How combat ready is NATO?

I read a couple of web postings saying that the German Air Force only has ten jet fighters operationally ready.  The rest, hundreds of expensive warplanes, are down for maintenance.  With only ten flyable fighters,  German pilots won't be getting enough flight time to stay proficient.  
   That is a ridiculous figure.  When I was squadron level maintenance officer in USAF, we were required to show 70% of out fighters in commission and ready to fly every day.  Our squadrons were 18 aircraft in those days, and 70% came out to 11 aircraft.  And we made that 70% OR rate every day.  In short, a USAF squadron had more OR fighters than the entire Luftwaffe.
  The Germans claim to be spending something like $60 billion on defense, 1.2% of GNP.  Which ain't enough if it leaves nearly all of their fighter planes grounded for maintenance.  
   I think Trump is right to yell at them for not paying enough for defense.  The Russians still have a large army, they have grabbed off big slices of Georgia and Ukraine, and Putin is talking about grabbing more.  Not the right time to have most of your air force grounded for maintenance. 

Captain America, Civil War, 2016, I caught it on the tube last night

It was long.  Ran three hours what with the usual heavy load of commercials.  The camera man turned on the lights of the set BEFORE filming.  Give him points for that.  None of those black on black scenes that Game of Thrones likes so much, and I find totally annoying.  Give them credit for doing a good job rather than being arty.  The sound man was barely adequate, I had to turn up the volume, and boost the treble before I could catch all the dialog.  I had no trouble hearing all the dialog in the commercials, which means the sound man could do a lot better.  
   The movie has Captain Steve (America) Rodgers, Iron Man/ Tony Stark, a new young actor playing Peter Parker/Spiderman.  The Spiderman costume totally covers the face, and so even as Spiderman gets a good share of screentime, it's hard to relate to a superhero with out a face.  And a lot of Marvel Comics characters that are new to me.  I stopped reading comic books a long long time ago so I am not up to date on Marvel Comics Universe. Since nobody ever addresses anybody by name on screen, it is tough to figure out who is who. 
   There was a lot of hand to hand combat, jumping out of tenth story windows and bouncing when hitting the ground, and fantastic but fun to watch moves with that shield.  There wasn't much of a plot, or at least I never did catch on to what Captain America was trying to do to save the world this time.  They split the Avengers into two warring factions which resulted in a lot of hand to hand fist fighting between Steve Rogers and Ironman.  Somehow, no matter how hard Steve Rogers hit, Ironman's iron suit soaked up the blows.  Funny about that
  It was fun to watch, I stayed awake to the bitter end at 11PM.  Far past my usual bedtime. 

New Supreme Court Justice

Lot's and lots of yak on the TV about this.  Much of it phoney.  They talk about a tremendous floor flight.  Not very likely.  Either the Republicans have all their ducks in a row, and their mavericks and RINO's under control, or they don't.  Even with McCain out with brain cancer, they still have a one vote majority in the Senate, and a Republican vice president as a tie breaker.  If they don't have all their members on board, they won't bring the matter up until they do. 
   I don't know the names on Trump's picklist, but I assume they are all guys like Gorsuch, who has worked out well and is generally respected.  This kind of guy will believe in "stare decisus", Latin for "Let it Stand".  The doctrine that when in doubt, it is justice to rule the same way previous judges have ruled on the issue.  Which makes all the talk about over turning Roe vs Wade just scare talk.  Roe vs Wade has been the law of the land for nearly 50 years, a half century.  Stare decisus means stick with Roe, because it is the way things have been done for 50 years.  I don't think Roe vs Wade is in any danger from anyone Trump might nominate. 

Franconia NH, Old Home Day Parade

Franconia does Old Home Day on Saturday, as close to the 4th as they can get.  So I went.  Spent 6 hours smoothing with voters, asking them to vote for me.  A lot of people were out of state tourists, worthy folk who help keep NH green but cannot vote for me.  And a lot were voters in my district.  All were perfectly happy to say hello and shake hands.  Weather was ideal, cool, sunny, clear skies.  A good time was had by all.

