First Shipment of Ukrainian corn leaves for Tripoli in Lebanon.

It is a back page story in the Wall St Journal.  20,000 tons of corn.  That ought to fill up a big ship, and when made into Corn Flakes is will take up a lot more space.  Ukraine has a lot more grain it can ship, a million tons or more from last year and as much again or more from this year’s harvest which ought to be starting soon.  The Ukrainians say it will take a month or more to ship that much grain.  They worry about running out of room to store the new harvest if they cannot more last year’s harvest. 

   Unsaid in the Journal story is how much Ukraine gets paid for that first shipload, and follow on ship loads.  And in what currency, US dollars, Ukrainian currency, Russian rubles, Lebanese currency, IOUs, time payments, or who knows.  Surely Ukraine needs all the money it can get to keep fighting the Russians.  

Apparently a deal was struck between Russia, Ukraine, Turkey, and the UN to  allow cargo ships thru the war torn Black Sea.  Gotta wonder why Russia signed on, you would think they would be happy to strangle Ukraine  by blockading their Black Sea ports. 

 

SOS. Save our Sink.

The kitchen sink faucet has been leaking, a steady drip drip drip, for some time now.  It got to the point where I could hear the drip drip all over the house.  I would go to bed and hear the drip drip until I fell asleep.

  So yesterday I decided to do something about it.  I shut off the water and took the faucet apart.  I took the old seals and the strange metal ball that made a single lever work both hot and cold along with me.  Went to Lowes in Littleton.  Pleasant surprise, Lowes had replacement washers and replacement for the metal ball.  That faucet was installed way back in 1962, so I had worried about finding parts for it.  But Lowes had them.  Groovy.

   I got home, put the liquor away, and started in to put the faucet back together.  Arrgh.  I just could NOT get the damn thing to go back together.  I even made a second run to Lowes to buy a third little set of spare parts, thinking maybe I needed it.  No luck. 

   So I called up my brother John, who has been a contractor up here for 40 years or so, thinking he might have an idea.  Well he could not think of anything to try over the phone, but he said he could drop by and take a look.  Son of a Gun, John got the faucet to go back together.  It doesn’t leak, the hot and the cold work.  Fantastic.  Without Brother John, I would have next tried to replace the entire faucet assembly, probably $90 from Lowes. 

  So the water runs, I can wash dishes, life is good.  Thank you John.

Things Democrats have brought us.

   

1. $5 a gallon gasoline.  It has dropped off a bit from $5 but not enough to matter.
2. Attempts to renew the “assault weapons” ban.  Since there are no real differences between “assault weapons” and deer rifles, this law will ban all rifles.
3. 9.5 % inflation.  Your dollars are worth 9.5% less in buying power than a year ago.
4. The Afghanistan debacle.  We pulled out of Afghanistan turning the country over to the Taliban and leaving billions of dollars worth of good American weapons to Islamic terrorists.  We had Afghani’s clinging to USAF transports and falling to their deaths when the plane took off.
5. Lack of baby formula in store.  For that matter a lot of empty shelves for all sorts of common products like bacon.
6. Kamala Harris for vice president.  If anything happens to Biden, impeachment, heart attack, Covid 19, falling off bicycles, falling down the boarding stairs from Air Force 1, you name it, Kamala becomes president.  By all accounts she is worse than Biden.
7. Opening up the US-Mexican border to anybody who shows up.  Resulting in  floods of fentanyl, Covid 19 cases, and illegal immigrants.
8. Turning the presidency over to Who Runs Biden’s America (WRBA).  They write the executive orders and the speeches on the teleprompter.  Biden signs what is put before him and reads out loud what ever is on the teleprompter.  We have no idea who WRBA is but who ever they are they are running America right into the ground. 
9. Biden is pushing a big spending bill thru Congress and will sign it when the Congress approves it.  It will make inflation worse. 
10. Biden is putting the Armed Forces onto a lefty greenie path, including Critical Race Theory training for the troops and mixed sex bathrooms and mixed sex locker rooms.  There was a scene of this in the movie Starship Troopers.  They are discharging 60,000 regular and National Guard troops who lack Covid 19 vaccination.  The armed services are reporting recruiting shortfalls of as much as 45%.
    

       All real Americans need to vote a straight Republican ticket in the mid term federal elections coming up this November.  Only that will save America from total ruin.

More Old Line Science Fiction authors. Poul Anderson.

He wrote a lot of stuff.  I have 17 Poul Anderson books on my bookshelf and I dare say there are more such books out there. Andersen wrote good fantasy, good historical novels and good hard science fiction. Some of my favorites are Three Hearts and Three Lions, War of the Wingmen, The Star Fox, and The High Crusade.  All Poul Anderson books, not just my favorites, are good reads.  Anderson stories have a protagonist who also serves as the view point character.  In the eyes of the protagonist, his friends are noble and good, his enemies are evil.  A very simplified world view but this is fiction, and a straight forward and not too complicated world view makes for a good story.

   Anyhow if you are looking for a good science fiction and fantasy writer you cannot go wrong with Poul Anderson.

