ISIS Cool

That's what the TV newsies are talking about.  They are saying those three school girls who ran away from home to join ISIS, and were arrested in Germany, had been watching ISIS video's on the 'net and thought the ISIS fighters were way cool, and would marry them.  And those two Canadian shooters were "self radicalized" by watching ISIS recruitment videos on the 'net.  And the ax murderer who whacked a pair of NY cops got that way by too much websurfing. 
   Is this really true?  What I see of ISIS is a bunch of repulsive terrorists.  The TV newsies are telling us that ISIS is as cool as Rudolf Valentino in Son of the Sheik.  Used to be that America defined what was cool for the entire world.  Blue jeans, hot rods, rock 'n roll, Elvis, Humphrey Bogart, CB radio, Jimmy Dean, Hollywood westerns, Marilyn Monroe, America defined cool. 
   Let's make that work for us again.  Some Hollywood output showing America as hard working, virtuous, and successful and Islamic terrorists as dirtbags would help.  Some good pop music, even country and western, about young lovers, separated by deployment to Iraq.  Some consistency from the political leadership, even just calling terrorism terrorism, rather than workplace violence.  America is the land of Madison Avenue, lets put some flacks to work. 

Gridlock. Is the top problem facing voters??

That's what the TV newsies are saying this morning.  And it happens not to be the case.  When I hear a pol or a newsie moaning about gridlock, I hear a guy who doesn't have the votes to pass his pet project.  He lacks the votes 'cause he didn't campaign hard enough, or there are a lot of voters who dislike his pet policy, or it's a bad policy to start with.  That's what democracy is all about.  Laws passed by a razor thin majority are undoubtedly bad laws.  A good law will attract a solid majority. 
   And, we have a lot of gimmicks built into our system designed to prevent "the tyranny of the majority".  For serious issues, like amending the Constitution, we require a supermajority, just to make sure that the minority can stop things it dislikes.  It is not right to allow a 51% of the voters to pass a law that 49% see as anathema.  The Senate rules allow the minority to demand a supermajority to pass anything. Harry Reid managed to trim that back a little bit and there was a nation wide outcry.
   Remember that politicians always vote their district.  If the voters back in the district have an issue they care about, the politician has to vote that way, otherwise he won't be their pol for long.  A number of Democrats who voted for Obamacare found that out last election.  "We will remember in November."
   So, when you hear a pol whining about gridlock, remember that you can reduce gridlock by voting for his opponent.   

Put 'em on paid leave, 'cause you can't fire 'em.

Fox has been running pieces about the 57,000  Federal civil servants who are drawing pay but not coming into work.  That's a lot.  People like Lois Lerner, who ought to have been fired and prosecuted two years ago is still on the payroll, but she doesn't come into work. 
   The root cause of this problem is a civil service HR system that makes it impossible to fire a civil servant, no matter what.  We caught a couple of 'em stealing parts out of the base warehouse.  We prosecuted, obtained a conviction, but we couldn't fire 'em.  That was forty years ago. 
    The country would be better served if upon genuine cause, and concurrence of a reasonable number of supervisors, a civil servant could be fired. 

Words of the Weasel Part 40

"What did he know and when did he know it."  Classic newsies' slam going back to Watergate in the '70s.  Too bad it is a meaningless question.   Knowing stuff ain't a crime.  Unless we are willing to allow prosecution for thought crime, which I am not.  Doing stuff, now that can be illegal, big time. 
Real men ask, "What did he do, and can you prove it?"  

NH Candidates NRA ratings

My election issue of American Rifleman came in today.  As usual, for the issue before the election, the NRA lists every candidate for every office and rates them on their support of the right to bear arms.  Since the election is close at hand, I thought I might share the NRA's thoughts with you. 

Senate:
  (R) Scott Brown          ?   (Scott did not reply to NRA questionaire)
  (D) Jean Shaheen       F
US House District 1
  (R) Frank Guinta         A
  (D) Carol SheaPorter  F
US House District 2
  (R) Marilinda Garcia   A
  (D) Ann Kuster            F
Governor
  (R) Walt Havernstein  A
  (D) Maggie Hassan    D
Executive Council District 1
  (R) Joe Kenney          A-
  (D) Mike Cryans         ?   (Mike did not reply to NRA questionaire)
State Senate District 1
  (R) Mark Evans          A
  (D) Jeff Woodburn     ?    (Jeff did not reply to NRA questionaire)
State Rep  District 2
  (R) Peter Nightingale  B
  (D) Rebecca Brown    C
State Rep District 14
  (R) Brad Bailey           B
  (D) Douglas Grant      ?   (Doug did not reply to NRA questionaire)

Mr Fusion under development at the Skunk Works

Well, it's bigger than the little white appliance on Doc Brown's De Lorean, but it's tiny compared to the ITER machine.  The photo in Aviation Week shows a barrel shaped device, maybe 4 feet in diameter and 10 feet long.  A cut away drawing shows superconducting magnetic coils wrapped around the device to contain the plasma.  The project is being done by Lockheed Martin, presumably on company money.  The project leader, Thomas McGuire, holder of a doctorate from MIT,  acknowledged a debt for some ideas from the Polywell project. 
Lockheed Martin has been in business for 80 years and is a pretty canny company.  They did the Lightning fighter of WWII, the Constellation airliner, the F104 (Chuck Yeager's favorite jet fighter) the cold war U2, the L1011 airliner, the SR71 Blackbird, the F22,  and recently they beat out Boeing for the F-35 project.  They know what they are doing.  They clearly think they can make Mr. Fusion (compact fusion reactor, CFR for short) work.  They are talking prototype in 2019 and production in 2024.
   The CFR project is just getting going.  They don't have any results, no evidence of neutron production, time or temperature achieved.   My electromagnetic field theory is no longer strong enough to even estimate whether their device can achieve fusion, so I am going by Lockheed's reputation.  If they think they can do it, they probably can. 

Ford comes thru

The TV news is reporting a massive recall (4.7 million cars) of nearly every make of car on the US markets.  Except Ford.  The problem is a defective airbag part that can explode and throw shrapnel thru the driver and passenger instead of inflating the airbag. The part is purchased from a parts house named Takata.
   I wonder how this happened?  Was Ford's quality control so effective that they refused to buy the Takata parts?  Were Ford buyers able to obtain a better price from some other supplier?  Was Ford just lucky? 
   Anyhow, as a Ford owner, and long time fan, I am OK with this.