Strange Headlines from US News & World Report.

    The Russians have just admitted to suffering 1600 deaths of troops in combat in Ukraine.  US News calls this “staggering losses”.  For 30 days of fighting that’s only 53 deaths per day.  US civil war battles could run up 10,000 casualties in a day or two of fighting.  So 1600 deaths for a month of fighting is light deaths in my book, not “staggering” like US News and World Report calls it. 

   The Russians only listed deaths.  Losses in combat are deaths, wounded (usually several times the number of deaths), prisoners of war, and “missing in action”.  Missing in action means we don’t know what happened, the troop just wasn’t there are the battle.  The Russian announcement only mentioned deaths, where as losses are usually 2 or 3 times the number of deaths. 

   NATO and the Ukrainians think Russian deaths are much higher than the Russians are admitting to.  They call Russian deaths 7000 to 15000.  As far as NATO and the Ukrainians go, the Russians are lowballing their combat deaths.  The total Russian force employed is something like 250,000. So the Russians admitting to a death rate of 0.64%.  The NATO and Ukrainian estimates yield a death rate of 2.8% to 6.8%. 

   I am still surprised at US News and World Report calling the Russian deaths “staggering”.   I think the admitted Russian deaths are getting off lightly.

  

Congressional Hearings on Ketanji Brown Jackson’s nomination.

 Hmm.  She doesn’t believe that child pornography should be a crime, or at least not a crime with such heavy jail terms, even though the congressionally passed law is pretty clear on this subject.  She has been giving very mild sentences in child pornography cases, which looks like “living constitution” thinking and legislating from the bench rather than enforcing existing law.  That’s a down check in my book.

   That bit where she was asked to define “woman” and replied that she was not a biologist and did not know the definition did not sit well.  That sounds like pure quibbling, lawyer style, to me.  Every English speaker knows “women” (and “men” for that matter). 

   She was on the board of a tony DC private school that is teaching Critical Race Theory to the students. She claimed not to know what Critical Race Theory is. 

   I am not sure we need someone of Judge Jackson’s thinking on the Supreme Court. 

Don’t make threats you will not or cannot carry out

Putin has been threatening to use nuclear weapons or poison gas or germs in the Ukraine War.  Sean Hannity was saying last night that we ought to threaten Putin right back, as in “If you nuke us we will nuke you, harder.”  Good idea, but should Biden utter such a threat nobody, not Putin, not I, not any of the newsies, would believe that Biden has the courage to carry out such a threat.  Everyone expects that Biden would chicken out at the last minute.

   Basic principle of negotiations.  If you make a threat you have to be ready to carry it out.  If you threaten but don’t carry thru people won’t believe anything else you say.  In this case, the Biden case, it is best not to make threats at all. 

Stare Decisis “Let it be, let it stand”

Stare Decisis is lawyer speak (Latin) for a common, well used, and old legal doctrine.  Courts should rule that same way on the same issue.  If the courts make a new and different ruling, a new and different principle, each time a case comes before them.  The result is nobody knows what the law is, because the courts rule differently each time.  Stare Decisis, accepted by all US courts, stabilizes that law.  The principle says to rule the same way as you ruled last time.  This requires a bit of research (quite a bit actually) to find out how all of our various courts ruled on an issue, any time in the past.  But it allows citizens and their lawyers to know what to expect when (or if) they go to court. 

  US courts mostly stick with Stare Decisis.  The few important exceptions make the history books, Marberry vs Madison, Dred Scott, Plessy vs Furguson, Row vs Wade.   It is probably a good idea that we have so few “turn existing law upside down” cases.  As a matter of process, to my mind, changes in policy should be made by the elected legislatures, not a handful (often only one) unelected judge[s]. 

   Congress is holding hearings on Judge Jackson to become a supreme court judge.  A lot of questions are about where she stands on Stare Decisis.  Her answers don’t really tell me where she is coming from. 

Best Book in the last 125 years.

 This was a NYTimes thingy.  They polled their readers and the readers voted for “To Catch a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee.  A worthy book I suppose, I have read it, and watched the movie, but it is far from being my favorite book.  Too preachy and too much misery.  Runner up was much more reasonable, Tolkien’s “Fellowship of the Ring”.  The NYTimes revealed their ignorance of Tolkien in this listing.  Anyone who read and liked the Fellowship has read and liked the other two books of Middlearth.  In short real Tolkien readers would have listed “The Lord of the Rings” the name of Tolkien’s complete trilogy. 

   Tolkien would be my choice too.  I first read it in grade school, on my own time and loved it.  I read it aloud to my children, twice and they loved it both times.  I still find it a good read and I have been out of grade school a very long time.  It has everything, Middle Earth, a pleasant place that many of us would move to if we could.  Sword swinging heroes, really evil villains, action, treachery, magic, elves and dwarves, a heaven reachable by sailing ship, dangers but the dangers can be overcome by stout hearts and cold steel, and a cozy inn, the Prancing Pony.  Lots of interesting characters. 

  Are readers of the NYTimes so into social justice that they picked “To kill a Mockingbird” over Tolkien?  Did the NYTimes fudge the votes some how?

Victory at Sea 1952

Victory at Sea is the definitive sea going version of World War II.  Sometime after the war some one at NBC was looking at the news reel film shot during the war and was so impressed that he said “We ought to show this to the public.  And so they did.  It started coming out on NBC in 1952.  The movie film of warships in action, troops in combat, the US industrial plant turning out war material, the aircraft in combat was compelling.  I was very young when it was broadcast on NBC, but I watched each episode to the end.  They got Richard Rogers of Broadway fame to compose the score, and it was very very good.  Every bit as good at the score John Williams would do for Star Wars 25 years later.  They sold 33 rpm vinyl records of the score. 

    The movie film is dramatic.  The show a battleship, taking a hit, rolling over on its side and then sinking.  They show German U-boats torpedoing merchant vessels.  They show British troops, flat tin helmets, Bermuda shorts, bayoneted Enfield rifles marching across desert sand to encounter Rommel’s Germans in the Western Desert.  Good shots of Mussolini and Hitler.  A lot of really old fashioned tanks and motor vehicles. Some shots of European navy sailors wearing T shirts with big black and white stripes that no American would be caught dead wearing.

   I got my three disk set in a plastic box at the cheapy DVD bin at Walmarts some years ago.  You ought to be able to find them somewhere.  If you have children, showing Victory at Sea to them will give them a fine clear idea of what went on in World War II.

All in all, Good Flick.

The midterm elections are coming.

 You all ought to make plans to vote in November, and vote for Republicans.  We have all seen this last year how bad a democrat government can be.  We need Republican majorities in both houses of the US Congress to keep the democrats from ruining America.