 

Are we in a recession?

 The usual description of a recession is two quarters (half a year) of declining GNP.  We got that today.  The Biden Administration is saying “No we don’t.  We have to have something else before it is a recession.”  They never said what “something else” might be.  This story doesn’t convince many people, but it soaks up hours of TV time debating the worthless issue. While this fruitless debate goes on, the Administration doesn’t have to answer real questions, like “Will you reauthorize Keystone XL?”, or “When will you start leasing land for oil and gas exploration?” Or “When will you tell the banks and finance houses that it is OK to lend for oil and gas drilling?”,  The Wall St Journal simply mentioned that most people believe two negative quarters is a recession and then they moved on. 

 

400 Parts per Million of CO2 is nothing.

 The earth takes in a flood of solar energy on dayside.  To keep the world’s temperature fairly steady the world has to radiate as much heat from the night side as the Sun pours in on the dayside.  Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere absorb heat radiated from the sun warmed ground, rather than allowing the heat to radiate into outer space. 

  CO2 is a green house gas.  So is water vapor.  There is a lot of water vapor in the air; you can see it with the naked eye in the form of clouds.  The amount of water vapor varies with temperature but it averages around 4000 parts per million.  That is ten times the current amount of CO2 which is 400 parts per million.  The part the Greenies natter about is the rise from 300 parts per million to 400 parts per million over the time since the Industrial Revolution.  That is an increase of 100 parts per million or 2.5% of the amount of water vapor.  Real people (not Greenies) don’t believe that a 2.5% increase in greenhouse gases makes any difference to the temperature of the world. 

  As far as real people are concerned, the Greenie push to stop using oil and natural gas is just a political scheme to let them control a large part of the US economy and squeeze money out of that control.  The Greenies love $5 a gallon gasoline.  And at this point it looks like the Greenies are controlling Biden.

His Dark Materials

 Unsatisfying.  Audio is terrible; I could not understand most of the dialog.  Casting is mediocre, Lyra and Will Parry are too tall, and look to be 18 or 19.  They speak to each other, and I would enjoy hearing what they are saying to each other. The books, (which I have read) have both characters as 15 or 16.  Mrs. Coulter just looks plain, not romantic enough to attract Lord Asreal.  This made for TV version is nowhere near as good and the movie Golden Compass. 

TV is going crazy about a heat wave.

  I am getting old but I can remember summers going back maybe 75 years.  At home (New England) summer weather was mostly warm and pleasant.  We went swimming in Lake Cochichuate, we played with neighbor kids, and we ran around in the woods surrounding Lake Cochichuate.  Every summer we had a hot spell, a few days or even a week, of really hot weather, 90F and more.  Mother coped.  She would take us to an air conditioned movie, or out to eat somewhere, or just do a nice big steak on the outdoor fire place.  And the hot spell would be over.  And we didn’t have radio and TV commenting that this hot spell was global warming and would end the world.  It was just a hot spell. 

Really old science fiction writer. Edgar Rice Burroughs

Although Edgar ice Burroughs is best known as the creator of Tarzan, he started his writing career with “A Princess of Mars” way back before WWI.  The only reasonable science fiction author older than Burroughs is Jules Verne.  In this romance, Mars is habitable, with breathable air, little water, lots of strange animals, and multiple races.  All Martians go around armed, long sword, short sword and radium revolver. Red Martian princess Dejah Thoris meets up with Earthman John Carter.  They fall in love; they escape captivity by the Green Martians riding double on the back of a thoat. They lead the forces of Helium and Thark to the destruction of Zodanga. 

   Burroughs wrote another dozen Martian novels over his life.  The first three, Princess of Mars, Gods of Mars, and Warlord of Mars are the best reads. The later ones, not so much.  Burroughs influenced later science fiction stories.  For instance Star War’s Princess Leia owns a lot to Burrough’s Dejah Thoris. 

Men and Women

A woman is a human being who can get pregnant, bear live children and nurse them after birth.  A man is a human being who can impregnate a woman.  There are some men who wish they were women or think they are woman but I would merely call them men with delusions.   Likewise there are women who wish they were men or think they are men, but I would merely call them women with delusions.  It is beyond the capabilities of medicine to actually change a man into a woman or vice versa.  Attempts to do so can render the individual sterile or infertile, which can be a great sadness in later life.  I would call attempts to change a person’s sex by drugs or surgery to be medical malpractice, especially in the case of young persons.

   People with delusions about their sex are called “transsexuals” by some.  I will stick with calling them delusional. 

    I feel much of the talk about “transsexuals” comes from people who want another identity group to politic with.  We already have identity groups of whites, blacks, Hispanics, Asians, and LGBTQs,  Adding “transsexuals”  expands the number of identity groups to politic with or for.

How do you tell when a Biden administration spokesperson is lying?

