Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF)

Obama wants one to deal with ISIS/ISIL/IS what ever you want to call them.  It's the modern declaration of war, only it allows a lot of hedging, like no ground troops, quit fighting after 3 years.  The good old fashioned declaration of war, like we used on the Japanese in 1941, doesn't allow hedging.  Which was a good thing.  War is so terrible, so costly, that you want to get it over with quickly.  Which means hitting the enemy as hard as you can to knock him out as soon as possible.  Diddling around just gets more people killed.
  We ought to just declare war.  If we can't bring ourselves to do that, then the AUMF ought to say "all means, including ground troops and nuclear weapons may be employed at the commander in chief's discretion.  Military force will continue to be applied until victory is achieved."
  And we need language to define the enemy.  Otherwise ISIS/ISIL/IS just changes it's name again and the  AUMF is useless.  Something like "All armed groups in the Middle East and North Africa who are not part of a UN recognized government, and, any UN recognized governments that fails to comply with UN Security Council resolutions. "
  Frankly, I think Obama wants restrictions in the AUMF, so he can blame Congress when he fails to win to war.  Obama doesn't want to deal with Islamist extremists in the Middle East.  He knows he has to do something lest he get impeached or loose all credibility with the voters.  He hopes that having the Air Force put on a fire works display will satisfy his critics. 

NASA fudged global temperature records

Some time ago I down loaded the complete worldwide temperature files from the Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS).  The file format is ASCII, 80 characters per line, which means the file started out on IBM punch cards, which makes it OLD, and was later moved to a disc file.  The records go back to 1700.  In 1700 there are only 7 stations reporting.  The number of reporting stations grows over the years, reaching 100,000 by 1979. 
   In 1980 the great purge was started, and by 1983 the number of reporting stations was down to 30,000, two thirds of the reporting stations had been thrown away.  NASA has never offered an explanation for the great purge.
   Had a warmist (and NASA is full of warmists) done the purging, by dumping stations with colder than average readings he could easily create Mann's "hockey stick" warming trend. 
  For that matter, NASA never explained their "corrections".  The GISS site offered two files, one of raw temperature readings and one of "corrected" temperature readings.  The raw file plotted out in a convincing manner, a smooth curve, no spikes or jumps.  The "corrected" file would not plot properly.  Just looking at the plot you could see hops, jumps, skips, spikes, and stretches of pure random trash.  All the data before 1860 was total trash. Perhaps a bug in NASA's correction program?
   There can be tremendous various between stations just a few miles apart.  At my place in Mittersill, temperatures run 5 degrees F warmer in winter, and 5F cooler in summer than they do at Mac's Market, which is only 4 miles away. 

Remind me NOT to buy a new TV

Internet posting accuse the new voice controlled Samsung TV of listening in on everything said within its hearing and forwarding it all the "an undisclosed third party" for analysis and snooping. 
WOW. 
   When Uncle wants to snoop on you, all they have to do is force Samsung to disclose the undisclosed third party, and then force said third party to let them snoop everything the TV heard you say, going back to when that smart ass TV first darkened your door. 
ARRGH.
Lets hope my older, all solid state, Sony keeps on running. 

Phone Banking, Then and Now

Years ago we did phone banking up here.  We did cold calls on friendly voters to urge them to get out and vote.  Back in the good old days, say 5 years ago,  most voters were happy to receive such a call.  Many of them were slightly flattered that the party cared enough to call.  The would pick up the phone and  answer our questions and chat. 
Not any more.  Last time I phone banked, the voters were hostile to the entire idea of getting called.  Most of 'em just hung up.  All of 'em indicated displeasure with the call. 
  I would normally attribute this change of attitude to telemarketers  fouling the nest.  But over the same 5 years the telemarketers have disappeared.  The "Do Not Call" lists have been effective.  Five years ago,  I would get two or three telemarketer calls a day.  Today, I don't get any.  I get calls from politicians and political parties, but no telemarketers. 
   Why the change in voter response to phone bank calls?  Beats me, but it's for real. 

Fighting Islamic Extremism

It's not all military.  Propaganda is very effective.  We ought to create an Arabic language TV news channel.  Broadcast it from satellites and stream it on the Internet.  Feature stories of IS brutality, what it's like to be a Nigerian school girl carried off by Boko Haram.  Some nice gun camera shots of smart bombs hitting right on target.  Human interest stories of Muslim families doing well in the United States. Some interviews with Muslim soldiers fighting on our side.  Other stories that help our cause.
    Take a good look at the old WWII BBC broadcasts.  The wartime BBC managed to establish a solid reputation even among the enemy for honesty and truth telling.  While remaining an effective pro allied slant.  We ought to be able to do as well today. 
   Then we ought to get Hollywood to do some useful movies.  If they can make Kim Jung Un look like an idiot,  they ought to be able to do the same to the Ayatollahs.  
   The medium is the message. 

It's easier for the guys

To look sharp that is.  Poor Hillary, usually looks terrible on TV.  Her hairdo needs work, her complexion shows her age, her choice of color is questionable (did you see the radioactive green suit she wore?) and her figure is also showing her age. 
  It's easier for guys.  Shave and haircut (standard short guy's haircut) dark suit, white shirt, and red tie with regimental stripes.  Well shined shoes.  That is all it takes.  The suit looks good in spite of figure defects ( look at Chris Christie), the color choice is limited to dark wool, so the guys don't get a chance to display their poor color sense.  And, guys get pockets to carry their wallets, car keys, eyeglasses, and house keys. 

