Words of the Weasel Part 56.

How to Weaponize an Existential Threat.  The title of a piece in the Wall St Journal Op-Ed page.  The author, Joseph Epstein is out to trash a lot of vague words, popular with newsies and pols, which have been creeping into English.  He mentions focus, issue (bland word for bug or problem), charisma, prioritize, weaponize, incentivize.  Word for Window spell check chokes up on weaponize and incentivize

   The author finishes off with “existential threat”.    A threat is a threat, when you are on the receiving end of a threat you have to either knuckle under, or get ready to fight.  The existential part is a fancy way of making the threat sound more dangerous.  Me, I will stick with “deadly threat”.   

   Mr. Epstein doesn’t mention “holistic”, a general purpose sounds good but means nothing word.  When I hear or read “holistic” I know I am wasting my time with this person or article.

Star Wars The Force Awakens 2015

The Force Awakens.  Following up on my Stars Wars refresher, getting ready for the coming Christmas new Star Wars movie, I popped my DVD of The Force Awakens into the player last night.  I’m getting them out of order, The Force Awakens came out for Christmas 2015, and Rogue One came out the next Christmas 2016. 

   They had a better sound man in Force.  All the dialog was audible.  And I picked up on a few of the new character’s names.  Rey, Finn, Poe, BB-8.  Never did catch a name for Darth Vader, Jr.  And everybody knows Han Solo, Leia Organa, and Luke Skywalker by sight.  In this movie they kill off Han Solo.  He will be missed. 

   Camera man was into the dark look, he turned out the lights in a lot of scenes.  Not quite as annoying as Rogue One camera work, but annoying.  Even out door scenes in broad daylight were dim.  Indoor scenes were black. 

   We have a plot of sorts.  Poe has a star map showing where the long lost Luke Skywalker is hiding/meditating.  It is programmed into his droid, BB-8, smaller and cuter than R2D2.  They need to get the map to the Resistance, who then launches a one person search party (Rey) to find Skywalker.  Rey is pretty good; we meet her on desert planer Jakku where she is making bare living scavenging wrecks out in the desert.  Rey has a vehicle nearly as cool as the air car from the first Star Wars flick.  It floats a bit higher off the ground and looks like a John Deere farm tractor without the wheels.  Noisy and smoky internal combustion engine (still surviving in the high tech Star Wars universe?).   Rey is lean and tough, fast on her feet, and a natural born pilot.  She and Finn escape Jakku in the good old Millennium Falcon which they find and steal right off the planetary boss’s back yard.  With Rey in the pilot’s seat and Finn manning the guns, we see a lot of low level flying with TIE fighters in pursuit.  Millennium Falcon is built tough in this flick; we see her scraping the ground and crashing thru trees, and still airborne.  I found these scenes a little jarring, in the Air Force, touching the plane to the ground, even lightly, was a crash, excepting touched the landing gear to the runway.  And, they can kick in the hyper drive and go faster than light before even getting clear of the hanger. 

Swap the keyboard and Control-C, Control-V and Delete work again

This is Win 10 Pro, running on a reconditioned (used) Dell Optiplex 990.  Changing out the Dell USB keyboard for the old Compaq  keyboard with the old PS2  connector  and everything works!!  I was unable to find anything useful on the net to fix the problem.  Youngest son was up for the weekend and he suggested trying a PS2 keyboard.  That did the trick. I'm still looking for info to get the new USB keyboard to work, it has a nicer keyfeel than the aging Compaq keyboard. 
  I think this is a Win 10 or a driver problem.  The PS2 keyboard uses a different driver.  I don't think the problem is defective hardware, 'cause both Control AND Delete were broke on the USB keyboard.  That's an unlikely hardware failure. 
   Strange that I could not find anyone else on the net complaining about the problem.

Beat the Press.

Chuck Todd had the day off, some newshen I don't know filled in for him this Sunday morning.  All they talked about was the Mueller report.  Apparently nothing interesting has happened anywhere else in the world.  A lot of grieving on air that the Mueller report failed to nuke Trump.  More opining about impeaching Trump.  Not a word about the horrible massacre of Christians in Sre Lanka (Ceylon it used to be called).   Not a word about the engine explosion on the Space-X crew capsule.  Stick with the Drudge Report, you will gt some real news, rather than NBC longing to nuke Trump.

NH Senate doings week of 22-26 April 2019

Ed Committee Hearing.  23 April.  Five bills were heard.  We started off with HB 383 “Relative to the prohibition on unlawful discrimination in public and non-public schools”.  Couple of interesting phrases in that title.  “Unlawful discrimination”, is there any other kind?  Does “lawful discrimination” really exist?  And “non-public schools”.  In plain English those are called private schools.   I asked the representative introducing the bill if “discrimination” included preventing boys from using girl’s restrooms, locker rooms and showers.  She said it did.  She also said preventing boys from competing in girl’s sports would be discrimination.  I plan to speak against and vote against this bill when it reaches the Senate floor.  Can you say stealth transgender?  The bill makes no attempt to define  discrimination, which means it could be anything.

