North Korean Nukes

The newsies have been chattering about the North Korean nuclear test all day.  Amid the torrent of words on both lefty NPR and righty Fox, the one important number has NOT been given.  A further example of innumeracy among the newsies.  They can't count, can't add, can't subtract. 
  The missing number is yield, in kilotons.  The first two North Korean tests were fizzles.  Their yield was so low (1 kiloton) as to tell us something went wrong and the bomb barely went off.  Any decent sort of nuke ought to have a 20 kiloton or better yield. 
  Question for the world's newsies.  Did this North Korean test yield enough to make us think they have it working right?  A yield of 20 kilotons makes them a nuclear power.  One kiloton makes them wannabes.
  The chattering classes have taken the North Korean claim of "miniaturized" to mean the bomb is small enough to put on their ballistic missile.  You can believe as much of that as you want to.   

Battlestar Galactica revival

The Sci-Fi channel ran a new feature length Battlestar Galactica last night.  I'm an old fan, I can remember watching the very first  episode on TV, with a bunch of techie friends from work, lo these many years ago. So I watched this one. 
   Note to all camera men.  Buy a tripod. Use it.  The camera bounced, jounced, jiggled and wavered thru out the two hours of the show.  The action scenes switched the camera from one viewpoint to another too fast for anyone to keep up with.  The color kept fading out to black and white or sepia.  I know some Hollywood wienies think this is artistic.  I think it means my color TV set is dying.   The space combat scenes were a moving blur of fuzzy space vessels and brilliant explosions.  You couldn't tell who was blowing up, good guys or bad guys. The space combat scenes would have been better if the space vessels had carried distinctive paint jobs, unit insignia, tail numbers, names, anything to tell one from another. This camera man was into dark and gloomy.  All the scenes were poorly lighted, many so dim I failed to recognize faces.  Too many backlit scenes where the cast appears as pure black silhouettes.
   The cast was mediocre.  Most of them mumbled so badly that I kept missing the punch lines.  We have young ensign Hotshot, fresh out of the Academy, full of piss & vinegar, joining his first combat unit.  Instead of jumping into the cockpit of a colonial Viper, he gets assigned to fly a trashhauler, a little cargo ship.  Said trashhauler comes equipped with a co-pilot with an attitude and a  short and curly beard, who has put in his paperwork to get out of the service when his hitch is up.  Mysterious and domineering woman is a passenger who later reveals secret orders to fly deep into Cylon space.
   The plot was predictable, up until the twist ending, involving appalling treachery.  Ensign Hotshot spends a good deal of time yelling at the co-pilot, who has objections to flying a suicide mission.  Good leadership technique they teach at that Academy.  Despite a steamy love scene, Ensign Hotshot never establishes a real relationship with mysterious brunette passenger.
  Too bad. I was up for some light entertainment of the action adventure sort.  This fairly expensive to make two hour show wasn't very entertaining.     

Words of the Weasel, Panetta style

Panetta said, "You can't willy-nilly send F-16s there and blow the hell out of the place. ... You have to have good intelligence."
Panetta apparently has never heard the phrase "Show of Force".
A couple of fighters just orbiting low over the consulate would mightily discourage terrorists climbing the wall and give a real shot in the arm to the defenders. 
And this guy was our defense secretary ?

Cannon Mt Ski Weather

We got it.  Snow.  We have 10-11 inches down and it's still falling.  Best skiing of the year. 

Laws of War

Used to be, the armed forces were free to kill the enemy.  Enemy civilians at their homes were bombed, enemy soldiers on the battlefield were shot, bombarded, machine gunned, flamed, everything except poison gas was used to make 'em into casualties. 
   War was something that was done between nation states.  Now we have Al Quada, Hezbollah, Hamas, Taliban and other shady clandestine organizations.  They aren't nation states, they don't wear uniforms, they hide within the civilian population. They are terrorists.  They blew down the Twin Towers in NYC and killed 3000 American civilians.  That's an act of war.  And, we took them up on that, we make war right back on them. 
   Far as I can see, under the laws of war, we are entitled to kill, capture, interrogate or wound any terrorists we can lay our hand on.  Doing 'em by Predator drone is just a neater technique than dispatching a sniper to do 'em.  You can stay on base, safe and comfortable, keep your uniform clean, take the terrorist out.  Going in after 'em Arnold Schwarzenegger style is hard work, your hands get dirty, and it's hard to find enough hard case snipers to do the missions.
   Now we have some lawyers whining that this terrorist or that terrorist was a US citizen and we shouldn't whack citizens without a lawyer giving the OK.  Pretty soon the lawyers will be wanting the infantry men to ask for a legal opinion before they take a shot. 
   In my humble opinion, an Al Quada terrorist is an Al Quada terrorist and it make no matter if he was born in the US, he is still a terrorist, and deserves to be whacked.  And the lawyers can just dry up and blow away.

PSNH telephones me with storm warnings

Groovy.  I am settled in to watch it snow.  The phone rings.  It's a robocall from the power company, offering advice on coping with power outages.  I pay 20 cents a kilowatt hour for this?

Cannon Mt Ski Weather

It's been cold enough to make snow these last few days.  The radio is promising a big storm tomorrow, like feet of snow.  If that comes thru, Cannon will be in great shape.

Update:.  It started snowing this morning and is still at it.  We have picked up 3-4 inches up here in the Notch.  We are getting more snow up here than they are down in the ville.  Driving ought to be OK this afternoon and early evening.  I drove down Three Mile Hill to the ville and got back up.  If I can do Three Mile Hill, then I-93 oughta be a piece of cake.  They are making snow tonight and conditions ought to be fabulous tomorrow.