Magical thinking at the Wall St Journal

Granted, it was a letter the the editor,  not an editorial or op-ed piece, but they published it, which means they think it has value.  The subject was bank reserves, a traditional sticking point between regulators and bankers.  Reserves are cash, or  liquid assets owned by the bank, which they can use to keep going when their loans default. Regulators always want the bank to have more reserves, bankers always want less.  If a bank cannot pay out cash to depositors making a withdrawal, the bank is in serious trouble.  Word gets around, at the speed of light, and all the depositors hot foot it down to the bank to withdraw their funds while they still can.  This is a run on the bank, every one wants all their money, right now, and no bank can do that, they don't have reserves that big, and all the money the depositors entrusted to the bank have been loaned out.  Poof,  one vaporized bank, FDIC has to pay off the depositors. 
    The WSJ letter write proposed that banks  purchase "put options" on their own stock.  A put option is short selling, a bet that the stock price will fall before the short seller has to deliver the stock.  Anyhow, the writer feels that this dodge would create "regulatory capital" ( what ever that might be).  This is pur magical thinking.  When loans go bad, a bank needs cash, or really liquid investments, like US T-bills which can be turned into cash on short notice, to pay off depositors.  Banks cannot give "regulatory capital" to a depositor at the teller's window, they need cash. 

Baton Rouge is horrible, just like Dallas

My sincerest sympathies to the slain officers, to their families, and to the entire city.  Their loss is too great to describe in words. 
    This is the third attack on police officers within a year.  It's frightening.  It shows a breakdown in the social order in the country.  Laws are obeyed in America because the majority of the people think they ought to be obeyed.   If opposing (shooting) the police becomes the dominant thinking, we are in deep trouble.  It will get to the point that people are afraid to go to the store, for fear they will be robbed or killed, or both.   
   And I don't know how to fix it, other than getting rid of Obama who is egging it on.  And getting our schools to pull up their socks, and teach the need for civic participation in government, and less glorification of  violent troublemakers in history.  Like Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, Allende,  and others. 

Season Five, Game of Thrones

I'm a year behind.  I don't have HBO, and Netflix doesn't let the show out until a year has gone by.   So I watched the first two discs of season five this week.
  Metza Metza.   They suffered badly from the curse of the cameraman.  The cameraman is on a "turn the lights out" kick and the scenes are so dark you cannot even see the actors faces.  It's really dark.  I guess the cameraman thinks it's "arty" or something.  I think it sucks.  I think that turkey cannot read a light meter, and doesn't know how to set up the lights, you know a key light, a fill light, and avoid throwing double shadows.
   I am loosing track of the plot.  Arya is getting mixed up with a sorta religious group that lives in massive masonry buildings.  Arya wants them to train her to fight.  She certainly doesn't want to become a nun, that's not Arya.  Why she thinks she needs more combat training is beyond me.
   Anyhow, season five is not as good as previous seasons.  

PBVRC Spagetti Dinner

That's Pemi Baker Valley Republican Committee.  PBVRC throws these dinners once a month.  All you can eat.  And they have speakers.  Last night they had Kelly Ayotte, (Candidate for US Senate), and Chris Sununu, (Candidate for NH governor).  Word had been circulated, and everyone came.  The place, the Ashland VFW hall,  was packed.  Fortunately the air conditioning was working.  Both candidates spoke well, with conviction, and to the approval of the audience.  Audience was typical north country, I know many of them.  The older set, lotta gray hair, a few canes.  The few young folk were mostly campaign aides to the candidates.  All in all, a good evening for the candidates, they pretty much picked up every vote in the place.  And for us voters, the spaghetti was up to the usual standards, everyone had plenty to eat. 

How to get rid of ISIS/IS/ISIL, Al Quada, and the rest of 'em.

