AVG Antivirus. Thumbs Down

The Microsoft Scammer called again.  This time he claimed my computer was issuing improper messages over the internet.  I recognized his voice, he calls regularly, and I had some fun calling him names.  After the scammer went away, it did occur to me that it had been a while since I ran a virus scan on Trusty Desktop.  Next I found that good old Malwarebytes, my anti virus of choice, no longer supports Windows XP.  Arghh.  Some net cruising brought me to AVG antivirus.  It downloaded, it scanned, it didn't find anything.  After the scan run, things seemed a little slower.  Task Manager showed three or four new tasks, sucking up RAM and CPU time. 
   Worse was to come.  I booted up next morning and clicking on desktop icons no longer  worked.  Task manager showed some AVG component hogging all the CPU time. Task Manager could no kill the offending AVG process.
Install and Remove Programs from Control Panel didn't work.  Deleting the AVG file directory in Program Files didn't work.  Deleting from MS-DOS didn't work either. 
    A little web searching with Duck Duck Go showed me that I was not alone.  It did point me to a special AVG remover program, written by AVG themselves.  That worked.  Good riddance to AVG.  It is a RAM hog and a CPU hog that is active and slowing my machine all the time.  At times slowing to the point I thought it was broken. 

He said She said

The last minute smear on Judge Kavanaugh is showing legs, at least for the TV newsies.  There ought to be a statute of limitations, 35 years ago is a long time.  Me, I cannot even remember where I was living in 1983, or was it 1984.  The accusation of attempted rape comes from a lefty California college professor, of whom I never heard of before.  Kavanaugh has been in public life for 30 years, he has been back ground checked and found clean, he has a lot of testimonials from women who worked for him or went to high school with him.  So when Kavanaugh denies the attempted rape ever happened, I find him believable. 

Snow White and the Huntsman 2012

Some how I missed this one back in 2012 when it came out. Netflix brought it to me last night.  I should not have bothered.  What little plot the movies might have had was never shown to us in the audience.  In fact there was almost no dialogue for any of the characters.  No one addressed another character by name, making it hard to keep every one straight.  If the Huntsman had any romantic feelings for Snow White he never showed them.  Likewise Snow White doesn't display any romantic interest in anyone.  She falls in with a band of forest bandits, like Robin Hood's men, all of whom are over age, overweight, and balding.  It is never clear just what they expect from Snow White, or what Snow White expects from them.  A long scene has Snow White fleeing the Evil Queen's troops, on foot, thru the forest, while wearing a full length ball gown.  Would have been core convincing if the long skirt had got torn off on thorns,
   This flick is two hours, too long for the material to carry it.  Cameraman does alright, manages to turn the lights on before filming.  Puts the camera on a tripod. 
   Too bad.  With a decent scriptwriter this could have been a fun medieval fantasy romance. 

Rape is a serious crime

And should be dealt with by the police and the courts.  Not college kangaroo courts.  The college kangaroo courts have a nearly perfect failure rate.  Most students condemned by such bodies sue the college.  And a lot of 'em are winning.  Colleges would be ahead if the real criminal justice system handled cases of rape and "sexual assault" on campus, at least they won't get sued over the decisions of a real judge.  For students, the regular criminal justice system is fairer than anything a bunch of "college administrators" can do. 

Your Congress at work

Congress is voting to outlaw the selling of meat from cats or dogs.  We really really need this.  Every grocery store in the land has a meat case just stuffed full of dog and cat steaks.  People grill them every weekend.  Serious problem here, deserving of Congressional attention.
   Some how the nation has endured since 1789 without this absolutely vital law.  In actual fact nobody feels good about eating beloved house pets, and so it just doesn't happen.  No law required. 
   Just another reason to throw the bums out in the coming November elections.

California law to require 100% renewable energy

The deadline in the law is 2045,  27 years into the future.  If CA sticks with this, doesn't water it down when they discover how expensive it is, they are talking about putting in enough solar and wind generation to carry the entire load of the state.  Trouble is, solar panels don't give juice after the sun goes down, and windmills don't give juice when the wind doesn't blow. 
   Which means, CA will have to maintain in operating condition, all the real power plants they have today, AND pay for building and installing renewable energy plants sufficient to carry the state wide electrical load, during daylight and when the wind is blowing.  At night, and on calm days, the real power plants will have to keep the lights on  state wide. 
  In short, CA is planning to spend enough money to install statewide renewable energy plants with capacity to power the entire state.   Figure this will cost as much as the real power plants CA already has.  This amounts to paying for two sets of electrical plants, one real, one renewable, instead of one.  Which will double the costs, and then double electrical bills. 
   Of course, CA may back off after it becomes clear how expensive this is gonna be.  They have 27 years in which to waffle. 

First Amendment, why we have it

Been a lotta talk about the first amendment on the media, TV and internet lately.  Lotta things said, most of 'em valid.  "Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech or of the press."  But none of them gets right down to the meat of the matter.
   The meat is simple.  Without the first amendment, the government can call any speech it doesn't like treasonous, blasphemous, disloyal, seditious, unAmerican, or other bad name and zap, speaker gets jailed, which shuts him up.  The founders believed in democracy, by which they meant every man could speak in support of his political ideas without fear of government reprisals.  And without free speech, we don't have a democracy.