Somehow I forgot to clean the paint brush after the last trim and shutters touchup. It was an oil based primer and it hardened, rendering the brush unusable. Thinking back, to an accident where spilled MEK had dissolved the linoleum floor tile, I tried putting some MEK into an empty coffee can and soaking the brush in it. Worked like a charm. Brush came out cleaner than when I started the paint job. Note to self, this probably only works on oil based paint.
MEK, short for Methyl Ethyl Ketone. I normally keep it in the shop for use as a plastic cement. I buy it in the paint section of Home Despot.
Saturday, August 30, 2014
New York Times wants $1099
For a one year subscription no less. That's about $3 an issue. Which is totally ridiculous for any paper, let along the New York Times with it's well earned reputation for slanting the news and out right lying. I used to take the Wall St Journal when it was $250 a year. I dropped it when it wanted $430 a year. And the Wall St Journal is a real newspaper with real and dependable news, unlike the Times.
Friday, August 29, 2014
Screw top Champagne bottles
It's just a low end champagne, Andre to be specific, but it came with a screw top. Arrgh.
The candidates are all no good
So I am not gonna vote for any of them.
I hear this a lot.
And it's wrong. The candidates may not be all that great. But one is better than the other. No two pols are exactly equal. And if you want to call yourself a citizen, it is your job to figure out which one is better and vote for him/her.
Up here, you can get to see the candidates face-to-face. And it is amazing how much you can learn in just a few minutes face-to-face. This election year, the candidates are out looking to meet voters. I was at the Lancaster county fair just yesterday. Seems like you couldn't turn around without bumping into candidates or incumbents. I saw Maggie Hassan, Andrew Hemingway, Jim Reubin, and Larry Rappaport, all within an hour.
I hear this a lot.
And it's wrong. The candidates may not be all that great. But one is better than the other. No two pols are exactly equal. And if you want to call yourself a citizen, it is your job to figure out which one is better and vote for him/her.
Up here, you can get to see the candidates face-to-face. And it is amazing how much you can learn in just a few minutes face-to-face. This election year, the candidates are out looking to meet voters. I was at the Lancaster county fair just yesterday. Seems like you couldn't turn around without bumping into candidates or incumbents. I saw Maggie Hassan, Andrew Hemingway, Jim Reubin, and Larry Rappaport, all within an hour.
Thursday, August 28, 2014
Objectives, Strategy, and Tactics
The TV newsies are babbling on about Obama's strategy. It seems to be in flux, I think I heard Obama confess that he was still working on his strategy.
That's perverse. Obama's job is define objectives, what we want to achieve. In regards to ISIS there are a number of objectives we could pursue. We could attempt to just stay out of it, avoid getting sucked back into a middle east war. We could attempt to prevent ISIS from grabbing any more land. We could attempt to destroy ISIS and hand control back to the new Baghdad government. We could attempt to destroy ISIS and set up three states, Sunni, Shia and Kurd. Those are all the possibilities that occur to me, although I daresay someone might think of others. But to have any effect, the US has to define it's objectives. We have to decide what we want to do. And Obama then has to sell the objectives to the Congress and the voters. Selling is not Obama's strong point. The Congress is split. The leftie greenies want to stay out completely. Some hawks want to destroy ISIS. Nobody has thought about what we want after ISIS is gone. The vast bulk of Congress (and their constituents) don't know what they want.
Only after we have settled upon an objective does it make sense to discuss "strategy". Strategy is concerned with means to obtain our objectives. Strategy picks options, such as invade the place from the sea, nuke 'em from the air, subvert their government by aiding domestic dissenters, blockade 'em, crash their infrastructure by cyber attack, cut off their access to the international banking system and credit, crash their currency, and doubtless many other things. But until you have decided upon your objectives, discussion of methods and means is worthless.
And Obama (or any administration) should not making strategy. Leave that to experts, the Joint Chiefs, with maybe CIA. Leave the State Department out of strategic discussions, they are just messengers, and they ought to carry the message, not make it up.
