Dawn over Marblehead

President Obama has finally figured out that withdrawing US troops from Afghanistan amounts to handing the place over to the Taliban. Just like the US withdrawal from Iraq handed the place over to ISIS.  He will leave 10,000 troops in country to the end of this year and 5,000 troops for next year.  Did anyone catch Giuliani's comment on this?  Giuliani pointed out that he had 35,000 cops in New York City, and you would think you would need more to keep order in an entire country, a country inhabited by less law abiding and more warlike people than the New Yorkers.
   Took long enough for common sense to penetrate to the oval office.

Karate Kid, the remake

It's a bit old, 2010, and I cannot remember just how Netflix got it to my mailbox.  I had expected the 1984 original, and was mildly surprised to learn that there even was a remake.  It told the same story as the original, with some updates.  Young Dre Carter and his mother, who are black, pick up stakes from Detroit, rather than New Jersey, and go farther than California, all the way to China. There are a lot of picturesque shots of Chinese scenery, the Great Wall, swoopy roofed buildings, and so on. Jackie Chan plays the apartment complex handyman who teaches young Dre Carter Kung Fu.  The school bullies, the rival dojo's, and the tournament follow  just like in the original.
    It wasn't til the middle of the movie, reading the English subtitles for the Chinese language dialogue that I figured out that Dre Carter was a boy rather than a girl.  Dre, played by Jadeen Smith, son of William Smith, wears a long shaggy dreadlocks haircut,  is a young skinny kid, and kind of cute looking.  It's a boy who waves goodbye to him in Detroit, and the first kid he meets in China is a blonde boy, who looks cute but fades out of the story pretty quickly. 
    I never did hear about this movie back in 2010 when it was released.  Chalk that up to miserable studio publicity efforts.  I don't remember any comment on the blogs and websites I cruise regularly. 
    The remake ain't nearly as good as the original.  Jackie Chan didn't play his part nearly as well as Pat Morita did 25 years ago.  He didn't have the good punch lines in his dialogue, and he didn't do the inscrutable Oriental bit as well as Pat Morita did.  Jadeen Smith didn't develop the warm father-son relationship with Mr Hung (Jackie Chan) that Ralph Macchio did with Mr. Miyagi in the original.  My other complaint, is Jadeen Smith's opponent in the tournament was a lot bigger, taller, and heavier than Jadeen, to the point where the "willing suspension of disbelief" became unwilling.  I'm watching the match saying to myself, "No way does a kid that skinny, and that short, has a chance to beat that much bigger, taller, heavier kid."  The climax fight scene would have been more exciting to watch had the opponents been more evenly matched.
   Hollywood does a lot of remakes.  Some of them come out pretty good, The Prisoner of Zenda in the 1950's was better than it's predecessor from the 1930's.  The True Grit remake was pretty good, especially going up again John Wayne's version which many call the Duke's best movie.  The suits in Hollywood and New York like remakes, they figure all the people who liked the original will come to see the remake.  Doing a new movie from the ground up (new characters, new story, new sets) is always risky, the audience may not like the movie, and it looses money.  This remake did make serious money, although the original made somewhat more. 

Words of the Weasel Part 48

"a temporary glitch" is what Fox News called the failure of the TSA computer system.  I'd call that a crash myself.  And a program that is buggy enough to crash probably has other bugs that cause it to give the wrong answers.

The Parties should not let TV people control the debates.

The Republican and Democrat parties should control who gets into the debate, who is the moderator[s], when and where the debates are held, and what the questions will be.  They should not allow the TV newsies to control any thing of importance. 
   The newsies are hugely partisan, and they rig things to help their candidates and hurt the other sides candidates.  I see no reason why such poorly educated, biased, and  ignorant people should be allowed to influence the elections. 
  The parties could easily say to the candidates, "You won't appear on any debates that we, the party, do not approve of.  Anyone who steps out of line will be denied the nomination."

Leaves are at peak now

Speaking of Franconia Notch.  They are as bright as they are gonna get.  From here on in, it's more brown, and fallen.  Considering that we have not had a frost up here, things look pretty bright.

Words of the Weasel Part 47

"Passed away" or now just "passed".  A euphemism for die. When some one dies, lets just say he died, like real people do.  To use "passed" is to soften the dreadfulness of death.  

So I watched the Dem debates to the end

Nobody self destructed on stage.  They all think alike.  They all want to hike taxes.  They try to soften this by claiming to favor soak-the-rich taxes and they all talk about "income inequality" as an excuse for soak-the-rich taxes.  They all want to take our guns away.  They all want $15 minimum wage.  They are all doves on foreign policy. They all like mandatory maternal leave.  They all think you can get thru a New Hampshire winter on "alternate energy", rather than furnace oil and gasoline.  Most of 'em favor "comprehensive immigration reform", what ever that might be. They all believe in "climate change".  They are all in favor of free college for all.  None of 'em said a word about charter schools. Bernie wants free health care for all too.  Soak-the-rich taxes will pay for all this.  Right.
   Hillary looked pretty good.  So did Bernie Sanders.  Jim Webb impressed me as the most rational person on the stage.  Lincoln Chaffee looked old, querulous, and out of touch.  Former Maryland governor whats-his-name  didn't make much of an impression.
   Moderator questions were OK.  They asked each candidate about some embarrassing incident or saying in their past. They did not ask anyone what they might do to fix the economy.
    If the democrats win next year, we are doomed.  Vote a straight Republican ticket.