Category Archives: Current Events

More unintended consequences

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In the aftermath of 9-11 and the aircraft hijackings, the FAA issues some directives concerning aircraft structure and modifications to make similar hijackings more difficult. One of these changes was strengthening the cockpit door. Before 9-11, the door, if it existed, was of light aluminum. It was for crew privacy more than anything else. Afterwards the door was strengthened to prevent someone from simply kicking it open.

I had a thought about that door at the time. What would happen if it got stuck? Well, that’s now happened.

Delta: Pilot Locked Out Of Cockpit In Flight From MN To Las Vegas

January 29, 2015 4:37 PM

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — A Delta Air Lines flight traveling from Minneapolis-St. Paul to Las Vegas has landed safely at its destination after the pilot was unable to reenter the cockpit, according to the airline.

According to a statement from Delta, prior to the plane’s final approach the captain was not able to enter the flight deck due to a door jam. The First Officer, or co-pilot, was able to then take control and land the aircraft safely without incident.

“A commercial aircraft can be landed with one pilot at the control and Delta pilots are fully trained to do so if the situation were to occur,” Delta said.

The door will be evaluated by Delta maintenance technicians.

Frankly, I’m surprised something like this hasn’t happened before. It may have on a non-passenger or cargo flight where it would have received much less notice. The problem with strengthening the door, making it more rigid, is that airplanes aren’t rigid. They flex.

On the tarmac, the wings and fuselage droop. The wings droop more with filled with fuel. In flight, the wings rise. If you look out the window in flight you can actually see the wings curve upward. The aircraft body, in flight and on the ground flexes in numerous ways.

When a plane is in flight, fuel is burned, air density changes with altitude and weather. The forces and stress on the aircraft changes and the aircraft flexes. People moving around inside changes the weight and balance of the aircraft. Sometimes cargo shifts slightly. All these changes could cause the new, stronger, cockpit door to get pinched in it’s frame. If the pilot has to visit the head (the restroom for you non-military folks), a sudden change of those stresses and forces could cause the cockpit door to bind behind the pilot…locking the pilot out and locking the copilot in.

The copilot is often as fully experienced as the pilot, only lacking flight hours and time in service to be bumped to pilot. In this circumstance, pity the poor copilot. The pilot is locked out, he’s locked in, and both have been swilling coffee for hours!

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Breaking news! Mitt Romney won’t run for Prez in 2016. Whoop! I also heard all his moneymen slithered off to back Jeb Bush. Other close advisors say Romney will support some new, unannounced candidate. Hope it’s not another RINO like Lindsay Grahamnesty.

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Ref yesterday’s post about the FCC. The FCC issued new regulations concerning internet speed. It actually does nothing except when it comes to reports concerning the number of people with access to “high-speed broadband internet.” When the facts don’t support the FCC’s agenda, change the labels to change the numbers to support the agenda!

FCC raises threshold for high-speed internet as service providers cry foul

New benchmark means 55 million Americans currently lack broadband access after chairman derides internet companies’ advertisement claims

The Federal Communications Commission on Thursday changed the definition of broadband to increase the threshold speed – a move that has already angered cable companies.

In a 3-2 vote, the commission approved a measure that increases the minimum standard for broadband speed, giving the agency more power to force internet service providers to improve their service.

The definition of broadband is set to be raised from 4 megabits per second (Mbps) to 25Mbps for downloads and 1Mbps to 3Mbps for uploads.

With that speed as the benchmark, significantly fewer Americans have access to high-speed broadband. Under the previous definition, 19 million Americans were without access; the new definition means that 55 million Americans – 17% of the population – now do not have access to high-speed broadband, according to the FCC’s 2015 Broadband Progress Report, which is in the final editing process but was cited at the hearing.

Under the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the FCC is responsible for ensuring that broadband “is being deployed to all Americans in a reasonable and timely fashion”.

The FCC chairman, Tom Wheeler, had repeatedly expressed support for the proposal ahead of the vote. In his remarks at the vote meeting, he was critical of telecommunications companies including Verizon, Comcast and AT&T. He said these companies’ statements to the commission differ wildly from what they tell consumers – part of his testimony included an incredulous reading of advertisements promoting the company’s seemingly fast broadband speeds.

