Sleepless in Midland

Three cheers for the Turkish airport heroes who stopped the attack

These guys are genuine heroes. And it was all part of their jobs, their training, their duties.

It makes an amazing story. The guys are described in the Daily Mail: Revealed: Hero police officer who shot down suicide bomber in Turkish airport saving dozens of lives SURVIVED bomb blast - and is recovering in hospital.

They've revealed their names, and you'll have to go there to see them, for they'll have to remain unsung heroes on these pages. There's no need to expose their families to risks of retaliation.

One of the heroes was killed by a suicide bomb after he recognized and tried to stop a terrorist. The other, the one we've seen in the video, shot and wounded a terrorist. When he approached, he recognized a bomb threat and took off running. Unfortunately, he was injured. But the news report suggests he will survive. And the suicide bomber got his own death wish fulfilled.

Hats off to these guys and all the others who put their lives on the line to protect innocent people from the despicable people who would do them harm to further their misguided religious beliefs. And while we're tipping our hats, let's not forget the brave officer in Garland who saved countless lives last year at the Pam Geller event.

Let us hope we have more like them around, lots more, whether they be law enforcement officers or armed civilians, as the Isis threat to Americans continues to grow.

Midland Space Port -- "build it and they will come" sounds so much better than "cargo cult"

The Midland Development Corp. is the organization tasked with spending tax money to draw industries to Midland, Texas, in an effort to diversify the local economy and wean it away from its dependence on the oil business.

Their most widely acknowledged effort so far was the securing of an agreement with Xcor to get them to locate a facility in Midland which would ultimately launch low orbit flights for space tourists in a small aircraft. A cute plastic facsimile of the aircraft was built for display.

The city got tons of free publicity for that. And that notoriety was the payoff, although many didn't recognize at the time that the publicity was, in fact, the payoff. Xcor has gone through some restructuring, and the space craft idea is in limbo.

Now we learn that the MDC is putting more money into the prospect of a space program in the form of a grant of $3 million for building a Spaceport Business Park. Boy, talk about optimistic.

The private space business is highly competitive, and there are some big name entrepreneurs involved with the competition. And they seem to be doing quite well in the news making department.

But if attention is what the MDC is seeking, it has been only moderately successful as the headline writers in the national press are more focused on the aforementioned competition.

All this brings to mind the movie "Field of Dreams" which spawned the phrase, "Build it and they will come." Many a developer has probably repeated that line. But does it work? I don't know.

But go back a little farther in history and we find Cargo Cults of South Pacific islands whereby natives built primitive airports complete with airplanes built from sticks and twigs to attract real airplanes loaded with cargo.

So is that what we're doing? Well, we've got a plastic model. The last time I saw it it was parked in a hanger. It needs to be out in the open as a decoy to attract a real space craft.

Reminder to Alan Greenspan -- Black Monday 1987 would have been a good time to buy stocks

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan is quoted at CNBC thusly:

"This is the worst period, I recall since I've been in public service. There's nothing like it, including the crisis — remember October 19th, 1987, when the Dow went down by a record amount 23 percent? That I thought was the bottom of all potential problems. This has a corrosive effect that will not go away."

We do remember Black Monday. There was a lot of panic in the air, and many stock owners dumped their shares as fast as they could, if they could even reach their brokers. But history taught us that it was technical in nature, and while stocks were ready for a correction, the crash was way overdone.

But you know what? For every share of stock sold that day there was a buyer. As the saying goes, buy stocks when there's blood in the streets. And those buyers did OK for themselves.

So Alan, we welcome your advice. But the comparison with Black Monday seems a bit misplaced if you are trying to warn investors about something. And regarding Brexit, if it portends a freer marketplace then that has to be better ultimately than a command and control economy.

Progressives vs freedom

Fox News viewers may have seen that epic clip of Kristin Powers proclaiming that she was liberal and wanted to regulate everything, in effect saying that being liberal and wanting regulations were natural partners.

They are. A crude way of saying it is that progressives are opposed to freedom. Others are more polite. See for example, Randall Holcombe's article The Uneasy Relationship Between Progressivism and Freedom where Mr. Holcombe provides some historic examples while describing how any benefits are offset by the limitations on freedom and economic growth. Excerpt:

The United States was founded on an ideology that viewed the role of government as the protection of individual rights. That view of government was pushed aside by the ideology of Progressivism toward the end of the 1800s. The Progressive ideology envisions a government that not only protects individual rights but also looks out for people’s economic well-being.

