Unanswered questions about the Breonna Taylor case.

 Releasing the Grand Jury findings has caused another riot in Louisville.  They indicted one of the three cops for being trigger happy and shooting wildly.  The other two were let off.  They claimed that this shootout was not a no knock raid.  The TV did not tell us what time of day this raid occurred.  The TV claims that the officers knocked.  TV did not tell us how long the officers waited for someone to answer the door.  Nor did it tell us how the door was opened, was it opened by one of occupants of the apartment or was it busted down by the cops?  

My point is that the police should not be doing no knock raids.  Busting down someone's door at o'dark:thirty just provokes a gun fight and people get killed.  If someone busts down my door in the middle of the night, I will shoot to kill and keep on shooting until either I get them or they get me.

Trigger Happy Tree in my backyard

 I got one tree

that thinks it is fall.  Most tree don't go along with the idea and are staying green.  That will last another week or two.  This tree is checking out the red scene.

We need a 9 judge Supreme Court

 Right now, after Justice Ruth Bader  Ginsburg's death, we only have eight justices on the Supreme court.  Should a difficult case, say a case about the 2020 presidential election, come before them, they might well deadlock in a tie 4 to 4 vote.  In which case the lower court decision that was appealed to the Supremes will stand.  Probably not good, the federal appeals courts only have jurisdiction over sections of the United States.  If the Supremes cannot come to a decision then we will have sections of the country with one law and other sections with a different law.  Not good.  We ought to have the same federal law for the whole country.  

   Of course Trump will appoint the same sort of judge that he did for his previous two Supreme Court vacancies.  That is a strict constructionist judge who will hew to the original intent of the Founders and not try to make new law from the bench.  And to be fair, Trump appointees will either be Republicans, or at least be sympathetic to Republican viewpoints, and thus anathema to Democrats.  No matter, I think the country will be better off having nine justices on the Supreme Court to rule on any 2020 election cases, which I judge likely to happen. 

 Ruth Bader Ginsberg.  May you rest in peace. 

Battery lore for motorists.

 

A fully charged car battery will read 13.2 volts.  Draw just a very small amount of juice from the battery, say turn on the headlights for a few minutes, and you will find the battery voltage has dropped down to 12.8 volts.  So most of us call a 12.8 volt or better battery fully charged.  Starting the engine, especially in winter, takes a lot of juice and as the battery charge is used up the battery voltage will drop off.  Once the battery voltage drops below 12.0 volts the battery may not have enough charge in it to start the engine. 

   When the engine is running, it turns an alternator under the hood to charge the battery.  The alternator has to supply current at a slightly higher voltage than the battery in order the charge it.  A properly working alternator will keep the car’s electrical system at 14 to 15 volts.  Cars have a built in voltmeter which you can see.  You may have to read the car’s manual to find it and turn it on.  On new cars (anything less than twenty years old) the voltmeter is digital and you can easily see your system voltage accurate to a tenth of a volt.  With the engine running the voltmeter ought to show 14-15 volts from the alternator.  With the engine off, the voltmeter will read battery voltage.  If battery voltage is above 12 .0 volts it’s good. 

   If the battery is below 12 volts either the alternator isn’t putting out enough voltage, or the battery is old and shot.  Winter is hard on car batteries and 4 or 5 winters is all they are good for.  A new battery is only fifty bucks at the auto parts store and you put it in yourself.  Assuming the alternator belt is nice and tight and not too worn, you have to replace the alternator.  Rebuilt alternators are every bit as good as brand new alternators and a lot cheaper. 

Hang Adolph Hitler from a sour apple tree

 

World War II could have been avoided.   It was an unnecessary war that cost 60-70 million deaths.   It laid important cities, Dresden, Hamburg, Leningrad, Cologne, Stalingrad, Berlin, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and more in ruins. The war broke out; actually Hitler attacked Poland, a mere 21 years after World War I ended.  Men who had been infantrymen in their twenties for World War I were in their forties in 1939.  Every one in Europe remembered the four year agony in the trenches and no one wanted to do that again.  No conceivable political objective was worth doing another four years of trench warfare.  Everyone in Europe agreed on this, except for one man, Adolph Hitler.  Somehow, Hitler had taken control of a great power and used that control to start World War II. 

   Using hindsight, it is clear that we could have eliminated Hitler and spared the world six years of agony and death.  Hitler would have had to be taken out sometime between 1932 and 1938 to do any good.  We (France, Britain and the United States) could have marched our armies into Germany, over thrown Hitler and put him on trial for war crimes, violations of the treaty of Versailles.  Or shot him “trying to escape”. That would have required French and British governments with some backbone, which was lacking in those years, plus solid support from the United States, to the point of dispatching at least one American division of troops to back up the Europeans and serve as a token of American support.  Unfortunately the United States was sunk deep into isolationism, and then the Depression and did not want to exert itself or take any risks.  It took the unprovoked attack on Pearl Harbor to snap us out of it. 

  Or, we could have sent one or two good men with rifles into Germany and had them shoot Hitler at one of those massive Nazi rallies.  We had some guys who could have done it.  The name Alvin York, (Sergeant York) a good southern boy from Tennessee, comes to mind.  And there were certainly other Americans who were just as good shots. 

   We need to keep this history in mind as we go forward into a dangerous world.   

Is anything happening besides the US elections???

 The TV is playing all election news and nothing but election news.  And most of it is charge and counter charge, both sides being highly unlikely.  As far as I can tell, the entire world has come to a halt, waiting on the outcome of the US elections.