Skip

As an engineer, I am trained not to treat a symptom of something that has gone wrong – the real job is to find and correct the root problem, that ‘disease’ that causes the symptom to show up in the first place.  Often, in what can be complicated systems, the symptoms show up in a place in which one goes “huh?” and only when debugging has led to the source of destruction (not an easy task, given the many layers of software from multiple vendors each ‘not quite lining up’ with agreed upon protocols and) can one go “THAT was interesting”.  That latter word, interesting, has an “engineer’s definition”: intellectually stimulating, but boy, this is going to hurt for a while.  Interesting problems are fun to work on (if you can stand the stress and heat of “why isn’t this fixed YET!”) because they are interesting.  But when you are told to eliminate a major area of investigation and you know that order is “other than for technical reasons”, it gets real hard to satisfy “why isn’t this fixed YET!”.

It is the same problem in Politics, when a real source must never be discussed because it is Politically Incorrect (emphasis mine, reformatted):

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – After fresh criticism of his record on combating HIV/AIDS, President Barack Obama on Monday ordered a stepped up effort to deal with the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the United States.  An executive order from the White House, which follows renewed criticism of Obama’s AIDS strategy during his visit to Africa in late June and early July, called for better coordination of the national effort. Obama’s order said that recent studies had shown that aggressive testing and early treatment can have a significant impact in preventing transmission of the human immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS.

Well, they have two out of the three sources named.  But just like with the ill-named War on Terror (a war on a tactic?  No, but politically correct hacks can’t say Islamists) where the truth can’t be publicly stated, it can’t be done in this issue (for fear of hacking off other special interest groups):

Read more

The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works — (…) And those of us who manage the public’s dollars will be held to account — to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day — because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.

-Barack Obama

Well, so far, the Feds are STILL not spending wisely nor being held to account

Sidenote: ($17 Trillion in the hole, thank you very much!  Oh, but did you see that the abysmal (according to Progressives) Sequestration helped to give the Fed a SURPLUS this month!  What was that NH saying…something like “low taxes is the result of”….ummm…help me out here….).

Anyways, I saw this $487K waste of our money, and the first thought was “I could have underbid this and save the Feds LOTS of money” and not only that, but doing my part in Saving The Planet! (emphasis mine, reformatted):

Read more

Uttered by Sunny Hostin who is a CNNer. Again, from The BlogLine of the Day:

“So a Hispanic shoots a black and is acquitted by women, but it’s still white men’s fault.”

And add into the mix, Eric Holder’s line of “in things racial we have always been and continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards“.  He took a lot of heat for that last clause, calling the people that he is supposed to serve “cowards” – THAT certainly shows “nose in the air” snootiness about the ordinary citizen.  However, I ask both of them:

Since late 50’s and early 60’s, when HAVEN’T we been talking about race??

Talking about race relations has gone on almost non-stop since this nation started to work to get rid of Jim Crow.  I can’t remember a time when it wasn’t part of the national conversation in one fashion or another – and I, and many others, really do resent Holder’s comment highly and, IMHO,  think that Hostin’s says a lot about her internalized sense of racism.  For some people, it seems, that if it wasn’t for racism identity fights, they’d have no identity at all (think: Sharpton, Smiley, and Jackson).

You know, almost all Conservatives are already “with” MLK’s line of “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”  As an engineer, I could care less what you look like – but how good is your code? Now as a political blogger, I don’t care if you are black, white, yellow, red, brown or purple with green polka-dots:  All I care about is how you think and believe with respect to the philosophy of what made this country great. Are you a good person, love your wife and provide for your kids, be nice to others, obey the laws and Constitution, and pay your taxes?  Remember, color IS only skin deep but stupid goes right to the bone.  And I believe that those that hang onto “White Privilege” as a crutch really need to get out of their own little talking group and talk to others.

For that stupidity, and all it implies and accepts as gospel, goes past skin, past bone, and right into the marrow.  DaTechGuy sums it up well:

Read more

When I watched the verdict being declared in the OJ Simpson trial (where a black man was accused of killing a white woman and her friend, and where “if the glove don’t fit, you must acquit” entered the lexicon), I was aghast at how long the trial had gone and how quickly the jury returned its verdict (makeup: 9 Blacks, 1 Hispanics, 2 Whites / 10 Women, 2 Men) of Not Guilty.  I had disagreed with the jury but thought: Justice as been done.  He was innocent before the trial and now he is innocent after the trial.  That is our system.  I had no thought to say: hey, this is not right – we need a trial do-ver simply because I disagreed with it.

