Picking College Courses

Well, first you want to steer clear of courses in underwater basket weaving and the like, courses that don't teach anything useful or even interesting.  Figure each semester course soaks up $1250 of your college tuition.  You want to spend that kind of money on stuff you can use or stuff of general utility.  You can learn a lot about the course by checking the course textbook.  College bookstores have all the textbooks for all the courses in stock.  You can flip thru them and get a fair idea of what the course is about.
   No textbook?  That's a down check on that course.  A number of know it all professors don't assign a text book, they expect students to sort of inhale the course contents out of the air.  Which is hard.  In two college educations, I never learned to take useful notes.  With a textbook to study, and review before the test, I did all right.  Without a textbook, forget it, instant flunk out. 

Active Duty.

The Army is denying burial at Arlington to a soldier killed in a helicopter crash.  Army claims the soldier "was not on active duty"  at the time.  Which is shameful.  A man dies in an Army aircraft crash, that's active duty as far as I am concerned.
  We ought to find the Army bureaucrat who issued this disgusting ruling, and get him fired (if snivel service) or dishonorably discharged, if military. 

Navigable Waters of the United States

The original Clean Water Act gave jurisdiction to the EPA over all the navigable waters. This was intended to limit EPA enforcement to sizable bodies of water, not every puddle in the land.  Water is very common, and you can find small amounts of water, puddles and such pretty much everywhere.  If we allow the EPA jurisdiction over every puddle in the US, we have given them control of most of the land across the country.  Maybe Death Valley is dry enough to avoid EPA control, but few other places are.
  The EPA just issued 100 or more pages of new regulation which claims jurisdiction over pretty much everywhere.
  Congress ought stop this land grab.  A simple law, which declares that EPA jurisdiction is limited to waters deep enough to float a boat, all year round.  Such a law could be written on one side of an ordinary 8.5 * 10 inch sheet of typing paper. 

So what did Hastart do? Really?

The public accusations are of withdrawing his money from his bank account in cash.  And lying to the FBI.  That's pretty thin stuff.  Sounds like the prosecution is out to get him.  Like any person with two brain cells firing, he made his withdrawals for less than $10,000 to avoid getting hassled for money laundering.  They claim this is illegal.  Yeah, right.
   And "lying to the FBI" means the FBI disagrees with something he said, and so they call him a liar, and some freedom loving Congresscritters way back when managed to slip thru a statute making that a felony.  Land of the free this is.

We Republicans have an embarrasment of riches.

We have presidential candidates that will not quit.  Just finished listening to George Pataki, former New York governor announce he is running on Fox News.  Live no less. 
Question:  Of the dozen of more Republicans out there, which one can win the general election?  Polls still show Hillary is strong, stronger than any Republican, although only by a few points.  With the exception of the isolationist Rand Paul, and Pennsylvania oddball Rick Santorum, I could vote for any of the others.  This morning's TV poll has five of 'em polling 10%, and the rest of them trailing off from there. 
   I think the winner might be the one who sets out a platform with some substance in it.  So far all I see is smiling faces saying "elect me".   The "Contract with America" worked for Newt Gingrich 20 years ago, it's a good schtick, someone ought to try it again. 

Morphine from Sugar?

The Economist reports that a University of California team has come up with a yeast that can do just that.  No more importing of exotic flowers from the other side of the world.  Now you can brew up morphine, and other opiates in your basement, just like brewing beer.  Like making meth.  Could make heroin much cheaper and more plentiful, just what we need. 

Summer is here, at last

It's warm enough for gin and tonic.  Tall glass, fill with ice, good slug of gin, fill glass with tonic water. Slice a lime, squeeze one slice into the glass.  My father once told me he planned to come down with malaria, because quinine, the key ingredient in tonic, was a specific against malaria.  He figured to recover quietly drinking gin and tonic to keep the malaria at bay.  Now that it is up into the 80's round here, I can relate.
   Anyhow gin and tonic makes a fine warm weather drink, at least as good as my favorite whiskey and soda.