I don’t see much about Ukraine lately

 I, like many, expected the Russians to roll right over Ukraine.  I am all kinds of impressed that they have not.  I think it is great that the Ukrainians got it together and stopped the Russian army.  At least that is what my internet and my TV are telling me.  All I know comes from my internet or my TV or the Wall St Journal.  I have been out of town for a while and have not seen the Journal.  I am at my daughter’s house where the TV only plays kiddy cartoons, so I am down to just the internet. 

   Could it be that Putin is happy to let the Ukraine fighting die down or die off and drop out of the news?  He will have to do some more expensive fighting to get anything out of the Ukrainians now. And maybe he doesn’t want to do any more expensive fighting and see more Western press coverage about how wimpy the Russian army really is?

Fair Elections

I have a few suggestions for fair elections.

 

1. Voters must present a good picture ID at the polls.  All Americans have driver’s licenses.  If they don’t, how do the get to work, or to the grocery store?  Plus states ought to issue picture ID free to citizens that lack them.  After they make sure the citizens are really citizens.
2. Voters must register BEFORE Election Day.  No same day registration. Voters who cannot get down to town hall a week before the election to register are unmotivated.  Do we need unmotivated voters? Same day registration makes it easier for busloads of out of state voters to get to vote after only one trip to the victim state.  Voters must show an in-state driver’s license, in-state plates on the car, and an in-state residency.  College dorms are not in-state residencies.  College students must register and vote in their home town.  
3. Votes are counted on election day, not earlier, not later
4. We do absentee ballots for voters who cannot make it to the polls on Election Day such as members of the armed forces stationed overseas.  We will allow hospital patients and the ill and infirm also.  We do not allow absentee ballots to voters who fear that will catch Covid or something else at the polls. 
5. Absentee ballots must arrive by US mail, with a postmark with a date, before the polls close on Election Day. Undated postmarks and late absentee ballots will be discarded. Drop boxes are not permitted.
6. Use paper ballots, not voting machines.  They cannot hack paper ballots over the internet.
7. 
   

60th High School Reunion

 

 Or about.  Actually the 60^th reunion for the class of 1960 should have been 2020.  But the Covid panicked the school and so we only get to do the 60^th this year.  The school is Westtown Friends School in West Chester PA.  I took two days to drive down.  Leaving Franconia Notch on Thursday morning, not a green leaf to be seen on any trees.  Wasn’t til I got over into the Connecticut River valley that I saw any green.  By Massachusetts all the trees were in full leaf, looking very lush. 

   The old school was started way out in PA farm country back in 1799 to preserve Quaker teenagers from the fleshpots of Philadelphia.  Back in 1960 it was sill pretty rural.  Not any more.  The road into West Chester that used to run thru apple orchards, corn fields, and some dairy cows, is now spiffy new single family houses all the way.  Suburbia has engulfed Westtown.

    Turnout for this first alumni day since Covid started was thin compared to the good old days.  Only about a third of my class made it.  Friday night was a cookout on the old first association soccer field, renamed Raiford Field to confuse us alumni.  Saturday was a lot of standing around and talking.  Bertie Bonner from our class threw a fantastic dinner for the class at her place Saturday night.  Sunday we did meeting.

   Westtown has gone on a door locking frenzy.  Every door on the big old main building now has a fancy power lock.  If you are out doors when the rain starts you will get pretty wet before you get inside.   

   And Westtown is going anti-sexist.  The signage now reads "East End" and "West End" rather than "Boys End" and "Girls End"  I heard a student say Westtown was considering co-ed dorms.  Too bad I am too old to enjoy that.

Admiral Jackie Fisher and the battle cruisers.

Jackie Fisher was appointed commander in chief of the British Royal Navy in the years before WWI.  Aircraft had not been invented yet.   Fisher saw his problem as finding the German Navy at sea and engaging it with the larger Royal Navy.   The Germans (and everybody else) would have a screen of cruisers around the battle fleet.  Cruisers could easily sink contemporary destroyers so having destroyers search for the enemy would just get a lot of destroyers sunk.  Fisher demanded a special purpose vessel, the battle cruiser, to go looking for the enemy.  The battle cruiser had to be fast, which called for a big ship, and heavily armed so it could blow enemy cruisers out of its way.  The result was a fine looking vessel, as big and handsome as a battle ship, but lacking a battleship’s armor.   The officers appointed to command the battle cruisers though they had command of a battleship and acted accordingly. 