Not so much in this trial.  I note that the Left is now using the same incrementalist and unrelenting legislative insistence that if they don’t get the result they wanted, they switch to a mode by which redouble their efforts by any means possible and by “enlisting the mob” and using that intimidation factor of a pure democracy (“mobocracy”)  to override The Rule of Law  (see also Grokster Mike’s post; more on the DOJ ‘double jeopardy’ civil rights announcement here and here even as the DOJ’s Community Relations Division was stirring up trouble ahead of the trial, a la Community Organizers, vs acting oil on water (no match jokes please, even if it may be appropriate)).  They are also not willing to let the system work as it should – they will bring all kinds of “non-partisan” groups to bear and “celebrity rabble-rousers” “community leaders” (like the ever present race-baiters Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson) even if they live thousands of miles away from where an incident took place. Already, the story is starting to come out in how the Martin family decided to make this a political / race baiting process instead of simply letting the judicial process go forward (e.g.,  go read the great citizen journalism of “following the network” done by Conservative Treehouse to get a fuller idea of the machinations of the Left behind the scene).

Read more

Listen Harrell – for we are listing to you, too (even when you aren’t speaking up – you too, Zandra Rice-Hawkins, as the two of you are serial Republican accusers on very little to go on)!  Yeah, I almost made a mistake by mis-identifying the Party affiliation of the Mayor of San Diego, Bob Filner (DEMOCRAT).  His problem?  Well, even more serious than Obama refusing to pay his female staffers – Sexual Harrassement. So, you Harrell (and you too, Zandra) MUST have professional Press Release all ready  Oh, you say that nothing has gone to court or been adjudicated yet, Harrell?  What about that shopworn Democrat attack phrase “It’s the seriousness of the charge” in which the meaning is – “the Republican can actually be innocent but we have to haul his (or her) butt into court – not to find the truth but for the humiliation and bankrupting him”.  So how unbalanced is the New Hampshire Democrat Party in speaking about this elected official abusing women under his responsibility?  C’mon, Harrel – here’s some details.

The week began with news that Mayor Bob Filner’s fiancee ended their engagement and, by Friday, San Diego’s first Democratic leader in 20 years was desperately trying to stay in office amid sexual harassment allegations made public by some of his closest supporters. He apologized, promised to change and begged voters to let him keep his job.

The rapid-fire developments put heavy scrutiny on the personal foibles of Filner, a feisty liberal who was elected in November after 10 terms in Congress marked perhaps most famously by a 2007 run-in with a United Airlines baggage handler at Dulles International Airport that resulted in him pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge of trespassing. Filner has long had a reputation for berating employees and been dogged by rumors of making sexual advances on women, but nothing stuck like a former city councilwoman’s comments this week that she had firsthand accounts from more than one woman who was sexually harassed by the mayor.

Read more

Almost anyone can fly a plane off a runway – the skill set for a small General Aviation plane like a Cessna 152 is rather small.  Believe it or not, ANY one can land a plane – gravity and physics stand ready to help the plane meet the ground.  It is far harder, however, to land it in such a fashion that 1) you can walk away unaided and 2) the plane can fly again.

Back in May, the US Navy launched its first UAV / UCAS drone off the flight deck of an aircraft carrier – a robot plane under both human operator and autonomous operation.  Now the Navy has closed that loop in having an XB-47 drone successfully land on that same deck.

From Military.com:

Read more

Much has been written lately about how “the base”, the conservative / libertarian / constitutional / TEA Party wing of the party – the grassroots, are starting to really turn the Evil Eye upon the other part of the Party.  That would be those that write the talk, talk the talk, and then act and vote opposite way.  Often times, with disdain for the base and with their eyes on the political advantage instead of doing what they should be: standing up for and protecting the Values for which we sent them there.  Promise to cut the budget?  You’d better do that.  Promise to do something else?

Yeah, it’s called Keeping Your Word.  Build our Trust with you – don’t break it in being “pragmatic” or so that you can reach being a Ranking Member or Chair one day.  Or Leadership.  After all, it isn’t about the Win to Get The Power – it is what you do with it once WE help you win.  And yes, we Watch.  And last night I watched a PERFECT example of how the Republican Party continues to play small ball and excuse their way out of doing the right thing.  Sure, they’ve had 37 votes in the House to repeal Obamacare – meaningless votes except for the rubes who believe they actually accomplished anything.

Those of us who actually KNOW, have been waiting for them to do The Right Thing – which of course, they have refused to do and yakked their excuses all around it.  PERFECT Example?  I listened to the Hannity show last nite with Eric Cantor, part of the Leadership in the US House of Representatives.  Sean had THE question that most of us in the grassroots want answered: “Would you use the option to defund Obamacare ’cause that is in your authority?”

Disappointed was my reaction:

Read more