Might be a little costly.  No pol or presidential candidate is talking about it, but it is doable if we want to.
First, we invade the ISIS lands, occupy them. Set up a government of our liking.  Do land reform.  Hunt down and prosecute Islamic terrorists.  Put 'em on trial rather than just shooting 'em down.  Reform the education system.  Make sure they are teaching the three R's (reading, riting, rithmetic) and some useful arts, and not preaching hatred and jihad.  This whole program might take five years or more.
   Pass some laws over here making membership in ISIS and the like a crime, also criminalize travel to ISIS lands and service in their military, and giving them money.  Get US prosecutors out looking for examples and prosecuting them. 
   Keep on fracking.  It blunts the "oil weapon".  Keep the pressure on banks to deny them accounts, wire transfer services, money laundering, and anything else. 
   Make sure US TV coverage, especially news, in Arabic, gets into all ISIS lands.  We have internet and satellites to broadcast from.  Make some movies and TV shows that depict Islamic crazies as crazy and evil, and the true faith as virtuous.  We defeated communism with blue jeans, rock and roll,  and "1984", let's do the same to Islamic crazies.
   Blow the Islamic crazies off the internet.  Make their websites disappear, tap their email.  Cancel their Facebook pages and memberships.  Take down their snuff videos.  Put software to work looking for Islamic propaganda.  
    Find some reasonable Imams and give them some support, TV contracts, book deals, air time.  Use drones to take out the really crazy Imams. 

Google Maps, software is too daring, you gotta watch it

Used to be, when you asked Google maps for directions from here to there, the program was pretty conservative, it would route you over Interstates only, even if it took you a long way out of your way.  Well the software weenies got more daring, and they let the program route you down secondary and tertiary roads, looking for the shortest route.  In a way this was good, but the program would route you down impassible or non existent roads.  Last year it tried to run me over NH route 116 in mud season.  The program didn't know, or didn't care, that 116 has bottomless potholes from side to side in mud season.  I used my superior local knowledge to drive on US 302, which is an all weather road,  unlike 116. 
   Then yesterday it generated a routing thru Maine for me.  The Maine road the software picked, was just plain non existent.  Just plain no such road, nowhere, no how.  I did make it, but it took a lotta backtracking.
  My advice, look at the Google proposed route.  If the roads lack even a state route number, or the little towns along the route lack names, beware. 
   My other suggestion for the Google software weenies.  Fix up your map coloring.  Leave the background white, that saves me ink cartridges ($52 each) and improves the contrast with the roads.  Then paint the roads with a solid stripe of a single color.  Drop the white road with faint gray sidewalks look.  Use a consistent color code to distinguish between interstates, primary roads, secondary roads, tertiary roads, and dirt roads.  Your current color scheme is close to unreadable.  You ought fire what ever weenie thought it up.

The Nostalgia is Overwhelming.

Way back when, back when I was 11 years old, I got to go to summer camp.  It was a wonderful experience, so cool that I went back for two more summers.  There was tripping, the strange cult of King Kababa, riflery, woodshop, sailboats, rowboats, and canoes, campfire, general swim, the war game, good friends,  living in a tent, no electricity in the entire camp, really great counselors and trip leaders.  Absolutely awesome. 
   So yesterday, I fired up the Buick and drove over to the old camp, just to see if it was still there.  Well, Pine Island Camp is still there.  It's still way out in the Maine countryside, it hasn't been swallowed up by urban sprawl the way my old prep school was.  It's near Belgrade Maine, on an island (Pine Island) out in Great Pond.  And it still looks pretty much the same, even after a serious fire in the 1990's burned down the messhall and Honk Hall.  They rebuilt, and took some pains to keep it looking the same.  The camp director was Ben Swan, son of Eugene Swan who was director way back when.   It being mid week, half the kids were out of camp, tripping.  So I had lunch in the dining hall, swapped some war stories from the old days, didn't take many pictures, looked around, and wallowed in nostalgia.  If by some magic I could be 11 years old again, I'd go right back for the summer.