Keep a piece in your desk drawer

Yesterday's horrible attack on Charles Hobdo in Paris is scary.   They could do that anywhere.  Just two guys at the front door and 12 people die.  They could deliver two guys any where they like. 
    I'm thinking a large caliber handgun, close at hand, gives the best chance of surviving the event. 

Chuckie trashs Keystone XL

Senator from New York, Charles Schumer was on TV the other  day badmouthing the Keystone XL project.  He called the jobs the project would furnish "temporary" implying jobs on the McDonalds level.  Chuckie, you got it wrong.  Those will be construction jobs.  Good jobs, good pay, lotta overtime, outdoor work where you get to see the sun and breathe the fresh air.  Lotta guys like working construction.  And, everyone knows a construction project hires on and the beginning, and when the job is finished, the workers move on to something else. 
   Then Chuckie claimed after the pipeline was finished only 34 jobs would be left.  That's pure BS.  You need a helova lot more than 34 guys to keep a 2000 mile pipeline running.  More like 3000 guys I'd guess.  And all the workers at the Gulf refineries that Keystone will feed, would be out of work without the oil to feed the refineries.  Plus all the workers in other industries that will be powered by Keystone oil or use it as feedstock. 
   And Chuckie wants to require that all the pipe be American made.  A real free market man is our Chuckie.  I suppose we can accept that if it brings in some Democratic votes.  It would be fairer to say Canadian or American made.  But fairness isn't high on Chuckie's priority list. 
   And finally Chuckie wants to prohibit sale of Keystone oil overseas.  Another grand free market idea.  The reason the US dollar has always been strong, is the fact that the Americans will sell you anything you want.  The reason the Russian ruble is fairly worthless, is the fact that the Russians don't have anything to sell. If we start saying "Yes, your dollars are good for everything except oil, and a few other things." customers will go elsewhere, and dump the dollars they were going to spend.  Fortunately oil is just  liquid, no serial numbers, and pretty much untraceable, so I expect they oil companies will merely say that oil they sell abroad doesn't come from Keystone, and get away with it.

How soon we forget

From the Economist:  "Data General introduced the first minicomputers in the late 1960s"   Not true.  I was in the industry way back when, and everyone knew the first commercially successful minicomputer was the PDP-8 from Digital Equipment Corp (DEC everyone called them).  The PDP-8 wasn't much of a computer, it was only 12 bits and could only address 4 K of  "core" memory. (RAM had not been invented yet).  It sold for $10k, 1960 dollars no less.  But it was enough computer to automate a lot of test and assembly tasks, and $10K looked cheap when compared to a mainframe. 
   DEC and competitor Data General thrived on making minicomputers up thru the 1980s but neither of them were able to transition to the microprocessor age.  The remains of DEC were bought up be Compaq in the 90s and Data General faded away somewhere and nothing was heard from them. 

What the Republicans oughta do

We start the new year with Republican control of house (solid) and Senate (decent but not veto proof or even filibuster proof).  The voters are unhappy, they are still out of work, just scraping by.   They still have Obama who will veto anything they pass.
   Republicans need to show the voters they care, they keep the public debate both public and sensible. 
they need to propose laws that the voters approve of.   Laws that fail to attract a single Democratic vote lack broadbased support.  And to win political support, the laws have to be understandable.  Which means short.  Which means to the point.  A law doing something good packed with a trainload of unrelated pork is easy for the voters to classify as a swindle.  Obama is looking for opportunities to veto anything and everything.  Bills with wads of pork tucked into them will get vetoed and Obama will claim he is vetoing because of the pork.  So keep the bills clean and simple, so that everyone understands what it is about. 
   So much for generalities.  Mitch McConnell has already cued up the Keystone XL pipeline.  Good chose, it is simple, most voters like it, Obama might even sign it, and will face some heat if he doesn't.  Next start appropriation bills. one for each federal department thru the committee process.  Then we can cue up some tax reform, some immigration reform,  some patent and copyright reform, and some regulatory rollback.  For instant, an act of Congress declaring that CO2 is not a pollutant and cannot be regulated by the EPA under the clean air act.  An act of Congress declaring that "navigable waters" means waters deep enough to float a canoe in dry season.  Tighten up the endangered species act to forbid invention of new species, followed by declaring the new species endangered. 
   We voters want to see some democratic lawmaking done in a serious fashion by serious people.

