How come we need bathroom laws now?

We have had men's rooms and women's rooms since the invention of indoor plumbing.  (sometime after the civil war).  How come just this year we suddenly need new laws about them?  How did we survive 150 years or so with out laws about bathrooms? 
   Could it be that the foerever-looking-for-a-cause crowd has just discovered a new cause, a wedge issue no less, that they hope to stir up more social unrest?
    I saw an internet ad showing a school shower room with the caption "How would you feel about a boy joining your 12 year old daughter in the shower?"  I thought about that for a minute.  I used to have a 12 year old daughter (she is much older now).  I know my daughter was tough enough to handle such a situation, had it arisen.  She would have hauled off and slugged the boy.  I watched her do something like that back when she was only six. 
   So I think the republic will survive without passing bathroom laws. 

Trusty Desktop is getting old

He is at least ten years old, still running strong, still running XP.  I gave him a new power supply maybe five years ago.  Lately, the DVD drive stopped working, jammed solid, won't open.  I pulled the drive out and got the covers off, but couldn't get it to open.
   So I googled for a new one.   They are really cheap, $35.  There was a time you had to pay more than that for a 5 inch floppy drive.  I was about to click it into my cart and go thru the checkout business, when I noticed an acronym, SATA.   A vague memory of SATA as a high speed serial interface surfaced from all the sludge sloshing around in my memory. Trusty Desktop used the old flat cable IDE interface.
 Ayup.  Times have changed, all the new optical drives are SATA, nobody makes the old IDE drives anymore.  Maybe E-bay?   I'd hate to junk trusty desktop and suffer thru Windows 10 on a new one. 

Puerto Rico is broke, but cannot declare bankruptcy

Puerto Rico is a US territory, acquired from the Spanish American War of 1898.  It's still a territory because several referendums on state hood were voted down over the years.  As a territory, Puerto Ricans are US citizens and can leave the island and settle on the mainland anytime and anywhere they wish.  Puerto Rico doesn't have to pay federal income tax, but they don't get representation in Congress. 
   Over the years, the government of Puerto Rico has be spending more than they take in from taxes.  They have been covering the shortfall by borrowing, largely from New York banks.  The money has run out, and Puerto Rico can't make payments due this year.  There just isn't any money in the treasury. 
   And, thru some lawyer's technicality Puerto Rico cannot declare bankruptcy.  Apparently when they wrote the US bankruptcy code they forgot to make any provisions for territories, as opposed to states, cities, corporations and individuals.  Puerto Rico has been agitating to get that fixed.
   I'm not so sure.  Let things work themselves out.  The foolish lenders who offered loans to cover operating expenses to a  government that would never be able to repay, ought to loose their money.  Maybe a good stiff loss will teach bonehead banks a lesson. 
   And then Puerto Rico will have to figure out how to live within their means.  They won't be able to borrow, so they will have to cut spending and hike taxes and collect the taxes on the books.  All of these are good things.  I hear that half the population of Puerto Rico is drawing some kind of salary from the government.  Which is ridiculous. 
  And I sure don't want to spend my tax money bailing them out. 

Windows Washing Time

Youngest son was up for the weekend.  Good time.  Anyhow he used my trusty desktop to do some email, and then he said "Dad, your computer is REALLY slow."  Well, yeah it had been slowing down bit by bit over time.  Youngest son suggested  blowing Firefox away and then re installing clean.  
So last night I started in on it. 
Ran Spybot Search&Destroy.  It found and zapped a buncha cookies, and some registry keys, none of which sounded particularly dangerous, but you never know.  Zapped them all. 
Then go for a clean install of Firefox.  Fire up Internet Exploder, Bing for firefox, click on the first reply, and then leave.  Click on Start->Settings->AddRemoveProgram.  Hit remove on Mozilla Firefox.  That goes OK.  Double check.  Fire up regedit and search the registry for keys containing Firefox.  Zap most of 'em, skip keys that look like pointers to Firefox for other programs to use. 
Go back to Internet Exploder  and click on Download.  This is not so good.  It tries to get me to download a couple of suspicious programs, a driver updater and a speed-me-up program.  Won't take no for an answer, both Yes and NO buttons get you to the download page.  Finally get to the Firefox download.  That trundles along for minutes, and then croaks.
  So, restart Internet Exploder, Bing for Firefox again.  Read the dozens of hits.  Second hit down is the official Mozilla website.  Click on that, and Firefox downloads and installs smoothly.  No suspicious extra programs.  Click on Help and then About, and Firefox updates it self to version 45.  And my bookmarks still work.   Moral of the story, If you Google for a something and get a bunch of hits, read each hit, try for the hit that looks like it's the maker's website.  By this time Trusty Desktop is running faster.  More like his old self.
  Download MalwareBytes, and run it.  It gets 11 hits, all on something names PUP.whatever.  Zap those. 
  Start up Microsoft's Malicious Software Removal Tool.  Select "all files".  It's been running for 20 minutes now and has four hits. It's still running.  I'll zap all hits when it finishes. 
  So, Spring Cleaning for Windows.
1.  Empty the recycle bin and delete any files you don't need/want
2. Run every antivirus you have, and you trust. 

What does NASA do that is worthwhile?

Worthwhile like Apollo say.  Apollo worked, and put America into the history books for ever.  What is NASA doing today?  Paying $30 million a seat to the Russians for a ride to the ISS?  Buying Russian made rocket engines for the ULA Atlas booster?  Launching a few robot probes? 
  Are we getting our money's worth?
  The only real history making mission left is a manned Mars mission.  This is within today's technology.  I've seen plans to send the assent stage to Mars, making a soft landing under remote control. Then sending a second one just in case something breaks.  Then setting up a nuclear powered chemical plant to synthesize fuel for the return trip from Martian air, soil, and perhaps water. Then using five Space-X Falcon 9's to boost a Mars mission, crew capsule, and lander into orbit. Four man crew.  Doable out of the current NASA budget.  Within a few years.
   This would be a history book mission.  Why don't we do it?
  

Google Maps, print one, waste one

The Google software weenies keep breaking things.  This time they "fixed" the Google maps print feature so as to print a one page map, it first prints a sheet of pure worthlessness, and then prints your map on a second sheet.  PITA.
   Good work Google.  Keep this sort of thing up and you will conquer the world.

Russians buzzing US destroyer

Back in the cold war, it was hairier.  There was the Russian sub that collided with a US destroyer.  Damage was limited, the destroyer made it back to base under its own power, but it surely must have scared the bejabbers out of the US captain and crew. 
   Then there was that Chinese fighter that collided with a US recon aircraft back in the early uh-ohs.  The Chinese pilot was buzzing the much slower recon plane, only he wasn't as hot a pilot as he thought he was.  He was killed, and the US recon plane had to make an emergency landing in Chinese territory.