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Tuesday, April 13, 2010

RANDOM THOUGHTS #3

Steve Cole muses:

Just thinking to myself.

I like the lead actor on HUMAN TARGET but the squirrelly guy needs to go away and be replaced by a cute female. Also, the plot device of "Oh, that, I solved that problem, you don't want to know how" needs to never be used again. If these guys always have dirt on everybody involved, there's no point in the show.

Did anybody notice that the Patriot Act was denounced by the left as the end of American freedom, but since then, all of their dire predictions were proven wrong? Not to mention that it cost the taxpayers next to nothing, was passed with almost unanimous bipartisan support, is tame compared to laws that every European country has had on the books since World War 2, and was even renewed by the Obama administration?

I rarely get to go to the movies (and rarely enjoy it when I do, I prefer to watch them on TV so I can pause, back up to see something again, etc.). I am always seeing TV ads for new movies and saddened to think that by the time the movie comes to DVD or Netflix of Amazon Download or whatever else that I won't even remember it. I wish there was a way to click a Tivo button and have it remember the movie and let me know when (years later) it's on Tivo or Amazon Download.

I could never figure out how Obamacare does and doesn't fund abortions. It's bureaucratic slight of hand, explained well by Kathleen Parker in a recent editorial. While the Hyde Amendment would supposedly stop it, Obamacare funds the community health centers through a funding path not covered by the Hyde Amendment. So now you know, your taxes will indeed pay for abortions.

I keep finding 2006 and 2007 episodes of CRIMINAL INTENT which I never saw because it was impossible to find the new episodes on the cable channels among the dozens of reruns.

Cokie Roberts (a Democrat) says that Republicans are moving in the wrong direction to get rid of Republicans who supported Obama. Hey, taking advice from Democrats is what got McCain nominated and Obama elected! (Notice how Cokie thinks bipartisan means doing what Obama wants, and ignores the bipartisan opposition to him.)

Amazon has begun putting a marker on books they sell that the publisher set the price for, making sure that the customer knows why the price is higher than Amazon would normally set.

Can anybody figure out Obama's foreign policy? He insulted Britain (our oldest and closest ally) by demanding that they negotiate the Falklands. He manufactured a crisis with Israel (about a housing project that was actually announced over two years ago, not when Biden was there). He visited China and Indonesia but snubbed India. He horrified eastern Europe by canceling the missile defense shield.

It took the US Army a year of arm-twisting, but they have managed to make the new Electronic Keel system (a sort of mini-router) standard for trucks and hummers, and to get the electronic suppliers to provide gear that plugs into it. The hummers in the field today are packed with electronics (GPS, Blue Force Tracker that tells you where all friendlies are, Warlock to jam roadside bombs, radios, sniper detectors, controls for bomb disposal robots and other robots, rear-view video cameras, video feeds from the aerial drones, and so forth). As more and more stuff was added, troops added their own laptops to access reference files and other data. This has turned the average truck or hummer dashboard into something that looks more like a bomber cockpit. The Army wanted the equipment standardized so that any soldier could jump into any truck and already know where everything was. The next step will be a head-up display helmet like fighter pilots wear, with tactical information projected on the inside of the faceplate.

The Republican Party needs to learn that support by the Tea Party Patriot movement is NOT automatic and that even the lesser of two evils is not good enough to count on Tea Party votes! It's not good enough to elect Republicans just because they are Not democrats. We need to elect people who cut spending and balance the budget.