A natural tension exists between Progressivism and freedom. Partly, this is because looking out for the economic well-being of some often lowers the economic well-being of others. Increasingly, Progressives also argue that people would be better off if government made their choices for them rather than giving people the freedom to make their own choices.

(Via CafeHayek.com.)

Or as I've said elsewhere:

Americans: Everyone should be entitled to make their own mistakes.

Progressives: No. We should be able to make the mistakes for you.

P.S. If the Brexit movement foretells a universal movement toward more freedom then the Brits have given the world a gift. Freedom, baby!

Brexit question -- did George Soros short the pound early enough to score big?

According to Breitbart.com, George Soros put a lot of effort into talking down the prospect of the British EU exit. Such an important role, they said, that he was The Puppet Master: Soros Emerges as Key Driver of E.U. ‘Remain’ Campaign.

It's no secret that Soros is a financial genius. He probably doesn't hit a home run every time he takes a swing, but it happens often enough to get people's attention, especially when he appears to be able exacerbate public panic to help drive down the currency price. Here's an excerpt from the above linked article:

Understanding that people have the most difficulty in making decisions during a crisis, Soros learned how to manipulate investors by taking actions to make an economic crisis seem much more intense to the investors’ consciousness. This is essentially the equivalent of “shouting fire in a crowded theater” to panic the crowd into racing for the doors and leaving their valuables behind.

Soros famously made over a $1 billion on “Black Wednesday” as the European Union was being formed in 1992 by shorting the British pound currency so intensely he caused millions of other investors to sell the pound in a panic. As a result, the United Kingdom was forced to devalue its currency by about 10 percent overnight. ...

With the date of the Brexit referendum approaching and “Leave” leading in the polls, Soros published an article in the UK Guardian claiming that a vote to leave the EU would trigger an economic disaster.

With Soros trying to scare the public, was he really trying to get them to vote "Remain," or was this a false flag in an effort to drive down the price of the pound further if the "Leave" vote won?

We'll find out some day. But betting against Soros in his favorite arena is a risky proposition.

British Independence Day -- Congratulations Brothers and Sisters

Those of us whose ancestors migrated from Britain feel a connection, however remote it is now. So when Brits shake off the shackles of the EU we remember our own history of how the colonies broke off from Britain to declare our own independence. The state of Texas has its own history of declaring independence from an oppressive regime. When the present day Brits declare their independence, we say "Right on!"

All the best to you, bros.

And to think, it was only last week ago we celebrated Magna Carta Day!

Republicans should play by Democrats' rules when it comes to catchy phrases

We touched on this the other day in Just words -- Obama chooses words carefully when referring to Islamic Terrorism and guns. Democrat are masters of manipulation when it comes to language, words, and phrases.

Along comes Sally Zelikovsky with her excellent piece titled A Mantra from Fauxcahontas in which she makes roughly the same point citing a false narrative condensed into a succinct phrase repeated by Elizabeth Warren.

But Ms. Zelikovsky goes a step further and offers some catch phrases for Republicans to use. Here are just a few:

Americans don’t want to fight peaceful Muslims. Just the Muslims who hate us.

The American people can distinguish between peaceful, law-abiding Muslims and those who hate. Why can’t the President and the Democrats?

Americans are too smart to fall for Obama’s strawman argument blaming guns instead of the terrorist. They know if a terrorist doesn’t have a gun, he’ll use a pressure cooker, a knife, a plane, a car, a rock, his bare hands.

The beauty of these is that they're true. Conservatives don't have to make false claims about these things. Go to A Mantra from Fauxcahontas to see Ms. Zelikovsky's entire list.

His supporters took away our choices, now Trump is our last best hope

I received a chain email from a long time Trump supporter which basically said that we have no choice but to vote for Trump if we didn't want a Clinton presidency. So they took away all of our choices then tell us we have no choice. The impolite response might have been, "Duh!"

But whether we like it or not, it appears now that Trump really is our only choice. Looks like others are facing up to this, too. Here, for example, is Mark Davis:

Unlike the millions of Americans who have been aboard the Trump train since it left the station, I was originally a natural supporter of Ted Cruz. His was the consistent, unapologetic conservatism that was my first wish as an antidote to the Obama years.

