Five dead police officers, seven or eight more wounded. In a totally unprovoked ambush. My sincerest sympathy to the victims and their families. According to the TV newsies, the shooter, a US Army veteran who served in Iraq, had no indications of craziness before opening fire Thursday night. That's scary. It shows the bonds that hold our society together are failing.
The bonds go way back, to childhood. Sunday school teaches the Ten Commandments, and "Thou shalt not kill." is easily understood even by five year olds. Movies and TV shows depict police as good guys, and those that shoot at them as bad guys. Nobody wants to think of himself as a bad guy. Parents and teachers constantly keep on kids about fighting, with siblings and classmates. This training was so effective that in WWII, General SLA Marshall noted that a large number of American soldiers were reluctant/unable to shoot the enemy. Apparently this shooter was not so inhibited. How many more like him have we raised up?
Saturday, July 9, 2016
Thursday, July 7, 2016
Congress grills FBI director Comey
They got on his case this morning around 11, and they are still whacking at him now at 2 PM. Comey is standing up and hasn't really put his foot in his mouth, yet. They are working on that as I write this. The Democrats on the committee have been throwing themselves on the tracks in Comey' defense. The main point of contention is the matter of guilty intent. According to Comey, the ordinary law of the US requires guilty intent in order to prosecute. Apparently a US law passed back in WWI times makes divulging classified a crime no matter why the perps state of mind is. Comey doesn't like that law and he claims that only once in the 99 years of the law's existence has anyone been prosecuted under it. A lotta Congresscritters don't agree, they think leaking classified should be prosecuted no matter what.
Nobody is talking about the basic insecurity of email, be it government or private or just plain old Gmail. To my way of thinking, you should never put classified on email. Back when I was in the service, and handled classified, email hadn't been invented, so the matter never came up. But now, we should not allow classified to go by email. Government email is same same, it's vulnerable. Plus all the secretary of state's communication ought to treated as classified. I sure don't want the Russians, the Chinese, or ISIS reading US cabinet officer's email. I don't think cabinet officers should use email at all. Nobody is talking about that at all.
Nobody is talking about the basic insecurity of email, be it government or private or just plain old Gmail. To my way of thinking, you should never put classified on email. Back when I was in the service, and handled classified, email hadn't been invented, so the matter never came up. But now, we should not allow classified to go by email. Government email is same same, it's vulnerable. Plus all the secretary of state's communication ought to treated as classified. I sure don't want the Russians, the Chinese, or ISIS reading US cabinet officer's email. I don't think cabinet officers should use email at all. Nobody is talking about that at all.
The lights are going out, all over New Hampshire
The greenies, working thru the public utility commission, have bulldozed the local power company into closing their three remaining coal fired power plants. One of them, was forced to install a $450 million scrubber back in 2009. Part of the deal is that the power company can bill rate payers for the $450 million outstanding debt. For the next ten years. On top of the "Stranded Cost Recovery" charge they put on the bill for the Seabrook nuclear plant.
The power company is hoping to replace the lost generation capacity with hydro power from Quebec, to come over the yet to be built Northern Pass power line. Which the greenies are fighting to stop.
The greenies managed to shut down the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant last year.
I ought to go out and buy a Honda generator set to get thru this next winter.
The power company is hoping to replace the lost generation capacity with hydro power from Quebec, to come over the yet to be built Northern Pass power line. Which the greenies are fighting to stop.
The greenies managed to shut down the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant last year.
I ought to go out and buy a Honda generator set to get thru this next winter.
Wednesday, July 6, 2016
Juan Williams on Johnny Can't Read.
Juan had a handsome op ed in the Wall St Journal yesterday entitled "The Scandal of K-12 Education". He cited some really awful statistics on the terrible performance of black and Hispanic kids in the public schools. Without getting into the numbers, they are really really bad. And Juan cries out to do something about it.
Thinking back on my experiences learning to read, I don't really remember the school doing all that much for me. I can still remember the night it all came together and for the first time I could actually read a real book, not a picture book. It was "The Land of Oz", (L. Frank Baum). Granted the schools did some ground work, we all learned the alphabet song, we learned phonics, and we started with "Fun with Dick and Jane" a worthy but boring beginning reader.
