I was taught to always treat every fire arm as loaded

 This teaching started in summer camp (riflery was taught in those days) when I was 11 years old.  This teaching continued up thru my Air Force years.  When picking up a gun the first thing you do is make sure it is unloaded.  This includes opening the chamber to make sure there is no round lurking there in.  Another basic gun safety rule is "Never point a gun at anything you don't intend to kill".    The recent tragic accident of Alex Baldwin and a "prop" gun indicates Alex Baldwin has not been properly trained in gun safety.  Had either rule been followed this killing would not have happened.  Surely Alex did not intend to kill his cameraman (woman). I feel sorry for his victims and for Alex. 

Solve the Truck Driver Shortage

 The TV is saying that the backup in West coast ports comes from a lack of truck drivers to get the containers out of the port and on their way to make room for another shipload of containers. I think the truck driver shortage could be easily fixed, just reduce the amount of paperwork done for each driver and allow 18 year old high school graduates to earn a truck driver's license. 

   Driving a truck is not that much different from driving a car, and most high school graduates have already obtained their driver's licenses.  Granted, a truck is bigger than a car and requires more attention to clearances and care to avoid sideswiping stuff, and backing a semi trailer rig is tricky.  I am thinking that about a week's behind the wheel practice will be enough.  If we decide that class room instruction in rules of the road and other stuff is necessary, have the classes taught by real truck drivers, not bureaucrats or ed majors.  

  Some will object that 18 years is not enough to be a responsible driver.  I say that is up to the hiring manager.  If he thinks the applicant for a job is trustworthy enough to handle his company's trucks, let him hire the kid.  I graduated high school quite some years ago.  All my classmates were responsible people, in whom you could entrust an expensive truck, and its valuable cargo.  I'd like to think that today's high school graduates are as good as all my classmates were years ago. 

Chinese Hypersonic missile Fractional Orbit Bombardment System

 Been a lot of talk about this.  It certainly indicates that Chinese missile engineering is good.  On the other hand I am not convinced that this weapon offers a worse threat than what we face already.  Standard ICBMs are extremely difficult to stop.  The warhead comes in at nearly orbital velocity, Mach 20 or 18,000 mph.  The warhead has a tough heat shield to prevent it melting from atmospheric friction. To shoot one down probably needs nuclear warheads on the anti missile.  

  At Raytheon many years ago I worked on the anti ballistic missile system radar.  It was a massive radar, definitely a fixed installation, no way it was ever going to be mobile.  It  was a phased array radar so it could generate multiple beams to track multiple targets.  The anti missiles had to accelerate at 100 gravities to get high enough to prevent their nuclear warheads from blowing the city they were defending away. 

In short, the new Chinese missile is impressive, but I don't see it as being all that more dangerous than standard ICBMs, of which we have a lot.  

Boeing is hurting.

 So said the Wall St Journal yesterday.  They cited a truckload of lawsuits resulting from the two crashes of brand new 737 MAX's.   They didn't talk about how the 737 MAX is selling now after the treacherous MCAS autopilot has been fixed.  How much revenue is Boeing bringing in from sales?  If it is enough to pay off the lawsuits, Boeing will survive.  If it isn't, bad things will happen.  

   They did mention that ONE Boeing employee, the senior test pilot, is in trouble with the law.  This guy convinced federal regulators that the very existence of the MCAS system did not need to be documented in any of the 737 manuals.   This seems like picking on a fairly low level employee who surely was just following direction from higher ups.  No mention of who the higher ups were. 

   The treacherous MCAS system was a band aid to make the 737 MAX fly just like the plain old 737 to avoid the cost of pilot training to fly the 737 MAX.  The 737 MAX was a plain 737 after an engine swap.  The new engines gave better fuel consumption, maybe 5% better.  With jet fuel going for $3 a gallon, and a full fuel load being a couple of 18 wheeler tank trucks, say 20,000 gallons, 5% fuel savings might be 1000 gallons, or $3000.  Nice chunk of change.  The new engines are bigger in diameter than the old ones, which meant they had to be slung somewhat lower under the wing.  Which meant that increasing the engine thrust, say for takeoff, had an increased tendency to push the aircraft's nose up.  Too much of this and the aircraft will stall, and fall like a stone.  So MCAS was supposed to give a bit of down horizontal stabilizer to counter the nose up tendency.  The two crashes of brand new 737 MAXs were blamed on the MCAS system going crazy and diving the plane into the ground.  

  The Journal piece did not mention who at Boeing, engineers or suits, OKed the MCAS design and what testing was supposed to be performed on each aircraft. 

Exit Strategy from a War??

 Only one exit strategy is acceptable, victory.  Destroy the enemy armed forces, occupy the enemy lands and capital, kill or capture enemy leaders.   Captured enemy leaders to be tried for war crimes.  If we are not prepared to pay the price to bring victory, stay out of the war. 

Down with voting machines. Up with paper ballots

 Voting machines are just desktop computers running an "I-am-a-ballot" program.  They can be hacked over the internet, while stored at city hall, while being set up for election day, and probably twenty other times and places as well.  Paper ballots, marked by the voter get checked by the voter and counted and saved in case of a recount.  Attached is a long screed against voting machines.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2020/11/02/computer-experts-sound-warnings-safety-americas-voting-machines/6087174002/

Colin Powell dead at 84.

 We have lost a great American.  He served his country for many many years, as a soldier, and later as advisor to presidents and secretary of state.  If he had run for president I would have voted for him. We all miss him.