First Crusade

We had our peerless, and clueless, leader bad mouthing the Crusades the other day.  He left out a few things.  The Crusade was preached in response to a plea for help from the Emperor in Constantinople.  The Emperor inherited the prestige of the Roman Emperors, and was held in much reverence thruout Western Europe. Another reason for launching the Crusade was the Islamic conquest of Jerusalem, followed by harsh treatment of Christian pilgrims who merely wished to visit the holy places.  This was kinda dumb on the part of the Muslims,  pilgrims don't cause trouble, and they often spend money.  Beating up on pilgrims is like beating up on tourists today. 
   There were other reasons for Crusading, some of them religious, but then religion, the Church, was involved in everything in those days.  The Church anointed the European kings, provided clerks and teachers, in fact operated all the schools, did all the marriages, did all the funerals, baptized all infants.  The threat of Interdict, (shutting down all church operators) was enough to strike terror into the hearts of the Church's enemies. 
   Sure, the Crusades were religious wars, but so was everything else back then.  The Crusades were not that much more religious than other medieval wars.  Tough old William the Conqueror carried a Papal blessing, and a Papal banner across the channel on his invasion of Saxon England. 
   The First Crusade was a military success, due to incredible bravery of the Crusaders, combined with political disarray among the Muslim foe.  The Muslims still remember that, and don't like to be reminded of the shellacking they took.  Bad feelings have lasted for 900 years.   The Geneva convention hadn't been invented yet, and military practices were much harsher back then than we would allow today.  But even 900 years ago, Crusaders didn't burn captives alive.  And Western European society and culture has made tremendous progress since the Crusading time, 900 years ago. 
   We should be proud of the bravery our ancestors displayed upon Crusade.  We wouldn't do that sort of thing today, but back then it was pretty cool. 
  

Exit Strategies

There are only two exit strategies from war.  Victory or defeat.  Take your pick.  Last time, in Viet Nam, we chose defeat.  It still smarts, forty years later. 

Cutting a deal after calling him crazy.

Hard to do.  The Obama administration released/leaked an intel document where in a buncha shrinks diagnosed Putin with Asperger's Syndrome, a form of autism.  They based the diagnosis on looking at pictures of Putin, which sounds a little flaky to me.  But they did it and they released it to the public press.
   Good luck trying to negotiate with Putin after calling him crazy in public.  Either Obama is too stupid to understand the insult, or he doesn't care cause he doesn't plan on doing any more negotiations. 

Avoid getting Hacked

I'm talking about home machines or small office machines.  Big company setups, like Sony, are a whole different kettle of fish.  But for us home users, there are some simple things that will improve your odds.
1.  Turn the machine off when not in use.  It cannot catch a virus off the internet if it is powered down. 
2.  Never, ever, click on an email attachment.  No matter who the email is from.  Your best friend may have been infected by a virus, and virii, will use the address book in the infected machine to email themselves far and wide.  Attachments can contain malicious code that executes as soon as you click.  If you just have to see what is in the attachment, save it to disk, and inspect it with a low speed text editor, like notepad, or wordpad.  Word itself contains a powerful BASIC interpreter that can do all kinds of damage when presented with malicious code in an attachment.
3. Run a virus scanner now and then.  There are a lot of 'em.  Avast is good, and so is malwarebytes.
4. Run Windows Task Manager now and then.  Check the "process" window.  Processes are programs running on your machine.  There should not be more than 30 processes running.  Check out strange processes, or processes that seem to be taking up too much CPU time or ram.  Click on the CPU or Memory Usage columns and Task manager will rearrange the display with greatest CPU or Memory Usage at the top.  Google on the names of ramhogs or CPU hogs to find out what they are.  When you get a solid ID, such as "well known virus" go after  it.  Find it on disk and zap it.  Find any references in the registry with Regedit, and zap them. 
5.  Music download sites are virus infected. 
Good luck.

Funding Homeland Security Dept

Part of the recent budget deal, that funded the Federal government until September, was to stiff arm the Dept of Homeland Security, over Obama's legalizing 4 million illegal immigrants by executive order.  Homeland Security needs to get more funding authorized by the end of February (this month) or shut down.  The idea was to defund Obama's massive amnesty program.  Obama went along with this, and signed the budget deal, probably figuring that Homeland Security would eventually get it's funding, after some political posturing in Congress. 
  Some parts of Homeland Security, the Coast Guard being the shining example, deserve  funding 'cause they do a lot of good.  Other  parts like the Secret Service need heavy duty reform.   Yet other parts, like the Science and Technology Directorate, we could probably do without.  And the Transportation Security Agency ought to be disbanded.  We don't need federally funded goons groping women as they board airliners. 
   And, Homeland Security does the federal flood insurance program, a terrible money sink, that  pays off landowners who build on flood plains.  They get flooded on a regular basis, paid off, they rebuild on the same site, get flooded again, get paid off again.  No commercial insurance companies will touch flood insurance because of the massive and predictable losses.  The government picked it up because of the wailing and crying from the real estate community, realtors, builders, and banks.
  Hopefully, Congress will fund the needed parts of Homeland Security and give the unneeded parts a severe haircut. 

