1500 hours = $150,000

FAA is going to demand pilots have 1500 flying hours in order to fly airliners, even as a co pilot.  That's a lot of time.  That's 38 weeks of flying 40 hours every week.  Operating or renting a light plane costs better than $100 an hour.   So 1500 hours will cost $150,000.  Few people have that kind of money.
   Used to be, guys would get a job flying co pilot and build up their hours without having to pay for the plane and fuel.  FAA is shutting that off.
   The airlines are wondering where pilots are gonna come from.

Email is a public record, open to anyone

If the CIA director cannot keep his email secure from FBI snoopers, no one else can either.   Your life will have fewer nasty surprises if you never ever write anything in emails or online that you wouldn't post on the bulletin board down at the supermarket. Because the world is full of snoops who will post anything juicy they find on line.  And if it's online, they can find it.
   I would have thought an old hand like Petraeus would have known this.  And if he didn't know, CIA should have told him. 

The War for Women, Part 2

In theWall St Journal Op  page, we have Andy Kohut, old liner pollster, commenting upon the Republican loss last week.  He gives some figures, 59% of voters believe abortion ought to be legal.    So, on the wedgiest of wedge issues, it's now 59% pro abortion (pro choice) , 41%  anti abortion (pro life).  That's a big change.  Not so long ago the numbers were 50-50. 
   Right now, the Republican party is pro-life.  And, each time the issue comes up,  it costs the party two votes for every vote it gains.  This is a surefire path to defeat. 
   And there isn't all that much the party can do about it.  The 41% anti abortion are probably 100% Republicans.  That makes the Republican party vastly inhabited by anti abortion voters, and to win a Republican primary, and become a Republican candidate,  you have to be anti abortion.  And, it's a democracy, those 41% are free to vote the way they please in primary elections.  So there ain't much a Republican candidate can do, if he wants to be a Republican candidate. 
   So either the Democrats win next time, and the next, and the next.  Or candidates who care about jobs and the economy will run as third party or independents.  Or some miraculous change of heart sweeps over the 41% and they decide abortion is a private matter, and not a matter for government interference.
   Things don't look good for the future.  The Democrats will take us down the drain with Greece.

Tax and Spend, or Spend and Tax

Fiscal Cliff.  Let's cut spending first.  Go for a big cut, a real cut, not fake cuts like last time.  After getting some spending cuts on the books, then, maybe, we could think about a tax hike.  But unless the cuts are nailed down first, the tax hike will just be spent, and the deficit will be just as bad.  There is a farm bill, a highway bill, an energy bill, the entire Dept of Education, the TSA, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, SEC and the federal flood insurance program, all of which could be zeroed out and the budget would be balanced.  And nobody except bureaucrats would miss any of them.
Hint.  Every time Obama says "balanced" he really means "Tax Hike".

What goes around, comes around

In 1937  German Field Marshall von Blomberg, Chief of Staff of the Wehrmacht, entered into a second marriage with his secretary, Erna Gruhn.  Shortly afterward a police report surfaced that showed Frau Gruhn was an ex prostitute.  Hitler fired him.
   Colonel General Freiherr Werner von Fritsch was second in command and the logical officer to succeed him.  Himmler's SS furnished paperwork showing that General Fritsch had entered a homosexual relationship with a man named Schmidt.  A subsequent German Army courtmartial ruled that the SS paperwork was a pure frameup.  Never the less, von Fritsch, and 16 other senior generals were retired.  Forty five other German generals were transferred to less important posts.
   This all comes from The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, William Shirer.
In 2012 two top American generals were re leaved of duty following mysterious and suspicious charges. 

Stone Age Genesis

Both the Economist and the Wall St Journal carried the story of really old stone tools.  Archaeologists excavating at Pinnacle Point in South Africa found "microlith"  (we used to call them "flake") tools.  Flake tools are harder to make than the older "core" tools.  The oldest stone tools found are merely pebbles that have been bashed hard enough to fracture them, yielding a sharp cutting edge.  They are so crude that some argue that they are merely random stones.  Next step in stone tools was the "core".  Start with a fist sized chunk of flint.  Whack at it to form two sharp edges, and you have the "hand axe".  It was probably used to butcher killed game, to slice off roasts and chops for grilling over the fire. 
  Next step was to work with "flakes"(now called "microliths").  Start with a chunk of flint,  Strike it just so and a "blade" a thin piece of flint with two razor sharp edges flakes off.  Just as is, a flake is as useful as a modern straight razor blade.  And it's a great starting place to make arrow heads, or the famous folsom points that tipped throwing spears. 
   The South African site that is getting all the press coverage yielded flakes about 1 and a quarter inches long.  A little big for arrow heads, and no where as neatly chipped as American Indian arrow heads.  They lack any sign of a retaining groove to lash them to a shaft.  They look about right for points to a throwing spear. 
   So what makes this find so exciting?  The date.  The archaeologists are claiming they are 71,000 years old, making them the oldest flake tools ever discovered.   Too bad the archaeologists don't tell us how they dated their find.  Surely no one counted 71,000 layers in the dirt wall of the excavation.  Radio carbon dating only works back maybe 15,000 years.  So how did they estimate 71,000 years?  As the oldest flake tools ever discovered, they are interesting.  Other wise they are just crude chipped stone. 
   Then the "journalists" at both publications segued off to speculating upon the birth of modern minds, capable of art and music, poetry and the finer thoughts.  Sounds great.  Me, I think flake tools come from superior small motor skills.  I could make a "core" hand axe, no problem.  But to strike a chunk of flint and get a 4 inch long sliver with razor edges to pop off, in one piece,  I could never do that.  The flint would shatter, fail to flake, and after days of flint knapping, I'd wind up with nothing useful.  But there are guys who can do it, and do it well.  

War for Women

There are a lot of reasons for last week's Republican defeat.  A big one, not the only one, but a big one, is loss of the women's vote.  Exit polling shows  women voted Obama by 55% to 45%.  That's a 10% hit.  And half the voters are women.  If the Republican party ever wants to thrive again, it's gotta  make itself acceptable to women.
   Far be it from me to claim to understand women.  The nature of the fair sex has been a matter of debate going back to Genesis, and I certainly ain't smart enough to improve upon four of five thousand years of learned writing.  But I do know this, women are against getting raped. 
   But this election saw two, not one but two, Republican senate candidates make totally repugnant public statements about rape.  Their remarks indicated a light hearted attitude toward this crime.  "Boys will be boys" and " They were just fooling around" and "It isn't all that serious, you won't get pregnant".  And somehow Republicans nominated these two chuckleheads for high office. 
   Republicans need to agree that rape is a horrible crime.  Perpetrators shall be prosecuted, convicted and punished.  Victims will receive all possible aid and succor, including abortion services, as some small mitigation of  their plight.
   If the party continues to harbor and nominate chuckleheads who think rape is sort of OK, and not too bad, it will disappear from the face of America.