Cops work differently in Israel

The TV news is talking about Israeli cops accusing  prime minister Netanyahu of corruption and mopery and dopery.  They say the Israeli prosecutors now have to indict Netanyahu, which is expected to take a year or more.
   Wow!  Over here the cops don't have the stones to accuse powerful politicians of corruption.   US cops know that the politicians control their funding, their hiring, their promotions, and much else.  If the corruption charges don't stick, and in US courts anything can happen, the accused politician has plenty of time and power to take revenge on the accusers. 
  I guess things work differently in Israel. 

New flu medicine

Japanese pharmacy company Shionogi announced an new anti flu drug that cures all types of flu in 24 hours, with a single dose.  The Wall St Journal didn't mention a name for Shionogi's experimental drug but it is not a vaccine, it works by disrupting the flu virus' ability to take over human cells and reprogram them to produce more flu virus.  The article indicated a deep understanding of the biochemistry of the flu virus.  It also mentioned a fast track approval process in Japan might authorize the drug for sale as soon as next month.  They talked about submitting paperwork to the US Fuddy Duddy Administration (FDA) this summer and waiting til next year for FDA approval for sale in the US. 
   If this works out, it will be great. 

What's going down in Congress about the Dreamers?

The Senate voted to discuss the matter.  Typical Senate malarky, you don't vote to have a discussion.  You bring a bill to the floor and discuss it.  Then you vote to pass it or kill it.
Far as I can see, the Republican position, as outlined by the president is this.  We do something nice (unspecified) for maybe 1.8 million DACA eligibles.  We fund the border wall.  We limit chain migration to immediate family, spouses and minor children.  We shut down the 50,000 person "diversity lottery".  We do all of this or nothing.
The Democratic position is murky.  They don't talk about it.  At a guess, they want nice things for at least the 800,000 people who signed up for DACA.  Maybe they are OK with the border wall.  They want to keep chain migration and the "diversity lottery" the way it is now.  They haven't really said all this out loud, but from listening to the TV newsies, I think this is where they are coming from.  I might be wrong.  The democrats would do them selves a favor by a  clear statement of where they are coming from.
  The Republicans have some internal problems.  An unknown number of Republican congress critters don't like the idea of letting anyone into the country and are against doing anything nice for 1.8 million DACA eligibles.  The president ought to be able to get enough Republicans to vote his way, but you never know.  The rest of the presidents ideas, border wall, chain migration and diversity lottery ought to OK with most Republican congress critters.
   Neither side has described just what nice things for DACA eligibles might be.  Was it up to me, I'd offer citizenship anyone who looks like a good, loyal, production citizen.  Say a clean criminal record (no felony convictions) graduated high school or college, married, employed, children, veteran or some subset of these.  Anyone who looks like trouble, gang members, drug runners, car jackers,  and such, deport them ASAP.  Short of citizenship we offer them ID cards that allow them to stay in the US, take a job, get a driver's license.  For extra niceness we could make them eligible for welfare, food stamps, Medicaid.
   The 800,000 vs 1.8 million comes from DACA eligibles fearing that going and registering with Mr. Migra was dangerous.  Mr. Migra might betray them and use the registration to hunt them down and deport them.  Which may happen unless Congress gets its act together in the next three weeks.  The administration estimates that about another million DACA eligibles were smart enough to keep their heads down and stay out of sight. 

How to prevent foreign meddling in US elections

   Get rid of electronic voting machines altogether.  Go back to paper ballots, that can be saved and recounted.  The voting machines are merely desktop computers running an "I am a ballot" program.  They can be hacked before election day, on election day, and after election day.  The can be hacked over the internet, at the factory, in storage at town hall, during software updates, by sticking a flash drive into their USB port, and  a bunch of other ways.  You cannot recount a voting machine the way you can paper ballots.   Use paper ballots.  That will prevent anyone from hacking the election results.
    Demand source information for social media stories.  And for MSM stories.   If the story, no matter how juicy, doesn't have a source, it's fake news.  If a juicy story lacks a source, or the source doesn't check out, you gotta say to yourself that this story is BS.    
    Remember that the MSM is mostly the NYT and the WaPo, and the TV networks, ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, MSNBC, and CNN.  These are all run by democrats and see their mission as electing democrats, not reporting the news.  The NYT has been in love with Communists since the 1930's.  They supported Josef Stalin, Fidel Castro, and the Viet Cong. 

So what hath Congress Wrought?

This morning's Wall St Journal was less than clear.  Partly because the Journal's stories went to press last evening before Congress voted on the thing. Far as I can tell it is yet another continuing resolution that runs out 23 March.  It lifts the Federal debt limit until March next year.  It lifts the spending caps by $160 billion on the military and about the same amount on "discretionary spending".  It does NOT authorize spending for the entire fiscal year, just for the rest of February and most of March.  And it  has a lot of pages, few of which anyone has seen, let alone read. 
   The House voted it thru at o'dark thirty, and Trump signed it sometime after 9 AM this morning. 
   Between the Trump tax  cut and this spending authorization every one expects the US to go in the hole by $1 trillion for this fiscal year. 

Cannon Mt Ski Weather. Six inches of new powder snow

I just put a yard stick onto the snow on my deck, and we got a real six inches of [powder yesterday.  No rain at all. Very light wind so the snow is on the trails, not blown into the woods.  Skiing at Cannon will be great this weekend.

Lets have a Parade

Parades are economical.  They show off your military strength to potential enemies.  The Soviets used to do a big one every year on May Day.  Aviation Week always ran a fair sized article about what the Soviets had displayed this year.  Seeing troops and tanks marching down the street carries more impact than dry intel reports. 
  And, parades show the tax payers that they are getting something for their tax money.  What's not to like.
  And parades are cheap, especially compared to even the smallest military action.  After all, the troops are all ready in the service, getting pay, uniforms, rations, and board.  The extra money for a bit of parade practice and transport to and from the parade site is chickenfeed as military expenses go. 
   And everyone likes to watch a parade.