“Our challenge is not to hide behind self-serving lobbying statements, but to recognize reality,” said Wheeler. “And our challenge is to help make that reality available to all.”

The cable industry’s largest lobby group, the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA), said in a statement that changing the definition is an attempt by the FCC to expand its ability to regulate industry:

“While cable network internet speeds already meet and exceed the FCC’s new broadband description, we are troubled that the Commission majority has arbitrarily chosen a definition of broadband in its Section 706 report that ignores how millions of consumers currently access the Internet. Instead of an accurate assessment of America’s broadband marketplace and the needs and uses of consumers, the FCC action is industrial policy that is not faithful to Congress’s direction in Section 706 to assess the market, but a clear effort to justify and expand the bounds of the FCC’s own authority.”

US broadband speeds clock in as the 25th fastest in the world, according to analyst Ookla’s Net Index. Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan top the list. Countries including Finland, France and the Netherlands boast of higher speeds than the US.

In reality, this change affects those broadband providers that use DSL technology instead of the faster cable based methods used by Comcast, Time-Warner, and others. Telecommunication carriers like AT&T use DSL taking advantage of their embedded facilities, often 2-wire telephone cables to individual homes. The internet speed of DSL is less the further the home is from the carrier’s local central office or remote signal amplifiers.

If you read the comments by FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn who voted for the change, you’ll understand this is nothing more than political maneuvering to acquire more federal power over providers.

“What is crystal clear to me is that the broadband speeds of yesterday are woefully inadequate today and beyond,” said Clyburn. — The UK Guardian.

FCC Commissioner Michael O’Rielly, who opposed the change said this:

O’Rielly said he supports expanding broadband access but that the report relies on “intentionally flawed analysis”. He said that increasing the definition does not resolve broadband access because it does not include a plan to promote deployment in the areas lacking it.

“Selecting an artificially high standard and applying it in a way that is impossible to meet in order to reach all Americans certainly in the near term makes a mockery of a process that was supposed to provide an honest assessment of broadband deployment in the United States.” — The UK Guardian.

This is, in part, reminiscent of the Broadband fiasco here in Cass County—a federal solution is search of an issue. Millions wasted nation-wide on an agenda what couldn’t be supported by fact. There are methods to acquire broadband internet access where cable and DSL does not exist. Yes, it may be more expensive but it exists. The fallacy of government is to use taxpayer money to subsidize those few users.

Every day another federal agency sticks its foot into the political arena supporting some liberal agenda. And every day, I make another federal agency that has proved its worthlessness. The FCC is near the top of my list.

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Evolution

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When I retired from Sprint—kicked out the door that is, one of the ‘retirement’ bennies was keeping our cell phones, for Mrs. Crucis and myself, on the employee phone plan. I used my employee discount to upgrade our cell phones to the latest one available at the time, an android smartphone. It was the best available when I retired.

That was over three years ago, almost four. Times have changed. Our original smartphones only had 512mb internal memory. The ‘external’ memory card was for data storage. That amount of memory worked well for almost four years.

The problem that eventually arose is that apps run in internal memory. Many—most, are loaded at startup and every one wants its piece of that internal memory. Over the years, after app update after update, those apps grew, demanding more and more memory…and that…is where the problem arose.

When some of the core apps need memory, they seize it from the free, available internal memory. When there isn’t enough memory, bad things happen. Apps stop, the phone locks up, or, those apps that allow swapping internal memory with storage, grow slooow.

Our new phones arrive this week. They have over 4gb internal memory and up to 64gb external storage. I hope they last another three-four years.

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I’ve been waiting to see this item announced by the MSM. So far this morning, nothing has been said. (So far, only the Washington Free Beacon and FOX News are reporting on this issue.)

Putin is rattling his cold-war saber. Long range Russian bombers have bee flying along the coasts of the US and now they are practicing launching long-range cruise missiles from outside the northern Canadian border. The real issue is that NORAD, the old North American Air Defense command is a shadow of its former self.

