Sleepless in Midland

A tale of two cities' reaction to killers

Two crimes. Two cities. Two reactions.

The headlines scream at us about the killings at a church near Fort Worth Sunday morning and the stabbings Saturday evening at a Hanukkah celebration at an Orthodox rabbi’s home in New York.

The reactions were breathtaking. The TV news days later showed us New York politicians speechifying about how bad hate is. The news in Texas told us the incident there was over in six seconds when members of the congregation pulled their own guns and dispatched the killer.

Amazing contrast.

Gun control advocates can't seem to grasp the concept that someone bent on killing will unlikely be deterred by a law banning guns.

Meanwhile, a big shout-out to Texas Governor Abbott and the Texas Legislature for passing the amendment allowing concealed handgun license holders to carry in churches.

------
1:57 PM 12/30/2019

"Pillow fight" as metaphor now banned thanks to Glaad

Political correctness struck again. The language vigilantes have now attacked "pillow fight."

POLITICO Playbook of 12/20/2019 explains how it came about:

Good Friday morning. GLAAD sent us a note yesterday about Playbook PM, noting that our use of “pillow fight” when describing a fight between Pete Buttigieg and Elizabeth Warren may have offended people. That was not our intent -- pillow fight, in our mind, connotes a fight where no one draws blood.

-- Drew Anderson from GLAAD explains his view: “For women and LGBTQ people at the workplace, hearing phrases like ‘dramatic,’ ‘over the top,’ and even ‘pillow fight’ during office disagreements fosters negative stereotypes and diminishes a person simply because of who they are. Disagreements happen in politics, but using these loaded terms during disputes feed into the sexist and homophobic tropes that simply have no place in our political coverage and rhetoric.”

So phrases like "pillow fight," "dramatic," and "over the top" foster negative stereotypes during office disagreements?

Emily Jashinsky probably sums up most people's reaction in GLAAD Deems ‘Pillow Fight’ Offensive Language:

What seems more offensive is the implication that grown adults are so psychologically frail they would feel “diminishe[d]” on the basis of their sex or sexual orientation by reading the term “pillow fight” in a perfectly appropriate context.

What they are saying is if you disagree with me, just shut the f___ up.

------
10:52 AM 12/29/2019

Gorsuch on North Korean constitution -- our quote of the week

Neil Gorsuch's book, "A Republic, If You Can Keep It," provides this quote of the week. The JPG scan is the first page of chapter 2 of the book and addresses the North Korean constitution.

Justice Gorsuch says the NorKor constitution is similar to the constitutions of most communist countries. Then this:

But everyone knows that the promises found in these documents aren't worth the paper they're written on.

He makes an important point. Our own constitution is only worth what people think it's worth. In case there's any doubt, it is worth respecting. But if/when that respect is gone, then it won't be worth much as a rule of law.

We've got a good country here, if we can keep it. Let's not screw it up.

P.S. Anyone wanting to read the North Korean constitution can do so at this link.

------
10:35 AM 12/28/2019

Don Imus was a good entertainer and good interviewer

I was a regular Imus in the Morning watcher back when Don Imus had a morning show on MSNBC. The show was entertaining -- one funny routine involved a Bill Clinton impersonator phoning in as "Bill, from Chappaqua." Although some of the humor was rather sophomoric, the good outweighed the bad.

And he was a good interviewer. Typically some famous politician was a guest, and Imus grilled him/her with enough skill to elicit information and leave the politician wanting to come back.

The staff at MSNBC hated him, and when he made some inappropriate joke about a women's sports team, they pounced. The staff won, and Imus got sacked. But he landed on his feet with a show on satellite radio.

Anyway, according to news reports, Don Imus passed away yesterday, December 27. May he rest in peace.

Meanwhile, several of those who worked for him went on to earn some success on their own. Janice Dean comes to mind. She is currently working as a meteorologist on Fox News Channel and is probably quite popular. The only thing about her I recollect while she was on Imus in the Morning was a comment she made that she had just watched Michael Moore's anti-gun movie, "Bowling for Columbine," and Dean said every American should see it. She exemplified the principle that anyone can make dumb remarks and still be successful.

