Cyber Security thru lawyers

Bloomberg has a long article on a cyber security bill before Congress.  It appears the bill won't pass, or will be so watered down as to be useless.  On the other hand this bill proposed giving federal bureaucrats significant power over utility companies.  Power to decide how much security  must be paid for is the power to wreck a utility.  I don't believe federal bureaucrats are wise enough to be intrusted with that kind of power.
    Cyber attack means hostile hackers gain control of the computers that run our electric generators, our gas holders, our transformer banks, our transmission lines, and the rest of our physical plant and make them do bad things, such as another great blackout, fires and explosions. 
   Better would be to let the utility companies know that we have an army of hungry nasty tort lawyers just looking for work.  If the utilities let the lights go out, we start a class action suit for gross negligence and triple damages and legal fees and court costs.  And the scalps of the CEO and all the directors.
   Back this up with insurance companies.  All utilities carry insurance  to pay off that  army of tort lawyers.  Pretty soon the insurance company inspectors will be saying things like "If you don't fix this gaping loophole and that horrible weakness, we won't insure you."  
   The dickering over cyber security requirements between professionals, insurance men, utility engineers and lawyers will get more protection for less cost than empowering federal bureaucrats.  Federal bureaucrats are all liberal arts majors who have difficulty changing a light bulb and who work for politicians.  They certainly cannot improve reliability of  utility company operations, they are too ignorant and too politically motivated.
   

Wonderful new word

Ensuckification.   That's what Stephan Greene calls Facebook's new layout.  He's got a point.  And that's a great word, just looking for some more things to describe

Hang it out to dry

Here is The Plant, a birthday gift fresh from the nursery.  So far I have just watered it every day except on days when it rains a lot.  It takes a full pitcher of water (one quart) each time.  Which seems like a lot, but it all get soaked up somewhere and no water ever runs out the bottom of the pot.

Here it is 8 weeks later.  Not so lush but still alive.  It is currently attracting hummingbirds so it is in pretty good shape.  It had one bad night when high winds blew it off its nail and it feel on its head in the driveway some twenty feet below. 

NHPR can be really offensive

I'm listening to the Olympics on NHPR as I drive up to Whitefield.  An American girl has just won a gold medal.  But then NHPR has to tell me that she is black, (African-American is the word they used). Then they explain how being black makes her different and how she has all sorts of special responsibilities.  Then they  relate Facebook gossip criticizing her hairstyle.  Arrgh. 
   That girl is an American.  Winning an Olympic gold medal makes her the best in the world at what she does.   She had to work like a dog for years to get that good.  She makes me proud to be an American, and to know that our beloved country can produce citizens like her who are the best in the world.
   I'm offended to hear this American hero described by her skin color.  She's an American, plain and simple.

 

Linkage

Should taxes and spending be linked in Congress?   We hear endless talk about "offsets" and "pay as you go"  every time budgets and authorization bills come up.  Some favored constituencies get a tax dedicated to just one thing.  The gasoline tax is dedicated to (earmarked for) road building, so the road builders don't have to fight for funding every year. It's nice to be a road builder. 
   May it not be better to consider taxes and spending separately?  Taxes need to be low enough to keep the economy running and tamp down political unhappiness that leads to votings out, civil insurrection and other unpleasantness.  Most of the time this means that taxes cannot be raised much without serious consequences.  Certainly Obama's call for a tax hike on "millionaires and billionaires" isn't exciting the broader electorate.
   Expenditures rise to meet income  (Parkenson's law).  There is an infinite amount of worthy causes that can suck up all the money in the world.  But nobody is that rich.  Effective government spends money on the absolutely necessary things and stops after that.  Otherwise they go broke.  Witness Europe, Greece, Spain, Iceland, Ireland and the US.  
  So the common thing heard today "If we pass your appropriation, then you have to pass our tax hike to pay for it."  is just another way of saying "No". 

How much Defense do we Have? Do we Need?

Sequester!  It's out there in the dark, waiting to take dollars away from defense.  Fox had Sen Lindsey Graham on this morning talking against sequester.  He harked back to the early days of WWII when our troops had to drill with broomsticks, before the country got tooled up for war. 
   I want to hear about how much real strength we have today and how much we really need.  Anyone know where I could find the number of combat soldiers, tanks, artillery pieces, Navy warships, fighter planes, aircraft carriers, helicopters and transport aircraft the US military owns today?   And how many it would own under sequester?
   Then we could have a public debate over how much we ought to have.   After fixing the amount of arms and armed men we ought to have, then appropriate enough money to pay for it. 
   The Congresscritters  are debating how many dollars to pour into defense, not how much defense we ought to have.  Many of them are thinking about how much nice defense money will fall into their districts.
   Dollars don't bear arms. 

Undecideds? Who is still undecided?

I'm listening to TV newsies talking about the huge number of undecided voters out there.  Yeah right.  All the voters I reach when phone banking are decided.  Mind is made up, and you can tell from tone of voice that they ain't gonna change their minds either. 
  When you hear a newsie talking about undecided voters  this year, you know he/she is clueless.