But, I learned to read because I wanted to read. Reading was fun, an enjoyable pastime, as good as watching TV, especially TV way back then. There was so much good stuff to read. The Saxonville library was open every day and it was on my way home from school. I stopped in every day or so to get new books. And they had a bunch of really cool ones. There was a series, bound in orange, of biographies of famous Americans. I read them all. There was the "Landmark" series with books about the Battle of Britain, the Tokyo raiders, the Royal Navy in WWII, and other things to catch the interest of an grade school boy. And really good science fiction by Andre Norton, Robert Heinlein, Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov. And the Tarzan books, the Tom Swift books (the old series), the Oz books, the John Carter books, Tolkien, Robert Louis Stevenson, Mark Twain, Jules Verne, James Fenimore Cooper, Walter Scott,. And comics. If there was ever something printed that just cried out to be read, it was a comic book. Scrooge McDuck, Blackhawk, Tarzan, Batman, Captain Marvel, Plastic Man, Superman, and more. Parents and teachers disapproved of comic books back then, but they were a tremendous incitement to learn to read, certainly more stimulating than playing computer games. We would spend our own money to buy them. Ten cents an issue, they are more like four dollars now. Every kid had a stash and every kid read them.
The other incentive to read was that my parents did it. Dad read the paper every day and he read bed time stories to us every night. If Dad did it, I wanted to learn it too, just to get with it.
Bottom line, learning to read is a self motivated thing, schools can help, parents can help, but the kid has to want to do it himself.
Thinking back on my experiences learning to read, I don't really remember the school doing all that much for me. I can still remember the night it all came together and for the first time I could actually read a real book, not a picture book. It was "The Land of Oz", (L. Frank Baum). Granted the schools did some ground work, we all learned the alphabet song, we learned phonics, and we started with "Fun with Dick and Jane" a worthy but boring beginning reader.
But, I learned to read because I wanted to read. Reading was fun, an enjoyable pastime, as good as watching TV, especially TV way back then. There was so much good stuff to read. The Saxonville library was open every day and it was on my way home from school. I stopped in every day or so to get new books. And they had a bunch of really cool ones. There was a series, bound in orange, of biographies of famous Americans. I read them all. There was the "Landmark" series with books about the Battle of Britain, the Tokyo raiders, the Royal Navy in WWII, and other things to catch the interest of an grade school boy. And really good science fiction by Andre Norton, Robert Heinlein, Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov. And the Tarzan books, the Tom Swift books (the old series), the Oz books, the John Carter books, Tolkien, Robert Louis Stevenson, Mark Twain, Jules Verne, James Fenimore Cooper, Walter Scott,. And comics. If there was ever something printed that just cried out to be read, it was a comic book. Scrooge McDuck, Blackhawk, Tarzan, Batman, Captain Marvel, Plastic Man, Superman, and more. Parents and teachers disapproved of comic books back then, but they were a tremendous incitement to learn to read, certainly more stimulating than playing computer games. We would spend our own money to buy them. Ten cents an issue, they are more like four dollars now. Every kid had a stash and every kid read them.
The other incentive to read was that my parents did it. Dad read the paper every day and he read bed time stories to us every night. If Dad did it, I wanted to learn it too, just to get with it.
Bottom line, learning to read is a self motivated thing, schools can help, parents can help, but the kid has to want to do it himself.
Tuesday, July 5, 2016
GKN Technology meets Brexit
GKN Technology is a British company that makes the wings for Airbus. The UK government pulled out of the Airbus consortium some years ago, but GKN Technology retained their Airbus business somehow. The Airbuses are assembled in Europe (Germany or France, cannot remember which). Which means those British built wings get shipped across the Channel. When Britain does the paperwork to pull out of the EU, presumably those wings have to pay the EU tariff when they land on the continent.
And it's not like GKN Technology can find another customer for its wings. Those wings are Airbus wings, and won't fit another airplane. If Brexit means Airbus has to pay a serious tariff on the wings, they will surely investigate alternate suppliers located on the continent. And with EU unemployment running at 10%, any EU supplier will have no trouble staffing up to handle the extra business.
Be afraid, be very afraid.
And it's not like GKN Technology can find another customer for its wings. Those wings are Airbus wings, and won't fit another airplane. If Brexit means Airbus has to pay a serious tariff on the wings, they will surely investigate alternate suppliers located on the continent. And with EU unemployment running at 10%, any EU supplier will have no trouble staffing up to handle the extra business.