$250 million for Commuter Rail to Manchester

They are still talking about this down in Concord.  As late as the 1960's there was rail service to Manchester and Concord.  It was abandoned in the '60s 'cause nobody was riding the train.  Manchester is only about 25 miles from Nashua, so they are talking about $10 million a mile to fix up the abandoned right of ways.  That's pricey.  And that is just to get the track into useable shape.  Actually operating the trains is more money. 
The NHPR piece mentioned an estimate of 600,000 riders.  Which sounds like a lot, but one person riding the train to work daily for a week counts as 10 rides, five inbound in the morning, and five more outbound in the evening. There are about 200 working days in a year, so divide that 600,000 tickets sold by 400 and and you get about 1500 actual people who use the train every day.  That ain't many people to justify spending $250 million on trackwork. 
  No mention of schedules, how fast the train would go.  There is fairly decent bus service to Manchester and Concord right now.  No mention of  what the fares might be, or if the train trip would be faster than the bus.
  No mention of the fact that most of the commuters down I93 to MA are working out on 128, where the train doesn't go.  You need your car to get to the company parking lots off 128.  Not that many people have jobs in downtown Boston. 

All the news that fits, we print

Good old unbiased NHPR this morning.  Reporting on a strike by United Steel Workers against some Louisiana oil refineries.  They did give a union spokesman air time.  They did not give the issues of the strike, as in how big a raise is the union asking for and how much do its members make right now.  Probably they are making pretty good money now, and are asking for a lot more, but revealing that might weaken the union's position with the public.  There was a mention of safety issues, by which they might mean overtime, but again NHPR didn't give any numbers.  Probably because their staff can't count beyond ten with out taking off their shoes. 

How to stop a Blitzkrieg

That's a chapter title in Paul Kennedy's WWII book "Engineers of Victory".  The German Army was all conquering at the beginning of WWII.  They smashed the Poles, the Norwegians, the Belgians, the French, the British and the Russians, bang, bang, bang. The Germans were unstoppable, they beat all comers, hands down.
   Clearly, one of the things the Allied had to do to win WWII was beat the German Army.  Kennedy goes on to some not very satisfactory explanations as to how the Allies finally managed to pull off victories at Stalingrad and El Alamein. 
   Looking at the problem with modern eyes, we would say that the answer to beating the Germans was to use combined arms.  Infantry with tank support, and artillery support and air support.  Not pushing a lone infantry or lone tank unit into action unsupported. 
   Rick Atkinson in his "Army at Dawn" gives examples.  He is telling the story of the US Army in North Africa.  The Americans had recognized the effectiveness of the German Panzer divisions and had organized their own army into well balanced divisions combining infantry, armor, and artillery under a single commander. 
   But in the early days of operations in North Africa, Atkinson tells of repeated disasters after a higher command (corps command usually) would order lone infantry regiments or tank regiments into action, unsupported by division, bypassing the division commanders.  Only later, after about a year's bad experiences like Kasserine pass, would US divisions be ordered into action as intact formations.  And the combined arms divisional operations were much more effective, i.e. they pushed the Germans back, rather than just getting shot up. 

Measles, vaccination against

Lot of talk about a tiny measles epidemic starting at Disney land.  Lot of alarmist talk, including from Obama.  Lots of TV newsies talking about it.
  They didn't have those vaccines when I was a kid.  All kids had a case of measles about the time they started public school.  We all survived it, along with chickenpox, mumps and whooping cough.  Part of growing up. 
If the vaccine is as good as they say it is, then if your kid is vaccinated, he/she won't catch measles from the few kids who are not vaccinated. Does not increase the risk to anyone except those grownups, who aren't vaccinated and who didn't catch the disease as a child.  In an adult, those childhood diseases are a lot more serious, in some cases fatal. 
  Far as I can see, those parents who don't vaccinate their kids only put their kids at risk. And it ain't much of a risk.  Used to be, we all ran the same risk, and we all survived.   I don't see how it affects or harms the general population.  So if people want to do stupid things that don't harm others, let 'em.  That's what a free country is all about. 

Superbowl XLIX

I'm a marginal fan of professional sports, but when I have the Patriots playing in the Superbowl, I gotta watch, 'cause everyone else does.  This game has grown over the years into a national spectacle.  Someone sang "America the Beautiful" and someone else sang the "Star Spangled Banner".  The camera traced over the faces of the players, who all had suitably reverent expressions.  They did a flyover by the Thunderbirds.  The game got under way.  Tom Brady was amazing.  Pass after pass, completed.  They were mostly short, enough for a first down, but it seemed like he never missed.  Everytime the Pats got the ball, Brady would march them down the field, like clockwork, until they scored a touchdown.  He played the whole game, didn't get injured, although he looked a bit tired by the end.  There were some fantastic plays.  Some of the players sported weird hairdos, with shaggy hair sticking out a foot from under their helmets.  The defense on both sides was amazing.  Every pass receiver was covered, all the time.  If the receiver caught the ball, he was tackled immediately and smashed into the turf.  The game was in doubt right down to the last couple of minutes.  No memorable commercials this year.
  All in all, a good show. 

