Sleepless in Midland

The Republican electorate transformed, according to WaPo

Henry Olsen at WaPo tells us all about what he thinks Republicans want in The GOP is the party of Trump. Here's an excerpt:

Trump has earned this high level of support because he has delivered on the items of supreme importance to almost every Republican faction. University of New Hampshire professor Dante Scala and I examined these groupings in our book “The Four Faces of the Republican Party.” Pre-Trump, the party had four factions: fiscal conservatives, social conservatives, “somewhat” conservatives (also labeled business conservatives) and moderates. Trump brought new voters into the primary process and created a fifth faction: nationalist conservatives, who want to lower immigration and redo foreign trade deals. Four of these five have received the things they care most about under the Trump administration.

Democrats like to use that word, "nationalist." But he's probably wrong on his description of the fifth group wanting lower immigration. Mr. Olsen does what so many Democrats do, and that's lumping legal immigrants with illegal immigrants together under one name.

But he's right to say that Trump delivered what a lot of conservatives wanted, and that's a better economy than we had. However, there's also the appointment of Constitutional judges -- something almost all conservatives wanted, not just religious conservatives. But one of the most important elements of Trump's appeal to voters is that he doesn't roll over and play dead whenever the msm rips into him. He fights back. Many conservative voters love that contrast between Trump and so, so many of the previous Republican presidential aspirants.

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2:32 PM 2/27/2019

Progressive Dem candidates now favor slavery reparations

We're learning from news reports that both Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris support reparations for black Americans. The knee jerk reaction to that is that they are using Democrats' tactics of identity politics to pander to a voting bloc.

The problem for taxpayers, who comprise only *37% of the US population, is that all the burden falls on them whether they feel the need for absolution or not. Eloquent writers have provided plenty of reasons to oppose reparations. But let's accept for the moment that there would be some societal benefit to a system that provided absolution to the guilt ridden.

The problem for taxpayers, who comprise only *37% of the US population, is that all the burden falls on them whether or not they would like to do it.

Michael Eric Dyson's Individual Reparations Account provides a solution. Make the payments into the account optional. That way those who feel the need can do it, and those who don't don't.

What's not to like about optional reparation payments?

Previously: Individual Reparations Account not such a bad idea if donors can withdraw money if race relations sour

*numbers come from US Debt Clock as of the time of this writing. 122,425,807 ÷ 328,644,256 = 0.3725

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2:41 PM 2/26/2019

A woman made a business out of DNA research and family tree building

If like me, you are impressed with entrepreneurs who put together a new business using old and new techniques to serve their customers, you may like this article. It came out a couple of weeks ago. The Making of a DNA Detective, (Alternate link), is about CeCe Moore and her business of helping people find relatives and helping police solve cold case files.

Millions of people have taken DNA tests from the online companies, and Ms. Moore uses the data to help her clients.

Her method:

First, she uses an ancestry test to identify a distant relative—say, a third cousin. She then constructs a family tree, filling out branches with information from public records such as wedding announcements, obituaries and even social media.

“You just keep building and building and building to find that intersection where these different families come together,” she says. “Most second great-grandparents—back then there were big farm and Catholic families. I run into it often where there’s between 15 and 20 children, and it takes a lot of time to build all of those people’s descendants forward.”

We applaud the detective work that goes into the capture of bad guys and gals. As for law abiding people who might just like to be left alone? Read on:

Ms. Moore is fiercely protective of individual privacy and doesn’t want DNA used without people’s consent. Yet making your own DNA public may impinge on your relatives’ privacy. Ms. Moore worries that such fears could deter people from taking ancestry tests and make it harder to put criminals behind bars.

As for the complaint that genealogy can draw innocent relatives of criminals into investigations, she notes that it can also exonerate innocent people who might needlessly be pulled into investigations. “There are hundreds or thousands of people that are investigated in crimes that are innocent,” she notes. “In all of the crimes I’ve worked except one, the [identified perpetrator] didn’t appear on their person-of-interest list.”

