Google Maps, software is too daring, you gotta watch it

Used to be, when you asked Google maps for directions from here to there, the program was pretty conservative, it would route you over Interstates only, even if it took you a long way out of your way.  Well the software weenies got more daring, and they let the program route you down secondary and tertiary roads, looking for the shortest route.  In a way this was good, but the program would route you down impassible or non existent roads.  Last year it tried to run me over NH route 116 in mud season.  The program didn't know, or didn't care, that 116 has bottomless potholes from side to side in mud season.  I used my superior local knowledge to drive on US 302, which is an all weather road,  unlike 116. 
   Then yesterday it generated a routing thru Maine for me.  The Maine road the software picked, was just plain non existent.  Just plain no such road, nowhere, no how.  I did make it, but it took a lotta backtracking.
  My advice, look at the Google proposed route.  If the roads lack even a state route number, or the little towns along the route lack names, beware. 
   My other suggestion for the Google software weenies.  Fix up your map coloring.  Leave the background white, that saves me ink cartridges ($52 each) and improves the contrast with the roads.  Then paint the roads with a solid stripe of a single color.  Drop the white road with faint gray sidewalks look.  Use a consistent color code to distinguish between interstates, primary roads, secondary roads, tertiary roads, and dirt roads.  Your current color scheme is close to unreadable.  You ought fire what ever weenie thought it up.

The Nostalgia is Overwhelming.

Way back when, back when I was 11 years old, I got to go to summer camp.  It was a wonderful experience, so cool that I went back for two more summers.  There was tripping, the strange cult of King Kababa, riflery, woodshop, sailboats, rowboats, and canoes, campfire, general swim, the war game, good friends,  living in a tent, no electricity in the entire camp, really great counselors and trip leaders.  Absolutely awesome. 
   So yesterday, I fired up the Buick and drove over to the old camp, just to see if it was still there.  Well, Pine Island Camp is still there.  It's still way out in the Maine countryside, it hasn't been swallowed up by urban sprawl the way my old prep school was.  It's near Belgrade Maine, on an island (Pine Island) out in Great Pond.  And it still looks pretty much the same, even after a serious fire in the 1990's burned down the messhall and Honk Hall.  They rebuilt, and took some pains to keep it looking the same.  The camp director was Ben Swan, son of Eugene Swan who was director way back when.   It being mid week, half the kids were out of camp, tripping.  So I had lunch in the dining hall, swapped some war stories from the old days, didn't take many pictures, looked around, and wallowed in nostalgia.  If by some magic I could be 11 years old again, I'd go right back for the summer. 

A really different Republican National Convention??

A Federal judge in Virginia has just ruled that VA delegates are free to vote any way they want at the Republican convention.  He has dissolved the requirement under state law for delegates to vote the way the primary election turned out.
Wow.  If this decision stands, the convention will be strange, very strange.
   The convention delegates are all old Republican hands.  Everyone wants to go to the convention, it's a blast.  Hell, my mother got to be a delegate to the 1964 convention.  Needless to say, the plum of going to the convention is handed out as a perk to solid Republicans by various strange party systems, a different system for each state.  The lucky delegates were then informed that they had to vote this way or that way.  And all the delegates are old Republican people.  Some office holders, some party workers, some big donors, some activists, but all members of the Republican establishment.
   And the Republican establishment doesn't like The Donald.  If the delegates are told they can vote their consciences,  a lot of em will vote against Trump.  Nobody knows who they would vote for, but someone will turn up.
   The Republican National Committee doesn't like this idea at all.  They have rightly figured that the dyed in the wool Trump voters are absolutely necessary for winning.  Without the Trump voters, Hillary wins.  So opening the door to dumping Trump is opening the door to losing big.  Nobody is sure that Trump can win, but they know that without Trump they loose.  The RNC understands this.  Not sure if the Republican establishment understands it.
   The Wall Street Journal sees this as a big issue.  They ran an editorial about it today.  They were sorta whistling past the grave yard, opining that Trump would make it even if all the delegates are unbound.  Maybe, but I wouldn't bet on it.  There is a lotta NeverTrump sentiment out there.  

US race relations not as bad as 1968

So says Obama on the tube this morning.  Of course, as soon as he said it,  I thought to myself, that actually things are as bad as 1968.
   Obama has made things worse.  Polls show things are a lot worse now than back in 2008 when Obama first took office.  Every time an ugly incident happens, Obama jumps right into it, and takes sides. Guess which side he takes. Every time.  After Obama jumps into it, the rest of the MSM get on the story and their reporting just pours gasoline on the fire. 

You gotta get your story out, right away.

After any of these terrible confrontations between citizens and authorities (cops), there are always TWO stories.  There is the victim's story, and there is the authorities story.  There will always be some differences, which can cast the entire incident in one light or another.  For example "Hands up don't shoot", which the Michael Brown supporters claim happened vs the cop's story that Michael Brown was trying to grab his gun when he was shot. 
  Moral of the story, the authorities must get their story out, right now.  Even better if they have video to back up their story.  They need to know that the other side will get their story out, and when there is only one story out there, that's what people believe.  So the authorities must get their side of the story out, right away.
  Lots of cops and prosecutors complain that releasing a story ahead of the trial does bad things for their case at trial.  Piffle.  The real trial, the one that counts, is the trial by public opinion.  If the public thinks the authorities behaved badly, it doesn't matter what a judge declares, usually years later.  The lawyers have so degraded the American justice system that it doesn't really matter any more.  Today's courts take years and years to come to a decision, and they usually let the perp off.  Better to win in the court of public opinion than wait for the wheels of justice to get turning. 
   Historical example.  Right after the Battle of Bunker Hill, the Americans wrote up their story, emphasizing patriot heroism and really stunning Redcoat casualties.  The rebels got their story onto a fast Yankee schooner and it was in London within three weeks.  General Gage on the other hand, sent his dispatches back on a slow Royal Army merchantman which took three months to get to London.  Result, the American version of the battle, with it's story of Patriot bravery, went the length and breadth of England for two and a half months before the British side of the story got out.  Needless to say, the American version, so favorable to the Patriot cause, is the one every Englishman heard.

Dallas was horrible.

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?
  

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.