Ans.  When they talk about “Transition”.  “Transition” is the idea that the US economy can be made to run without using oil and gas.  Like magic Wind and Solar will pick up the load.  Yeah Right.  No way does wind or solar run my car or heat my house.  If we stop using oil and gas then we are back to the Hiawatha economy, no aircraft, no motor vehicles, no railroads, no central heating, no air conditioning, no fresh fruits or vegetables in winter, living in tepees and cooking over wood fires.  I get tired of camping out, especially during a New Hampshire winter.   

   In short, “transition” is extremely uncomfortable, and only works in the Deep South where you don’t get winter.  I don’t want it and no real voters want it.  Just because Administration spokespeople talk about it doesn’t mean it is going to happen. 

So who is gonna run for President??

 There are two answers, one for democrats one for Republicans. 

For the democrats anything goes.  Biden is saying he will run again but I think that is just talk to prevent him from becoming a lame duck early on.  As soon as Biden says he is not running in 2024 he becomes a lame duck, right then and there.  So far the only democrat who has expressed interest (he didn’t say he would run, he just sounded interested) is that Gary Somebody or Other from California.  Saints preserve us from a California democrat.  If the democrats have anyone else I have not heard.

 

The Republican have Donald Trump.  He is strong, a lot of people voted for him last time.  After a year and a half of Biden, Trump is looking pretty good.  One the other hand there are a lot of Never-Trumpers out there who won’t help.  And then we have Ron Desantis, Florida governor.  I know little about Desantis other than he got into a squabble with Disney a little while ago about that bill for parental rights, forbidding teaching about sex in grades three and below.  Actually had it been up to me, I would have made it grade 6 and below.  I am not sure just where parents stand on that bill. 

 

So, 2024 is up in the air as far as I can see right now. 

Biden says he would use US force to prevent Iran from getting nukes.

    Does anyone believe Biden?  I have my doubts that in the clutch Biden would order a couple of US armored divisions into Iran to do regime change.  I fear he would chicken out and back off.  What do you think the Iranians, the Russians, the Iraqis, the Saudis, the Israelis, and who ever else might care, think?  Would Biden have the stones to go thru with it?

Old Time Science Fiction writers. Robert A. Heinlein.

   Heinlein has been dead for nearly 35 years now.  I remember seeing his obituary on the front page of the Boston Globe back in 1988.  The only other writer to ever get a front page obit in the Globe was Tolkien back in the 1970s.  To get a front page obit you have to be very widely read and your writing must be considered important.  In a long active career Heinlein wrote a lot of stuff, all of it good reading.  Some of his best were Have Spacesuit Will Travel, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Red Planet, and The Star Beast.  And a lot of others, all well worth reading.  Controversial is his novel Stranger in a Strange Land.  This book drops out of the hard science fiction mold into something else that is hard to describe.  It works best for older readers, into (or graduated from) high school.  I would discourage children from, reading it while they are still in grade school. 

Out of 30-30 ammunition.

 Have some friends coming up for the weekend who said they would like to go shooting.  So I drove over to the Alderbrook range just to make sure my fancy radio card still worked.  It did.  So I dropped by the Sports Shop in Littleton to buy a little ammunition.  They had .22 and 9 mm.  They did not have any 30-30 which amazed me, 30-30 is extremely popular, all the lever action rifles use it.  The only round that might compete in popularity is .223, the round used by AR15s.

Street Drugs kill. We need to tell our kids.

 Street drugs are given names of opioids and sold to people looking for the high they get from good strong opioids. At this time, the street drug makers and sellers are liberally spiking all their wares with fentanyl.  It’s cheap, it gives a rocket ship high, and it is extremely powerful, so powerful that the slightest error in manufacture adds a lethal dose of fentanyl to the pill.  They did some checking and they found that one in five pills bought off the street contained enough fentanyl to kill, right upon swallowing the pill.

 We need to tell the kids that street drugs kill.  Stick with weed or beer.

Addams family 2.

 I Netflixed it.  It is a cartoon, no live action.  Gomez comes out looking like a football wearing a striped suit.  Chester looks like a blimp.  Mortica looks like a string bean dressed in black.  Wednesday spends her time having Pugsley beaten into a pulp or thinking about changing families.  No good lines for anyone.  Best part of the flick is the Addams family RV, a rolling antique that puffs purple smoke while underway. I lost interest before the end and started doing housework. 

I cannot recommend it on account of terminal boredom.

Christian Nationalists.

 I never heard of them before yesterday when NPR ran a long 45 minute piece on my car radio trashing them.  NPR repeated the piece this morning. NPR clearly disagrees with Christian Nationalism.  I don’t know what to think.  NPR did not tell us what Christian Nationalists believe or what their ideology might be.  NR never mentioned any Christian National leaders, let along give any names.  No mention of a Christian Nationalism headquarters, or a party newspaper, web site, radio station, or just a party email list.  No mention of Christian Nationalists working in the Biden administration or the previous Trump administration

What is the tariff deal between Britain and the EU after Brexit?

Something like 1/3^rd of British exports used to go to the EU tariff free.  Boris Johnson promised to do Brexit AND keep British goods tariff free.  I never did hear how that worked out.  A quick Google didn’t tell me anything.  You would think paying tariff on 1/3^rd of your exports would hurt and we would be reading screams and cries from the wounded.  I haven’t seen any, yet.

