Kiss your Navy career good bye.

Skipper of USS Fitzgerald, which collided with a container ship off Japan.  How that happened is hard to understand.  A destroyer is far faster, and much more maneuverable than a big container ship.   Destroyers have all kinds of state of the art radar which should have no trouble detecting a big, clunky container ship from 50 miles away.  Plus he ignored Admiral Dan Gallery's advice concerning right of way at sea.  "Steer well clear of any merchie, lest he decide to liven up your day by ramming you."   Gallery is a WWII US Navy skipper, he is the guy that captured a German U-boat and towed it home as a prize. Which shows him as a man of imagination and superb seamanship.   U505 has been an exhibit at the Chicago science museum ever since the war. 

A few security measures Congress ought to take

They ought to arrange for Capitol Police security at any event with a number of Congressmen in attendance.  For that matter, Congressmen ought to ask local law enforcement to detail a couple of officers to any townhalls the Congressman might be giving.  It's routine for law enforcement to detail some officers to cover high school ball games, they ought to be able to handle an occasional town hall.
   Congress ought to straighten out the concealed carry situation in DC.  They have jurisdiction.  They should require DC authorities to issue a conceal carry permit to anyone over 18 who is not a convicted felon or a committed nut case.  And require DC to honor conceal carry permits from any state.  And provide jail sentences for any official who fails to issue the permit within two weeks of the applicant submitting his paperwork. 
   We ought to discourage politicians and newsies from calling opponents names, such as racist, feminazi, and the like.  The name calling contributes nothing to the political debate and just inflames feelings.  Publish objections to the opponents policies, not their persons.  We cannot forbid name calling by law, but we could do a lot to mobilize public opinion against it. 
   And strengthen our mental health system.  Nut cases ought to be detected early and committed to mental hospitals, not allowed to run around loose.  There are no free beds in the mental hospitals.  Cases where the individual volunteers to enter treatment have failed because there are no empty beds to put them in. 

7.62 = 30 caliber

A Fox newsie was talking about the rifle used in the Congressional shooting.  He described it as "7.62 big enough to kill an elephant."  Let me enlighten a clueless newsie.  7.62 mm is the same as .30 caliber, the standard caliber for rifles since 1898.  The US  adopted the 30-06 rifle round back in 1906.  It remained standard issue to US soldiers for WWI, WWII, and Korea. It is still in production.  It was replaced by the 7.62 NATO round  (otherwise known as 308 Winchester) in the 1950's.  It's not an unusual round for rifles.  Serious hunters carry 30-06 rifles today.  Not so serious hunters carry the older and less powerful 30-30 rifle or the newer and less powerful 223 rifle.
   The newsie was attempting to convince his audience that the Congressional shooter was carrying an unusually powerful rifle.  Not true.  The Congressional shooter was using an ordinary hunting rifle, chambered for ordinary .30 caliber ammunition. 

5000 Fools (tourists) visit North Korea every year.

Who wants to visit a communist dictatorship where they can arrest you, jail you, and even execute you  just because they can?  You would think Otto Warmbier's story, which has been in the news for better than a year, would discourage all but the most foolish tourist.  They released Warmbier the other day, but he is in bad shape now.  The medics didn't seem to know just what happened to him or how to treat him.  They talked about loss of brain tissue, which doesn't sound good. 
   The Journal says that about 5000 fools from the West visit North Korea as tourists every year.  Of which 1000 are Americans.  And what is there to see in North Korea, other than a population being abused and starved?  Creepy, I would pay money to avoid seeing that.  I suppose some of the American tourists are of Korean decent, who might be visiting family members stuck in the communist hellhole.  That's understandable.  Other than that, it's hard to understand visiting North Korea.  Especially as you can visit South Korea, a free, modern, decent, and successful country without risking your life. 

What is the worst thing about the Congressman Shooting?

It only kept the newsies off the Comey-Sessions-Mueller-Russians story for a day.  Yesterday was 100% coverage of the shooting.  Today they are back on the old groove, covering unsubstantiated innuendo and anonymous sources. 

Schools Rethink Recess

Dawn over Marblehead.  Anyone who can remember grade school can remember how hard it was to sit still and no talking.  Recess gave relief, you could run around, talk, shout, play ball games.  All practicing parents know how hard it is to get young children to sit still.  Young children are bubbling over with energy and they have to work it off by running around and shouting.
  To  run an effective grade school, you have to let the kids outdoors for recess to let off steam.  Otherwise the kids are just too bouncy to absorb any kind of learning.   Back in the day, we got two 20 minute recesses every day. 
  Modern "educators" think recess is a waste of time, and they have been advocating no recess schools, keep the kids noses to the grindstone all day. 
  According to a piece in today's Wall St Journal, some "educators" have wised up and are recommending a whole hour of recess every day. 

Do I support a flat tax?

Today's mail brought a thick envelope marked "New Federal Tax Reform Information Enclosed".  No return address, no indication of the organization doing this mailing.  I didn't really believe it was from the IRS, despite the effort to make you think it was an IRS letter.  So I opened it, and it was one of those "take a survey, send us a donation" letters that have been popular with the fund raisers.   
   This outfit, The Conservative Caucus, or perhaps Americans for Constitutional Liberty, I'd never heard of either before.  They are advocating for a flat 10% income tax for everyone, no deductions except charitable contributions and mortgage interest.  And they denounced the length and legalisms of the humongous Internal Revenue Code and the existence of the IRS
   Thinking about it, I cannot go with them.  The way I see it, we have three groups of people in the US, the well off, the ordinary working stiffs, and the really poor.  And I think we ought to tax the well off somewhat more, and the really poor something less.  In other words have three tax brackets.  I think everyone ought to be liable for taxes, unlike the current setup where half the population owes NO tax, and the well off pay most of the Federal government's expenses.  I think it is important that all citizens, even the very poor, pay something in taxes, just to let them know that the government benefits, of which we have so many, have to be paid for. 
   I do like the no deductions for anything, except charitable contributions.  I'd even go so far as to  eliminate tax breaks for dependents (children) and being married.  I'd dump the mortgage interest deduction, especially deductions for mortgages on second homes.  I'd get rid of capital gains.  Income is income, doesn't matter where it comes from.  I'd dump the earned income tax credit.
   I'd declare all 75,000 pages in the Internal Revenue Code null and void, along with all rulings of the tax courts over the years.  I'd abolish the tax courts.  If the government has a beef with us taxpayers, let the government go to regular courts, like everyone else.  
   They advocating getting rid of the IRS. Well, we ought to skin 'em down a bit, but we have to have some government office to mail our tax forms to.  Someone has to open the tax return envelopes and cash the checks.  So we have to have something.  On the other hand, we should remove the IRS's power to garnish your wages and seize your bank account.  If the IRS has a beef with us taxpayers, they can take us to court, a real court, not a "tax court" where the judge is getting paid by the IRS. They don't need the power to bankrupt us on just their say-so.