Personna Non Grata (PNG)

The US and its allies are getting some press coverage by kicking Russian "diplomats"  (intelligence agents actually)  out of the country over the poisoning of a retired Russian spy and his daughter in England last week.  We used to do this pretty often during the cold war.  I assume the Russians will retaliate shortly, probably by kicking a bunch of  allied diplomats out of Russia. And, after the shouting dies down, both sides will replace the expelled diplomats/intelligence agents with new people. 
   Back before electrical communications (telegraph, telephone, radio, and such)  the whole system of diplomacy, ambassadors, diplomatic immunity, extraterritoriality of embassies, the diplomatic pouch, and so on was developed.  A country's ambassador, knowing that communication with his national capital takes weeks, acted on his own say-so in matters such as declaring support or opposition to host country's military moves, (invading or being invaded),  hiking tariffs, arresting your nationals, fitting out warships for use by a rebel movement, anything.  Nowadays, the ambassador doesn't do anything until his home government sends him a cable.  We keep the diplomatic system up partly from habit and largely for the intelligence it can gather.  There is a lot of very valuable legal intelligence that can be gathered simply be reading the local press, and buying maps and books. 

The Facebook API interface

Face book has a lot of data, gathered over the years, on its computers.  According to youngest son, there was an undocumented, but not secret, interface to the public internet.  He say he used it himself to conduct searches for stuff that interested him (space travel, fusion power).  He tells me this is the interface Cambridge Analytics used to access those fifty million Facebook user's data.  He says that Facebook wised up and closed that interface quite recently.  As well they might, Facebook's business model is built around selling their data, not giving it away free to savvy hackers. 
    There has been talk about regulating Facebook and its ilk.  I frankly cannot think of  any simple enforceable regulations that would do anything useful.  Far as I am concerned, the free enterprise system is perfectly capable of shaping up Facebook.  If Facebook offends enough users, who then leave Facebook, Facebook will loose money.  They won't be able to charge as much for ads and data.  That oughta be enough incentive to shape 'em up. 
   I use Facebook, but only to exchange chit chat with old school friends, family,  and the neighbors, and to post photo's of my children, grandchildren, the scenery, the weather, my model railroad, and my cat.  I expect that only my Facebook friends can see my posts, but it doesn't bother me much that anybody can see them.  They are all fairly good photos, they are lovable children, and its a very nice cat.

California Pot Growers

Saturday's Wall St Journal had an editorial headlined "Marijuana Supply-Siders".  They stated that there are 68150 pot growers in California.  They say the number comes from the California Growers Association.  I wonder how many growers decided not to register with the Growers Association for fear that the narcs or the DEA or the cops would get on their case.  I know if I was growing weed in California I'd try to keep it secret. 
  And, that's a lot of pot farmers.  About one pot farmer for every 587 citizens of California.   Take a guess that only 10% of Californians smoke weed.  That's one pot farmer for every 58 smokers.  The article did mention that a lot of California pot is exported from California.

Beat the Press

They were on, Channel 10, just this morning.  For the week's Trump bashing they talked about hiring and firing at the White House, presumably the lawyer who quit, the firing of the secretary of state, and his replacement with John Bolton.  All the talking heads agreed that this was termoil at the White House and all sorts of bad.
   They did not talk about Trump's tax bill, his proposed and nearly in effect tariffs, foreign policy vs the NORKS,  3% GNP growth, 4% unemployment, squeezing ISIS, cutting federal regulations, DACA, that omnibus budget blowout bill, in short anything of substance.  Must mean that the MSM (democrats all) see nothing in all Trump's actions to bash him with.  Must mean they like what Trump does, but despise him personally.  Good mature attitude there.

Words of the Weasel Part 50

The MSM and the gun control people have been using "gun violence" rather than the older and truer word, murder.  It's a disgraceful attempt to be non judgemental, to blame a tool for the sins of an evil person.  Murder has been a crime ever since Moses brought the Ten Commandments down from Mt Sinai.  Gun violence only made the TV since the Portland school shooting. 

Bimbo Hush Money is now illegal campaign contribution???

That's what NPR was telling me this morning.  That $130,000 hush money that Trump's lawyer[s] paid "Stormy Daniels"  is an illegal campaign contribution and the special prosecutor should investigate.  Somehow this does not compute.  Campaign contributions are money given to a candidate.  Hush money given to a bimbo is distasteful, and a PR disaster, but I don't think it is a campaign contribution.  But good old NPR can find lawyers to say anything they want said.  NPR is part of the deep state trying to push Trump out of the presidency. I am so glad my tax money goes to subsidize NPR.

Congress does it again. 2300 Page Omnibus Spending Bill

No Congressman, except for maybe Paul Ryan, has any idea of what all is in it.  At best they know that their pet spending got in, along with every one else's pet spending.  Which is why the Federal deficit is so bad.  Nobody can read 23,000 pages of Congressional gobble-de-gook, even if given a year to do it.  Probably a few congressional staffers, like the one's who wrote this thing, have a general idea, and that's about it.
  This  disgrace is caused by the Senate.  The House wrote, debated and passed 12 spending bills, one for each major Federal department.  The Senate failed to even bring them up for debate, let alone pass them.  Let's hear it for Senate Rules.  Bulwark of democracy they are.
   So the end result, a few anonymous congressional staffers control all the spending of the Federal government. 
   Senators let this happen because it allows them to avoid voting on anything that their constituents might object to.   And who might write them nasty letters, or threaten to vote against them.  So they allow staffers to pack all the spending decisions into one vast unreadable swamp.  Since nobody, constituents, political opponents, the MSM, bloggers know what's in there, they cannot got on Senator Phogbound's case about  what he voted for.