------
5:10 AM 12/28/2019

Fox Friday 12-27-19

I love it when two animals show up at the same time. Lil Gray was a tiny little cat when she first showed up. Now she's practically full grown, but not big enough to try to intimidate a fox.

"Grrr. Get away from my food!"

"He won't budge. What do I do now?"

And here we have two foxes snacking on the vittles.

------
3:40 PM 12/26/2019

half billion dollar school bond in Midland hangs by few votes

That proposed school bond was the biggest item on the November ballot. When the results were announced, it won by a hair. But then more votes were counted, and it lost by a hair. Then a box of uncounted votes turned up. Now no one knows who won.

It's a huge embarrassment for Midland, Texas, which typically only gets non-regional news coverage on energy industry developments.

The pro-bond camp say the school district needs new buildings. The anti-bond camp says taxpayers don't need another half billion dollars worth of debt hanging over their heads.

And right now, we don't know which side will prevail. If only those who insist on more and bigger government could pay attention to how it actually operates.

Related:
Midland County officials just found a missing ballot box. It may change the result of a $569 million bond election
Judge appointed to election contest
State Law: Cost is No Concern for Texas School Bonds.

------
2:26 PM 12/25/2019

Merry Christmas!

For many, Christmas is a deeply religious occasion. For others it's a reason to gather the family around and cherish one another. And for others it's just a day off.

But for whatever reason you have for celebrating the day, may you have a very merry Christmas and a delightful holiday!!!

------
2:30 PM 12/24/2019

Quote of the week -- Frank Sheeran

This is from the book, "I heard You Paint Houses." It's one of the versions of what happened to Jimmy Hoffa. It's a fascinating story, although we don't know how much of it is true. Anyway, the Netflix movie "The Irishman" was supposed to be based on this Irishman, Frank Sheeran.

On the last page of the book author Charles Brandt recounts a session Sheeran had with a reporter in which Sheeran said,

"If I did all the things they allege I did and I had to do them over again I would not do them."

Hmm. Regrets without admission. Well, OK then.

------
2:48 PM 12/23/2019

the Steele dossier -- Russian disinformation?

It was just a couple of years ago that WaPo proclaimed that "the U.S. intelligence community has concluded that the Russians engaged in an elaborate operation to swing the election to Trump." And the Steele dossier was intended to prove that Russia had compromising evidence on Trump that could be held over him once in office.

The Steele dossier turned out to be a bucket of malarkey, and the FBI knew it.

But where did that Steele dossier come from? Call this a conspiracy theory if you want, but here's a thought. The dossier may have been disinformation created by the KGB or some other entity controlled by Russia. They didn't think it was worth anything, but when Steele came asking, they said among themselves, "What the heck, give him all that leftover junk."

Lo and behold, that discontent within the U.S. they've been seeking actually came about. And it came about with major credit going to the Steele dossier and its use by U.S. intelligence agencies, law enforcement, and politicians. Someone might get into the KGB hall of fame for this.

This would not be the first time a foreign country tried to use disinformation to shape American thought. But it could be the most successful so far.

------
1:30 PM 12/22/20196

the OK hand sign-- who knew it meant so much more?

To the outrage industry, the OK hand sign is a racist symbol. To students it's a stunt to entice a fellow student to look at it then receive a punch. To everyone else it's an OK sign.

This latest plunge into the world of political correctness should wake us up to how powerful they think they are. It resulted in an official investigation -- Army, Navy determine football game gesture wasn’t racist sign -- and fortunately, the unlucky students who were playing the circle game escaped being labeled racist. (Not known whether anyone got a punch in the arm.)

But now we've lost an old fashioned OK signal. No longer will normals be able to use it without the risk of being branded as racist. What a shame.

It's political correctness gone wild. And it's the sort of overreach that will help Donald Trump get reelected.

