Airlines used to be cool

Being an airline was once so cool that a Florida railroad renamed itself "Seaboard Air Line".  It's stock shot up.  This was back in the 1920's or 30's when the railroad was still steam powered.
  Aviation Week did a piece on "Top Performing Airlines".   In the short list of winners, we have such flight suggestive names as Copa Holdings, Ryanair Holdings, AMR Corp, Allegiant Travel Co. and Regional Express Holdings.
   I guess Wall St thinks better of a company name suggestive of stock and bond trading, rather than a name that forthrightly announces the company's real business, supplying air transportation. 

Children are dying

The Washingtonian has a long piece on the problem.  US manufacturers of trace elements essential to intervenous feeding are failing to keep up with demand.  Premature babies in neo natal intensive care are getting sick and dying for lack of proper IV nutrition.  Fingers are pointed in a number of directions, the drug makers, the FDA, the hospitals. 
One thing the FDA could do, right now, on it's own authority, is let hospitals purchase the needed nutrients over seas, where they are plentiful.  But this would upset US drug companies who fully support the FDA's ban on importing any kind of drugs or pharmaceuticals.
   Another thing that would help is to allow the price of the stuff to rise.  FDA and the insurance companies hammer down the price of drugs, to the point where there isn't any profit in making the stuff, so the drug companies stop making it.   

FISA court upset by negative publicity

According to WAPO, the poor overworked judges of the FISA rubberstamp court are unhappy about their press treatment.  This is the court that OK'ed  all but 10 of 2000 requests to snoop. 
I feel so sorry for them.

Taking the Fifth, Lois Lerner

Nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.  They had Lois Lerner of the IRS up in front of a Congressional investigating committee.  She said " I didn't do anything wrong.  And I'm taking the fifth".
   Same committee has just decided that Lois's "I didn't do anything wrong" statement  prevents her from taking the fifth, and they plan to grill her some more.
  I don't approve.  The fifth amendment is intended to prevent judges and prosecutors from forcing defendants to confess.  As in "Sign this confession and we won't use this rubber hose on you any more."  That's an important safeguard for us plain citizens against the criminal justice system.  I'd rather let Lois Lerner slide by than give up on the fifth amendment.
   In Lois's case, we ought to fire her and cancel her pension and her government health care.  That would put the fear of God into that building full of bureaucrats.  And her sidekick, Rose-something-or-other, ought to be fired too.  That's well within the power of Congress.  And it's constitutional too.

A break in the weather

Yesterday dawned bright and sunny, and I decided to get on with a couple of household tasks that had been on hold, 'cause of days and days of rain.  I stained the deck and mowed the lawn.  Got both jobs done before sundown. 
   This morning I woke up to the sound of rain pattering on the roof.  But I felt real good about the deck and the lawn.  Rainwater is beading up nicely on the deck,  and the lawn is cut too short to assault the house, at least for a few more days.

From The Economist. Can Iran be stopped?

The Economist doesn't have a clue.  They spend a lot of time discussing an Israeli air strike.  They sort of conclude the because the Israelis have not laid down a "red line", they don't plan a strike.  That's not how the Israelis do things.
   The Israelis understand something that any parent learns pretty quick.  Namely, never make idle threats.  If you make a threat, you gotta be ready to carry it out.  If you make a threat and then back down at crunch time, things get worse for you.  One day Obama may learn this.
   As far as carrying out an air strike on Iranian nuclear facilities, there is reason to doubt the Israeli Air Force has the capability to do an effective strike.  Iran has a lot of sites,  some of them are buried really really deep, no one knows if the Israelis know which sites are critical, and which are dummies.  Iran has air defenses, and a suite of hot new Russian SAM's on order.  I don't know how many aircraft the Israelis have, if they have the range and payload needed to do the job.  I'm sure the Israelis have worked the numbers on an air strike, and  the answer is probably, "We would have to be awfully lucky to carry it off". 
  As long as that's the answer, the Israelis aren't gonna make threats, 'cause they aren't sure they can make good on them.  They may decide to throw the dice if things get sticky, but they won't make threats or announce their plans in advance. 
   There is one equalizer that doesn't get talked about much.  The Israelis are believed to have nuclear weapons, although they have never made any such claim and are not known to have conducted a bomb test.  If the Israeli's made the first strike on Iran with nukes, their odds go way up for them, you only need one hit with a nuke to take out damn near anything.  However, the big boys (Russia and the US) have made it abundantly clear that they disapprove of use of nukes by anybody.  Nobody knows just what the big boys might do, but nobody wants to find out either.

Voter Fraud and same day registration

Used to be, much voter fraud was prevented by registration.  On election day, they asked your name and looked you up on the voter registration list.  If your name was on the list, you got to vote.  Fairly airtight.  Then in New Hampshire we put in same day registration, show up at the polls on election day, and vote whether you are on the list or not.   The college kids at Dartmouth, UNH, and even humble Plymouth State loved it, didn't matter if you were an out of state student, you get to vote in NH elections.  The real citizens of Hanover, Plymouth and  Durham are completely swamped by hordes of college students on election day. 
So now we are wrangling over various voter ID requirements. 
   So I asked a couple of local politicos about the chance of just repealing same day registration.  They both said, "No can do, Federal law requires same day registration."
   Is that right?  Anyone know for sure?