Pocahontas Is Racially Charged???

The Hill was trashing back at President Trump yesterday.   The President is famous for calling Senator Elizabeth Warren "Pocahontas" in response to Warren's claims of Indian ancestry.  The Hill called the nickname "racially charged".
   Really?  Back when my kids were doing elementary school, Pocahontas lunch boxes were all the rage.  Pocahontas beat out My Little Pony for most popular kids lunchbox.  Back when I was doing elementary school myself (long before the Disney movie) we knew of Pocahontas as a beautiful, romantic Indian princess, who had a thing going with John Smith, later married John Rolf, went to England were she was treated as if she was British nobility.  Pocahontas was cool, everybody knew that. 
   Dunno where The Hill comes up with "racially charged". 

Background on the 2nd Amendment

Let your mind run back in time, to 1789, the year the constitution was adopted.  The United States possessed an enormous territory, stretching 2000 miles from Maine to Georgia and inland for a thousand miles.  It was thinly settled in those days.  France and England were the super powers of the late eighteen century and everyone understood that one or both of  them would want to expand their power by taking over parts of the brand new United States. Nearly every settled place had seen Indian raids, banditry, pirates, French, Spanish, and lastly Redcoats.  No way the infant federal government could protect  this huge vulnerable territory with regular army soldiers.  They lacked the money, the supplies, the roads, and the shipping, to get regular army troops into position to protect the civilians from all the potential attackers.
   The Americans had just finished the Revolutionary War, where American militia had driven Redcoat regulars into flight from Concord, slaughtered them en masse at Bunker Hill, forced "Gentleman Johnny" Burgoyne to surrender an entire British army, and served with distinction on hundreds of battlefields.  In those days everyone knew the militia was needed for, and adequate for, protection of American civilians, anywhere up and down the length and breadth of the land.  We would raise a small regular army, but for defense of the homeland, we would rely upon the militia.
   This was the thinking behind the clause "A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State...".   Militia was a bring your own gun (BYOG) thing.  In those days no state or federal government had the money to provide arms to the militia.  And it was also known in those days that plenty of land owners, patroons, and other colonial big shots were in favor of taking guns away from "the rabble" who might use them to cause trouble.  Hence "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed." 
   And this worked for many years.  As late as 1940 Japanese admiral Yamamoto said "To invade the United States is impossible.  There would be a rifleman behind every blade of grass. "   America is no longer a shaky new found country clinging to the coast of a continental wilderness.  We are now the strongest country on earth with regular armed forces surely strong enough to defend the homeland. 
   But for all our modern improvements we still have reasons for citizens to want firearms.  For instance, I have black bears strolling up and down my driveway, especially during beechnut season.  Plenty of Americans live in far more dangerous places than I, and I don't see any reason to deny them firearms.   Plenty of robberies have been thwarted with the help of a gun in the cash drawer.  So have plenty of home invasions, muggings, and car jackings.
   The recent appalling  murders of school children and innocent spectators happens because we allow homicidal maniacs to run around loose until they commit an awful crime.  We used to have mental hospitals in which we confined those of unsound mind.  Unfortunately the civil rights movement of the 1960's forced their closure, and turned the inmates out into the street, where many of them still live. 

Woodsville NH 4th of July Parade.

Unloading antique farm tractor

Becca Bailey getting the truck ready.

Groovy old Woodsville building that I need to model for my HO railroad.

Last float turns around and heads for home.

I marched ( drove actually, I am getting old)  in the great Woodsville 4th of July parade.  Above are my photos.  I finally manage to get Blogger's photo uploader to work.  It was warm, 86 F according to the big thermometer on the bank.  A good time was had by all.  We had a lot more Republican candidates than we did Democrat.