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3:53 PM 2/25/2019

Let's not give too much credit to AOC for the Amazon pullout of NYC

That Thanks for Nothing AOC sign in NYC got a lot of coverage for its message. But it gave too much credit to AOC for Amazon's decision not to place its new HQ2 in New York. Members of the NYC Council and union leaders put the scare in Amazon. Check out Amazon’s New York Project Foundered on Labor Organizing, Opposition to Subsidies:

After the announcement, a group of state and local leaders seized on the incentive package and questioned why one of the richest companies in the world was getting subsidies at all. Cries of corporate welfare and vulture capitalism became refrains among progressive Democrats, including the state’s newest political star, U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, as well as from within the newly Democratic state senate.

Those politicians, together with union leaders, also beat a drum about Amazon’s stance against organized labor. Members of the New York City Council joined in, grilling company executives at hearings in December and January over their record with unions and about the closed-door negotiations with state and city officials that had produced the biggest project-based incentive package in state history.

“This was a secretive process intentionally structured to avoid a substantive public review in advance of any commitments being made,” City Council Speaker Corey Johnson said at a Jan. 30 hearing.

Amazon executives were completely unprepared for the backlash, according to the people familiar with the matter. Polls showed a majority of New Yorkers supported the new campus, but Amazon grew more wary when state Sen. Mike Gianaris, who represents the project site in Queens, was nominated on Feb. 4 to the Public Authorities Board. The seat meant Mr. Gianaris, an outspoken critic of the deal, could potentially veto the proposed campus.

(Alternate link)

Give credit where credit is due. She probably deserves a little of the blame for chasing away a vibrant large scale employer. But to give her full credit is misplaced.

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1:43 PM 2/24/2019

Cute gif of red fox playing with toy

Click foxxxgif to see the gif of a beautiful red fox playing with a toy in the snow. Who would have thought that wild canines can have so much fun?

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2:58 PM 2/22/2019

Fox Friday 2-22-19 -- Stumpy at dusk

The cats usually take first dibs on the food. But this late comer had to wait his turn.

Check out that pair of eyes on the fence staring down at the fox.

Here are two shots in dim light.

Stumpy at dusk.

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3:29 PM 2/21/2019

Meetings for people who hate meetings

The other day I attended a starchy lunch meeting in which several new people were introduced. They introduced themselves and told us what they did. But one held the stage and asked us each to introduce ourselves and tell what we did. Groan. He wasn't there to educate us but to let us educate him. I edged toward the door and executed a French exit.

As one of those people who dislikes meetings it was refreshing to see a recent article by Steven Rogelberg, an expert on meetings, titled The Science of Better Meetings in which he set forth a simple formula on how to have a successful meeting.

And sure enough, he addressed the fact that sometimes the leader is the problem:

My team’s research, published in 2011 in the journal Group Dynamics, shows that one person usually leaves a meeting feeling good about it: the leader.

In outline form, his points are as follows:

1. Recognize that you may be the problem.

2. Keep it small.

3. Don’t take an hour. "Try a 48-minute rule in place of an hour ..."

4. Do a meeting “pre-mortem.” "[A]gendas were typically standard boilerplate, repeated at every meeting, or made up on the spot. ... An effective agenda works like a plan for an event: It has clear goals or key questions to answer. "

It's harder for the meeting planners, but it just might work. The goal should be to make attendees not dread another meeting but want to attend.

It's worth a try.

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3:57 PM 2/19/2019

Build the wall in the river

The issue of the Texas land owners resisting a wall on their border property is probably not the last barrier to building a wall that will come out. But to be sure, land owners do not like to part with even a small portion of their privately owned property.

Eminent domain is a legal government taking of a land owner's property. So here's a path around that: build the wall in the Rio Grande River. Yes, right in the water.