------
2:41 PM 12/21/2019

Fox Friday 12-20-19 -- Yummy chicken bones

There were two chicken bones in the bait tray Sunday morning. And our friendly crooked tail fox got both of them in a 12 minute span.

------
2:35 PM 12/19/2019

Poor Beto O'Rourke - Even Texas Monthly made fun of him

Last month this blog featured Beto O'Rourke in an item titled Rising star Beto flamed out -- it's almost enough to make a Texan feel sorry for him. Beto was out of his league when he ran against Ted Cruz to be a U.S. Senator. However, he had a lot of support from Democrats across the country. But after he lost the election Democrats dumped him like a bowl of cold porridge.

Now even Texas Monthly magazine, which has traditionally promoted Democrats over Republicans, has piled on by giving him half a bum steer award. 2020 Bum Steer of the Year: Beto O’Rourke:

After evoking so much love and admiration from his fellow Texans, O’Rourke seemed, inexplicably, to want to be anywhere but Texas—and he seemed, inexplicably, to be having a miserable time everywhere else too. His fans were left sticking pins in a map, tracking his movements. Where was O’Rourke headed? An artist colony in New Mexico? A fundamentalist Mormon compound? Would he soon be found meditating cliffside at the Esalen Institute, flowers in his hair?

The answer proved much worse than any of those things: He decided to run for president of the United States, a position for which he was particularly ill-suited and which no sane person could want. In 2019, Beto O’Rourke got lost in America and lost in his head, and it’s tough to see how he’ll ever find his way back.

The way Democrats turned on him it's almost enough to make a person feel sorry for him.

------
2:35 PM 12/18/2019

Biden family not the first to accept money from shady foreigners

Most of us probably couldn't have cared less about Joe Biden's family before learning that his son got a lucrative no-work job from a shady Ukrainian business. Now that that seed of thought has been planted, we have to wonder how many other prominent politicians have family members on some suspicious foreigner's payroll.

Well, what do you know. Here's one now:

Robert Powell, the husband of Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, D-Fla., reportedly took $700,000 from a Ukrainian oligarch named Igor Kolomoisky. Mucarsel-Powell sits on the House Judiciary Committee, the committee that drafted two articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump for his alleged abuse of power with regards to Ukraine.

Everyone is entitled to a fair hearing, and that applies to Ukrainian oligarchs, too. And attorneys are obligated to get their clients fair hearings and shouldn't be judged by their whatever their clients did.

Nonetheless, it certainly seems like a conflict of interest in this particular case. And it does nothing to allay the suspicion that there may be plenty of other politicians' family members getting big pay checks from foreigners hoping to benefit from a favor for a politician.

------
5:47 AM 12/17/2019

If you've ever wondered who's better, men or women, Obama can mansplain it for you

Barack Obama was the consummate politician. The skill he boasted about was the ability to make everyone think he agreed with them. So one has to assume he was telling a recent audience what they wanted to hear when he said:

"Now women, I just want you to know; you are not perfect, but what I can say pretty indisputably is that you're better than us [men].

These days women are better off than men by most measures, especially if the measure is graduation rates from high school through college. But private business man Barack Obama is selling a service, and in this case he was lecturing people on an undisclosed subject in Kuala Lumpur for an Obama Foundation event.

Mr. Obama is a good example of the principle of public choice. That's the theory that people who go into the political arena aren't motivated by a desire to promote the common good but are motivated by the same human desires that motivate just about everyone else -- money, power, adoration, rock star fame, what have you.

And in Mr. Obama's case when people hear him speak, somehow they just get the feeling that he agrees with them. His skill has served him well.

------
3:31 PM 12/16/2019

Sanctions on Iran may be working

The other day we talked about an ambush and assassination of protesters in Iran by the regime's military. There's no question that we should support the protesters, and they are likely encouraged by Trump's willingness to hold sanctions in place.

