Cis

As in cis-gendered.  New one on me.  First ran across the term/prefix while web surfing.  Finally looked it up and apparently it means "not trans" as in "not trans gendered"  The trans gender activists felt the need for a word to apply to everyone who is not in their group, i.e. regular people.  If you are doing a culture war, it helps to have a word for the enemy.
   In the real world then cis-gendered means girls who think they are girls and want to grow up to be women, and boys who think they are boys and want to grow up to be men.  In short,  kids who lack psychological hangups about their sexuality. 
   Why does the invention of this new trendy word bother me?

Dune, Frank Herbert, the 2000 miniseries

This miniseries was the second attempt to bring Frank Herbert's huge novel to the screen.  It's not bad, it's at least as good as the 1984 movie.  The the long three episodes allows a fuller development of Herbert's long and complex novel. Sets and costumes are good, which can be expensive in a science fiction movie.  Casting is metza metza.
   William Hurt gives a fine performance as planetary Duke Leto Atreides.  Too bad Frank Herbert killed him off early in the book.  Alex Newman is less satisfying as Paul Muad'dib.  He is too old, too tall, and too burly.  Paul Atreides was written as a teen age boy, somewhat small for his age, and lightly built.  Which gave a tug on the heartstrings as his beloved father is killed and Paul must pick up the load of being a planetary Duke before he is fully grown.  And Paul has to meet both fremen and imperial enemies, hand to hand in gladiatorial duels, and prevail by speed and cunning.  Reading the book, you root for the smaller younger lighter Paul to survive each deadly encounter.  Watching the miniseries there is no doubt that Alex Newman is taller, stronger, and buffer than his opponents.  You know he is going to win the knife fight just by looking at him.  In the book, young Paul Atreides does an enormous amount of coming of age.  In the miniseries he enters the action fully come of age. 

Graduates of "research universities" earn more than liberal arts colleges

This from today's Wall St Journal.  Well, we sorta knew this, graduates with real engineering degrees earn more than graduates with art history degrees.  It's been a cliche that engineers make good well paid husbands.  For numbers, liberal arts graduates pegged out a $50,000 a year ten years out of college where as "research university" graduates made $65-70K at the median.  All of them made more than $50K.
    The Journal article skated over a couple of key points.  The never did define what they mean by "research university".  That's a new one on me.  I assume they are thinking of places like MIT, Georgia Tech, and CalTech.  Place which mostly grant engineering degrees and have strong STEM programs.
   Then they didn't pin down liberal arts.  Do they group the talkie-talkie majors (gender studies, art history, ethnic studies) or the wannabe sciences (sociology, anthropology, psychology, etc) in with the traditional seven liberal arts (English, foreign languages, history, mathematics, music, art, philosophy). 
   The traditional seven liberal arts ought to lead to better jobs than the talkie-talk majors and the wannabe sciences. 

Questions they ought to ask and have not so far

1.  What would you do to get America's GNP growth up to 3.5% or better?
2.  Will you authorize the Keystone XL pipeline?
3.  Will you lease off shore parcels for oil exploration, on the east coast, and the west coast?
4.  Will you stop the EPA's war on coal?  and the new and very expensive ozone limits?
5.  How will you reform personal and corporate taxes?
6.  Will you authorize interstate sale of health insurance?
7.  Will you authorize duty free imports of drugs from any reasonable first world country?
8.   Explain your reforms of the Pentagon procurment bottle neck.
9.   Explain how large our armed forces need to be.How many soldiers, warships, warplanes?
10. Explain what you will do to increase the ratio of tooth to tail in our armed forces.
11. Explain how the Trans Pacific Partnership will increase US exports and jobs.
12. As president what will you do about ISIS?  Send them nastygrams? Use the armed forces to destroy them?
 13. Will you defend NATO countries from Russian aggression or invasion?
14.  Will you defend South Korea from Chinese or North Korean aggression?
15.  What will you do about dredged up Chinese islands in the South China Sea?
16.  Will you authorize oil exploration in the "Arctic National Wildlife Area"?

Anyone got any more?

$43 Million for an Afghan gas station?

Not only is$43 million a ripoff, but the gas station was not a gasoline station, it was a compressed natural gas (CNG) facility. 
  Who in their right mind would have a CNG vehicle in Afghanistan?   You cannot find CNG stations in America right now to keep a CNG vehicle running.  In a backwater like Afghanistan, there are even fewer.
   Aside from making the greenies feel all warm and fuzzy, a CNG station in Afghanistan is a total waste of money.  Even if we didn't get ripped off.

Getting ready for a trip

Pack the laptop, and its charger.  Pack the cell phone, and its charger. Pack the camera, and its charger.  That's three chargers just for a weekend trip. 

Cats have nine names, as well as lives.

This cat came to me bearing the name Hecate.  My daughter's choice, which I found a bit pretentious for a mere house cat.  After a few amusing mishaps, such as falling off a table, falling off the deck, I took to calling her Stupid Beast.  This worked, the cat would even come when I called Stooopid Beast from the deck.  As time went on, Stupid Beast spent more and more time racked out flat on the rug.  I began calling her Flat Beast.  I considered Flat Cat, but I feel Robert A. Heinlein has some ownership on that name.  Variations such as Her Flatness, just plain Flat, followed.  Also Round and Flat, abbreviated to RAF.
   This might be family tradition.  We had a family cat, a Siamese, who came into the family named Cleopatra.  This did not last, and we kids called her Puddy Tat.  Then after Puddy Tat put on weight, my Father started calling her BasketBall.