The losers always cry Gerrymander

Gerrymander, the art of drawing voting district lines to favor your own party and disadvantage the opposition party.  After the election, the losing party always blames a gerrymander.  We have to have voting districts, otherwise everyone runs at large.  Which is difficult and expensive, the candidate has to run ads, make campaign appearances, and put up yard signs all over the state, rather than just his own district.   To gerrymander, you arrange the voting districts either to pack the opposition voters into a few districts which you cede to the them, or to dilute the opposition voters among your strong districts, where they never have the numbers to win the district.   Elbridge Gerry, a serious Massachusetts politician, signer of the Declaration of Independence,  was governor of Massachusetts after the Revolution when redistricting created an odd shaped district, long and wiggly and looking like a salamander.  It was dubbed a Gerrymander, and the term has stayed in American politics ever since.
   Trouble is, gerrymandering is hard to define, and thus hard to legislate against.  So far all we have tried is the appointment of a "non partisan" commission to draw district lines.  Such commissions are better than nothing, but not all that effective.
   What we might try is a law that requires districts to be reasonable compact.  Define "reasonable compact" as the longest way across the district may not exceed twice the shortest way across the district.  That would outlaw the long and skinny districts.  

The engineer missed the 30 mph speed limit sign

That's from the Wall St Journal on that train crash in Tacoma Washington this winter.  Reasonable, and easy to do.  And that's the engineer's story.
   My only question is, after spending $180 million on bringing this line into service, why is a dangerous 30 mph curve left in the track?  With $180 million to spend, I'd think they could have straightened that curve out to allow 80 mph running clean thru the whole line. 

I'll wash your mouth out with soap

Common threat to children using bad language.  Or sassing their parents.  Now the children say "I'll eat a Tide Pod"???  
Even on a dare,  I would not eat soap or Tide Pods, no matter what.  I learned that soap tasted awful at a very early age, probably from tasting it accidentally during bath.  
I don't understand the growth of Tide Pod eating among the young.  When I was a kid we knew better.

Why is Washington so disfunctional?

This came up in a discussion with youngest son.  We are still close enough to talk politics even though his politics don't always agree with mine.    To which I said, neither side (party) has enough votes to pass their program.  The Republican majority in the Senate is now down to one since the Alabama election.  The Republican majority in the house is a little bigger, but  the "House Freedom Caucus"  RINO's all, cannot be counted to vote with the party.  In short, the Congress is deadlocked between the two parties, neither has enough votes to vote their program thru and get on with things.
   The only solution is to convince more voters to join one side or the other, and give their side a solid majority.  This is hard.  First off, neither party has made (and published) a clear and simple statement of their views.   Partly because they cannot come together on one view, and partly because of the modern conviction that stating your views just makes you enemies, never friends. Which is why politicians refrain from saying any thing of substance  and talk about motherhood and apple pie. 
   Lacking any thing from the two parties, the voters will listen to respected public figures.  But we don't have many of those any more.  Used to be guys like Walter Cronkite, Jim Lehrer,  and David Brinkley had the respect of the public and were listened to.   Now a days all we have is Dan Rather,  Rachel Maddow, and Opray Winfrey.  Nobody respects them much.  And the entire MSM has destroyed any confidence the public might have held in them.  Nobody believes any politician much.   Public opinion isn't going to change much in the current absence of trusted voices urging change. 
   So, the current deadlock looks like it will continue for a long time. 

America needs more good citizens

Those DACA kids/young people.  When your parents decide to slip into the United States, kids don't have a choice, they have to go where mom and dad go.  Ain't the kids fault that mom and dad are illegal immigrants. 
   For the ones that have grown up in the US, have stayed out of serious trouble with the law, have reasonable English language skills (speak even if with a thick accent,  read a road sign, and sign their names) I am willing to extend them US citizen ship.  Especially if they have graduated high school, or even better college, have a job, are married, are veterans.  These are desirable citizens, and we need more good citizens. 
   Polls show that  a fair number of my fellow citizens think the same way.  Can the Congress Critters get their act together to pass a law letting the stay in the country, or even better make them US citizens?   I know that a lot of 'em will vote for Democrats once they are registered. but that's OK.  I'm happy to have good US citizens even if they don't vote Republican. 

World is getting noisier

Watch some TV news, which is pretty much all from an indoor studio somewhere.  Notice the background noise of ringing phones, emergency vehicle sirens, yelling and shouting,  car crash noises.  Let's hope all this noise is coming from outside the studio.  It's pretty damn loud.   Out on the street it's gotta be worse.  

Walls, Border type.

The Trump administration is now talking about a combination of masonry wall, cyclone fencing, and electronic surveillance.  The MSM is criticizing them for backing off from a 2000 mile masonry wall.  Does not bother me much, at least the cyclone fence part.  A good cyclone fence, with three strands of barbed wire on top is pretty effective.  You cannot get vehicles thru such a fence, at least not without leaving a whacking big hole which is a tip off to the Border patrol. 
   I am not impressed with the electronic surveillance idea.  I was in South East Asia during the war when we tried electronic surveillance along the Ho Chi Min trail.   We air dropped a humongous load of sensors, microphones mostly, up and down the trail.  Mostly the sensors went dead in a few days.  Some of them picked up monkeys howling in the jungle or water buffalo snorting and stomping.  Never did detect a Cong.