At least one writer says it's worth it. Foundation for Defense of Democracies is a DC-based research institute which I only recently discovered. And Saeed Ghasseminejad's article there, Trump’s Iran strategy is working. Here’s why, provides some details. To wit:

Last month, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said: “Iran is experiencing one of its hardest years since the 1979 Islamic revolution. We have never had so many problems in selling oil. We never had so many problems in keeping our oil tanker fleet sailing. Without money, we cannot run the affairs of the state.”

A few days later, in search of revenue, Rouhani made the mistake that ignited the current protests – he decided to ration gasoline and increase prices by as much as 200 percent.

An unprecedented wave of protests swept across 719 locations across the country. Not only did the regime murder protesters – it sought to cover up its violence by stealing corpses from the morgue and abducting injured demonstrators from hospitals. Thousands of others wound up in prison.

Predictions aside, maximum pressure is doing fine; the Iranian regime is not.

One important cause of poverty for Iran’s 80 million people is the corruption and incompetence of their rulers. Yet thanks to Obama’s nuclear deal and the relief it provided, the regime was able to get by.

...

What all this adds up to is an awful combination of deep recession and high inflation, or stagflation. In October, the IMF said Iran’s gross domestic product will shrink by 9.5 percent this year, a number on par with failed states like Libya and Venezuela.

Despots seem to hang onto power even in the most adverse of times. But maybe, just maybe, the mullahs will get the boot and rationality will set in. Sounds almost impossible, but we can hope.

------
2:10 PM 12/15/2019

Happy Bill of Rights Day 12-15-19

There are ten good reasons to celebrate the Bill of Rights. But we all know them and rather than reciting them let's hear from the President, as reproduced in the federal register:

NOW, THEREFORE, I, DONALD J. TRUMP, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim December 10, 2019, as Human Rights Day; December 15, 2019, as Bill of Rights Day; and the week beginning on December 8, 2019, as Human Rights Week. I call upon the people of the United States to mark these observances with appropriate ceremonies and activities.

More here: Bill of Rights Day: December 15, 2019;
The Bill of Rights: A Transcription

------
2:59 PM 12/14/2019

Fox Friday the 13th 12-13-19

He appears to be wondering, "hmm, is that stuff edible?"

Found something he liked: left over fruit pie.

------
1:54 PM 12/12/2019

Are serial killers competing to be the most prolific?

One has to wonder whether that factors into those professional profilers' analyses. But serial killers don't seem to keep accurate records.

What brings this to mind is a remark in this FBI press release -- FBI Seeking Assistance Connecting Victims to Samuel Little’s Confessions:

Five years after analysts with the FBI’s Violent Criminal Apprehension Program (ViCAP) began linking cases to convicted murderer Samuel Little—and nearly 18 months after a Texas Ranger began to elicit from him a breathtaking number of confessions—the FBI has confirmed Little to be the most prolific serial killer in U.S. history.

Little has confessed to 93 murders, and FBI crime analysts believe all of his confessions are credible. Law enforcement has been able to verify 50 confessions, with many more pending final confirmation.

"The most prolific serial killer in U.S. history." That line jumped out. So he's number 1? Note that they were only able to verify 50. So if confessions without verification count in the total, how about The Good Nurse, Charles Cullen? He was convicted of 13 murders, however:

Experts have estimated that Cullen may ultimately be responsible for 400 deaths, which would make him the most prolific serial killer in recorded history.

The race is on.

Furthermore, it's possible Albert Hicks, the last pirate of New York, may be in the running, but ships full of bodies scuttled at sea don't yield much evidence.

But serial killer score keepers need to be reminded that Henry Lee Lucas conned law enforcement officers into believing he murdered 200 people -- He was America's most deadly serial killer – but it was all a lie.

Serial killers trying to break the record need to keep better records.

------
12:44 PM 12/11/2019

Enemies will use intel about us on us

It's heartening to learn that writers with some influence are concerned with the theory that China is compiling information on Americans. Samantha Ravich is one such writer. She has an impressive resume and recently wrote Artificial Intelligence and the Adversary. Here's an excerpt:

... Beijing already hoards vast quantities of data about its own 1.4 billion people, none of whom have privacy rights under the Communist regime.