A Ten Year old girl is pregnant.

 

 

And they won’t give her an abortion.  I fear going thru pregnancy and child birth is very dangerous at 10 years old.  I never heard of a pregnancy in a girl so young, but some helpful person posted that it happens very occasionally.  I think a girl/young woman ought to be at least 18, mostly full grown, before getting into childbirth.  I don’t know if the 10 year old story is real, but, I think any state writing an abortion law ought to have a clause authorizing abortion for the very young, no questions asked.  Young, girls can make mistakes, and I believe we ought to permit the girls to correct such mistakes.  Was I writing the law I would allow abortion for any girl younger than 19. 

Biden does not like the Supremes about repeal of Roe vs. Wade

Biden was on TV, in his new replica Oval Office, objecting to Row vs. Wade just now.  Most of the time he was just calling the justices names, he was not making any point of constitutional law, common law, or common sense, he was just calling them names.  That does not help him, or the country.  The Supreme Court has been an important part of American government since Marbury vs. Madison, which was a long time ago. 

We citizens see the court as fair and principled.  To hear our elected president tearing the court down does not go over well.  Criticism or suggesting a better way we understand and like.  We don’t like personal attacks on justices.  You would think an old head (very old head) like Biden would know this. This might be from WRBA who provide Biden's speeches and TV clips and probably don’t know this. 

Who is Running Biden's America? (WRBA for short)

 I am pretty sure that Biden is just signing what is put before him and reading what ever is on the teleprompter.  I have  seen little to nothing suggesting who the people writing the executive orders and putting speeches on the teleprompter are.  Weekend Pundit once suggested it was Biden's wife.  I don't remember anyone else saying anything at all.  

It would be nice to know who is driving America over the cliff. 

Not sold in stores

 The TV runs ads for all sorts of pills and plasters.  They will make you sleep, cure bags under your eyes, fill you up with good freeze dried fruits and veggies, cure all sorts of things that I never heard of before.  If you believe the TV ads they can cure anything.   A lot of ads don’t bother to tell us just what the advertised drug is supposed to cure.

   None of these miracle products are sold in stores.  They are all mail order.  That makes me wonder if they really work.  You would think that if they worked they would be on the shelves of drug stores along with the aspirin and Tylenol and nose drops and what ever.   

How long does a recession last?

Depends who you ask.  Ask an economist and he will say the recession is over when GNP and/or the stock market stops going down.  This usually happens 18 months after the recession kicked off. 

   Ask a real person, and they will say the recession does not end until wages, prices, and jobs have recovered to where they were when the recession stuck.

   For instance the last recession, Great Depression 2.0, kicked off in the winter of 2008-2009 after a bunch of really stupid loansby big banks went bad.  Economists said it was over by 2010.   In many ways it is still with us, 13 years later.  Lesson: don’t trust what economists say, they lie a lot.

   It is business men that end recessions.  They work hard and do nearly anything to get their sales back up to where with used to be/ ought to be,

USS Constitution Gets a nice piece on Fox News.

   Fourth of July is when they do the “turn around” cruise.  Constitution gets towed out into Boston harbor and turned around so that the sun gets to dry out the other side of the ship.  This spreads the weathering by sunlight more evenly and presumably helps the ship to last longer.  Fox said some nice things about enemy cannon balls bouncing off her live oak sides, and her 35-0 record in single ship duels over her career. 

   Constitution was bigger, faster, and more heavily armed than Royal Navy frigates.  In those days the biggest warships, line of battle ships, or just “battle ships” had two gun decks and carried a lot of guns.  Nelson’s Victory had 100 guns.  Run of the mill line of battleships carried 74 guns. 

   Any large warship with just a single gun deck was called a frigate.  Constitution fit this definition; anyone could see thru a telescope that she only had one gun deck.  But Constitution carried 44 guns and they were big 24 pounders, battle ship guns.  The usual frigate was smaller and only carried 28 or 32 guns and the guns were 12 or 18 pounders.  In short Constitution had a lot more firepower, and was faster to boot, she could catch anything afloat and out run anything stronger than she was. 

  However Royal Navy captains felt honor bound to engage any American frigate even one much stronger than they were.  The Royal Navy had been very successful in single ship duels for years and years and her skippers in the war of 1812 figured that Royal Navy discipline and seamanship could beat anything.  Well not so much in the case of Constitution.  Her heavier gun battery blew down British masts and slaughtered British crews.  The American crew was all good men with a grudge against the British, usually connected to impressment. They fought with enthusiasm.

   Anyhow, after Constitution’s many victories; the British government was forced to issue orders to their frigate captains to avoid getting into fights with Constitution, or her sister ships, unless they outnumbered the American by three to one. 