The simple fact is that I did not have enough company. Nor did followers of Marco Rubio, John Kasich or any of the other rivals left in the dust of the primary battles.

So a simple fact yields a simple question: What do I do now? The answer could not be more clear. I will work tirelessly to prevent the presidency of Hillary Clinton.

Add up all the negatives of a Trump presidency and it still looks better than a Clinton presidency.

How many voters do you suppose support Hillary Clinton simply because she's a woman?

Not many, I hope. It's such a shallow reason to select a president. But then, this campaign season hasn't lacked shallowness.

An admission that one would vote for a candidate on the basis of that person's sex is an admission that sex must determine certain characteristics. And that's something the gender equality squads have been trying to dispel for years. And no man would dare say he wouldn't vote for a woman because she's a woman -- that would be political incorrectness in its fullest.

But Ms. Clinton pulls out the woman's card from time to time which tells us that her research must support the proposition that her sex is a factor. So there must be voters for whom it matters.

Anyway, let's see what Dennis Prager has to say about it in The Immaturity of Supporting Hillary Clinton as a Woman:

Offering Clinton to one's daughter as a model to aspire to — given the former secretary of state's long history of lying and recent history of selling the power of her office to enrich herself and her husband — is telling one's daughter that gender trumps decency. As such, it speaks volumes about how insignificant character is to Clinton supporters.

In addition, putting aside the immorality and immaturity of gender solidarity, having a female president would be as useless to women as having a black president was to blacks.

Left unsaid: The unspoken message in Hillary's rise that marrying a smart, popular, and ambitious husband is probably the best thing that hypothetical daughter could do for herself.

Who's on first -- with Muslims on top, where does your group fit in the Democrat pecking order?

When one special interest group wants to annihilate the other, that seems like an important consideration.

At least one Democrat constituency has done the math. Obama puts Muslims above gays in the political calculation, and that was be a sobering realization. (I can't locate a link for it, but there were news reports that some members of the LGBT society were miffed because Obama puts Muslims above them.)

It makes one sympathetic to Monica Lewinsky when she discovered that Bill Clinton was cheating on her with another mistress. Coming in second place can't be much fun, number three even less so. That brings us to third place winner Hillary Clinton. Poor old gal. And to think she's leading the Democrat party now. What an exiting time in which we live.

Come January we'll get the president we deserve.

Bad ad -- E-trade customers milked like cows

Sometimes advertisers get so caught up in some creative idea that they forget that the job is to sell widgets. Not everyone will agree with this, but the E-trade ad in which Kevin Spacey plays the director instructing Robert Duvall is an ad that falls in that category. Watch it here.

You're a *young farm hand E-trade is your cow. Milk it.

Are the customers the cows? That's not an image that would make a customer want to buy the product. Let's look at something the advertising wizard David Ogilvy said:

I do not regard advertising as entertainment or an art form, but as a medium of information. When I write an advertisement, I don’t want you to tell me that you find it ‘creative.’ I want you to find it so interesting that you buy the product.

But that was the Mad Men era. Maybe things have changed.

*It sounds like he says "dumb farm hand," but the closed caption says "young farm hand." So let's give them the benefit of the doubt on that one.

Happy father's day -- a short story, very short

Found this at Joe Bob Briggs' site. It probably wasn't intended as a Father's Day message, but let's not get distracted by details.

The World’s Second Shortest Horror Story
By Rebecca Brock and Joe Bob Briggs

The last man on Earth sits in a room.
There’s a knock at the door.
It’s his ex-wife.
And her mother.

Borrowed from The World’s Second Shortest Horror Story.

Happy Father's Day!

Just words -- Obama chooses words carefully when referring to Islamic Terrorism and guns

It's the workhorse AR-15 that is in the left's cross hairs at the moment. They called it an "Assault Rifle" for years. Now they are calling it a Weapon of War.

The word "war" gets repeated often by Democrats when they try to disparage conservatives -- let's not forget the "war on women." Banning "weapons of war" sounds so much more palatable than "disarming America," and you know they chose the phrase carefully.

