So What is a "Registered Provisional Immigrant"?

I first saw this phrase in an Email from my US Senator supporting the 1200 page Corker-What's-his-face amendment.
    Sounds like all those 11 million or so illegals currently in the country become "registered provisional immigrants" (RPI for short) as soon as the bill is passed.  Or as soon as they file a form down at the Post Office.  Wanna bet all those instant RPI's gain the right to stay in the US and the right to work in the US?  Once they have that, who needs a green card?   I mean a lot of perfectly decent folk just want to hold a job, raise their families, and pursue a little happiness.  Gaining US citizenship is of less importance to them, just as long as they can stay in the country and maintain a low profile.
    So, after declaring everyone an RPI, why do we need E-verify or employer sanctions?  I mean now that everybody is legal, sort of, why do we need by bang on employers about who they hire?  Especially since we are still in the grip of Great Depression 2.0 and want to get unemployment down?

He must be guilty of something

Snowdon was indicted on NPR this morning for swiping government property and espionage.  Well they gotta charge him with something in order to ask the Chinese to extradite him.  Surely revealing top secret stuff to the newspapers is against the law.  At least back when I had a top secret clearance we all believed that  revealing classified stuff was illegal. I don't know what lawyers would call such a crime, but there ought to be a name for it.
   I don't quite go along with Dick Cheney and calling Snowdon a traitor.  "Treason against the United States shall consist only of levying War against them or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them aid and comfort."  Article III, section 3.  The founders put this in the Constitution to forbid the British crown's practice of declaring anything that angered the King to be treason.
   Snowdon's actions so far, although disloyal, don't quite rise to levying war, and the Chinese aren't exactly enemies of the United States.  Competitors, critics, pains in the tail, no good nicks, but not enemies. 
  The radio went on to describe the Snowdon situation as "a beginning epic legal battle".  Well, before that matters much, we have to  get Snowdon into US custody.  Somehow I don't think the Chinese are going to cooperate in that.  And there isn't all that much we can do to pressure them. 

Farm Bill killed in House

The House voted down the 2013 US Farm bill by 234 to 195.  Hurrah.  The Farm Bill is the purest kind of pork.  It takes my tax money and hands it out to farmers, most of whom are big corporations.  The suits bought out the family farmers long ago.  What money doesn't go to corporations goes to funding Food Stamps.  Preliminary news reports are sketchy, but it sounds like this was a $ 1 trillion dollars over ten years bill. 
   Don't celebrate just yet.  There is a good chance the combination of farm state votes and urban food stamps votes will pass a continuing resolution to keep the current farm program spending alive. 

The Guns at Last Light

Rick Atkinson.  This third history book carries the story from D-Day to defeat of Germany.  It's thick, it's well written and reads nicely.  It is the story of the US Army in WWII.  Allies, air forces, navies, Soviets, war production, Ultra, etc you have to go somewhere else.  It covers all the side shows in the European theater that most histories ignore.  Here is the story of the second landing in France, the Colmar pocket, Market Garden, and the Huertzgen Forest.  Now that all the participants are safely dead, it is possible to explore the political wrangling that was kept quiet for so long.  As Atkinson tells it, Montgomery spent the war being insufferable, and Eisenhower spent the war suffering him in the interests of keeping the Allies allied.  Also impressive is the sheer size of the war effort.  The number of men sent into combat and the mountains of materiel (stuff) produced and shipped overseas to sustain the massive forces in the field is incredible even by the standards of 70 years later.   It's a good read, right up there with Samuel Elliot Morison. 
   An Army and Dawn and Day of Battle, Atkinson's  first two books are also good. 

Suits never learn

Aviation Week interviewed Boeing CEO Jim McNerney. 

Aviation Week:  "In retrospect, was the amount of weight you saved with Lithium Ion batteries a case of too much risk for too little reward?"

McNerney:  "It's not as simple as a weight-reduction-gone-awry conclusion because we get added capability from this battery, such as its capacity to quickly charge. In an all electric airplane, its a more capable battery. 

Yeah right.  Added capability is bafflegab.  All a battery can do is supply electricity.  As far "quick charging"  and "all electric airplane", all the battery has to do is get the engines started.  Then the aircraft runs off generator power.  As long as the battery recharges before the engines shut down at the end of the flight, all is well.

   In actual fact, some one at Boeing got carried away with the coolness of lithium batteries and did not bother to consider the fire hazard, which might not have been clear when the 787 was first conceived back in the late 1990's, but was pretty obvious by 2003 or 4.   Everyone else in the industry dropped lithium battery plans after they started catching fire in the 787.

Back to the Future, Obama style

NPR the morning announced that Obama wanted to negotiate a nuclear weapons reduction treaty with the Russians.  Cool, but so 1970's.  I mean nuclear deals with the Soviets were all the rage back in the 60's and 70's.  But the Cold War is over,  neither we nor the Russians have made an Dr. Strangelove noises for 20 years or more.
   Did Obama decide to resurrect this bit of Cold War nostalgia 'cause he cannot think of anything better to do, what with scandals nipping at his heels?

Congressional Testimony on NSA snooping

They had the head of NSA and his top assistants up in front of a Congressional investigating committee today.  The NSA guys looked and sounded professional and honest, unlike some the the witnesses in recent days.  They pretty much confirmed that NSA gathers all the telephone billing information in the entire world and keeps it plenty long enough.  The NSA guys explained that they just gather the info up and store it on their computers and don't actually look at it except after jumping thru a lot of administrative hoops, largely NSA hoops, no FISA court.  They went on to explain that they only keep overseas calls, not inside the US calls.
   It all sounds good, and these individuals looked trustworthy.  I wonder if they will look so trustworthy after some Obama appointments. Once the data is in NSA computers, they will look at it if they care enough.
  And this is legal.  The Supremes held some years ago that looking at telephone company business records is not a search or a seizure.   Fourth Amendment does not apply, thus saith the Supremes.

   Bottom line, if you make a phone call, NSA knows about it.  They claimed they don't tap the calls, they just record the fact that the call was made.  That's probably true, for now.
   This effort costs plenty.  I wonder if we wouldn't score more good intel by taking terrorists alive and grilling them, rather than killing them to avoid putting more terrorists into Guantanamo?  And not shooting people dead after the phone number monitoring.  fingers them.