Thursday, February 15, 2018

Anyone got examples of Russian meddling in the 2016 election?

I read a lotta talk about Russian meddling vie social media.  But I haven't seen any examples.  How about a website or two? or some posts on Facebook etc.  If it happened, let's see some of it. 

It's Horrible

And my deepest sympathies for the victims of the Florida school shooting yesterday.  And that's all I am going to say, the TV news has been saying everything under the sun since it happened yesterday. So I don't need to add my two cents worth. 

Imran Amed, WSJ fashion plate

"Some ideas for fixing the fashion industry" is the headline of a piece in the Journal's Life and Arts section.  It's an interview with Imran Amed, rated "No 1 in GQ India's list of Best Dressed Global Indians.  Big color pictures of Imran to go with the article.  If he is well dressed, I'd hate to see a real slob.  Hair is uncombed.  Unshaven. Wearing a low speed dark suit made from some strange fabric, not the proper woven wool of a real suit.  No necktie.  A salmon pink sweater under the suit jacket, with white T-shirt showing at the neckline.  No shirt. And he is wearing boondocker combat boots instead of low quarter shoes.  Not my idea of well dressed. 
   His comments on the fashion industry are super bland.  He likes Gucci because they are selling well.  He likes Attico because they have 124,000 Instgram followers and they are selling well.   Insightful that is. 

Wednesday, February 14, 2018

Cops work differently in Israel

The TV news is talking about Israeli cops accusing  prime minister Netanyahu of corruption and mopery and dopery.  They say the Israeli prosecutors now have to indict Netanyahu, which is expected to take a year or more.
   Wow!  Over here the cops don't have the stones to accuse powerful politicians of corruption.   US cops know that the politicians control their funding, their hiring, their promotions, and much else.  If the corruption charges don't stick, and in US courts anything can happen, the accused politician has plenty of time and power to take revenge on the accusers. 
  I guess things work differently in Israel. 

Tuesday, February 13, 2018

New flu medicine

Japanese pharmacy company Shionogi announced an new anti flu drug that cures all types of flu in 24 hours, with a single dose.  The Wall St Journal didn't mention a name for Shionogi's experimental drug but it is not a vaccine, it works by disrupting the flu virus' ability to take over human cells and reprogram them to produce more flu virus.  The article indicated a deep understanding of the biochemistry of the flu virus.  It also mentioned a fast track approval process in Japan might authorize the drug for sale as soon as next month.  They talked about submitting paperwork to the US Fuddy Duddy Administration (FDA) this summer and waiting til next year for FDA approval for sale in the US. 
   If this works out, it will be great. 

Monday, February 12, 2018

What's going down in Congress about the Dreamers?

The Senate voted to discuss the matter.  Typical Senate malarky, you don't vote to have a discussion.  You bring a bill to the floor and discuss it.  Then you vote to pass it or kill it.
Far as I can see, the Republican position, as outlined by the president is this.  We do something nice (unspecified) for maybe 1.8 million DACA eligibles.  We fund the border wall.  We limit chain migration to immediate family, spouses and minor children.  We shut down the 50,000 person "diversity lottery".  We do all of this or nothing.
The Democratic position is murky.  They don't talk about it.  At a guess, they want nice things for at least the 800,000 people who signed up for DACA.  Maybe they are OK with the border wall.  They want to keep chain migration and the "diversity lottery" the way it is now.  They haven't really said all this out loud, but from listening to the TV newsies, I think this is where they are coming from.  I might be wrong.  The democrats would do them selves a favor by a  clear statement of where they are coming from.
  The Republicans have some internal problems.  An unknown number of Republican congress critters don't like the idea of letting anyone into the country and are against doing anything nice for 1.8 million DACA eligibles.  The president ought to be able to get enough Republicans to vote his way, but you never know.  The rest of the presidents ideas, border wall, chain migration and diversity lottery ought to OK with most Republican congress critters.
   Neither side has described just what nice things for DACA eligibles might be.  Was it up to me, I'd offer citizenship anyone who looks like a good, loyal, production citizen.  Say a clean criminal record (no felony convictions) graduated high school or college, married, employed, children, veteran or some subset of these.  Anyone who looks like trouble, gang members, drug runners, car jackers,  and such, deport them ASAP.  Short of citizenship we offer them ID cards that allow them to stay in the US, take a job, get a driver's license.  For extra niceness we could make them eligible for welfare, food stamps, Medicaid.
   The 800,000 vs 1.8 million comes from DACA eligibles fearing that going and registering with Mr. Migra was dangerous.  Mr. Migra might betray them and use the registration to hunt them down and deport them.  Which may happen unless Congress gets its act together in the next three weeks.  The administration estimates that about another million DACA eligibles were smart enough to keep their heads down and stay out of sight. 

Sunday, February 11, 2018

How to prevent foreign meddling in US elections

   Get rid of electronic voting machines altogether.  Go back to paper ballots, that can be saved and recounted.  The voting machines are merely desktop computers running an "I am a ballot" program.  They can be hacked before election day, on election day, and after election day.  The can be hacked over the internet, at the factory, in storage at town hall, during software updates, by sticking a flash drive into their USB port, and  a bunch of other ways.  You cannot recount a voting machine the way you can paper ballots.   Use paper ballots.  That will prevent anyone from hacking the election results.
    Demand source information for social media stories.  And for MSM stories.   If the story, no matter how juicy, doesn't have a source, it's fake news.  If a juicy story lacks a source, or the source doesn't check out, you gotta say to yourself that this story is BS.    
    Remember that the MSM is mostly the NYT and the WaPo, and the TV networks, ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, MSNBC, and CNN.  These are all run by democrats and see their mission as electing democrats, not reporting the news.  The NYT has been in love with Communists since the 1930's.  They supported Josef Stalin, Fidel Castro, and the Viet Cong.