Offshore petroleum platforms survive in the Gulf of Mexico, so it shouldn't be too hard to sink pylons in a river bed and attach metal slats to them to form a long lasting physical barrier.

The adjacent land owners own the land underlying the river up to the Mexican border, which should be down the middle. But federal and state laws prevent the use by the landowner of the land under the water. So exercising eminent domain for the land under water shouldn't be that difficult.

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1:28 PM 2/19/2019

Guns on display at Shot Show don't have firing pins -- thieves who stole guns there got busted after trying to buy firing pins

Here's an interesting way that some thieves got caught. The annual Shooting, Hunting, and Outdoor Trade Show, aka "Shot Show," in Las Vegas is a huge gun show open only to people in the shooting, hunting, outdoor industry. That exclusivity may cut down on shoplifting. However, two individuals who had worked as forklift operators during the show may have lifted a few guns.

But here's the thing the thieves may not have known right away. Show rules required all firing pins to have been removed from guns on display. After the thefts were discovered the ATF issued a bulletin advising gun shop owners to be on the lookout for anyone wanting firing pins. And sure enough, a shop owner reported that some customers were looking for firing pins. The ATF located one of the individuals with the license plate number of the vehicle they got in when they left the store.

The requirement that guns at the show be displayed without firing pins may have been for safety reasons, but in this case it served as a tracking device.

Gun thievery is a problem. Last September we talked about that in this blog with reference to some stats that came from Lubbock. The Lubbockonline.com reported that as of September, 2018, there had been 170 firearms stolen from vehicles in the city.

So theft deterrence is a challenge. Perhaps removing the firing pin might at least make a gun inert until repaired. But then it wouldn't stop a thief.

Meanwhile, some links:
2 Las Vegas men charged with stealing guns from SHOT Show
Two Men Stole Guns at SHOT Show. Here’s the Hiccup They Didn’t Anticipate.
Police stress vehicle gun thefts in Lubbock, urge responsibility
Gun owners, don't let your guns slip into the criminal market.

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3:42 PM 2/18/2019

Basic income experiment in Finland is over - results inconclusive - they did it wrong

The basic guaranteed income experiment in Finland has ended with most saying it didn't accomplish what the proponents hoped would happen. See Finnish basic income trial: creates happiness, but not jobs.

Perhaps I'm sounding like those socialists who say, "Yeah, yeah, socialism hasn't worked anywhere it was tried, but they just didn't do it right." And therein lies the problem. It could probably never be done right. And that's what is happening to the universal basic income theory.

After reading Charles Murray's explanation I was a supporter of the idea. But the reality is that no jurisdiction is likely to embrace Mr. Murray's formula for successfully implementing the system. Here's Murray.

I think 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. ... The great free-market economist Milton Friedman originated the idea of a guaranteed income just after World War II. ...

First, my big caveat: A UBI will do the good things I claim only if it replaces all other transfer payments and the bureaucracies that oversee them. If the guaranteed income is an add-on to the existing system, it will be as destructive as its critics fear. ...

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.

(Bold added to highlight the formula for success of the plan.)

It's a decent theory. But getting it done right is a challenge.

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8:54 AM 2/17/2019

Fox Friday 2-15-2019

Black Tip gives us a Valentine's Day smile.

Kamala Harris tries to capitalize on misunderstanding about tax refunds

For several days viewers of cable news programs have been hearing that IRS tax refunds will be lower than in the past. Whether that's good news or bad news depends on your political perspective, it seems.

A tax refund means the taxpayer had too much withheld from his/her paycheck or otherwise paid more than was actually due for the year. It's smart to pay just the right amount, but that's not always possible.

Perhaps we should be grateful that the IRS refunds the over payment, but it's no reason to celebrate. And a lower refund is no reason to fret.

