car unloaded, got her litter box cleaned and refilled, ad the doors closed.  I will keep her inside for a day to let her readjust that this place is home and not to wander too far.

More Improvements in Police Work

 We ought to go thru the law books and remove as many laws as we can.  For instance now that pot has been legalized in so many states, we should not be arresting people and putting them in jail just for simple possession of pot.  Waste of law enforcement time, waste of prison space,  and it makes the victim almost un employable.  In New York, Eric Garner died while the cops were arresting him for selling single cigarettes (loosies) on the street. That's a law that should never have been passed.  And it took a man's life. I am not a lawyer, so I don't know criminal law all that well, but I bet a lawyer could point out a bunch of other laws on the books that could be removed. 

Heavy Truck Traffic

 Drove down to Maryland to visit my daughter yesterday.  Trucks every where.  Big 18 wheelers pulling big 57 foot trailers.  It was like diving along side a freight train.  I figure a lot of 'em are delivering something, others are empties going out to pick up something.  Either way it looks like business is getting better.  

   I did not see many Detroit passenger vehicles. Lotta Toyota, lotta Honda, lotta Kia, not much from Detroit.  The pickup trucks mostly looked like company trucks or work vehicles.

Trip took me 12 hours, it usually only takes 11 hours.  I ran into a terrific thunderstorm near Philly, just poured down rain.  I had to ack off from my carefree 70 mph to like 40 mph cause the rain was so heavy that I had trouble seeing the road.  And I took the scenic route thru Pennsylvania instead of the faster but boring NJ turnpike route.  Tappan Zee bridge is gone.  It is now calling itself the Governor Mario Coumo bridge.  Ego trip much for New York's Granny Killer? It is the new bridge.  They have got the old bridge down and scrapped.  Not bad looking, pretty cable stayed design. 

Dr Seuss is STILL the best seller

 Wall St Journal,  listing for hard back fiction.  Oh The Places You will Go.  This is three weeks in a row for the good doctor as Number 1 best seller. 

Terro Ant Traps. They work good.

 Been having an ant problem at the house.  Hordes of them scuttling every where.  Upon prodding from Youngest Son, I bought a pack (four) of Terro Ant Traps and put them out.  They are working. I have hardly seen a single ant where I used to have hordes of them.  Dunno just how they work.  I don't see any dead ants in the traps, which are clear plastic with a clear liquid inside them.  Maybe they poison the ants so they scurry home and die in their nest?  Maybe they emit an smell that drives the ants away?  Beats me.  I am happy just to not see hordes of ants cruising my kitchen.

TV is still talking about UFO's

 Flying saucers or UFO's are not new.  They first made the newspapers back in 1947.  A private pilot flying a light plane out west somewhere, Oregon perhaps, reported seeing one (or maybe more, I don't remember) and the papers printed his story.  It caused a nation wide sensation, and sure enough a lot more were seen and reported in the following years.  I saw one about 60 years ago.  It was 50 years ago that Duluth scrambled fighters after one.  So they are not new, they have been flying around, doing their thing, what ever it is, for a long time.  

  The TV has shown some gunsite pictures of UFOs that are hard to explain.  I will leave it to others to attempt explanations.