   At the climatic WWI battle of Jutland, the British battle cruisers were commanded by flamboyant Admiral Beatty.  Beatty took his fleet of four battle cruisers out into the North Sea and located the German battle fleet.  At this time, Beatty should have broken off the action, radioed German position course and speed to British Grand Fleet and then run for it.

   Instead, Beatty engaged the German battle ship fleet and had three of his four battle cruisers were sunk by German fire.  “There seems to be something wrong with our ships today” said Beatty at the time. Beatty didn’t even bother to radio the German’s position, course and speed back to Grand Fleet.

    Fortunately for the British, Grand Fleet was commanded by canny old Admiral Jellico.  Jellico looked at the weather, the tides, and what Intel he had, and figured out just where the German fleet was going.  He got it right, and Grand Fleet was able to find the Germans, and cross the German’s Tee, the decisive maneuver in battle ship actions. 

    HMS Hood was laid down as a battle cruiser during WWI but was not finished and launched until the war was over.  After the destruction of three battle cruisers at Jutland, the British beefed up the armor on Hood.   But they treated her as a battle ship even though her armor was only 6 inches instead of the 12 inches considered proper for real battleships.  Twenty years later Hood was send out to stop Bismarck.  Bismarck scored a single hit on Hood’s deck, the shell went right thru and exploded and Hood sank in minutes.  The last of the battle cruisers.

Just in case, New Hampshire abortion law needed.

 From the looks of things on the TV news (highly reliable source that) there is a good chance that the Supremes will repeal Roe vs Wade, their abortion ruling.   Roe vs Wade requires abortion to be legal and available to every woman, over ruling laws in every state that criminalized abortion back then.  I think it would be a good thing for New Hampshire to pass a state law on abortion with some fancy language in the bill's header saying this only takes effect after Roe vs Wade is repealed.  

For me, I think such a law should declare abortion to be legal and available to all women, especially young women who  become pregnant in high school or college and giving birth would prevent them from graduating.  I think it should forbid late term abortions, which more and more seem like infanticide.  Pregnancy lasts nine months.  I would forbid abortion after 6 months (call it 24 weeks).  I don't believe that tax payers money should be used to fund abortion.  I think the woman, or her family, or a private charity should pick up the bill. 

Home solar energy.

You want your house to face south.  With big picture windows, facing south, to pick up sunlight.  You might need to buy a new house, or do some very heavy duty remodeling if your house faces the wrong way or lacks the necessary picture windows.  This works for me, on a sunny winter day my windows pickup enough warmth from sun that my furnace doesn’t run until the sun goes down.  While the sun is up it pours enough warmth into my house to keep it pleasantly warm all day.  No moving parts, no huge and leaky silicon solar cells, no DC to AC inverters, no battery banks, no deals with the electric company to keep my lights on after sundown. 

 You also want some big eaves to keep the summer sun out while letting the lower winter sun in.  You want your roof in a light color, not black, to ease the load on the air conditioner in the summer.  Here in North America the prevailing winds come out of the west, so you want some windows on the west side to open to let in some breeze.  And about the same amount of window on the east side that opens, so the breeze can blow right thru the house.  Some shade trees to shade the house in the summer are good too.

 Builders might keep these ideas in mind.  They don’t add much, if anything, to the cost of the house at the time it gets built.  They do yield a more comfortable and more energy efficient house.

You nuke Ukraine and we will nuke you back, harder

 That's what the United States ought to say to Putin next time he threatens to use his nukes.  For that matter, make it "nuke Ukraine or anywhere else".   Trouble is, if Biden said this, nobody would believe he meant it.  Everybody would expect him to chicken out in the clutch.  So we need a better president to make this work.