So those news commentators who lament the lower refund amounts have it all wrong. And along comes Kamala Harris chiming in on that wrong headed belief:

The average tax refund is down about $170 compared to last year. Let’s call the President’s tax cut what it is: a middle-class tax hike to line the pockets of already wealthy corporations and the 1%.
12:09 PM - 11 Feb 2019

WaPo's Glenn Kessler rips it apart in Kamala Harris leaps to unwarranted conclusions in tax tweet:

This tweet combines two factoids into a highly misleading package. Yes, tax refunds are smaller, based on preliminary data. And, yes, in the long run, the Trump tax cut raises taxes on the middle class — if you make the probably unrealistic assumption that Congress will not act to rescue tax cuts for individuals.

But Harris presented these facts without nuance or qualification, making it appear as though the smaller tax refunds were evidence of a tax hike on the middle class. In reality, the size of a tax refund reflects nothing about the size of a tax cut or tax increase — and at least in 2018, the vast majority of middle-class Americans can expect to pay less in taxes as a result of the Trump tax law.

Harris earns Four Pinocchios

But being wrong and wrong headed has never hurt a politician pandering to popular belief.

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5:35 AM 2/14/2019

What's with the left's fascination with trains?

Years ago when citizens of Houston were contemplating a light rail system in the city a friend explained that some people were really wowed by the idea because they played with electric trains when they were children and never grew out of it.

That love of trains is playing out again as we see with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's Green New Deal. From NPR:

"Overhauling transportation systems" to reduce emissions — including expanding electric car manufacturing, building "charging stations everywhere," and expanding high-speed rail to "a scale where air travel stops becoming necessary"...

As children, our electric trains probably came from Santa Claus. And to many, Uncle Sam is Santa Claus.

But bringing the real world of high speed rail dreams grinding down to school zone speed, the other day California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a shift in priorities that would de-emphasize the $77 billion rail plan in California which has been going on for the past decade with hardly anything to show for it:

“Let’s be real. The project, as currently planned, would cost too much and take too long,” Newsom said about the train, which is under construction in the Central Valley. “There’s been too little oversight and not enough transparency. Right now, there simply isn’t a path to get from Sacramento to San Diego, let alone from San Francisco to L.A. I wish there were.”

Reality set in. A cross country high speed system in the U.S. would be incredibly expensive. Maybe taxpayers should take up a collection and buy model trains for members of congress to try to satiate their train fantasies.

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2:36 PM 2/13/2019

Palladium mining -- from catalytic converters -- thieves at work with saws

There was a time when thieves targeted vehicle radios so much that car owners would put "No radio" signs in their windows avoid getting a broken window.

Later, thieves trended toward other items, like tires, pickup truck tailgates, and seats. Seats? Apparently, there was a ready market for them. Vehicle theft victims might receive a call from the local police, "We located your car, and you can pick it up at the impound lot. Bring something to sit on."

Now it's catalytic converters sawed out from under a vehicle. With the price of palladium so high it must be worth the risk. See Thieves Mine Catalytic Converters for Metal More Valuable Than Gold. Alternate link. Here's an excerpt:

Police in Chicago say perpetrators, who harvest the devices and sell the scrap metal, have converter theft down to a fine art.

“What tends to happen is that in the middle of the night, a group of guys come by with a truck and a reciprocating saw. They cut out the converter, throw it in the truck and drive away,” said Howard Ludwig, public information officer at the Chicago Police Department.

“They’ll tend to hit several blocks in the same evening with at least one guy driving the [getaway] vehicle and one underneath the car.”

Catalytic converters sit in the undercarriage of a car between the engine and the tailpipe, capturing toxic gases and particles. They use metals such as palladium, rhodium and platinum to transform the pollutants into less harmful types of exhaust.

“We’ve had three different sets of parking lots hit, and they usually get four or five vehicles each time,” said police Lt. Chuck Nagle in Vestavia Hills, Ala., a small city outside of Birmingham.