In the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, we had the DEW line (Distant Early Warning) across Alaska, Canada and Greenland. Later, we also had BMEWS (Ballistic Missile Early Warning System) that reached from Alaska to the UK. The easternmost leg of that system was in northern Scotland, the western leg ended in the Aleutian Islands. In addition to these two systems, we also had a line of over-the-horizon radar and radio intercept sites all along our northern and European borders with the old USSR.

We still have capability to detect Russian incursions into our territory and to monitor them off our coasts. The real problem is that we don’t have the capability, in aircraft and bases, to defend ourselves if Putin’s practice launches, and wargames, become real.

With all this in mind, What have you heard from the MSM? Russian bombers have been stalking us for some time and, whether we acknowledge it or not, Cold War II is in full force.

Russian Strategic Bombers Near Canada Practice Cruise Missile Strikes on US

Nuclear launch rehearsal conducted in North Atlantic

BY: , September 8, 2014 5:00

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Friday Follies for August 29, 2014

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It has been a long week. It shouldn’t have seemed that way but it did. I’ve been beating the bushes trying to get conservatives involved in politics. I’ve not been very successful.

Case in point. I’m a member of several conservative political organizations. In every one, there is a small group that is active. Each group has an occasional drop-in who may visit for a meeting or two but their attendance is irregular at best. Most, pleading a busy schedule, drift off.

There is a distinct age gulf in the membership. All the active members are older—in their 50s and up. The younger crowd is too busy to bother—and that is a problem. Not for us, but for them.

We want to get younger members to join, whole families if possible. But we are rarely successful—“We’re too busy! The kids have too many activities. I have to take Junior to baseball/softball/soccer/football/basketball/swimming practice.” It is just the same for the girls. Then, during school session, add voice/band/music practice, Boy Scouts/Girl Scouts/4-H, plus the kids come home with a 30lb backpack full of homework (do the kids ever do work at school anymore?).

Oh, we can still get a turnout for an isolated meeting for a cause such as Common Core or Agenda 21. But when it come to electing officials who will represent us in government, people claim they don’t have time.

It’s a cop-out. People can and will act if their private ox is being gored but politics? Heavens, no! In reality, it is a matter of priorities. What is more important. Being a helicopter parent who is determined their kids are under constant scrutiny or insuring those same children have any freedom when they become adults.

I constantly hear, “I’m not interested in politics!” and every time I remember the remainder of that quote—“but politics is interested in you.”

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Homeschoolers! Lissen-up!

http://www.umsystem.edu/newscentral/legislative-update/files/2014/03/LU-3-13-Emery.jpgNeed a project for your kids? Take them to the upcoming Missouri Legislature Veto Override session. There are a number of interesting issues that will be voted upon to override Governor Jay Nixon’s veto.

Meet the legislators; visit your state Representative and Senator, watch the bills being discussed and voted upon from the visitor’s gallery. See your state government in action. Coordinate your activity with another group (WMSA pitch here.) Find other homeschoolers, combine resources and perhaps share costs.

When I was in grade school and later in high school, I was required to pass a test of the US and state constitutions. One test was required to graduate into high school. The other was a state requirement for a high school diploma. In my high school, we spent a complete semester being taught the mechanics of government. Anyone who failed had a second chance in summer school. There was a third chance to pass the test for a high school diploma in a night class with adults, an early form of G.E.D.

That requirement no longer exists. It should, but it doesn’t. I suppose it’s more important to be taught diversity and other social engineering agendas than for students to understand how government works.

Homeschoolers take note of this opportunity. Every year I see a number of Jeff City public and private school kids touring the Capitol. I’ve seen other homeschoolers there as well with their kids. Witnessing government in action is too good an educational opportunity to miss. Perhaps you, too, will learn something as well.

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ISIS is back in the news and Obama is, as usual, ignoring that crises. “We’re not at war with ISIS,” he claims. Obama ignores the statements from ISIS that they are at war with us and the rest of the world.

Islamic State’s ‘Laptop of Doom’
By Rick Moran, August 29, 2014

We don’t have a strategy yet to attack Islamic State. But they are developing a strategy to attack us.