  The Brits have a long memory.  In the 1930s the Germans launched Graf Spee, a very large ship armed with 11 inch guns.  By the standards of the day Graf Spee was a cruiser, heavy cruiser to be sure, but a cruiser.  But, the British called Graf Spee a “pocket battleship”, so that British cruiser captains did not feel honor bound to engage.  And this worked.  In 1939 Graf Spee was out in the oceans commerce raiding.  A squadron of three British cruisers, two 6 inch and one 8 inch, located her and engaged.  In the furious gun battle that ensued Graf Spee took enough damage that she took refuge in Montevideo harbor in Ecuador.  Ecuador was a neutral country, and the laws of war limited a hostile warship’s stay in a neutral harbor to a day or so.  So Graf Spee steamed out to meet the British cruisers again; only the German skipper scuttled rather than fighting.  He committed suicide after getting back to shore.  To the British, sinking the Graf Spee counted as sinking a battleship, and they made a big deal out of it.  Only for the memory of the damage “frigate” Constitution had done all those years ago did the Brits succeed in promoting Graf Spee from heavy cruiser to battleship.

Cadillac Lyriq. The new battery powered caddy.

   The reviewer is shown stroking the nicer trim bits in the cockpit, opening the rear hatch and the floor under the hatchback.  I could not see a spare tire down their and the reviewer didn’t mention anything about a spare, like did the car come with one?  It does come with a big black grille.  Not sure why a battery car needs a grille to let fresh air in to cool the radiator.  I don’t think battery cars have radiators.  This review failed to say what kind of range the car would get on a full charge.  Nor did it mention how long it might take to recharge a flat battery on the road.   This reviewer nattered on and on about lovely cockpit trim without ever mentioning how well the car drove, acceleration, braking, cornering, noise at speed, ride, carrying capacity, you know car stuff that us drivers are interested in.  No mention about how many people it had seats for, and whether you could squeeze 4 by 8 sheets of plywood or sheetrock into the car.  It had cute looking flush door handles on the outside.  No way to get your gloved hand into those handles to tug open a frozen door.

   Could be a nice car, but you couldn’t prove it by me from this light weight review.

Airline Flight Cancellations??

How does this happen.  The airlines know how many flyable aircraft they have.  They know how many crews they have.  And lesser things like airport gates.   It should be simple to compute how many flights they can fly before running out of something, aircraft, crews, gates, what ever.  Only schedule the flights you have resources to fly.  Don’t put/leave flights on the timetable if you don’t have the resources to support them. 

  Should be simple to figure and get it right.  I wonder why the airlines don’t bother; they just run out of something, probably aircrews, and cancel flights, hanging the passengers out to dry.

  We need a passenger support agency that lets us know how bad each airline is so we can make reservations on the carriers more likely to fly.

  Delays are another matter.  There is always bad weather or air traffic control to blame the delay on.  But cancellations are pure contempt for passengers.

Why the US has a filibuster?

I’ll skip the colorful history of the filibuster which goes back to the Civil War.  I think we should demand more than just a razor thin majority of votes to pass a law.  Unless most of the legislators think the law is a good one, then it’s probably a bad one and should not pass.  The current Senate rules, which allow any senator to call for a vote of 60-40 to pass a law is a good idea.  If 40 senators think the law should not pass, that says to me that the law in question has some problems.  And the Republic is well served when that law is rejected.

  Democrats are calling to kill the filibuster, so that they can pass a number of very questionable laws that Republicans dislike and have filibustered.  I think that is a selfish and short sighted viewpoint on the part of Democrats. 

Humanity has very strong instincts to have children.

If we didn’t, the human race would die out.   Children provide emotional satisfaction, love, companionship and a feeling of wellbeing to parents.  Failure to have children can be a source of great unhappiness to the childless parents.

Last night Tucker Carlson was saying that the mobs of people out demonstrating against the Supreme Court’s cancellation of Roe vs. Wade; this group of people was largely unhappy with the thought that they would wind up having to raise children rather than just aborting them.  Nasty thought that.  He also said corporations like childless workers (they work hard and child care does not distract them from their company jobs). To this end the corporations are offering to pay for employee’s abortions, and creating “feminism” an ideology that is hostile to the idea of mothering children.

Let’s hope humanity’s strong built in urges to have children overwhelm this claptrap ideology.

From a letter to the editor of the Wall St Journal, today

 "Contrary to popular wisdom, Americans aren't opposed to wars for good causes, but they are tired of losing conflicts becauswe the US is unfilling to use its full strength."

Ron Kurtz

Alpharetta, GA.

There are only two exit strategies from a war, victory, or defeat. 

People who smell alike make friends more easily.

I saw this reasonable sounding idea somewhere on the Internet.  Sounded good, but their laboratory technique was flaky.  I cannot smell myself until I have gone without bathing for several days.  Back when I was gainfully employed I would take a shower every morning, just to avoid offending co workers with unmentionable body odor.  This suggests that people mostly smell of soap and water at work. 

   Then the authors used an “electric nose” to see whose scents matched up.  They never explained how this device worked, or how they calibrated it, and what they did to make sure it gave the same readings on the same people every day. 

  So it’s an interesting idea but the authors didn’t convince me that they had proved their idea worked.  