Grexit

Jargon for Greek Exit from the Euro.  The Economist is highly concerned.   The new left wing Syriza government of Greece is making silly noises.  Economist has a good cartoon, showing the new Greek government barreling along a one lane mountain road in a steamroller, bearing a sign reading "Irresistible Force".  Coming the other way is a big 18 wheeler, filling the road from side to side, with Angela Merkel at the wheel.  Bearing a sign reading "Immovable Object".
   What will happen?  No one knows. 
   What ought to happen, is the EU tells the Greeks to keep sucking it up, or do without.  There is a multi billion Euro chunk of bailout money still due the Greeks.  The EU could, if it has the stones, with hold it if they don't like what the Greeks are doing. 
   The EU may not have the stones.  There are plenty of lefties all over Europe who dislike "austerity" (a balanced national budget).  The think if the Greeks drop austerity, it will be a signal to their own governments to crank up the welfare spending. 
  The other issue for Greeks is leaving the Euro.  This would enable them to print all the drachmas they need to pay for all the welfare they want.  At the stroke of a keyboard, all the Euro deposits in Greek banks would become drachma deposits.  And everyone expects the newly declared drachma to drop 50% or more against the Euro.  So every Greek with money, in the bank (maybe half of them?) is against Grexit.  Will their interests be strong enough to overcome the desire of the welfare staters to print all the money they want?

Cannon Mountain Ski Weather

It's snowing right now.  We have maybe 2-3 inches down and it's still falling.  What with the 9 inches we got on Tuesday, the mountain will be in great shape. 

A Conservative Republican candidate?

The conservative Republicans claim that  the party needs a truly conservative candidate and the losses to Obama in 2008 and 2012 came about because we ran middle of the road candidates.  I don't believe that.
   We the voters want a decent, competent, and caring president.  We want a president who can make a decent public speech, and actually say something of substance, rather than declare his allegiance to motherhood and apple pie.  We want someone who understands who our overseas friends are, and who our enemies are.  We want someone who will support our friends and visit harm upon our enemies.  We want someone who understands business and labor well enough to get the economy growing again.  And make jobs plentiful again. 
   These are the things that really count.  Wedge issues, gay marriage, common core, creation science, gold standard, and anti vaccine policies don't really count. 
   I notice Mitt Romney is bailing out.  Not a bad idea.  Romney would make a fine president, trouble is, I don't think he could ever get elected against a Democrat.  He allowed Obama to beat him in 2012, which should never have happened.  When Obama smeared him as a heartless capitalist who threw people out of work and canceled their health insurance, Romney never replied.  Silence gives assent.  Coming from a state that does Willy Horton ads, Romney should have known that he had to deny Obama's smears.  He didn't, and  Obama gets another four years to flush the country down the drain. 

Avoiding "sexual assault"

Don't get drunk at parties.  You go to parties to meet guys, enjoy conversation, and show yourself off.  You can't do any of these when you are falling down drunk.  And, guys go to parties to pick up girls.  They know that falling down drunk girls will likely not object to getting laid. 
     And know your limits.  Tolerance for alcohol is a learned thing,  If you haven't done much drinking, a couple of drinks can get you into trouble.  Best plan is stick to beer, from a bottle.  You can drink enough to quench your thirst without getting smashed, unlike say martinis. 
   Same goes for weed.  Couple of tokes is probably OK, but a whole joint can put you on cloud 9 if you aren't experienced with the stuff.  
   Have a plan for getting home from the party.  Don't depend upon friends, they may hook up with a really cool guy and disappear.  Walking alone after dark is a bad idea.   If you get to your car and find you are too buzzed to drive safely, just take a nap in the car.  
If you really want to get pie eyed, do it on dorm, or at home, with some good same sex friends.

Will Airbus reengine the A380?

The A380 is the enormous double deck four engine super jumbo jet, biggest one in the air.  It's been on the market not very long, and sales have been mediocre at best, 318 delivered or on order since the rollout.  Now Airbus is talking about re engining it.  The newest engines can save 5 to 10 per cent on fuel consumption.  So far, only Emirates is pushing for this, they say they will take 70 more A380's if  Airbus reengines them. 
  Cost quoted for the engineering is staggering.  They are talking about $2.5 Billion just for the design, and presumably some flight testing.  Wow.  This is a airplane with the four engines in under wing pods.  Changes would be confined to the engine pods.  Design a new bracket to fit the new engine.  Make some changes in fuel piping, electrical harnesses, and the pod to accommodate the new engine.  You don't have to change anything in wings or fuselage or cockpit. You might have to replace the engine alternator control box, the one that keeps all four alternators in phase.   I figure 4- 5 engineers, with CAD/ CAM could do the drawings in a couple of months.  Then you have to test fly the aircraft to make sure everything works, and to make the regulatory agencies happy.  I'd budget $200,000 for engineers salaries, and let's say $1000 per flying hour for test flights.  Call it 500 hours of test flying (gross overkill)  The whole design and test effort is less than $1 million.  I may be a little low, but there is a helova long way between my back-of-the-envelope estimate and $2.5 Billion.  
   And, with the price of oil down by half since last summer, the urge to buy fuel efficient aircraft has presumably eased off a bit.

What's so bad about Common Core?

I actually took the time to download it and read a while ago.  It's not great.  It's written by Ed majors, using Ed major jargon, which makes it vague and hard to read.  Since it was too big to read altogether, I concentrated on the high school mathematics section.  It wasn't bad.  It wasn't as good as the high school math I had many years ago, but it wasn't all bad.  For instance, Common Core called for plane geometry up to the proving of some lesser theorem.  When I took plane geometry, we proved the Pythagoras theorem, which is harder, and basic. 
   Actually, as far as educating children goes, we would do better by simply requiring all high school students take chemistry, physics, and biology, as well as algebra, plane geometry, and trigonometry. 
   Anyhow, I am not going to take Common Core as a serious political issue.  It's a wedge issue, all emotion, no real substance.

