Facebook Breakup.

Fox news was talking about some judge will now allow the suit to break up Facebook to go forward. Fine by me. Then Fox had a bunch of talking heads talk about the possible Facebook breakup. None of the talking heads understood what a breakup is about. You take a monopoly, Facebook is surely that, and break it up into two or more pieces that are supposed to compete with each other.

In that way one piece of Facebook, lets call it Goodbook, does things that attract users and advertisers. The other piece, call it Badbook, does things that repel users and advertisers. Pretty soon the suits at Badbook notice that they are losing ground to the competition, and order changes to make Badbook more competitive.

The talking heads were talking about regulation. In this case, all the important decisions of Facebook are done by a small cadre of programmers, writing in C or C++ or some networking computer language are the only documentation that means anything.

Regulators cannot read computer code (most of 'em cannot read comic books) and so, not knowing what is really going on, cannot effect it. In short, a regulator of Facebook can draw his pay but cannot change the way Facebook does things.

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Chilly!

 It was 12 F below zero this morning, as late as 9 AM.  It has warmed up by 1PM to 2F above zero.

Shopping is better in the North Country than on TV

 

I made a liquor store run.  The liquor store is out of Wild Turkey bourbon, at least the 80 proof version.  They had the 100 proof Wild Turkey but some how it is not as tasty as the 80 proof.  I have found that Evan Williams bourbon is quite tasty.

I made a store run to Shaws in Littleton.  The shelves were mostly stocked, none of the empty shelves going down a full aisle like they are showing on TV.  They even had scrapple. I was able to find everything on my shopping list except frozen breaded fish fillets.  With those, and some frozen French fires I can make a fairly decent fish & chips dinner.  I got the french fries, and I can get the fish fillets down at Presby's in Franconia. At least they had them last week.   

Anyhow,  if the rest of the country is in as good shape as upstate NH, it is in pretty decent shape.  If it is like the TV, things are gonna be tough. 

Vaccine mandates struck down

   The Supremes just released their ruling on vaccine mandates.  I think (the story on Fox TV was garbled) that they struck down the Biden administration requirement for employers of more than 100 workers to fire all the employees who refused to get themselves vaccinated.  And they upheld to requirement that health care workers must get vaccinated.  The justices said the reason to uphold the health care workers was because of federal funding that seeps thru out the medical business, starting with Medicaid and working down.  That may be a legal argument.  Personally I believe health care workers ought to be vaccinated because in the ordinary course of their work they come in contact with patients who have Corona virus and they catch it from them.  Then they spread it to other patients in the facility they work in.

   As far as vaccine mandates for ordinary (non health care) businesses, I don’t care if they are vaccinated or not.  I am vaccinated and from what I hear, the vaccines work and I won’t catch it even working hand in glove with someone who is not vaccinated.  It’s a free country; let the citizens do what they want to do.  If you personally fear being infected with Corona virus, go get yourself vaccinated.   

 

Horror Movie, “Becky” rated R.

 I don’t remember ordering this one from Netflics.  But it came in the mail.  So I watched it.  Plot is simple; four ugly cons escape from prison and descend upon the pleasant rural home of the various protagonists.  Daughter Becky hangs in there and kills all four of the convicts, one by one, using ordinary stuff, no weapons.  One bad guy she stabs to death using a school ruler in place of a proper knife.  She gets them all, hand to hand, except the last one who she shoots dead using a hand gun that one of the other bad guys dropped on the ground. 

   Becky is maybe 15.  Not quite old enough for a driver’s license.  Becky is cute, blonde, and deadly. She makes the movie.  I watched it to the end just to see how Becky would kill each bad guy. They open the movie with a shot of Becky with blood on her face, ready to kill the next bad guy who shows up.

   I cannot recommend this movie for all the blood and guts.  But I did want to mention it since I had watched it.

US senate candidate from NH.

 

We have a good Republican candidate for US Senate from New Hampshire.  Chuck Morse, currently NH Senate president.  I served one term in the NH senate with Chuck.  He is a good guy.  He remembers his friends and does what he can for them.  He is a solid Republican.  He has good name recognition across New Hampshire.  He ought to be able to beat Maggie Hassan who has done nothing good for us up here in New Hampshire, and in fact Maggie has done us a lot of bad, starting with the Keystone XL pipeline.  She has also put the kibosh on a good natural gas pipeline out to the Bakken.  Out there they have more natural gas than they know what to do with.  Like they are paying contractors to make the stuff go away.  With a good pipeline to New England we could enjoy plentiful natural gas all year round, rather than the deal we have now, outrageous price spikes in heating season, which cause outrageous electric rates in heating season. 

Can I make a yes or no answer?

 I got one of those “surveys” that end up by asking you for a donation to their cause.  I got one from “Patriotic Voters” (new name to me) with former US senator Rick Santorum on the letterhead.  The survey had some questions that could be answered with “yes” or “no”, like “Should important medicines come from Communist China”.  Then there were others that I could not answer yes or no. 

   For example, “Do you agree with granting citizenship to 11 million illegal aliens?”   For me, that depends.  An illegal alien who has a job, pays taxes, is married, is raising children, speaks reasonable English (at least  I can understand most of what he says), has stayed out of serious trouble with the law, sounds like a good sound citizen to me.  We need more citizens like that.  Or he has served a hitch in the US armed forces that makes him a good citizen in my old veteran eyes. 

    On the other hand, an MS -13 gang member, someone with a serious criminal record that sounds like a prime prospect to kick out of the country. 

   For another example “Should abortion on demand be legal in New Hampshire?”  Good question.  I thought abortion was legal in New Hampshire.  I am of mixed minds on this one.  In general I am against abortion, seeing it as very close to infanticide.  Not good.  On the other hand, I have a daughter, a good girl of whom I am extremely fond.  Had she needed an abortion in high school or college, I would have been right out there finding her a place to get an abortion.  This did not become a problem; daughter was an intelligent girl who managed to avoid pregnancy until after marriage.  So down deep, my attitude about abortion boils down to it should be forbidden to every girl except my daughters.  Even I can understand that this is a morally bankrupt point of view.   Some day I need to straighten myself out on this issue.