Elected legislatures are supposed to write the laws

Courts and judges are supposed to interpret existing law and show how existing law fits the case before the court.  Elected legislatures are subject to pressure from voters to vote this way or that.  Which is as it should be, legislatures are supposed to represent their districts.  We give judges tenure, often for life, to insulate them from popular pressure so that they can rule in accordance with the written law.     Unfortunately political pressure groups, back in the ‘60s and ‘70s found it easier to influence 5 out of 9 unelected lawyers than to gain the votes needed to pass a law in Congress.   Hence Roe vs. Wade in the early 1970s.  This led to responsible presidents nominating “strict constructionists” to the Supreme Court, judges who would rule in accordance with existing law and not make new law from the bench

The need for guns in America.

Guns in the hands of ordinary citizens have stopped a lot of crime over the years.  They stopped a crazy who was about to shoot up a church down south a while ago.  Every month American Rifleman carries nearly a dozen stories of ordinary homeowners taking care of home invaders, shop keepers or counter clerks fending off robbers, motorists fending off carjackers, and more.  Most of the time that armed citizen manages to hold the perps at gunpoint until the cops arrive.  Some of the time (not all that often) the armed citizen kills the perp right then and there.

   America would have fewer school shootings and other crime if we had more citizens who carried a gun.

   Men are taller, heavier, and stronger than women.  Women, especially young and pretty women, ought to consider carrying concealed firearms, just in case.

   The anti gun people make America more dangerous for ordinary citizens.   

  

Red Flag laws. Gun Confiscation?

Our Congress is talking about passing a gun control bill, still nameless in today’s Wall St Journal.  This bill would “encourage” states to pass “red flag laws”.  The journal did not say what “encouragement” means, a juicy federal payment for just passing a “red flag” law?  Or a bounty of cash for each person who has his firearms seized? Or???.   Far as discussion in the Journal or on Fox goes, all it takes is a judge’s say-so to confiscate a victim’s firearms.  Judges are nice people and all, but they know little or nothing about mental health, psychosis, or depression. No requirement for a board of experienced people, clergy, psychiatrists, law enforcement and others to evaluate the victim.  Victim does not get a chance to defend himself. 

   If the victim is so bent out of shape that we need to confiscate his firearms, is he not so bent out of shape as to require a stay in a mental hospital?  Find out what his problem[s] is/are and treat them.  Today we have a lot of very powerful drugs for mental problems. 

   Seizing the victim’s firearms is cheap, one visit by law enforcement and it is done.  Providing a bed in a mental hospital takes real money.  Confiscating the victim’s firearms makes the anti-gun people happy and does not cost much, which probably accounts for the popularity of the idea. 

 

Presidents and bikes

 I don't remember any US President on a bike, up until just now.  I can remember back thru Eisenhower, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Bush Sr, Bush Jr, Obama, and who else.  I don't remember every seeing photos of them on bikes, or reading about them going biking.  Until we get to Biden who falls off his bike in front of a lot of cameras. 

Run for the Hills.

 Fox News had a guy on Sunday (yesterday).  He claimed the stock market was going to tank, everybody should get out of stocks, keep the money in cash.  I hope he is wrong.  At least after selling all your stocks you could buy US bonds.  They pay 2-3% interest which is far more than banks are paying on deposits. Me, I am staying in the stock market. 

Fate of Taiwan?

We are hearing more tough talk from the Chinese about how Taiwan is (or ought to be) part of China, and how the Chinese might take military action to make it so.  Taiwan is 120 miles off shore and the Strait of Taiwan that separates the island of Taiwan from the Chinese mainland is blue water, deep enough to float aircraft carriers.  The Chinese army is very big, bigger than ours, probably bigger than the Russians.  Should the Chinese get that army ashore on Taiwan (and keep it supplied) it’s all over for Taiwan.  No way can Taiwan produce an army big enough to compete with the Peoples Liberation Army. 

    So the secret of keeping Taiwan independent is keeping the Chinese from crossing the Strait.  This has two angles, navy and air force.  If Taiwan can put up enough aircraft to sink the Chinese ships carrying the Peoples Liberation Army to their shores, they win.  This can be hard to do.  The newest Chinese war planes are nearly as good as ours, or maybe just as good as ours.  The Chinese just have to put up fighters to take out Taiwan’s bombers.  Taiwan has to put up bombers to sink Chinese ships, and fighters to fend off the Chinese fighters.  The bombers might be US made A-10’s; they don’t have to be 8 engine strategic bombers.

   Or the Navy angle.  Best is a bunch of submarines, they can stay submerged and just torpedo any Chinese vessel that needs it.  As long as they stay underwater they are pretty much immune to enemy aircraft. The US Navy and the Chinese Navy have about the same number of ships.  The effectiveness of ships is largely the effectiveness of the ship’s missiles.  When surface ships meet in combat they fire missiles at each other.  The ships with the best missiles win.  Best missiles have best range, best anti jamming features, best and strongest warheads, best guidance systems.  We don’t really know how good Chinese missiles are.  Afghanistan and Ukraine have showed American Stinger anti aircraft missiles to be excellent.  Ukraine has shown the American Javelin antitank missile as highly effective.  We can believe American naval missiles are just as good.    When it comes to aircraft carriers, the combat effectiveness lies with the carrier’s air group.  All the carrier vessel needs to do is launch ‘em and land ‘em.  It’s up to the aircraft to survive enemy fighters and get hits on targets.