A laptop found by Syrian rebels last January in an ISIS hideout proved to be a goldmine of information. Foreign Policy’s Harald Doornbos and Jenan Moussa got their hands on the machine, downloaded 146 gigabytes of material, and were shocked at what they found:

The laptop’s contents turn out to be a treasure trove of documents that provide ideological justifications for jihadi organizations — and practical training on how to carry out the Islamic State’s deadly campaigns. They include videos of Osama bin Laden, manuals on how to make bombs, instructions for stealing cars, and lessons on how to use disguises in order to avoid getting arrested while traveling from one jihadi hot spot to another.

But after hours upon hours of scrolling through the documents, it became clear that the ISIS laptop contains more than the typical propaganda and instruction manuals used by jihadists. The documents also suggest that the laptop’s owner was teaching himself about the use of biological weaponry, in preparation for a potential attack that would have shocked the world.

The information on the laptop makes clear that its owner is a Tunisian national named Muhammed S. who joined ISIS in Syria and who studied chemistry and physics at two universities in Tunisia’s northeast. Even more disturbing is how he planned to use that education:
The ISIS laptop contains a 19-page document in Arabic on how to develop biological weapons and how to weaponize the bubonic plague from infected animals.

“The advantage of biological weapons is that they do not cost a lot of money, while the human casualties can be huge,” the document states.

The document includes instructions for how to test the weaponized disease safely, before it is used in a terrorist attack. “When the microbe is injected in small mice, the symptoms of the disease should start to appear within 24 hours,” the document says.

The laptop also includes a 26-page fatwa, or Islamic ruling, on the usage of weapons of mass destruction. “If Muslims cannot defeat the kafir [unbelievers] in a different way, it is permissible to use weapons of mass destruction,” states the fatwa by Saudi jihadi cleric Nasir al-Fahd, who is currently imprisoned in Saudi Arabia. “Even if it kills all of them and wipes them and their descendants off the face of the Earth.”

When contacted by phone, a staff member at a Tunisian university listed on Muhammed’s exam papers confirmed that he indeed studied chemistry and physics there. She said the university lost track of him after 2011, however.

It is very difficult to weaponize any biological agent. You need a modern lab and a trained team of scientists to build a usuable weapon. But that doesn’t mean that the terrorists aren’t trying very hard to build one:

Nothing on the ISIS laptop, of course, suggests that the jihadists already possess these dangerous weapons. And any jihadi organization contemplating a bioterrorist attack will face many difficulties: Al Qaeda tried unsuccessfully for years to get its hands on such weapons, and the United States has devoted massive resources to preventing terrorists from making just this sort of breakthrough. The material on this laptop, however, is a reminder that jihadists are also hard at work at acquiring the weapons that could allow them to kill thousands of people with one blow.

“The real difficulty in all of these weapons … [is] to actually have a workable distribution system that will kill a lot of people,” said Magnus Ranstorp, research director of the Center for Asymmetric Threat Studies at the Swedish National Defence College. “But to produce quite scary weapons is certainly within [the Islamic State’s] capabilities.”

As you can see, ISIS is not a bunch of sheepherders hiding in caves. Educated professionals are also flocking to their banner and you have to think they can accomplish just about anything any modern army does – including building weapons of mass destruction.

Islamists call us “Crusaders.” There have been many Crusades over the last millennium. Perhaps it is time for another one. It is already being fought from the Islamist’ side. If we are to survive as a people and culture, it is time to recognize that fact for what it is.

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Money laundering. Says it all.

 

 

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Zip!

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More and more, it seems that nothing in my morning flood of news items strikes my fancy. The national division between conservatives and establishment hacks continue within the RNC. The dems continue to push for expanded welfare and open borders dividing the country between those who produce and those who are parasites, to what end?

I sat next to a group a local dems earlier this week at lunch. All were in the 50s and 60s, all decried the flood of illegals streaming over out borders and Obama doing nothing to control the flood. If I hadn’t known for a fact they were dems—several have Obama-Biden stickers on their pickups, I’d have thought there were ‘Pubs. But they are not. They will continue to vote for democrats, pushing everyone like themselves, down the chute to hell and then they’ll blame everyone except themselves. The stupidity of such people continues to astound me.