Way down at the bottom, is tactics. Tactics are methods of winning battles, after strategy has decided where to fight. Most of the talk I hear on the TV is really about tactics, specifically air strikes.
So far I haven't heard a peep out of the Obama administration about objectives. They don't have a clue.
That's perverse. Obama's job is define objectives, what we want to achieve. In regards to ISIS there are a number of objectives we could pursue. We could attempt to just stay out of it, avoid getting sucked back into a middle east war. We could attempt to prevent ISIS from grabbing any more land. We could attempt to destroy ISIS and hand control back to the new Baghdad government. We could attempt to destroy ISIS and set up three states, Sunni, Shia and Kurd. Those are all the possibilities that occur to me, although I daresay someone might think of others. But to have any effect, the US has to define it's objectives. We have to decide what we want to do. And Obama then has to sell the objectives to the Congress and the voters. Selling is not Obama's strong point. The Congress is split. The leftie greenies want to stay out completely. Some hawks want to destroy ISIS. Nobody has thought about what we want after ISIS is gone. The vast bulk of Congress (and their constituents) don't know what they want.
Only after we have settled upon an objective does it make sense to discuss "strategy". Strategy is concerned with means to obtain our objectives. Strategy picks options, such as invade the place from the sea, nuke 'em from the air, subvert their government by aiding domestic dissenters, blockade 'em, crash their infrastructure by cyber attack, cut off their access to the international banking system and credit, crash their currency, and doubtless many other things. But until you have decided upon your objectives, discussion of methods and means is worthless.
And Obama (or any administration) should not making strategy. Leave that to experts, the Joint Chiefs, with maybe CIA. Leave the State Department out of strategic discussions, they are just messengers, and they ought to carry the message, not make it up.
Way down at the bottom, is tactics. Tactics are methods of winning battles, after strategy has decided where to fight. Most of the talk I hear on the TV is really about tactics, specifically air strikes.
So far I haven't heard a peep out of the Obama administration about objectives. They don't have a clue.
Good thing my sons have survived college
It's getting harder. They have invented a new crime "Sexual Assault" which can be anything the girl says it is, and the college bureaucrats have the right to punish the guy, anyway they see fit. The guy doesn't even get a kangaroo court, he is guilty as soon as the girl complains about him.
Bunch of guys are gonna get zapped badly for attending college.
I'm glad my boys managed to graduate before things got this bad.
Bunch of guys are gonna get zapped badly for attending college.
I'm glad my boys managed to graduate before things got this bad.
Wednesday, August 27, 2014
Soldiering is easier than Policing
When soldiers encounter resistance, they get on the horn and call in the artillery or an air strike and level the place. Easy.
When police encounter resistance, they are required to negotiate, preserve evidence, and arrest the perps, alive, for trial. Citizens demand strict limits to what cops may do to them. Professional police forces prevent rioting by maintaining communications with all segments of their town/city and try to head off trouble by appealing to various community leaders to cool it for a while. This works best if someone of the force has a personal relationship with community leadership. Such as they both did high school together.
All this is hard.
When we offer the cops the opportunity to turn into soldiers, they are all in favor. Blowing the perps away is SO much easier than taking 'em alive. So handing out surplus automatic weapons, body armor, grenades, helicopters and armored vehicles to police forces encourages the cops to turn into soldiers.
When police encounter resistance, they are required to negotiate, preserve evidence, and arrest the perps, alive, for trial. Citizens demand strict limits to what cops may do to them. Professional police forces prevent rioting by maintaining communications with all segments of their town/city and try to head off trouble by appealing to various community leaders to cool it for a while. This works best if someone of the force has a personal relationship with community leadership. Such as they both did high school together.
All this is hard.
When we offer the cops the opportunity to turn into soldiers, they are all in favor. Blowing the perps away is SO much easier than taking 'em alive. So handing out surplus automatic weapons, body armor, grenades, helicopters and armored vehicles to police forces encourages the cops to turn into soldiers.
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