Cannon Mt Ski weather

It snowed all day Tuesday, and we have 9 inches of fresh powder this morning.  No wind, so the snow is still on the trails rather than in the woods.  It's cold, 8 F, and overcast.  I'm all plowed out which means I93 and Cannon are ready to go.  Skiing ought to superb. 

Cannon Mountain Ski Weather

After a steady all day yesterday hype on TV, the snow did start to fall up here just about 7 AM this morning.  No snow fell overnight.  It's cold, 10 F. Little to no wind.  Nice dry powder snow is falling, but isn't accumulating much.  Hasn't built up an inch yet.  It is nice fine flakes which promises to keep on falling for a while. 

Watch Greece and the Euro

Anti austerity party Syrisa won the Greek election yesterday.  Greece has been running on bailouts from the EU, mostly Germany, and those bailouts required Greece to shape up it's financial scene.  Syrisa campaigned and won on a platform of dumping the shape up moves.  If they do that, the EU is likely to stop the bailout.  In that case, nobody else, not every brain dead sucker banks, will lend to Greece.  Which means the Greeks will be unable to keep paying on their massive debts, and will be unable to meet payroll at home.  This ought to insure a lively time in the old town tonight, or tomorrow night as well.  The Greeks may decide to drop out of the Euro, and print enough Drachmas to meet expenses.  They may not, because every Greek holding euro's will take a very close haircut if that happens.
  For extra fun, watch the EU get all twisted out of shape.  They shouldn't, Greece is petty cash compared to the EU GNP, but listening to Europeans talk, you would think that Grexit is the end of the euro itself. 

Computer running Slow?

Mine perked right up after I uninstalled (zapped) the Avast free anti virus.  I'm still running XP, and after blowing away Avast, it now runs faster than Win 8 on a much newer computer. 

Full Court Press

The White House Chief of Staff, Denis McDonough did all the Sunday pundits yesterday.  I saw him on Meet the Press, and on Face the Nation.  Instant replay showed him on Fox as well.  He didn't say anything that stuck in my mind, but sending him out to all the talk shows is usually a sign the White House has some message they want to spread.  Kinda like that State Dept lady who appeared on all the talk shows after Benghasi, pushing the line that all the fuss was caused by an obscure Internet video.  I missed what ever it was McDonough was pushing.

Verses from the Koran

There ought to be some that forbid murder, like the Charlie Hebdo massacre.  Only, I don't know the verses.  I haven't read the Koran.  I'm not planning to, either. 
  But there oughta be some Muslim scholars who do know the verses. (if they exist, if they don't, that tells you something).  Those scholars ought to be quoting the relevant verses, verses that might make us non-believers consider Islam to actually be a "religion of peace".  I am aware that Islam lacks an ecclesiastic structure like Catholicism.  But still, there ought to be some imams of decent standing whose words would carry weight. 

Cuba. Do they recognize an 800 lb Gorilla?

There the Cuban are, poor, unhappy, and only 90 sea miles from the United States.  For unknown reasons Obama decided to offer them US diplomatic recognition.  You'd think the Cubans would jump at the opportunity.  Being recognized gives them substantial protection again things like another Bay of Pigs, and offers an opportunity to plead for better economic treatment.  With an embassy in DC, the Cubans can send all sorts of diplomatic notes to the Americans, and get them published in friendly US newspapers like the NYT. 
   You would think that the Cubans would be willing to do just about anything to gain American recognition.  But, sounds like the mission to cut the deal, which traveled to Cuba, hasn't made any progress.  I assume the Cubans are being sticky about minor things.  Dunno why. 

Things I'd like to know about Yemen

And the newsies probably don't know.  Like where is the Yemeni Army?  Surely they have one.  How big is it?  What side is it on? 
  Who are the rebels?  Are they locals? Are they Iranians?  Are they foreign fighters from all over the place like the old Mujahedin in Afghanistan?  How long have they been in business?  How many of them are there?  Who is their leader?  What is their relationship with the Saudis?  How much turf do they control?  Where do they get their gasoline? 
   Who was the Yemeni government just decapitated?  A collection of tribal sheiks?  A democracy with elections?  A Saudi puppet?  A hereditary monarchy?
   What do the Saudi's think about the new government in Yemen?  Are they for it or against it? 
   Does Yemen have any oil to pay for things?  If not, what do they use for foreign exchange?

Air Time. 2 lb Air Pressure gets it all

We have Yemen falling to Iran, the Congress and Obama squaring off, the economy still in the tank, the Euro zone in a deep muddle, and what does the TV news cover?  Underinflated footballs.  A whole 2 psi low.  End of the world. 

EU softening toward GMOs

Genetically modified organisms that is.  The EU has forbidden growing, importing, selling, or eating of anything with "gene modifications".  At least modern gene modifications using laboratory methods.  Nobody talks about the extensive gene modifications made over the centuries by plain old selective breeding.  All crops grown today are way different from their wild ancestors. 
   Anyhow, the EU Parliament lifted the EU wide ban on GMO's last week.   Regulation of GMO's is now up to the national European governments.  Who are strongly anti GMO and are not expected to loosen rules anytime soon. 
   The Economist does admit that GMO's are widespread in American and Asia, bringing increased yields, better taste, and lower food prices. 
    It could be, that in turning GMO regulation over to the national governments, the EU Parliament hopes to dampen criticism of overweening EU bureaucracy.

