US District Judge dismisses anti trust suit against Facebook

 The FTC and 46 states filed an anti trust suit.  The judge dismissed it on vague reasoning including that the plaintiffs had not shown that Facebook was a monopoly.  Duh.  Anybody knows that.  I only picked up on this extraordinary fact by reading a piece in Wired, a less than reliable source.  I did a search with Duck Duck Go and found supporting pieces in CNET and the Manchester Guardian.  Funny, I never saw a single mention of this in the Wall St Journal, a paper to which I subscribe, and which you would think would be interested in this sort of thing.  It might have been there and I missed it, but it probably was not there.  

   I have posted before that we ought to use the Sherman Anti Trust Act to break Facebook up into two of three pieces.  Divide the assets, readers, posters, advertisers, shareholders, buildings, computers, cash evenly.  Dunno what to do about Zuckerburg, we cannot cut him in half.  This way the pieces have to compete with each other and if one piece does things the public or the advertisers  do not like, they can move over to the piece that is more satisfactory.  This ought to work better than any kind of regulation. 

What is with US voters?

 They keep electing really terrible people to high office.  De Blasio in NYC, Cuomo in NY state, Biden, Lightfoot, and many more.  We gripe about lawlessness, but the lawlessness is aided and abetted by elected officials who defund the police, call off prosecution, allow shop lifting of anything less than $950 a misdemeanor and get out of jail free.  If US voters were on the job they would vote these bums out.  Until the US voters shape up, the country is in for a bad time.    

How to loose your shirt USAF.

Or loose the next war.  In 2011 USAF let a $35 billion contract to Boeing for 179 KC 46 tankers.  In 2021 USAF finally decides that they can fly the KC 46 for "limited operations".  That is ten years pissed away on a job that should not have taken more than 2 years.  The job was simple, take an existing, well proven airliner, take out the seats and install fuel tanks and a refueling boom.  A lot of this time was sucked up with USAF paperwork.  More was consumed by gold plating the design.  Every year the program runs it sucks up more money without getting us more tankers.  

Back in WWII we could go from a paper specification to mass production in a year.

Way to go USAF.  Note: I am a USAF veteran. 

That Florida condo should not have collapsed.

 Writing up here in NH, I have no real idea of what failed.  Could have been a lot of things

1.  Design failure going right back to when the building was constructed.  Not enough stout in the framework.  

2.  Concrete deterioration over the years, water, especially salt water, attacking the concrete of the building frame.  

3.  Failure of building inspectors to insist on repairs, expensive repairs, after building inspection found weakened concrete structural members.

4. Subsidence of the land upon which the condo was built. 

5. Something else??

 My Tiger Lilies bloomed two days ago.  It was rainy and overcast so I waited until I had a bit of sunlight to photograph them.  This entire bed of Tiger Lilies came from my mother's Tiger Lily patch. Due to all the rain on the last two days they are looking a little bit peaked.  Hopefully a little sun will perk them up.

Where is Global Warming when we need it?

It's July and my furnace is still firing.  It is only 60F, cold.

 

America is the finest country in the world.

 American created democracy in the modern world.  When we ratified our Constitution in 1798 all the other countries in the world were hereditary monarchies.  Two hundred thirty years later that Constitution is still working for us with only 27 amendments.  Of those 10 were part of the original deal and passed the same year that the Constitution was ratified, so we really only have 17 amendments as later thoughts on how things ought to be. 

   We ended slavery.  It took the worst war we ever fought to do it, but the Union won, and they abolished slavery.  We lost 600,000 men fighting the Civil War, worse than all the other wars we ever fought, all put together.  We followed up with the civil rights legislation of the 1960s.  

   We showed the world what capitalism could do.  People believe the streets are paved with gold in America.  That is because of the wealth American capitalism created.  American labor unions defeated communism by winning decent wages for the workers.  America (with a good deal of help from the Russians and the British) defeated the Nazis and the Japanese in WWII. 

    Americans are inventive.  Cotton gin, electric telegraph, steamboats, revolvers and repeating firearms, telephone, incandescent light, gyrocompass, airplanes.  America launched the first missions to the Moon.

   Forth of July is coming right up.  We should be proud of our country.  We have done good work over the years.