    Now for HB 435, this is a harmless paperwork bill, changes a few names, but otherwise harmless. 

    And HB 447 “Relative to school calendar days”.  This bill merely states that local school boards can set the school calendar as they please just so long as they squeeze in 180 school days.  This is what the law is today. This bill is to kill off a Senate bill passed earlier, that required all schools to start AFTER Labor Day. Most NH schools now start in August.  Administrators and teachers like that.  Personally, I feel that starting school before Labor Day is child abuse.  But that’s just me. 

   And HB 448 another harmless paperwork bill of no consequence.

   And finally, HB 652 which would require two hours of suicide prevention training for everyone, teachers, administrators, bus drivers, secretaries, everybody except coaches.  No funding was provided.   Training could be merely watching some instructional video on the Internet.   No requirement for training students to recognize suicidal thoughts in their friends, or what to do should they feel a friend might be suicidal.   

Short Senate session today.  Started at the usual time, 10 AM and we had all the business on the calendar done by 11 AM.  Opened the show with the Fast Track (consent) calendar.  Ten bills were Fast Tracked.  All of them were harmless and no account.  One was amusing and makes you wonder how anyone does business in New Hampshire.  That was HB 259 that now requires that building inspectors writing up a building or job must quote chapter and verse of the fire code that has been violated when they write up a violation.  Dunno how we have gotten along without that all these years.  Anyhow one quick voice vote and ten more bills, already passed by the House, are passed by the Senate and off for the Governor’s signature. 

   Now for the regular calendar.  We killed (Inexpedient to Legislate, ITL in legitative speak) HB 309 which made complicated changes to the procedures about foreclosing a mortgage.  We passed HB 511 which subjected vaping to the same controls as ordinary cigarette smoking.  No vaping on school property, no vaping in no smoking areas.   Seemed reasonable to me.  Did not get into taxing vaping stuff as hard as we tax cigarettes.  And we voice voted HB 684, concerning rent disputes about “manufactured housing: Ought To Pass (OTP).  I asked the bill’s sponsor if “manufactured housing” was what ordinary people call house trailers.  He conceded that it was.  I then asked him why rent disputes over house trailer rentals deserved special protections at law that ordinary landlord tenant disputes don’t get.  Answer was so vague as to be no answer at all.

   And then HP 663 concerning some obscure language changes about the definition of agriculture and agricultural land use.  We used to call that farming and farms.  Dunno what the lawyers dreamed up to complicate life and raise their billable hours. 

   And HB 118 which would require notifying a child’s doctor of reports of abuse.  This could be a little touchy.  Down in Massachusetts they have a lot of doctors reporting ordinary child accident injury from falls and such as child abuse.  Anyhow HB 118 passed on a voice vote. Zap.

   And HB 396 requiring the bureaucracy to get the lead out and respond to right to know requests within 5 days.    OTP voice vote. 

   And HB 427 made some opaque change to the law about filing protective orders on behalf of minor children.  OTP voice vote.

    And HB 437 concerning “family alienation” was tabled on a voice vote.  This bill would have allowed divorced parents to sue each other for bad mouthing each other in front of the children.  Let’s leave it on the table forever. 

   And a weird one, HB 518 which allows the state to recover the costs of imprisoning someone from that someone.  Apparently we have a wealthy prisoner in slam right now and we want to sock it to him harder.  Senator Lou D’Alessandro spoke in favor of this.  I never heard of this before.  We send a guy to jail, he serves his sentence, or is a good little boy and gets parole, and he is out.  I never heard of a state dunning such a person for room and board in the big house before. 

   And we closed by passing HB 700 concerning taxes on utilities.  I did not understand just what the deal was in HB 700.  I do know New Hampshire utility rates are totally unreasonable, partly due to taxes on utilities, RGGI, another hidden utility tax and more such.   

    

Name Signs for Pundits.

What’s in a name?   I watch a lot of TV talking heads, opining upon nearly everything.  Camera will cut in on one or another of them as they talk.   Leaving me wondering About the name of the speaker.  Some names I know and respect.  Other names I know are turkeys.  A lot of names I never heard of. 

   What the TV people ought to do is place a good sized name sign on the table in front of each participant.  Then the news junkies in the audience, like yours truly, would know who is who and be able to sort out good opinions from the not-so-good opinions presented.  And perhaps learn a few new names in the process.

Talking to people with information on your opponent

Now that Mueller has fizzled out, the democrats are scratching around for something else to throw at Trump  (dump on Trump).  They are talking up a meeting at the Trump Tower in New York back in 2016.  A woman, later identified as a Russian agent, turned up, claiming to have some dirt on Hilary.  They listened to her.  They decided that her information wasn't good enough to use, or leak, but they did listen to her.  Which is perfectly normal.  When you are running for office, and someone offers dirt on your opponent, you listen to them.  You may decide, like the Trump people did, that the dirt isn't solid enough to use, but you want to know what is on offer.  Nothing wrong with this.  Except to democrats and the MSM (democratic operatives with bylines)