Lefties are masters at manipulating language to get their desired result from those whose votes they seek. And Obama is a good student of that school as he has put their teachings to good use through the years with catch phrases like "hope and change" and "we are the ones we've been waiting for." It would seem to take a certain susceptibility to be so easily persuaded. Yet Obama certainly had his followers.

"Islamic Terrorism" is a phrase that has been excluded from Obama's lexicon. He gave the game away when he tried to claim it doesn't matter. One has to wonder why he is so afraid of those words -- did CAIR bend his ear? He and his fellow leftists have been so careful avoiding those words yet so eager to use clever phrases against conservatives.

Words matter, and he knows it. There is a lot conservatives could learn from him.

Never let a crisis go to waste -- Obama misapplies Orlando terrorism to gun control

There's probably room for some compromise between gun controllers and gun owners. But anyone who heard Obama demonize gun owners over the years is probably more inclined to think the gun control advocates will not rest until every law abiding gun owner is disarmed. Glenn Reynolds says it best:

Remember, none of this is about saving lives. It’s about the cultural domination of the people in flyover country, by their coastal “betters” who get a near-erotic thrill out of such domination, and who are reduced to blind rage whenever their efforts at domination fail.

The issue as it is being applied to the Orlando terrorism is whether suspected terrorists should be able to purchase guns. Never mind that the killer had passed all scrutiny and had been cleared by the FBI.

The NRA has a good position on the subject, and that's that a gun sale can be delayed while an investigation is conducted and anyone who is going to be denied his/her constitutional right should get a fair and prompt hearing. See NRA Statement on Terror Watchlists:

Fairfax, Va.— The executive director of the National Rifle Association's Institute for Legislative Action, Chris W. Cox, released the following statement regarding terror watchlists:

We are happy to meet with Donald Trump.  The NRA's position on this issue has not changed.  The NRA believes that terrorists should not be allowed to purchase or possess firearms, period.  Anyone on a terror watchlist who tries to buy a gun should be thoroughly investigated by the FBI and the sale delayed while the investigation is ongoing.  If an investigation uncovers evidence of terrorist activity or involvement, the government should be allowed to immediately go to court, block the sale, and arrest the terrorist.  At the same time, due process protections should be put in place that allow law-abiding Americans who are wrongly put on a watchlist to be removed.  That has been the position of Sen. John Cornyn (R.-Tex.) and a majority of the U.S. Senate.  Sadly, President Obama and his allies would prefer to play politics with this issue.

Meanwhile Obama plays politics to his fan base making ISIS look like the strong horse to its fan base.

MSM love 1st amendment, 2nd amendment not so much

I couldn't help but notice the juxtaposition. On one side of the morning paper's opinion page is a piece advocating more gun control. To be fair, the piece advocated a tough standard on suspected terrorists. But that would be just a starting point. Many of us suspect that the msm, and Bloomberg in particular, would like nothing better than to claim they were responsible for laws that would ultimately require law abiding citizens to relinquish their firearms to the federal government. If luck in on their side, a Democrat in the White House next year might nominate some Supreme Court Justices who would be complicit in abolishing some of the hard won rights under the 2nd amendment.

As for the tough stance against gun buying terrorists, the bureaucrat who decides who is or isn't a terrorist may subscribe to the lists supplied by the leftist groups who think the biggest threat to the U.S. is from political conservatives.

On the other side of the page is a piece decrying Donald Trump's withdrawal of press credentials from WaPo for his rallies. (Read it at the WaPo site.) Of course there's the obligatory reference to the 1st amendment. There's some irony there. What a shame they can't respect both the 1st and 2nd amendments equally.

By the way, whether or not the Washington Post has a legitimate complaint, it really isn't a 1st amendment issue. Trump isn't the government -- are they simply looking ahead?

Aside: Washington Post's complaint about Trump is reminiscent of the media complaints about Sarah Palin when she stopped interviews with newspaper editorial boards even when everyone knew the boards were going to trash her no matter what she said. Trump is showing that it takes a tough skin to run against the main stream media.

Our strength is NOT in our diversity

It's gratifying to see someone with the gravitas of Thomas Sowell eviscerate that shop worn platitude, "Our strength is in our diversity."

See Is Diversity Our Strength? Here's Sowell in his own words:

In the lofty circles of those who see themselves as citizens of the world, it is considered unworthy, if not hateful, to insist on living according to your own Western values or to resist importing people who increase your chances of being killed.