Be afraid, be very afraid.
FBI lets Hillary off the hook.
The FBI director held a news conference, live on TV, just a few minutes ago. Bottom line, the FBI doesn't think they have enough to prosecute with. They read a ton of emails. In fact you gotta wonder how Hillary had the time to crank out nearly 100K emails. She was only secretary of state for four years, call it 1000 days, so that's 100 emails a DAY. How did she manage to eat lunch and go the can, and do 100 emails a day??
The FBI claimed to have really scrubbed Hillary's server, recovering a lot of email from caches and deleted-but-not-scrubbed disk space. They also said that Hillary's lawyers had wiped a lot of email as "personal" and the lawyers did a better job than Hillary, they scrubbed the disk files (over wrote them with random ones and zeros) and deleted them (erased the file names from the disc directory). Which makes the emails unrecoverable, like they had been shredded.
The FBI did a lot of talking about how classified and how many were classified. Groovy but any secret service in the world would love to read the American secretary of state's email no matter what it's classification.
In short, the FBI trashed Hillary and her state department for sloppy handling of classified, but they don't think it was deliberate, and you gotta show intent to prosecute. The FBI didn't find intent, and so Hillary gets off, not scot free, some of the mud sticks, but they ain't gonna prosecute, so she can go on running for president. Another tight squeeze for a Clinton, like Whitewater, like Vince Foster, like Monica, like a bunch of other stuff.
The FBI claimed to have really scrubbed Hillary's server, recovering a lot of email from caches and deleted-but-not-scrubbed disk space. They also said that Hillary's lawyers had wiped a lot of email as "personal" and the lawyers did a better job than Hillary, they scrubbed the disk files (over wrote them with random ones and zeros) and deleted them (erased the file names from the disc directory). Which makes the emails unrecoverable, like they had been shredded.
The FBI did a lot of talking about how classified and how many were classified. Groovy but any secret service in the world would love to read the American secretary of state's email no matter what it's classification.
In short, the FBI trashed Hillary and her state department for sloppy handling of classified, but they don't think it was deliberate, and you gotta show intent to prosecute. The FBI didn't find intent, and so Hillary gets off, not scot free, some of the mud sticks, but they ain't gonna prosecute, so she can go on running for president. Another tight squeeze for a Clinton, like Whitewater, like Vince Foster, like Monica, like a bunch of other stuff.
Sunday, July 3, 2016
The Supremes pretend to practice law.
Actually they are mere indulging in their private political prejudices. Law is a body of rules, written down. Moses showed the way. Just ten commandments, chiseled into stone tablets by the hand of God. And law is limited. Ten was the starting number. We have a lot more now. but if it isn't written down, it isn't law.
Judges are supposed to know the law, and apply it to the specific case before them. And there is always room for interpretation. Even "Thou shalt not kill" (from KJV) has been interpreted to read "Thou shalt not commit murder." a much narrower reading. It's up to judges to look at the law, look at the facts of the case, and render a judgement, using pure reasoning.
When this is happening, a majority of judges (or for that matter a majority of reasonable men) will come to the same judgement in the same case. That is, if they are looking at the law, and reasoning from the facts of the case. If they are judging from personal prejudices, anything can happen.
Since the unfortunate death of Justice Scalia, it has become clear that he eight survivors on the court are judging from personal prejudice rather than from the law. Hence the number of four to four ties. How the eight top lawyers in America can fail to come to a majority opinion is a scandal. These clowns aren't practicing law, they are setting themselves up as kings.
Judges are supposed to know the law, and apply it to the specific case before them. And there is always room for interpretation. Even "Thou shalt not kill" (from KJV) has been interpreted to read "Thou shalt not commit murder." a much narrower reading. It's up to judges to look at the law, look at the facts of the case, and render a judgement, using pure reasoning.
When this is happening, a majority of judges (or for that matter a majority of reasonable men) will come to the same judgement in the same case. That is, if they are looking at the law, and reasoning from the facts of the case. If they are judging from personal prejudices, anything can happen.
Since the unfortunate death of Justice Scalia, it has become clear that he eight survivors on the court are judging from personal prejudice rather than from the law. Hence the number of four to four ties. How the eight top lawyers in America can fail to come to a majority opinion is a scandal. These clowns aren't practicing law, they are setting themselves up as kings.
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