“They’re usually taking them out of state and getting anywhere from $150 to $200 at a clip….they’re not selling the part. They’re selling the metal,” Lt. Nagle added.

We can thank environmental regulations for making victims out of ordinary car owners.

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2:29 PM 2/12/2019

Magnetic North is on the move -- faster than previously

Here's National Geographic: Magnetic north just changed. Here's what that means. Maya Wei-Haas tells this:

Magnetic north has never sat still. In the last hundred years or so, the direction in which our compasses steadfastly point has lumbered ever northward, driven by Earth's churning liquid outer core some 1,800 miles beneath the surface. Yet in recent years, scientists noticed something unusual: Magnetic north's routine plod has shifted into high gear, sending it galloping across the Northern Hemisphere—and no one can entirely explain why.

National Centers for Environmental Information puts it this way: World Magnetic Model Out-of-Cycle Release which is to say that the World Magnetic Model is being released a year early due to the speed of change. As to who needs it, there's this:

The military uses the WMM for undersea and aircraft navigation, parachute deployment, and more. Other governmental organizations, such as NASA, the Federal Aviation Administration, U.S. Forest Service, and many more use this technology for surveying and mapping, satellite/antenna tracking, and air traffic management.

For anyone using an old fashioned pocket compass this natural change in *magnetic declination is probably unnoticeable compared with the distortions caused by modern electronics. I tried to use a compass in a rented car roughly a year ago and was lost most of the time due to something under the hood that caused the needle to point toward the front of the car whichever direction it was headed.

Click hyperlink to find the magnetic declination at your location.

*Magnetic declination or variation is the angle on the horizontal plane between magnetic north and true north. This angle varies depending on position on the Earth's surface, and changes over time.

P.S. How soon will be until someone blames this rapid change on humans?

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2:12 PM 2/10/2019

What's Beto's position on open borders? Does anyone need to ask?

It would be nice if MSM asked him, especially as Beto and Trump are scheduled to hold rallies in El Paso around the same time.

Thehill.com tells us this: O'Rourke to headline counter-Trump rally at border. To wit:

Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas) will headline a rally on Monday in El Paso at the same time that President Trump is set to hold a rally there.

O'Rourke will join rally-goers in El Paso to "show the country the reality of the border," according to a statement released by his office Friday.

“Beto O’Rourke will join with his city on Monday evening to show the country the reality of the border -- a vibrant, safe, binational community that proudly celebrates its culture, history, diversity and status as a city of immigrants,” the statement said.

To catch up on "the reality of the border," perhaps Beto should take a look at these two articles from sources generally not especially Trump friendly: Border Patrol catch 325 migrants, including 32 unaccompanied CHILDREN, who sneaked through unsecured Mexico barrier after group lit campfire to cope with freezing temperatures; and U.S. Border Patrol Overwhelmed by Large Groups of Migrant Families.

Meanwhile, Jim Clifton at the Gallop Chairman's Blog asks this: What If There Were 42 Million at the Border?, citing poll results about which "the Gallup analytics estimate is that 42 million want to come to the U.S."

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10:04 AM 2/10/2019

Democrats discover power of forgiveness -- of other Democrats

Wearing blackface wasn't such a big deal after Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax got accused of assaulting a female. It's as if someone unplugged the loudspeaker. Suddenly the target changed from Governor Northam to Lt. Gov. Fairfax. WaPo's Paul Kane explains why in Democrats struggle to answer for Virginia lieutenant governor after unified stand against Kavanaugh:

But then came the assault allegations against Fairfax, followed by state Attorney General Mark R. Herring (D) revealing that he had once worn blackface at a party while in college. Suddenly, the prospect of all three statewide officials resigning en masse emerged — with it, the likelihood that the Republican state House speaker would be next in the line of succession to become governor.

Now, Democrats are struggling with a confusing set of questions, trying to separate the three scandals into different baskets. Hanging on to the governor’s mansion, especially heading into the decennial redistricting in 2021, is critical.