   Used to be America gave Taiwan private assurances that the US navy would keep the Chinese from invading them.  Now, with WRBA and Biden, nobody knows what to think.  The Chinese may think we will let them invade Taiwan.  Who knows?

Christmas in July (well June is close to July)

 The UPS truck dropped off a carton for me this afternoon.  It had a nice brand new Dell laptop inside.  No bill, no indication of anyone except Dell, maker of the laptop.  I didn't order another laptop, I bought a new Acer in person from a computer store down around White River, two years ago.  Could it be one of those robocallers who say "some an so is charging something expensive to your Amazon Plus card" ?  I canceled Amazon Plus a year ago.  I'm still getting the calls.

   Could it be Youngest Son and his very nice girlfriend sending me a Birthday or Father's day gift?  There is a tiny icon on the shipping label of a gift box tied with a ribbon.  A name that could be very nice girlfriend's first name, with a last name appears on the shipping label.  I have not learned very nice girlfriends last name so could mean anything.  

   So far, Laptop has powered up, connected to my home network, updated Windows and is currently trying to get me to open  an account with Microsoft.  I have avoided that on my current laptop (Redkey) and my Dell desktop (small box).  Microsoft has tightened things up and it doesn't like my email address.  I will see what comes.  I am expecting Youngest Son and very nice girlfriend up here this evening so we ought to be able to straighten things out. 

The Martian Chronicles versus Fahrenheit 451

The Martian Chronicles is a collection of short stories.  It’s old. Copy write 1950.  Back then little was known of Mars short of what could be seen in a telescope.  The Martian satellites and rovers are half a century in the future.  The short stories are various, some tell of live Martians on Mars, dealing with Terran explorers.  Some tell of Terran explorer's trials and tribulations getting to Mars, settling on Mars, whatever.  I encountered the Martian Chronicles in grade school and I loved it.  I read it repeatedly on my own time.  Still have a paperback.  It broadened my mind a lot. 

  The other book Bradbury is known for, at least in science fiction circles, is Fahrenheit 451.  This is a simple tale of future Nazi like bad guys who burn books they don’t like.  I didn’t read it until much later and it never lived up to the promise of the Martian Chronicles. 

   For some reason school teachers liked Fahrenheit 451 far better than they liked Martian Chronicles.  Probably because the book burning had been going on the Germany less than 20 years before and teachers understood it and detested it.  Martian Chronicles had a lot of stories that required serious thinking to get your head around them.  It’s a pity; I think Martian Chronicles would have developed a love of reading in a lot of children.  Reading Fahrenheit 451 was just work, not much fun.

Robocallers who mumble

The robocallers have sharpened up their game this month.  Used to be, I would pick up the phone, and then wait five seconds.  (one thousand, two thousand ...) If the robocaller failed to answer within 5 seconds (fairly common) I would hang up.  Now, the robocaller picks up the phone after 2 or 3 seconds and starts its spiel.  If the robocaller mumbles, so that I cannot understand what company it is calling from, I hang up.  If the robocallers suggests I press 1 (or any number) I hang up.  

We need a law criminalizing robocallers.

Bye Bye Internet Exploder.

Apparently Microsoft is going to drop Internet Explorer.  The Wall St Journal; ran a long front page article lamenting this, flavored with a lot of IE users tears.  What they did not mention was the history.  Netscape Navigator was the first real web browser and Netscape was selling it for $30, It worked, and lots of people were sending in $30 to Netscape.  Micro$oft woke up to the power of browsers and wrote Internet Explorer to compete with Netscape Navigator.  Only Micro$oft included Internet Explorer as part of Windows, which made it free.  This torpedoed Netscape’s business plan of selling Navigator for $30.  They sued claiming unfair competition.  The Federal Trade Commission dismissed Netscape’s suit. 

   Which was the end of Netscape as a company.  Netscape Navigator was very good, and a bunch of computer savvy hackers maintained Navigator for many years.  Navigator is still out there, it calls itself Firefox now.  I still use it.  According to figures I see on my blog, Firefox is still number three in popularity amount browsers.  Micro$soft and Internal Explorer, and the follow on Edge are so far down they don’t even show.   

Crypto currency takes a dive. "Investors" take a bath.

 The old line financial instruments I understand are stocks, bonds, and bank deposits.  These either grant ownership in a valuable company (stocks) or are backed by promises to pay (bonds) from strong companies (Ford, Facebook, Apple, and many more) or strong governments (USA, Britain, Germany, Japan and others).Bonds issued by dead beats like Greece or Puerto Rico are often bought, but should not be since Greece has no way of paying them off.  Most banks understand this but there were a number of brain-dead European banks that bought Greek bonds because the Greeks offered juicy interest rates. 