But if you don’t have the instinct for self-preservation, it will not matter much in the long run whatever else you may have.

America’s great good fortune in the past has been that Americans have been able to unite as Americans against every enemy, despite our own internal differences and struggles. Black and white, Jew and Gentile, have fought and died for this country in every war.

The U.S. was once a melting pot, or so we were taught. But it seems disparate groups find themselves more loyal to a cause designed to give themselves more power than to the country. Furthermore, it seems immaterial to them whether it makes the whole weaker, not stronger. Sowell references Balkanization. Maybe today when we peer into the melting pot we see a Balkan Salad.

Happy Magna Carta Day

Today, June 15, is the birthday of the Magna Carta. Originally called Articles of the Barons, it was signed by King John on that day in 1215 to settle a dispute he was having with those Barons. And the Magna Carta became an historic document -- one of the most famous documents in the world.

The part that has endured multiple iterations is the following:

No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgement of his equals or by the law of the land.

To no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay right or justice.

While the language might not spell it out as precisely as we would have liked, it has been interpreted to mean such things as the right to individual liberty and to trial by jury.

Let's all raise a glass of gin in honor of Magna Carta Day. What the heck, World Gin Day was just last week, so drink the whole bottle.

P.S. Anyone educated in the public school system in the last few years probably didn't get taught about this. And if they did, they probably shut their school down because of the reference to "free man." But another bit of ignored history: it was the "free man" who ultimately outlawed slavery.

Love him or hate him, Trump is our only hope against gun control

Gun owners have long been suspicious of President Obama's desire to disarm American citizens. One has to wonder why, but bloggers have been trying to read his mind on this subject for eight years. The answers come down to roughly three theories: He wants to bring America down for past imagined indiscretions, he is so caught up in liberal ideology that he believes guns in the hands of individuals is somehow wrong, or he believes unarmed citizens are easier to control. The answer is probably a combination of all three.

The problem is that so many Americans either agree with him or don't think gun rights are that important. And now we come to a presidential election which will likely pit Hillary Clinton against Donald Trump. Clinton has assured her voters that she's in the gun control camp. With Trump we really don't know. He flip flops often and ends up saying what he thinks his supporters want to hear.

As I've stated before in this blog, I'm a one issue voter: The U.S. Supreme Court. The death of Antonin Scalia was a shock to most of us, and he's only the first justice who will have to be replaced. There will be others. And the justices who get appointed will be deciding important issues that will affect us for years.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals just struck a blow against the 2nd amendment in Peralta v. County of San Diego by ruling that the California laws severely restricting concealed carry are not precluded by the 2nd amendment.

The case will go to the Supreme Court where one new leftest justice could help the court hammer the 2nd amendment into an empty shell of words.

Hillary Clinton's appointments will be a disaster for Constitutional rights. But at least we know that going in. Donald Trump was not my first choice for the Republican nomination. But he's looking like the only hope for those who want to preserve individual liberties.

t's time to retire the word Islamophobia especially after Orlando

Americans are in shock as news from Orlando fills our TV screens and computer monitors about the horrific mass murder at the night club there.

Expect the usual suspects to warn about a backlash against Muslims because of that evil thing called Islamophobia. Balderdash. It's a false claim for victimhood to deflect from the real threat. We know who is responsible. Let the blame go where it belongs, radical Islam.

In that regard, it didn't take long for ISIS to lay claim to the atrocity.

It's time to retire the word Islamophobia and face realistic threats. Many of us suffer from Obamaphobia -- the fear of being disarmed by a president hostile to the 2nd amendment and end up defenseless as an armed ISIS terrorist shows up at the front door.

Transgenders now choose their bathrooms -- will male prison inmates get to move to women's prisons? Roger Corman, get your camera ready.

Some stores have given in to transgender bathroom usage. School districts are grappling with the issue, especially with the Obama administration breathing down their necks.

Now, with Obama getting more and more liberal with convicts, it seems only a matter of time before transgender inmates get to declare whether they are male or female and serve time in a prison designated for the sex they declared.

It sounds like something out of a Roger Corman movie. In case you don't remember him, he earned millions making B grade sexploitation movies in the 60s and 70s with titles like "Women in Cages," "The Big Bird Cage," and "Caged Heat."

Coming soon to a theater near you: "Man Trapped in a Woman's Body Trapped in a Women's Prison."