Wild Winter Turkeys

We got 'em.  Last week I saw a wild and soggy turkey strutting  up the road in a rainstorm.  It was 40 that day, but very wet.  Then two days ago I saw a pair of 'em stumbling thru the woods behind the house with three inches of fresh snow on the ground.  I wonder where the turkeys spent the night, now that it is dropping down to 10 and 20 degrees below zero after dark.  You'd think temps like that would give you quick frozen turkey. 

Who has the patience to watch Obama tonight?

Not I.  I can get a quick recap a few minutes after he finishes.  Obama's speaking style, vague generalities with no substance, is just plain annoying. 

Greasing the skids

Greece, somehow has bamboozled the EU into giving them handouts.  After being allowed into the Euro back in  the 1990's, the Greeks managed to paper over their humungeous deficits by floating bonds.  Somehow, a bunch of sucker banks, mostly in Germany, was stupid enough to buy the bonds, thinking that they would get paid back on time.  The Greeks kept the illusion going by using the proceeds of the latest bond sales to the roll over old bonds. 
  This scam finally unraveled and every one, even the sucker banks, stopped buying Greek bonds, or making loans to Greece.  At this point, the Greeks owned so much money, that allowing them to default would cause intense pain thru out Europe.  The sucker banks cried that a Greek default would bankrupt them.  So, the EU decided to bail the Greeks out, a bit.  They demanded that the Greeks clean up their act, balance their budget, lay off the enormous number of Greeks on the Government payroll, and tighten up tax collection.  In return for promises to reform, the EU would give the Greeks enough money to pay the interest on their debts.  Which means that the sucker banks can carry their Greek loans as assets on their books.  If the Greeks stop paying, then sooner or later, the sucker banks would have to declare a whacking big loss.  A loss big enough to put a number of them out of business. 
   This stop gap situation may come unraveled this spring.  The Greeks have to hold national elections and the polls all show a new populist party Syrisa about to win outright.  Syrisa  is threatening to scrap all the promises of reform, and stop paying on Greece's foreign debt.  At which point the EU handouts will stop. 
   What happens to the EU and the Euro is unknown, but the Europeans are worried about it.  The Greeks will have to figure out how to live within their means.  They may decided to drop out of the Euro so they can print their own money, as much as they need, to meet payroll.  They may not, because all Greeks with any kind of money, in Euros, will be against the idea.  Dropping out of the Euro, would mean everyone's Euros would turn into Drachma, and then the Drachma would drop 50% or more against the Euro.  In effect, every Greek gets a real close haircut.  No one wants that. 

Woe to the Brits

Britain is heading for another election.  They have the Labour party, the Tories, and a new rising power the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP for short).  The way the polls have it, UKIP will have enough votes that they will have to be taken into a coalition government in order to get a majority in Parliment.
UKIP is anti immigrant and anti EU.  They want to pull Britain out of the EU.  Since Britain does about 60% of her export business with the EU that could really smart.  Right now as an EU member, British exports go into Europe duty free.  If Britain pulls out of the EU, that happy state of affairs is over, British goods will face full EU tariffs, and there are plenty of continental competitors eager to pick up that business. 
   The way things look now, Britain is sailing into a sea of troubles.

Who do you believe?

We got two polls out this morning.  Reuters, and Gallup.  Reuters scores Obama at 37%, where as Gallup has him much higher, at 46%. Both Reuters and Gallup have good reputations going back 80 years or more.  Both base their results on small samples of the population, 1000 to 1500.  It takes great care and skill to select a representative sample.  Select an unrepresentative sample, say at a Tea Party meeting or a ACLU gathering, and you can get just about any results imaginable. 
   I like the lower Reuters number myself, but perhaps it is too good to be true. 
   So what does one believe? 

Fox News Joins Nanny State

They are hard at it right now.  Cops are investigating a Silver Spring MD couple who allowed their grade school age children to walk home alone from a park, about one mile.  Fox has a couple of lady commentators raving about how terrible this was, it's cold, a mile is too far.  Yackety Yack.
    When I was in grade school we all walked home after school.  It was a mile. No school buses in that town. I walked that mile to school and back from school, every day, rain or shine.  That was in Saxonville, a medium tough working class town.  This was Silver Spring MD, a silver spoon bedroom community. 

Prisoners of War are not Criminal Defendants.

The prisoners at Gitmo are enemy soldiers.  They were captured on the battlefield bearing arms against US troops.  They are not criminals, they didn't commit robbery, murder, rape, arson, or other crimes.  They just fought against our soldiers.
   No American court, military or civilian is going to convict enemy soldiers just for being enemies.  The hundred or so prisoners left in Gitmo need to stay there, otherwise they will go back to fighting for Al Quada.  They haven't committed any recognized crimes, but you cannot turn them loose.
  US criminal law doesn't recognize prisoner of war.  In US jurisprudence,  only a court can convict a defendant to jail or worse.  Arrests cannot be made until the perp has committed a crime. The Gitmo prisoners haven't committed a crime, haven't been convicted by a court, but we are holding them in jail.  There is a good chance that if they were brought to the US, some bat brained judge (we got plenty of those) will order them turned loose.  That's why we parked them at Gitmo in the first place.
  Just to confuse the issue further, to be a prisoner of war, you have to be a soldier of a recognized nation-state.  Al Quada isn't a nation-state, it's a bunch of raghead terrorists.  We have international agreements about treatment of prisoners of war.  Things like "name, rank, and serial number" mean no interrogation of prisoners of war.  So we don't call them prisoners of war, we call them detainees.  And we used to interrogate them, harshly, but Obama lacks the stomach for this, so we don't anymore.  In fact, Obama has ordered the troops to take no prisoners, kill them all instead. 
  In short, the Gitmo prisoners need to stay in Gitmo.  Giving them trials won't solve anything, it will mostly turn them loose.  Bringing them to the US is quite dangerous, some judge may turn them loose. 

