Texas School Shooting is terrible.

 I an horrified by the Texas school shooting.  My sincerest sympathies to the bereaved. 

How useful is a hyprsonic missile?

 The Air Force announced a successful test flight of one just the other day.  Since the Chinese had announced they had a hypersonic missile a week or so ago, it sounds like the Air Force has had a hypersonic program going for quite some time.  It takes more time than a few weeks to get something like a hypersonic missile to fly.  Sounds groovy but... It takes a lot of fuel to get up to mach 5.  Wanna bet the range of this missile isn't so great?  Existing cruise missiles like Tomahawk fly somewhat below mach 1 and have transcontinental range.  You can launch from say England and hit most of Russia, all of the middle east, the northern half of Africa.  Tomahawk flies so low that ground radar cannot see it.  If the radar cannot see you the fighters cannot find you.  

   One fine day while I was in the Air Force Air Defense Command we were practicing.  We sent a target aircraft (a helpless T-33) up north and then turned him around to come south.  The radar guys got to practice tracking, the SAGE center got to practice vectoring fighters and the fighter crews got some flight time.  Only this day, the radar guys could not see the target.  "Can you come up another thousand feet?" the controller asked the target.  No joy, we still could not see it.  We had to get the target up to 10,000 feet before he showed up on radar.  I am sure that a Tomahawk cruise missile down at 1000 feet will never show on radar.   And Tomahawk has the range to go about anywhere. 

   So, groovy as hypersonic sounds, I am betting on conventional cruise missiles to do the work.

Lunch at Chik Fil A

 We don't have Chik Fil A up in New Hampshire, not yet at least.  They got a lot of press coverage a while back.  I cannot remember the issue now.  So when I saw one in the shopping center I just had to try it out. Anyhow had lunch, a Chik Wich, Fries, and coffee only $8.69.  That's cheaper than McD's.  Very good.  Most customers stayed in their cars and lined up for the takeout window.  I wanted to see a menu so I parked and ate inside.  

Note for Plumbers

Water faucets ought to have a marking on them that shows which handle is for hot water and which is for cold water.  It need not be much, a red dot for hot and a blue dot for cold works.  But new and shiny faucets with no marking it all are annoying.

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.