Nevertheless, Beijing isn’t satisfied. It has turned its sights on the U.S. and has already exfiltrated some of the most sensitive information on the American people and military. These include repeated breaches since 2013 of medical systems and databases, and the decadelong targeting of the U.S. Navy’s ship-maintenance records and the names and personal details of 100,000 of its personnel.

In time, through artificial intelligence, China will be able to use Americans’ data against us. Personalized medical records could become personalized bioweapons, for instance.

This next passage is both terrifying and mystifying:

Personalized medical records could become personalized bioweapons, for instance. In 2017 Zhang Shibo, a retired Chinese general, wrote that biotech could provide China an offensive capability through the creation of “specific ethnic genetic attacks.” As for the stolen Navy data, understanding how the U.S. maintains its fleets will help China point out vulnerabilities in U.S. weapons systems and ship design to be exploited during a confrontation.

“Specific ethnic genetic attacks.” Understanding what each of those words means doesn't help to understand the phrase. Perhaps it means an involuntary assault on a person's DNA based on race. In any event, it's certainly sounds scary.

And it drives home the point that while China might be a trading partner, it is certainly not a friend.

------
2:51 PM 12/9/2019

Iran demonstrates how tyrants quell protesters -- by killing them

I caught a couple of minutes of Brian Hook's briefing on C-Span. And in it he described a horrific scene. Here's a snippet from the State Dept -- website:

Good morning.  I have three announcements today on Iran, but I will first start by addressing the atrocities the Iranian regime has committed against its own people.  On November 16th, protests were spreading throughout the country.  In Mahshahr, a city in southwest Iran, a number of Iranian demonstrators blocked a road.  The State Department has received videos of what happened next.  Without warning, the IRGC opened fire on the protesters, killing several people.  Many of the protesters fled to nearby marshlands to escape.  The IRGC tracked them down and surrounded them with machine guns mounted on trucks.  They then sprayed the protesters with bullets.  Between the rounds of machine gun fire, the screams of the victims can be heard.  In this one incident alone, the regime murdered as many as a hundred Iranians and possibly more.  When it was over, the regime loaded the bodies into trucks.  We do not yet know where these bodies went, but we are learning more and more about how the Iranian regime treats its own people.

Iran is ruled by tyrants, and this is the way tyrants act toward dissenters.

How fortunate we are to live in a country that tolerates dissent, and we're probably fortunate that the Brits were not that brutal when the colonies were stirring prior to the American revolution. Hopefully the tolerance we are currently experiencing will last a few more generations.

------
1:09 PM 12/8/2019

Dusko Popov and the Pearl Harbor warning J. Edgar Hoover ignored

There was a lot of hand wringing after the terrorist attack on the twin towers about the failure of intelligence agencies to connect the dots prior to the attack.

Dots weren't connected prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor either. The dots that weren't connected were actually microdots -- a spy technique involving tiny dots containing microscopic print hidden on an innocent looking piece of typed paper.

There's a fascinating book with the intriguing title "Into the lion's mouth: the true story of Dusko Popov : World War II spy, patriot, and the real-life inspiration for James Bond" by Larry Loftis. Popov was a spy -- actually a double agent ostensibly working for the Germans during World War II but helping the The U.S. and Britain.

Popov had been given a questionnaire for information the Germans wanted him to retrieve from the Americans, and parts of it concerned a British attack on a naval base in Italy and how the Americans defended Pearl Harbor. It's obvious now that the Germans were gathering this information for Japan.

This information was made available to J. Edgar Hoover, but Hoover sat on it. Hoover's disgust of Popov's playboy lifestyle may have clouded Hoover's judgment. Hoover either deliberately withheld crucial intelligence or didn't comprehend the significance.

In any event, with that forewarning Pearl Harbor could have been better defended.

References: Scandal of the Century – New Book Claims USA Knew Of Pearl Harbor Plans For Months
The Tricycle Affair
FBI Skullduggery: Was J. Edgar Hoover Criminally Negligent or Treasonous?

------
1:35 PM 12/7/2019

Fox Friday 12-6-19 -- Question on display

This fox, or perhaps an ancestor, has been showing up off and on for years. His tail provided the name -- "Question."

------
3:15 PM 12/5/2019

Ransomware attacks on nursing homes? That's ruthless

The attack occurred on November 17 and involve the Ryuk ransomware strain. Attackers are getting ruthless, as it shut down Milwaukee, Wisc. based Virtual Care Provider Inc. which provides internet and data storage for nursing homes. Krebsonsecurity.com has the story in 110 Nursing Homes Cut Off from Health Records in Ransomware Attack. Here's the scary part:

Christianson said her firm cannot afford to pay the ransom amount being demanded — roughly $14 million worth of Bitcoin — and said some clients will soon be in danger of having to shut their doors if VCPI can’t recover from the attack.

“We’ve got some facilities where the nurses can’t get the drugs updated and the order put in so the drugs can arrive on time,” she said. “In another case, we have this one small assisted living place that is just a single unit that connects to billing. And if they don’t get their billing into Medicaid by December 5, they close their doors. Seniors that don’t have family to go to are then done. We have a lot of [clients] right now who are like, ‘Just give me my data,’ but we can’t.”

Brutal. The culprits could have blood on their hands.

Via: Sophos' Naked Security website which offers tips on how to prevent ransomware attacks.  However, even with all the publicity these attacks get, they are still happening.

------
3:45 PM 12/4/2019

Rolled steel doors on Tesla truck not a bad idea for regular vehicles

Who among us hasn't cringed at the sight of a door ding on a new vehicle? It's part of life as a vehicle owner. But it shouldn't be that way.

Most of us saw the video of Elon Musk promoting the new battery powered pickup truck. The feature that made the video go viral was the attempt to demonstrate the tough windows that turned out to be not so tough.

But there's one feature that should be emulated by other car and pickup truck makers: the thick doors made from rolled steel. Those things really were tough. And it would be nice to have doors like that on regular street vehicles. That inconsiderate slob in the spot next to it could open his door into it all day and not produce a single ding. Yeah!

See Tesla Cybertruck:

EXOSKELETON
Cybertruck is built with an exterior shell made for ultimate durability and passenger protection. Starting with a nearly impenetrable exoskeleton, every component is designed for superior strength and endurance, from Ultra-Hard 30X Cold-Rolled stainless-steel structural skin to Tesla armor glass.

and

Tesla’s Cybertruck is made of the same stainless steel alloy that SpaceX is using for Starship

Meanwhile, the bugs haven't been worked out of the windows yet. And that might be a tougher job. Regular car windows aren't that tough either. For a demonstration of how easily a burglar can shatter a car window with a small piece of spark plug porcelain, check out this Youtube video.

------
2:43 PM 12/3/2019

In a war our enemies will be using that personal information they got about us on the internet

In an article titled The Future Of Information Warfare Is Here — And The Russians Are Already Doing It Tom Ricks tells us of a sneaky way the Russians tricked Ukrainian soldiers, quoting Army Col. Liam Collins:

“The Russians are adept at identifying Ukrainian positions by their electrometric signatures,” writes Collins. One would expect that, but the thing that impressed me what came next.

“In one tactic, soldiers receive texts telling them they are ‘surrounded and abandoned.’ Minutes later, their families receive a text stating, ‘Your son is killed in action,’ which often prompts a call or text to the soldiers. Minutes later, soldiers receive another message telling them to ‘retreat and live,’ followed by an artillery strike to the location where a large group of cellphones was detected.”

Surely this particular tactic won't work again. But it's a constant battle to stay ahead in any arena that relies on technology.

From time to time we hear of some big hack resulting in the loss of gigabytes of personal information about citizens. When we factor in the possibility that an enemy may have a dossier on each soldier it's even more important to guard against what that information can do to hurt them.

------
3:07 PM 12/1/2019