Cannon Mt Ski Weather

We got 3.5 inches of  fresh powder last night.  It's 2 below zero this morning, and colder is promised for tomorrow.

Don't get mad, Get Even.

Obama has spent his last 6 years trashing every one in Europe.  It started when he returned a bust of Winston Churchill, continued with tapping Angela Merkel's phone,  dropped plans for an American anti-missile system in Poland, sucked up to Vladimir Putin, and wimped out in Syria.  Nobody on europe owes him anything, and a lot of people in Europe would like to get even.
   So, when the Europeans set up a big solidarity parade in Paris, I'm thinking that nobody bothered to tell the Americans about it.  We have demos and parades all over the world, every day.  Somehow the news that the Paris one was bigger and more important than average, and that lack American representation would be noticed bigtime, never reached the White House, at least not in time.  That's what White House underlings are leaking to TV newsies today.
    Sounds plausible to me.  I didn't know the Paris demo was gonna be all that big until it was underway.  Unless someone told them, the White House wouldn't know much more than I did.  

Troops in the streets

Won't keep us safe against Islamic terrorists.  You need informants who will finger the terrorists before they open fire.  Terrorists have to live somewhere, they have to eat somewhere, they have to travel, they have to communicate.  Someone sees this.  The landlady at the apartment, the counter person at the greasy spoon, the car rental clerk, the cell phone salesman.  If you could talk to that someone, you could arrest the terrorist before he strikes.  We need undercover cops to develop contacts inside the terrorist neighbor hoods, inside the mosques, anywhere we think terrorists might be. 
   We also need laws that allow us to imprison terrorists BEFORE they have done anything bad.  Right now the criminal justice troops only work on crimes that have been committed.  No commission, no action.  Innocent until proven guilty. 

Saga of SS Contessa, from Rick Atkinson's "Army at Dawn"

Operation Torch in WWII was somewhat incredible.  An invasion army boarded ship in Norfolk Virginia, steamed across the submarine invested Atlantic, and landed in North Africa.  To provide air support after landing, an airfield was located, near the sea and on a river bank.  Shallow river.  The call went out for a freighter of less than 17 foot draft to get up the river.  The only ship meeting this requirement was a aging banana boat, SS Contessa.  She was duly ordered to Norfolk.  When the crew discovered that their new cargo was to be avgas and 1000 pound bombs, they all promptly jumped ship.  The skipper took some Navy guards with riot guns and paid a visit to the Norfolk city jail.  After some explanations to the warden, including the fact that anyone volunteering would not be back in Norfolk anytime soon, the skipper recruited 37 experienced seamen who decided that risking torpedoes was a better deal than an extended stay in the Norfolk jail. 
   Meanwhile the Navy drydocked Contessa, repaired the worst of her leaks, and slapped a fresh coat of paint on her bottom.  Then they started loading bombs and avgas.  This took longer than it should have, and Contessa sailed two days after the main Torch fleet sailed.  She managed to cross the Atlantic by her self, all in one piece,  without encountering an enemy sub.  She turned up in North Africa on time, and with a local pilot, made it up the river and was unloading at the airfield before any aircraft arrived. 
  Just one of the cool stories Rick Atkinson tells. 

Take 'em alive, don't waste 'em with missiles

Obama's plan for dealing with ISIS and company is drone strikes.  Send a Predator and pop the target with a Hellfire anti tank missile.
   If we have the intel to launch a drone strike, we have the intel to take 'em alive and grill 'em.  Load a company of infantry into choppers and fly out and grab 'em.  With a little interrogation we will know every thing that they know.  Things like where is their base, who are their members, where do they plan to strike next, where does their money come from, who is tipping them off.
   Obama doesn't do this, 'cause he wants to empty out Guantanamo so he can close it.  Newly captured prisoners would fill the place up, making it harder to close it.  Congress has forbidden transferring Guantanamo  prisoners to US soil, largely out of fear that bat brained US judges would turn them loose. 

Two below zero

That's what I had this morning.  Coldest it's been this winter.  But it's been a lot colder in past winters.

Keep a piece in your desk drawer

Yesterday's horrible attack on Charles Hobdo in Paris is scary.   They could do that anywhere.  Just two guys at the front door and 12 people die.  They could deliver two guys any where they like. 
    I'm thinking a large caliber handgun, close at hand, gives the best chance of surviving the event. 