Not what you want to see in the toilet

I installed a new toilet the other day, and after removing the old one there was this black hole in the floor inviting me to look down into it. It's impossible to resist, like not looking at a train wreck.

It looked pretty nasty. And I don't feel any better now after reading this -- there's no way to sugar coat it: Python in toilet bites Thai man on penis. Click for pics.

The desert snakes we have in West Texas don't go in for swimming. Thanks goodness!

Obama endorses Hillary Clinton -- pardon next

The big announcement of the day was that President Obama endorsed Hillary Clinton in the presidential race. He's got his name on it now. Nbcnews.com quoting Obama:

... I don't think there's ever been someone so qualified to hold this office...

(Aside: More qualified than Obama himself?)

But how would it look now if she got indicted?

That's easy. She won't get indicted. Either FBI Director James Comey will decline to request an indictment or Attorney General Loretta Lynch will decline to prosecute.

However, as a fail safe, Obama could always pardon her. To those of us who don't support her that sounds like a dreadful outcome, but it's not likely to sway her supporters.

But would it push independents toward Trump? It might. But Trump is always tripping over his own tongue, and he's likely to have offended so many people by November that only his true supporters remain in his camp. Maybe the independents stay home.

What a year this has been. For all the complaining the pundits do, this has been the most entertaining election most of us in the U.S. has ever seen.

New Mexico -- Democrat primary voters over double Republican voters

I don't know why I thought it would be any different. But according to ballotpedia.org, the total turnout for Democrats in the June 7, 2016, primary was 214,512 compared with 95,452 for Republicans.

Of course, Bernie Sanders has really fired up some Democrats, and he made a good show of it with his enthusiastic supporters, but it wasn't enough -- he got 48.5% and 14 delegates. Clinton supporters can't be very exited, but her voters probably felt some sort of obligation to counter Sanders' supporters. Oh, the burden those people must feel as they haul Hillary's baggage around on their shoulders. Yet they pulled it off.

Meanwhile, it was dullsville in the Republican Primary. With all the former contenders now watching Donald Trump from the sidelines, there wasn't much point in voting. But many did, nonetheless.

Anyway, the screenshot is from the aforementioned ballotpedia.org page for New Mexico.

Charles Murray makes the case for a universal basic income

Free money! What's not to like about that? It's a wonder Bernie Sanders isn't promising that.

Not everyone likes the idea, though. A referendum was just defeated by voters in Switzerland which would have given every citizen a basic income paid from the government treasury. Most of us thought that was probably the best outcome. However, Charles Murray has a different take on the universal basic income (UBI) that's worth a look.

He contends "that a UBI is our only hope to deal with a coming labor market unlike any in human history and that it represents our best hope to revitalize American civil society." See A Guaranteed Income for Every American.

However, it will work only if replaces all other payment systems and the agencies that manage them. And there's where it starts to make sense. Here's Murray:

The UBI is to be financed by getting rid of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, Supplemental Security Income, housing subsidies, welfare for single women and every other kind of welfare and social-services program, as well as agricultural subsidies and corporate welfare. As of 2014, the annual cost of a UBI would have been about $200 billion cheaper than the current system. By 2020, it would be nearly a trillion dollars cheaper.

Read the whole thing for the numbers and the upper individual income limit where it would partially phase out. He acknowledges that the UBI might make bums of some people. But, he says, we've got plenty of those already. The question would be whether we would have more of them.

In that regard, the survey cited here isn't encouraging:

"The millennial workforce is predominantly 'checked out,' not putting energy or passion into their jobs. They are indifferent about work and show up just to put in their hours," said the survey of the 73-million strong group.

In any event, Murray always makes a good point. And we would do well not to ignore him however unlikely the ideas are to get implemented.

If ex-convicts deserve to get their voting rights back, should they also get their gun rights back?

Barton Hinkle makes an excellent point. Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe recently restored the voting rights of 206,000 ex-convicts. If that's justifiable, then why not restore all their rights and let them possess guns, too?

The voting rights issue is purely partisan politics. But as much as I'm against gun control, maybe the idea of relaxing gun laws in regard to convicted felons should get a bit more study before jumping ahead on it. We don't necessarily think ex-cons are dangerous, but we just don't know. They may or may not be rehabilitated. The recidivism rate is, however, quite high.

Anyway, here's Hinkle in Should Felons Get Their Gun Rights Back?:

The answer, presumably, is that felons might be dangerous. But that doesn't hold up under even casual scrutiny. For one thing, it implies the state is releasing dangerous people into the general population. If the state is doing that, then it should stop. But supporters of the governor's executive order clearly don't think that is happening. They seem to hold that felons have reformed. McAuliffe himself said "they have atoned." If so, then they present no threat, do they?

The three "Rs" of criminal justice are restraint, rehabilitation, and retribution. (I prefer the word "punishment" to "retribution," but it doesn't fit the alliteration.) Rehabilitation is really an unknown, and we can't say that a convict is rehabilitated simple because he/she served out a sentence or was released early for good behavior. So we can't accurately say that all three parts of that trio of purposes were satisfied on the same date.

Punishment is an important part of the incarceration. And maybe society doesn't want to end the punishment at the exact same time the subject is released from the restraint. And gun restrictions may be a continuation of the punishment, and under that rationale, perfectly justified.

30 minute tsunami warning when Cascadia fault snaps

There are people who follow this stuff very closely, especially if they live in the target zone of the Pacific Northwest. I don't know how close Jazz Shaw of hotair.com is to the danger zone, but he's got a fine article about a training session scheduled to take place next week to help prepare responders for a potential catastrophe.

The Cascadia Subduction Zone is a 620 mile fault line running off the West coast from Northern California to Southern Canada. It's over due for a quake, and when it happens, a tsunami will likely follow.

Here's Jazz Shaw in Pacific northwest stages drill to prepare for massive tsunami:

The fault line is only a short ways off the coast and if the geologic record is any indicator, when it decides to snap it does it in a big way. We could readily be talking a magnitude nine earthquake which will shatter much of mankind’s wonderful constructions along that region. But then, perhaps less than thirty minutes later, a wall of water like something out of a disaster movie will come roaring ashore and wipe out everything in its path.

That’s barely enough time to clear out a gas station, say nothing of the major population centers from northern California to the Canadian border. From the projections I’ve seen, the dead would likely number in the tens of thousands at least and the infrastructure will be pretty much wiped out. No power, no cell towers, no running water, and whatever isn’t collapsed or underwater will likely be on fire. So what sort of precautions are they taking? As I said, you’re not going to get any significant number of people to high ground in that amount of time so I assume it’s mostly rescue and recovery missions. Ham radio is a great start, but I assume they’ll be telling people how to have a bug out kit ready and some stores of food and potable water to keep them alive (assuming they survive the initial onslaught) until they can be evacuated to some intact territory.

Californians have been bracing for earthquakes for years, and the big one has yet to strike. But maybe they'll all strike at about the same time. Here's Wikipedia:

Studies of past earthquake traces on both the northern San Andreas Fault and the southern Cascadia subduction zone indicate a correlation in time which may be evidence that quakes on the Cascadia subduction zone may have triggered most of the major quakes on the northern San Andreas during at least the past 3,000 years or so. The evidence also shows the rupture direction going from north to south in each of these time-correlated events.

One more reason for Californians to move East. But just so you know, the East coast isn't entirely off the hook. See Atlantic hurricane season: La Nina may fuel most active season in 3 years.

A question for those who want to return California to Mexico

Mexico is close to being a narco-state, and the government does not have a stellar reputation for honesty. What we know is mostly anecdotal, but it seems that the bribe is an important ingredient in the process of getting things done.

So here's the question: What exactly is it about the Mexican government that you like so much that you want it in the U.S.?

Are they looking for income equality?  They won't find that in Mexico.

Gun control?  Mexico has the laws but not the control.

Good schools?  They could be onto something with the schools. Somewhere they are getting a sense of national pride in Mexico. Our schools certainly aren't doing that in regard to our own nation.

But ultimately, open borders and relaxed crossings are probably the objective of the movement, not a change in government. After all, if they want a leftest government, California already has it.

A reason to vote for Trump -- he probably won't wilt under lefty media pressure

Obama seemed like a broken record for the first few years of his administration with all those complaints about how he faced so many problems he inherited from the previous administration. I noted in a blog post back then that he didn't inherit any problems, he bought them.

Obama got a free ride from the msm, so that made it easy for him to get away with it. The next president, if it's a Republican, won't get a free ride. He'll face endless poison gas attacks from reporters.

So the president is going to have to have tough skin and a strong nose. If we look at some of the others who ran in the Republican Primary, Ted Cruz and Donald Trump are the only ones who could survive that. Unfortunately for Cruz, he wasn't liked by voters as well as Trump.

Trump seems quite capable of giving the middle finger -- be it short and fat or long and skinny, it doesn't matter -- to the scurrying crowd that is the main stream media.

Even with all his perceivable faults, that's one reason to vote for him.

Progressives are driven to regulate -- have sights on e-cigarettes

Progressives generally make no bones about their desire to regulate anything that moves, so they were natural allies with big pharma and big tobacco in the battle to stop e-cigarettes. Some would call this a baptist and bootlegger situation. And while that might be an apt label, it's old fashioned politics with special interests combining forces to get what they want through government and recruiting compliant politicians who will carry their wishes through the sausage factory to get laws passed that will hurt the competition.

Their target is the e-cigarette business -- a relatively new industry that could revolutionize the nicotine delivery system. See Hot Air: Democrats Work With Big Tobacco and Big Pharma to Choke the Vaping Industry. Decide for yourself who are the baptists and who are the bootleggers:

Drug companies favoring the FDA rules—usually big backers of Democrats—have huge sums invested in prescription smoking-cessation drugs, covered in many cases under the Democrat-passed Affordable Care Act, which they helped shape. They now face stiff competition from readily available e-cigarettes. Similarly, tobacco companies, left flat-footed by the growth of the upstart vaping market, also support the FDA rules as they look to shore up market positions in both tobacco and e-cigarettes.

Some use e-cigarettes because they don't produce the carcinogens that tobacco cigarettes do. Some use them as a way to quit nicotine all together. Others use them because of the healing power nicotine has on some diseases, although that's probably a tiny segment.

In any event, the e-cigarette industry should be encouraged not destroyed. Before piling on regulations, the FDA should do some research to try to identify harmful effects of vaping so users can decide for themselves whether e-cigarettes are right for them.

Laptops preloaded with bloatware may be vulnerable to hackers

This may be a good reason to spend the extra money and buy a laptop from the "business" section of a manufacturer's website rather than the "consumer" side. For an explanation of some of the differences, see Laptops for work and play: the differences that matter. In sum, the business computers cost more but are expected to last longer.

And for some, the customer can choose which software comes pre-loaded. That's an important option. While the pre-loads on the cheaper units help keep the price low, they can be a little sloppy on security. See Pre-Loaded Laptop Software Comes With Security Risks. Excerpt:

Pre-loaded OEM software has serious implications for system security. For example, in early 2015 adware called Superfish pre-installed on Lenovo laptops tampered with the Windows Platform Binary Table, allowing attackers to eavesdrop on unwitting users’ web browser traffic. Later in the year, some Dell computers became vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attacks because of an issue with the eDellRoot certificate authority.

“Every time something like this happens, we are reassured that the offending vendor of the day cares deeply about our security and privacy. Unfortunately, a cursory analysis of most OEM software reveals that very limited, if any security review was performed,” the report states.

“The thing about software updaters is that they are inherently privileged. They have to run with full system permission in order to change and modify anything,” says Darren Kemp, an analyst and author of the Duo Lab report.  “A lot of the vulnerabilities we found were easy to find and easy to exploit; it is a real enticing target for attackers.”

So what does the buyer of a new computer do?

Short of explicitly disabling updaters and removing OEM components altogether, the end user can do very little to protect themselves from the vulnerabilities created by OEM update components. However, Duo Security did provide users with some advice:

-Wipe any OEM system, and reinstall a clean and bloatware-free copy of Windows before the system is used. Otherwise, reducing the attack surface should be the first step in any system-hardening process.
-Identify unwanted, unnecessary software and disable or uninstall it — less complexity generally results in fewer security flaws.
-Purchasing Microsoft Signature Edition systems may be beneficial, but it is not guaranteed to protect end users from flaws in OEM software altogether.
-Dell, HP, and Lenovo vendors (in specific cases) appeared to perform more security due diligence when compared to Acer and Asus.

Hmm. Windows operating systems aren't cheap when starting from scratch. But maybe it would be worth it.