   Lately we have crypto currencies like Bitcoin coming on the market.  These sold because they have been going up dramatically in value.  There is nothing behind crypto currencies except the desire to buy them from other investors.  When the other investors stop buying, the crypto currencies sink, badly.  Right now the Wall St Journal has been running stories every day or so about how badly the crypto currencies have tanked and how badly investors have been burned. 

   One of my rules is don’t invest in things that have no value of themselves.  Stocks and bonds can be sold in markets that are open 24/7 and cash can be in your checking account within a day or two.  You cannot do that with crypto currencies.

 

 

What ever happened to that Supreme Court Leaker?

 You would think that the chief justice of the Supreme Court is enough of a lawyer to interrogate the small number of people who had access to the leaked material and figure out who done it by now.  And fire him or her.  And publicise the name, making any future employment in the legal system very difficult. 

Supreme Court Security Force.

We ought to have one. It needs to report to the Supreme Justice only.  It shall protect the lives of the Justices and their families, and any other important Supreme Court personnel that the Chief Justice shall designate.  It shall preserve order around the Court and on any such real estate that the court may possess.  This force shall not involve itself in anyway with plaintiffs before the court.  Its job is strictly to protect Court personnel and property. It shall not arrest people for failing to show up for a court hearing or trial, that is the duty of the various executive law enforcement agencies such as the FBI.

   Size of force, office space, funding, and equipment shall be at the discretion of the Chief Justice.

Uvalde Cops.

I am seeing and hearing some bad things about the Uvalde cops performance at the Robb school massacre.  Apparently the cops stood around in the hall out side the classroom for an hour before the team from the Border  Patrol showed up and took care of business. 

  The commander of the Uvalde cops should had been in the school, on that floor and turned to his men and said "We are going in to stop that bastard right now.  Follow me."  His men would have followed immediately.  Looks like there was no leadership and so nothing happened.

Those Jan 6 hearings.

 I watched Fox News last night. They did not carry the Jan 6 hearings. Instead they spent the time trashing the hearings and the speakers there at. Some instant replay on ABC did not show much goodness coming out of the hearings.

Solar Panels just raise my electric bill.

 Home owners with solar panel roofs can sell the electricity back to the electric company, when the sun is shining of course.  Homeowners get paid the retail rate, 25 cents a kilowatt hour, for their meager contribution.  By rights they should only get paid the wholesale rate, 10 cents an kilowatt hour.  As it is, the power companies are required by law to pay a ridiculous rate for electricity that they don’t need.  The power companies are all paying staggeringly high mortgage bills on their real power plants.  They have to pay the mortgage whether the plants are running or not.  So the homeowner’s solar power does nothing for the power company, it just costs them money.  Which they have to recover from rate payers like me.

  Now the TV is telling me that Biden is lowering the tariff on solar panels to allow Chinese panels to be sold in the US.  We will be sending good US dollars to an unfriendly China to pay for solar panels that just raise my electric bill.  Lets go Brandon.

Gun Safety Rules

If you are new to guns and shooting you want to learn the four standard safety rules.  If you are an old pro you want to teach these rules to the newbies.

 

    1. Always treat every gun as loaded. 

    When you pick up a gun, even your own, check to make sure it is unloaded.  Open the bolt, or eject the magazine, or swing open the cylinder, and finally check the chamber for the presence of a live round.  Do this religiously and eliminate the old excuse “I didn’t know the gun was loaded”, used after a gun accident.  If you are going to clean the gun, work on the gun, dry fire the gun, do anything short of firing the gun, you want it unloaded, you don’t want an accidental discharge.  You heard of that fatal gun accident involving Alex Baldwin on the set of the movie “Rust”?  If Baldwin had followed this rule that accident would not have happened and his camera woman would be alive today.

2. Never point a gun at anything you don’t intend to kill. 

    Just in case you have failed on rule 1, this rule will keep you from killing someone or something by accident. 

3.  Keep your finger off the trigger until you are ready to shoot.  

       If you don’t press the trigger the gun will not fire.

4. Don’t fire until the gun is pointed at the target and behind the target is clear.

      Stuff (houses, people, pets, cars whatever) must not be behind the target.  The humble .22 Long Rifle rim fire slug will travel a mile.  More powerful rounds go even farther.      

Just pass something. Doesn't matter what.

 That's what I am hearing on the TV news.  They want something about guns passed, no matter what, just so long as the Congresscritters can say they passed something to prevent another Texas school shooting, even if it doesn't do anything worthwhile. 

Unexplained things from Jan 6

 There was that video showing people streaming into the capital building while a cop held the door open for them.  They showed that several times back just after Jan 6 but I have not seen it all lately.  I don’t understand that one at all. 

On the day after (7 Jan) both the Master of Arms and the Senate security chief resigned.  I have never seen or heard an explanation of that one.   Were these two men so ashamed of their performance that they wanted out, now?  Did someone in power like Nasty Pelosi or Chuckles the Schumer want them gone?  Something else?

The Democrats are planning hearings about Jam 6.  I wonder if either of those two questions will come up, and if they do (not very likely), what answers do we learn?