Regardless, I’ve not found a topic for today. I’m taking the day off. Maybe tomorrow I’ll have a better attitude and I’ll find something more to write about than the Russian invasion of the Ukraine and saying, “I told you so!”

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The Rime…

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Ah! well a-day! what evil looks
Had I from old and young!
Instead of the cross, the Albatross
About my neck was hung.
— The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Part II, Stanza 14.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Obama must be feeling as if he were that Ancient Mariner, who killed the Albatross and was condemned to wear its dead body around his neck. The difference is that Obama’s Albatross is Obamacare.

Some statistics were published today that is another weight, another burden, around Obama’s political agenda. Statistics, such as:

OBAMACARE POLL: THEY’VE TRIED IT AND THEY DON’T LIKE IT
Fifty percent of voters disapprove of ObamaCare, 43 percent strongly so, according to a poll out from the budget hawk group Public Notice. The survey, conducted by Tarrance Group, found that while 40 percent of respondents approved of the health law, a majority of key groups disapprove including women ages 18 to 44 (51 percent), employees of small businesses (57 percent), adults in households with children (56 percent) and voters who’ve tried to shop on ObamaCare Web sites (52 percent). The poll also showed that Members of Congress who voted for the president’s law are getting a negative reaction from voters, with 43 percent saying they less likely to re-elect those who voted for the health law versus 38 percent who are more likely to vote for their member if he or she voted for ObamaCare. — FOX Newsletter, 12-10-2013.

The critical issue is the age groups in the poll above. These groups are the demographic segment that Obama was planning on soaking to pay for his monstrosity. Now, they are opting out, refusing to play Obama’s game, a game he is losing badly.

But that isn’t the only damaging news about Obamacare. As we move closer to the implementation date, more failings of Obamacare are emerging. This time for prescription drugs—the list of covered drugs has been slashed. Many of us, forced onto Medicare, take maintenance drugs. Some are to control cholesterol, some to control blood pressure, plus many others. Now, with the list of covered drugs slashed, Obamacare and Medicare participants must pay for those drugs out of their pockets. Plus, for Obamacare enrollees, those out-of-pocket costs cannot be charged to your deductible.

OBAMACARE PAIN PILL
Dr. Scott Gottlieb, former senior policy adviser to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services told Megyn Kelly that many prescriptions may not be covered under ObamaCare. “The list of drugs that the plans cover, in many cases, aren’t very long.  And if the drugs aren’t covered you’re on your own, you basically have to pay for it entirely out of pocket, and the money that you spend on those drugs doesn’t count against your out of pocket limit or against your deductible,” Gottlieb said. “This could cost patients who need special drugs a lot of money, literally tens of thousands of dollars a year.” — FOX Newsletter, 12-10-2013.

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What a disappointment Paul Ryan has turned out to be. He ran in the last election, as a conservative, a tax conservative and a spending conservative. His current budget plan, with democrat Senator Patty Murray, exposes the lies he spoke during that campaign.

The Big Spenders Return

By: Erick Erickson (Diary)  |  December 10th, 2013 at 04:30 AM

If Paul Ryan were a Peanuts character, he’d be the guy who pulls the football out of the way just as he himself is about to kick it. Over the past number of years, Congressman Ryan has come up with a few reform proposals.

From his roadmap to this, he has made as his starting point for negotiations that which should be his ending point.

Now, with liberal Senator Patty Murray, Congressman Ryan wants to raise spending today on the promise that Congress will restrain itself ten years from now (or whenever the benchmark will be). It’s a return to pre-sequestration Washington — spending increases today in exchange for promises of spending cuts later.

I opposed sequestration at the time the GOP came up with it. I figured they’d do an end run around it. But they did not. Surprisingly, they stuck with it if only because they couldn’t figure out a way to undermine it without rocking the boat with their base.

Now it’s looking like they are prepared to rock that boat.

The Democrats have repeated painted doom and gloom scenarios about sequestration. They said it would undermine economic growth, but the latest economic figures dispute that. They said it would cause increased unemployment, but the latest employment numbers dispute that. They’ve said a great deal, all of which has been nonsensical hyperbole.