Chuckie trashs Keystone XL

Senator from New York, Charles Schumer was on TV the other  day badmouthing the Keystone XL project.  He called the jobs the project would furnish "temporary" implying jobs on the McDonalds level.  Chuckie, you got it wrong.  Those will be construction jobs.  Good jobs, good pay, lotta overtime, outdoor work where you get to see the sun and breathe the fresh air.  Lotta guys like working construction.  And, everyone knows a construction project hires on and the beginning, and when the job is finished, the workers move on to something else. 
   Then Chuckie claimed after the pipeline was finished only 34 jobs would be left.  That's pure BS.  You need a helova lot more than 34 guys to keep a 2000 mile pipeline running.  More like 3000 guys I'd guess.  And all the workers at the Gulf refineries that Keystone will feed, would be out of work without the oil to feed the refineries.  Plus all the workers in other industries that will be powered by Keystone oil or use it as feedstock. 
   And Chuckie wants to require that all the pipe be American made.  A real free market man is our Chuckie.  I suppose we can accept that if it brings in some Democratic votes.  It would be fairer to say Canadian or American made.  But fairness isn't high on Chuckie's priority list. 
   And finally Chuckie wants to prohibit sale of Keystone oil overseas.  Another grand free market idea.  The reason the US dollar has always been strong, is the fact that the Americans will sell you anything you want.  The reason the Russian ruble is fairly worthless, is the fact that the Russians don't have anything to sell. If we start saying "Yes, your dollars are good for everything except oil, and a few other things." customers will go elsewhere, and dump the dollars they were going to spend.  Fortunately oil is just  liquid, no serial numbers, and pretty much untraceable, so I expect they oil companies will merely say that oil they sell abroad doesn't come from Keystone, and get away with it.

How soon we forget

From the Economist:  "Data General introduced the first minicomputers in the late 1960s"   Not true.  I was in the industry way back when, and everyone knew the first commercially successful minicomputer was the PDP-8 from Digital Equipment Corp (DEC everyone called them).  The PDP-8 wasn't much of a computer, it was only 12 bits and could only address 4 K of  "core" memory. (RAM had not been invented yet).  It sold for $10k, 1960 dollars no less.  But it was enough computer to automate a lot of test and assembly tasks, and $10K looked cheap when compared to a mainframe. 
   DEC and competitor Data General thrived on making minicomputers up thru the 1980s but neither of them were able to transition to the microprocessor age.  The remains of DEC were bought up be Compaq in the 90s and Data General faded away somewhere and nothing was heard from them. 

What the Republicans oughta do

We start the new year with Republican control of house (solid) and Senate (decent but not veto proof or even filibuster proof).  The voters are unhappy, they are still out of work, just scraping by.   They still have Obama who will veto anything they pass.
   Republicans need to show the voters they care, they keep the public debate both public and sensible. 
they need to propose laws that the voters approve of.   Laws that fail to attract a single Democratic vote lack broadbased support.  And to win political support, the laws have to be understandable.  Which means short.  Which means to the point.  A law doing something good packed with a trainload of unrelated pork is easy for the voters to classify as a swindle.  Obama is looking for opportunities to veto anything and everything.  Bills with wads of pork tucked into them will get vetoed and Obama will claim he is vetoing because of the pork.  So keep the bills clean and simple, so that everyone understands what it is about. 
   So much for generalities.  Mitch McConnell has already cued up the Keystone XL pipeline.  Good chose, it is simple, most voters like it, Obama might even sign it, and will face some heat if he doesn't.  Next start appropriation bills. one for each federal department thru the committee process.  Then we can cue up some tax reform, some immigration reform,  some patent and copyright reform, and some regulatory rollback.  For instant, an act of Congress declaring that CO2 is not a pollutant and cannot be regulated by the EPA under the clean air act.  An act of Congress declaring that "navigable waters" means waters deep enough to float a canoe in dry season.  Tighten up the endangered species act to forbid invention of new species, followed by declaring the new species endangered. 
   We voters want to see some democratic lawmaking done in a serious fashion by serious people.

The Railway Children Masterpiece Theater 2000

A charming and very British tale set at the turn of the century, 19th to 20th century that is.  A well to do British father is arrested and jailed for unspecified crimes.  His wife, in order to keep her children with her, decides to cut expenses to the bone.  She sells the nice London house, and its furnishings, and moves the family to a humble place out in the country. 
   Arriving after dark in a strange place, the locals lend a helping hand getting them from the railway station to country place.  As days go by the children strike up acquaintances with the railway workers and passengers.  One thing leads to another, and the children persuade an elder and wealthy gentleman (played wonderfully by Richard Attenborough) to take an interest in their father's case and get him sprung from jail.  Happy ending.  Good warm feeling kind of flick.  For rail fans like me, there are lots of good shots of British steam trains chugging thru the extra scenic British countryside.  
    The flick portrays an England of many social levels, and every one fits comfortably into his or her level and works to carry out his job to the best of his ability. There is a warm consensus about right and wrong, honor and duty.  You get a feeling for the social glue that held England together thru the two terrible world wars to come.  Nice feeling.
   The feeling was strong enough to upset the lefty Masterpiece Theatre commentators.  They tacked on a lecture at the end explaining that real railway directors were nasty people like Commodore Vanderbilt and Deacon Drew, the charming Richard Attenborough character never existed in real life.  Which is too bad.  I like the notion of benevolent men running the society.  The idea for the movie came from a book by E. Nesbit published in England.  Although I never read it, over here we had The Box Car Children, a different schtick, it was good enough to support seven different movies and TV shows since the early 1950's.  Clearly the author's idea was pretty strong, and possibly closer to real than a that of a lefty American commentator.