The Railway Children Masterpiece Theater 2000

A charming and very British tale set at the turn of the century, 19th to 20th century that is.  A well to do British father is arrested and jailed for unspecified crimes.  His wife, in order to keep her children with her, decides to cut expenses to the bone.  She sells the nice London house, and its furnishings, and moves the family to a humble place out in the country. 
   Arriving after dark in a strange place, the locals lend a helping hand getting them from the railway station to country place.  As days go by the children strike up acquaintances with the railway workers and passengers.  One thing leads to another, and the children persuade an elder and wealthy gentleman (played wonderfully by Richard Attenborough) to take an interest in their father's case and get him sprung from jail.  Happy ending.  Good warm feeling kind of flick.  For rail fans like me, there are lots of good shots of British steam trains chugging thru the extra scenic British countryside.  
    The flick portrays an England of many social levels, and every one fits comfortably into his or her level and works to carry out his job to the best of his ability. There is a warm consensus about right and wrong, honor and duty.  You get a feeling for the social glue that held England together thru the two terrible world wars to come.  Nice feeling.
   The feeling was strong enough to upset the lefty Masterpiece Theatre commentators.  They tacked on a lecture at the end explaining that real railway directors were nasty people like Commodore Vanderbilt and Deacon Drew, the charming Richard Attenborough character never existed in real life.  Which is too bad.  I like the notion of benevolent men running the society.  The idea for the movie came from a book by E. Nesbit published in England.  Although I never read it, over here we had The Box Car Children, a different schtick, it was good enough to support seven different movies and TV shows since the early 1950's.  Clearly the author's idea was pretty strong, and possibly closer to real than a that of a lefty American commentator.    

I survived the flu

It came on the day after Christmas.  I assume I picked it up from one of the six kids we had up for Christmas.  It started out as a sore throat, and moved on to serious vomiting.   That subsided by morning, but I decided to stick with clear liquids for the day, hot tea, jello, chicken broth, and Scotch.  It was a very low speed day.   One thing does work fairly well, Benadryl Allergy and Cold.  It soothes the throat, opens up the nose, and makes things a little less miserable. 

Cops should not wear black uniforms

Hitler's SS wore black, with chrome trim no less.  They looked fearsome.   American police officers should wear blue, real blue, not a blue so dark it looks black, to show that they are civilian police officers, not SS thugs. They should wear police officer caps, with a brim, and the traditional eight sided cover, not the Air Force 50 mission crush, and not the Wehrmacht peaked cap, and not crash helmets. 
   Many, perhaps most, crimes are solved when someone gives the police a tip.  If the public doesn't like the police they won't give 'em any tips.  All professional police officers understand this and go to great lengths to establish good community relations.  
   Community relations can be difficult when the community has a high proportion of real criminals and wannabe criminals.  I mean, the business of the  police is to arrest criminals, and criminals don't like that.  Best the police can do is contact the law abiding members of the community, clergy, store owners, business men, school teachers, boy scout leaders, citizens of good will, and establish some kind of rapport.  Once established, use the rapport to communicate the police side of controversies to the community. 
    And, communities need to reduce the number of laws that they have the police enforce.  For instance, the Garner death on Staten Island came about thru police (five officers no less) enforcing a law against selling loosies.  Granted, the police were acting at the behest of neighborhood merchants who wanted Garner gone from in front of their establishments, but the loosey cigarette law gave a pretext for hassling an undersirable.   Police should not get into enforcement and arrests unless real harm is being done.   Unnecessary laws ought to be repealed before they cause trouble.