Based on what has been reported so far, the Ryan-Murray plan seems like outright capitulation to the big spending, big government agenda of both parties’ lobbyist class. In fact, the op-eds already coming out for it are being written by those who stand to profit from more spending.

Congress should start at sequestration spending levels and reduce spending from there — not raise revenue and not raise spending. After all, like Obamacare, sequestration is the law of the land too.

A sellout in any form, is still a sellout. Actions like this, Ryan’s betrayal of his Tea Party supporters, makes me wonder if there are ANY national politicians, Cruz, Lee and a handful of others excepted, who are not traitors to their constituents?

Here is a link to another report on the Paul Ryan-Patty Murray Tax and Spend bill. It’s very informative.

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If you watch the news coming out of the Middle-east, you may have come across this article, the possible creation of strange allies, Saudi Arabia and…Israel! Neither country wants a nuclear Iran on their borders.

Saudis to Obama: We Will Not Tolerate a Nuclear Iran

By Karin McQuillan, December 10, 2013

Individuals who have even visited Israel, or who observe Judaism, or who carry a Bible are banned from Saudi Arabia.  Yet Saudi Arabia’s Israel-hating King Abdullah just flew in an Israeli scientist to have dinner with him, to enjoy some royal hospitality, accept a medal and the $200,000 “Arab Nobel Prize.”  It’s a not-so-subtle message to President Obama: the unthinkable can happen, so don’t assume the Saudis won’t join with Israel to bomb Iran.

Obama’s new Iran policy moves the Mid-East closer to war over oil and religion — Sunni Saudis versus Shia Iranians.  There is no more strategic commodity than Gulf oil to the entire world economy.  American national security stakes could not be higher.   Iran’s end game, some say more than an attack on Israel, is to seize the Saudi oil fields.  There is a Shiite majority in the oil province that the Saudi Princes fear could be turned by Iran.  The Saudis no longer see the U.S. as an ally in stabilizing the Middle East.  We have become a force for chaos. The UK Telegraph:

Chris Skrebowski, editor of Petroleum Review, said the great unknown is how Saudi Arabia will react to a move deemed treachery in Riyadh… The great question is whether they can live with this deal, or whether it is intolerable,” he said.

Mr Skrebowski said the Middle East is a tinder box, in the grip of a Sunni-Shia civil war comparable in ideological ferocity to the clash between Catholics and Protestants in early 17th Century Europe. Saudi Arabia has already shown how far it will go to protect its interests, helping to overthrow Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood.

The Saudis are signaling that they will unleash a pre-emptive war in the Middle East in response to Obama’s nuclear capitulation to Iran.  These signals are an effort to change Obama’s decision to prop up the mullahs and green light their nuclear program.  Can the Saudi threats become real?  It’s a wild card our President is willing to play.

The column continues, here, at the American Spectator website.

The Obama administration, acting as if by design, is alienating our friends and allies. If Obama’s plan is to isolate the United States from our friends around the world, he is being extremely successful. That’s is Obama’s only agenda item that is working.

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Welfare, Corporate Payoffs and Pork.

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Today’s blog title would imply democrat policies. You’d be wrong. It refers to the GOP’s House Farm Bill championed by Speaker John Boehner and our own Vicky Hartzler.

Both the Senate democrats and House ‘Pubs have Farm Bills. The Senate rammed theirs past GOp opposition and brags they’ve cut the $1Trillion bill to $500Billion. The House GOP claims their version has cut more.

The crux is SNAP, or Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. What is SNAP? Food stamps. SNAP is 80% of the cost of the Farm Bill. The supporters of the House version brag they’ve cut the Food Stamp (SNAP) program as well. How much? Three percent. Three lousy percent.

The dems and ‘Pubs are wrangling over—not the actual farm and agricultural portions of the bill, small that they are. No, they’re fighting over SNAP! If SNAP is so critical, it should be removed from the Farm Bill and stand for itself.

Some have advocated a change, one that I can accept IF food stamps are really necessary, is to convert the entire program to block grants and let the states create their own version of food/welfare assistance. In blue states, the money would line democrat pols pocket. Oh well, the blue staters get the government they vote for.

For the moment, dems and ