Killing Justice

Supreme Court judge Antonin Scalia's sudden and unexpected death raises the inevitable concerns about conspiracy.

The role of the Court is more important than ever in America, and its close ideological division means that the death of one member can have a profound, long-term impact on the nation.

Garrison Walters' political thriller, Killing Justice, explores a situation eerily similar to the one the US now faces. The sudden and surprising death of a Republican justice while a Democrat is President raises an array of challenging issues -- especially when many believe the judge was murdered.

Installing Amazon Echo Auto

This went reasonably well in my 2014 BMW X3.

Connecting was fairly straightforward. In the spirit of “Keep It Stupidly Simple,” the documentation doesn’t describe how the connections work.

By Gove! We’ve Had Enough of You!

Britain’s Michael Gove has thrown his dunce hat into the ring for Prime Minister.

Gove, despite many years in government, is famous for only one thing: a public statement that 

“We’ve had enough of experts!”

Facebook, Privacy, and AI

The current crisis with Facebook isn’t rooted in its management or even in its original design. Rather, the sources of its problems go back to its IPO, which occurred in 2012 when the company was valued at $104 billion. Specifically, Facebook’s stock was priced by Wall Street on the assumption that it was 1) the antithesis of privacy; and 2) able to grow revenues more or less forever at a rate substantially faster than expenses. A corollary of this second point was that the company would remain largely free of the inherently unpredictable costs of human employment (Wall Street hates people costs and rewards companies that keep them as low as possible).

The First Europeans

White Nationalists, together with related varieties of Modern Wacko usually self-styled as Aryans, put much faith in the racial integrity of the great white homeland, Europe.

Today’s Europeans are, in fact, the product of a series of invasions over many thousands of years. First there were the Western Hunter-Gatherers (WHG) who came from somewhere in Asia, likely way out on the borderlands with China. Next were the Early European Farmers (EEF), who arrived from what is now the Middle East. The names of these groups describe their respective lifestyles.

The last invaders were the Indo Europeans, from the steppe lands on the border of Europe and Asia. These people were herders, who had domesticated the horse, probably invented the wheel, and whose language became the basis for nearly all of the tongues of modern Europe.

Ode to Brexit

The UK’s Poet Laureate is appointed with "an expectation that the holder will write verse for significant national occasions."

If Brexit isn’t a “significant national occasion,” I don’t know what is, so let’s order up an ode. Hey, Carol Ann Duffy – you can’t hide any longer -- step up and versify.

Jobs for Paul Ryan in 2019

• Writing a monthly column on the Austrian School of Economics for Guns and Ammo magazine.
• Chief ethics officer for Wells Fargo bank.
• Head of emissions testing for Volkswagen.
• Senior advisor on the theology of Ayn Rand to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

More Stories I Never Started Reading*

Hard of hearing? Pornhub Now Provides Audio Description for its Adult Films

The porn streaming site's latest initiative aims to give the visually impaired a helping hand by offering professional narration to accompany its most popular videos. https://www.cnet.com/news/pornhub-now-provides-audio-description-for-its-adult-films/

 Can Google Automate Your Break-Up?

Popular Science - http://www.popsci.com/can-google-smart-reply-handle-your-break-up

*Inspired by The New Yorker’s “Stories We Never Finished Reading”

More Google Translate Fun

Sometimes I read Bulgarian easily and sometimes I struggle. When the worst happens, Google Translate is always good for a laugh.

• The original:  Едно от най-разпространените оплаквания на руските туристи с деца на почивка в Черна гора е невъзможността да се хапне без пушачи на съседните маси.
• Google Translate's Version:  One of the most widespread complaints of Russian tourists with children on holiday in Montenegro is the inability to eat non-smokers at the neighboring masses.*

Seems kind of harsh, don't you think? I mean, shouldn't the Russian tourists warn the non-smokers before letting their children eat them? Also, non-smokers have a notoriously bland taste...shouldn't the kids get some hot sauce? And what kind of masses are these? Is this some kind of heretical ritual? Is  Roald Dahl the premier of Montenegro? 

* As you've already guessed, the correct translation is "the inability to eat without smokers at neighboring tables."

Technology's Breakthrough Thursday?

Three apparently amazing developments appeared in the science news on April 6, 2017. In reading these remember the key words “15” and “%.” That’s how much I understand on average of the science I read. Still, these articles seem very clear.

Double The Capacity from Solar Cells

The use of solar energy has been held back because of the low efficiency of solar cells. The best panels return only about a third of the sun’s energy as electricity and most are far below that. The low efficiency means that you need a lot of surface area to get a usable amount of electricity, and that’s not feasible in a lot of cases.

Four Months Without News (and counting)

Not exactly bliss, but…

At the beginning of March, 2017 I’d gone a full four months without reading any news.

I’ve discovered ignorance is easy; a little more of it and I might become a Republican. By default, not by choice of course.

My biggest problem has been the technology sites. For some reason, they can’t seem to let the political stuff alone. For example, the fact that Dumb Donald uses twitter seems to be reason enough to report on his electronic drool.

It’s On You, Bishop

As tens of millions of Americans prepare to face a bleak future with no health insurance, the nation's Catholic Bishops will speak out in opposition, bemoaning the pain and suffering to come.

Crocodile tears.

No group is more responsible for the unfolding moral disaster than these bishops.

America’s Catholic bishops have consistently valued the unborn over the living. And they’ve consistently ignored the deeply immoral character of the political party that supports their crusade against abortion.

The inevitability of moral priorities doesn’t mean that there can’t be multiple things out in front. The Church could say, strongly and firmly, that opposing abortion doesn’t provide a free pass to ignore basic morality. It could, but it doesn’t.

The bishops are wishy washy on basic human rights, vague on murder (capital punishment), and more. They only speak with ferocity when the issue is abortion.

They sanction Catholic politicians who support choice, but say nothing at all about Republican Catholics who speak out strongly in favor of the death penalty and actively seek to deprive the poor of health and dignity.

Every once in a while, a Bishop will get the courage to argue against one of those Republican budgets that savages the poor in order to provide tax cuts for the richest. When that happens, the Speaker of the House or some such leader will respond that this isn’t the Church’s business, this is politics not morality.

And every time the Republicans push back, the Bishop’s voice immediately disappears. The Republicans can do this, Bishop, because they own you.

Talking to Comcast Support

Now, I know that with a title like this you’d expect the author to be Steven King.

It wasn’t that bad. Sort of.

My problem occurred when I tried to add a second wireless router to my house to get better speed on the 4^th floor – a problem since the primary router and the cable modem are on the 2nd floor. I connected the two routers via an Ethernet cable (connecting them wirelessly is a bad idea) and configured the secondary router as required so it wouldn’t conflict with its primary sibling.

This all worked well for a day or so until the network speeds dropped to almost nothing. Even the Amazon Echo Dots were gasping for bandwidth. “Can’t…talk…can’t…”  Poor Alexa.

Anyway, I tried lots of things, including new equipment. But the same thing happened. Finally, I decided the problem must be with Comcast rather than in the house. But I actually had no idea why.

So I started an Xfinity chat. If you didn’t know already, Comcast likes to be called Xfinity. Not surprising since Comcast has won America’s most hated company award for the last  -- I don’t know how many years. Ever since they began giving the award, I guess.

Changing your name is a good way to make people forget who you really are, so I can’t blame them. I mean, it worked for Whitey Bulger.

Boom Times for Barbed Wire

Introduction:  Walls, Both Physical and Emotional, Are Proliferating

Keeping migrants out of your country is hard work.

In 2015, Hungary strung up some barbed wire and called it a wall. As a result, the migrant wave was pushed back, leaving people stranded in Serbia.

Serbia had no choice but to follow with its own wall, and therefore so did Bulgaria.

Greece would build a wall through the Aegean Sea if it knew how (perhaps Donald Trump will lend his engineering expertise).

There’s a crisis out there, and the wave of would-be migrants crossing from Turkey into Europe has left the EU’s leaders in panic mode. That’s perfectly reasonable, but the problem isn’t going to go away and some serious planning for the long term has to begin soon.

We Need to Rethink Why People Are Hostile to Migrants

Opposition to migration in the EU is obviously related to the volume of migrants as well as to fears that some in a predominantly Islamic group will support terrorism. But we’ll make a serious mistake if we think these factors alone explain popular hostility to immigration.

School Reform -- Oprah in, Education Colleges Out

It’s time to completely rethink America’s effort to help children from low-income and disadvantaged communities succeed in education.

A key first step would be to eliminate the preeminent role of education school faculty – “educationists.” Some are capable and should stay involved, but viewed as a group, they’ve failed badly.

Their most recent disaster is the collapse of the Common Core. The fundamental ideas behind this effort were very good (and still are), but the project’s calamitous execution reveals deeply flawed thinking.

Education schools have attempted to deflect concerns about their history of faddishness by focusing on observable results:  i.e. “data.”

Unfortunately, the educationist emphasis on statistics has itself become a new fad, where simply getting numbers becomes the goal. This isn’t surprising, because education as a discipline has always wanted to be thought of as a “hard” science – more physics than sociology.  

In the case of the Common Core,  educationists pushed to test students on the new curriculum before teachers and students had a reasonable chance to master the material. Why? They wanted “baseline data” to more effectively compare before and after.

Only an educationist would be surprised when a wave of “failing” scores resulted in parental and school outrage. Educationists worship at the Temple of Excel and can’t see the people for the statistics.

Inappropriately Articulated Ailments

One of the dangers of getting older is that you acquire an increasing number of ailments. Each of these contains intrinsic dangers, of course, but there is one nasty side effect you can avoid if you make a strong and determined effort:  deciding that your affliction is interesting.

It works like this. Your doctor encourages you to read about your disease or condition so that you can “better manage your care.” A reasonable approach, but a truly dangerous one. You’d be much smarter if you just blindly followed her orders.

If you do step on the slippery slope and start to read about whatever you have, you’ll likely soon find that your affliction is actually quite fascinating. It has a number of variations and an array of treatments with some recent, thought-provoking possibilities. And no one knows why people in Borneo never get it.  

Bring Back the Ignition Key

Now, I know you’re thinking the guy who wrote the title above has to be a geezer. I mean, old guys are always whining about how things were better in “their day.”

Well, you’ve got me. I’m over 70. And I actually know what you’re talking about. In the early years of this century, my 80-ish uncle, a very smart and well educated man, regularly lamented the breakup of AT&T. Put him in charge and he’d have brought back the rotary dial phone in a heartbeat. And only in black.

Anyway, I’m different (I hope) and the reason I’m thinking about this ignition key thing is a news story reporting that thieves can steal the code from your key fob when you lock your car and then, when you’re gone, drive your car away by clicking a couple of times on a special device that’s captured and retained your code. Since vehicles are now keyless, getting in means getting going.