Proper background and education

That's what Gina McCarthy has, according to a letter to the editor of the Manchester Union Leader.  The letter writer was bashing our two US senators for not pushing McCarthy into the job of EPA administrator.  McCarthy is a new name to me, an old news junkie who watches a lot of cable TV news. 
   McCarthy has a masters degree in "Environmental Engineering and Planning" from Tufts.  Tufts is OK, but it was my safety school way back when.  The "environmental engineering" degree is another new one on me.  Real engineering is either civil, mechanical, or electrical.  As holder of a real electrical engineering degree,  I  don't have much respect for something so trendy as "environmental engineering".  Does such a major require you to know anything?  Like integral calculus? Strength of materials?  Laplace transforms? Boolean algebra?  Or is it all touchy feely talk about how wonderful it is to live a Hiawatha livestyle?
   Since graduation McCarthy has held jobs in various state environmental pollution agencies.  In short a career bureaucrat.  No real world experience. 
   Somehow I don't feel so good about Gina at the EPA. 

Civil Service reform to deal with IRS

TV was playing some democrat explaining that Civil Service regulations prevented the firing of IRS bureaucrats who targeted conservative groups.  Unfortunately, he may not be lying.  It's just about impossible to fire a federal GS type.  Back in my Air Force days, you couldn't even speak harshly to them.  I remember the base supply officer, a nice guy named Fleming Cheek, tried to fire a GS worker for stealing out of the warehouse.  He couldn't do it. 
  Civil Service was invented in the 1880's to prevent newly elected politicians from laying everyone off and giving all the jobs to their supporters.  Since 1880, Civil Service has been inventing regulations to protect its people from layoff, overtime, discipline, and any every attempt by management to get them to do some work.  If management cannot fire the IRS offenders due to Civil Service red tape (which is management's story this morning), Congress ought to cut the red tape and throw the bums out.  
   The only way to prevent IRS from targeting taxpayers is to throw a serious scare into their little bureaucratic hearts.  Firing forty or so bureaucrats over the targeting of the Teaparty is a good way to start. 

A leak in the NORK

Tom Clancy lives.  We have a source inside the North Korean government.  Clancy's Agent Cardinal comes back to life.  If true, this is fantastic, the stuff of spy stories, right up there with the Oleg Penkofski story.  US senator Chuckie the Schumer (D-NY) revealed this tantalizing bit of news this morning on national TV. 
    This might explain the Justice Dept snooping on AP and Fox reporters.  Leaking the NORK source is big enough to get usually sensible law enforcement people to do foolish things.  Law enforcement probably didn't have a clue as to who the leaker was.  So they decided to snoop reporters email and cell phones,  to find out who the reporters had been talking to.  This is strictly illegal.  Fourth Amendment says "No Warrents shall issue, but upon probable cause." 
  So they trumped up espionage charges against the Fox News reporter in order to get a judge to issue the search warrent.  And that is how Holder can say with a straight face that he had no intention of prosecuting reporters.  Well, no, he didn't plan to prosecute them, he just wanted to snoop their email and cell phones. 

Words of the Weasel Part 31

We have Senator Chuckie the Schumer on NBC saying "The IG cleared Eric Holder on the Fast and Furious matter."  Not true.  The guilty agency, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, works for Holder.  It's part of the Justice Department, of which Holder is the head.  Doesn't matter how much whitewash the Justice Department IG uses, Holder, as head of the department is responsible for the actions of all his subordinates.  Holder is personally responsible for what ever his department does.  His job is to insure that laws are not broken by his people.  He has plenty of Assistant Attorney Generals to keep track of every office.  If BATFE did it (which they did) it's Holder's fault.  By definition.
  It's so good the learn that a US senator doesn't understand this.  And it's so good that New York voters keep electing this turkey.

Words of the Weasel Part 30

Distraction.  David Gregory's word for the IRS scandal, used this morning on Meet the Press.  Lefties love it, distraction sounds so much nicer than scandal. 

Support your constituents.

We have a Democratic US rep from New Hampshire, a far northern and rural state.  We are so far north we touch Canada.  Winter up here lasts into May.  We had four inches of fresh snow at my place just seven days ago.  We all heat with oil.  $4 a gallon oil.   One oil delivery can set us back $700.  
  We are a rural state.  We don't have mass transit, commuter rail, light rail, plain old diesel bus service or even taxis.  Up here we drive to work, every day.  At $3.70 a gallon.
   We are not addicted to oil.  We use as little as possible.  But we must get to work.  And we must heat our houses.
   We want lower prices for essential fuel.  Now we have a project to pipe vast amounts of crude oil to American refineries from a friendly neighboring country. That will be turned into gasoline and furnace oil, vastly increasing the supply.  We all know the law of supply and demand, increase the supply and the price goes down.  Plus building the pipeline will put a lot of unemployed people to work and increase demand for a zillion different industrial items. 
  And so how does our gallant Democratic US rep vote? 
  Annie Kuster voted to kill the pipeline.   Just to support all her constituents. 
  We better remember in November.  Or Kuster will have us all living a Hiawatha lifestyle. 

What the Air Force dumps, the Navy buys.

Global Hawk.  A humungous unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)  with a take off weight of 16 tons.  That's DC3 kind of weight.   Will stay up all day (24 hours) and  carries nothing but surveillance equipment.  Exact nature is classified, but cameras, radars, IR, snooping receivers.  The Air Force paid  $222 million apiece for 43 of 'em.  That money will buy a brand new 787 jetliner, which seems kinda pricey.   At this point the Air Force wants to mothball its entire fleet of 'em.  Probably cause the intel they gather doesn't help the Air Force mission much.  They bought the things to help out the Army in Afghanistan.  Now that Afghanistan is winding down, and budget cuts are looming, so they want to mothball the pricey beasties.  The program has friends in Congress who are trying to keep it alive.
   Now, the Navy wants in.  They claim a world wide sea surveillance mission and they want to buy 70 of 'em.  The Navy gets a slightly better price than USAF did, $189 million apiece.  Of course the Navy couldn't re use the retiring Air Force birds, the Navy wants to buy new.  Northrup Grumman loves that.  Total program cost, $13 billion.