Hold them to their own rules, as Saul Alinsky would say.

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2:05 PM 2/9/2019

Fox Friday 2-7-19 cat scares fox

The foxes that visit the Fox Cam bait station are roughly the same size as the cats that circulate around the neighborhood. But built-in weaponry decidedly favors the cats.

Here we watch through the fog as a cat stares down Stumpy then takes over the food tray.

Stumpy paid us a rare daylight visit early Thursday morning. There's a nesting dugout nearby, and I suspect Stumpy may be the occupant of that little hovel.

Til next time ...

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10:46 AM 2/7/2019

DNA results -- some things are better left alone

Those DNA testing kits are becoming quite popular as curious people seek to find out they're related to some famous person or perhaps to learn more about their lineage. But the buyers had better beware. WSJ.com published an article about how it's creating rifts in some families. For example, two sisters submitted their DNA for test and got some shocking news. Their father had fathered another child with a woman other then their mother. They had a brother they never knew about. But that's not all. The other sister had a different father who had had an affair with their mother. That sort of news can disrupt the family Thanksgiving dinner.

If interested in the whole story, see: Two Sisters Bought DNA Kits. The Results Blew Apart Their Family. Alternate link.

But it gets worse. FamilyTreeDNA Hands the FBI Access to Its Database. So not only can test results let a family discover their parents have wandered outside the marital bounds, they make it possible to become involved in a criminal investigation. There's at least one company already collecting public database DNA and using it to solve crimes. Perhaps getting a serial killer off the streets might be an exception, but becoming involved with an investigation of a close relative doesn't lead to family unity.

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2:47 PM 2/6/2019

Wolf in coyote clothing -- extinct wolf DNA found in coyotes

I've got a coyote skull that I found in the wild. For a long time I believed it was a wolf skull until some know-it-all kindly informed me that wolves have been extinct in Texas for a long time. Sure enough, internet skull research revealed the skull I found once belonged to a coyote, not a wolf.

As for wolves being extinct, that's not quite true either. Turns out something was going on under the sheets because red wolf DNA showed up in other wild canines.

DNA of wolf declared extinct in wild lives on in Texas pack:

DALLAS (AP) — Researchers say a pack of wild canines found frolicking near the beaches of the Texas Gulf Coast carries a substantial amount of red wolf genes, a surprising discovery because the animal was declared extinct in the wild nearly 40 years ago.

The finding has led wildlife biologists and others to develop a new understanding that the red wolf DNA is remarkably resilient after decades of human hunting, loss of habitat and other factors had led the animal to near decimation.

'Incredibly Rare': Extinct Wolf DNA Turns Up in Texas:

(Newser) – The red wolf was declared effectively extinct in the American wild almost 40 years ago, but, like the Neanderthal, it lives on in descendants still thriving today. That's the welcome discovery revealed in a study in Genes, which found a substantial amount of red wolf DNA in two road-kill canines from a wild pack on Galveston Island in Texas. A genetic analysis of the "ambiguous-looking" animals suggests a hybrid of red wolf and coyote, says Princeton biologist Elizabeth Heppenheimer. "It's incredibly rare to rediscover animals in a region where they were thought to be extinct, and it's even more exciting to show that a piece of an endangered genome has been preserved in the wild," she tells the AP, which reports the discovery "coincides with similar DNA findings in wild canines in southwestern Louisiana." The last wild red wolves were spotted in Texas and Louisiana before extinction in 1980.

Tracking the wily coyote on the Gulf Coast:

The red wolf that commonly roamed the Gulf Coast in the 19th and early 20th centuries was declared extinct in 1980. Before its demise, though, it apparently mated with the coyote, whose progeny may now carry red-wolf genes; their gray-brown fur is burnished with red, like the Blood Moon.

Rediscovery of Red Wolf Ghost Alleles in a Canid Population Along the American Gulf Coast:

Abstract -- Rediscovering species once thought to be extinct or on the edge of extinction is rare. Red wolves have been extinct along the American Gulf Coast since 1980, with their last populations found in coastal Louisiana and Texas. We report the rediscovery of red wolf ghost alleles in a canid population on Galveston Island, Texas. We analyzed over 7000 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in 60 canid representatives from all legally recognized North American Canis species and two phenotypically ambiguous canids from Galveston Island. We found notably high Bayesian cluster assignments of the Galveston canids to captive red wolves with extensive sharing of red wolf private alleles. Today, the only known extant wild red wolves persist in a reintroduced population in North Carolina, which is dwindling amongst political and taxonomic controversy. Our rediscovery of red wolf ancestry after almost 40 years introduces both positive opportunities for additional conservation action and difficult policy challenges.

Wolf in coyote clothing. Now that's a stealthy animal.

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3:50 PM 2/5/2019

There should be a statute of limitations on distasteful jokes- Give Northam a break

The focus of MSM attention these past few days is the possibility that Virginia Governor Northam posed long ago in a yearbook photo in garb that is regarded as screaming, yelling, ultra racist by today's standards.

As satisfying as it is to see Democrats held up to the standards they use for Republicans, it's still unfair. What was halfway acceptable 30 or 40 years ago might be considered totally out of bounds today. But the problem is with the time travel aspect. A lawful society doesn't make rules, then turn back the clock and convict people of violations for acts that were OK at the time.

Most crimes have a statute of limitations attached to them. Once that time has passed, the law doesn't exactly excuse them, but it ignores them. The same thing should occur in civil society. But as it works now, the rules get changed, and past events fall into that new category: OK at the time, but wrong now. We really shouldn't hold people responsible for things they did in the past just because the mob wants to apply new rules to past acts.

Ethnocentrism is judging another culture by the values and standards of one's own culture.

What we have now is Era-centrism: Imputing a sin or crime to long ago acts that, due to social evolution, are now unacceptable.

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2:21 PM 2/3/2019

Fox Friday 2-1-19 -- Oh man, look at the doves

Cat watches warily as fox approaches.

Hey! Don't sneak up on me like that!

The night belongs to the four legged creatures. The day belongs to the winged critters.

Look at all those doves. Are they in season? News flash: Police respond to "shots fired" call at local residence, find dead doves. Homeowner can't explain.

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2:25 PM 1/31/2019

Witnesses in El Chapo trial tell how they smuggled drugs

People in the U.S. made El Chapo very wealthy with their appetite for the contraband drugs. Testimony in the trial has revealed how his people smuggled the drugs into the U.S.

Planes, trains, automobiles, trucks, boats, submarines and tunnels are some of the means they used to smuggle drugs. By far the most interesting method was putting cocaine in jalapeño cans weighted to feel as if they actually contained jalapeños. Very clever. And it serves as a reminder that someone determined enough can thwart those whose job it is to detect smugglers -- deception is always one step ahead of detection, by definition.

Democrats focus on the trial testimony of witnesses who confirmed the belief that a majority of the smuggled drugs would not have been stopped by a wall. But that's a dodge used to demonstrate how much smarter they are than Donald Trump. However, the purpose of border barricades is to stop illegal immigration. Stopping drug smuggling would be a side effect.

Sources: ‘El Chapo’ tried to smuggle cocaine in jalapeño cans, was involved in numerous killings, prosecutors say;
Frozen sharks, fake carrots, and catapults: The bizarre ways smugglers like 'El Chapo' Guzmán get drugs across borders;
Traffickers at the El Chapo trial say drugs aren't smuggled through open parts of the border;
El Chapo Cartel Members Say Drugs Aren’t Smuggled Through Gaps In The Border Wall;
Hundreds of migrants cross Arizona border after 'several busloads' dropped off in Mexico.

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1:58 PM 1/30/2019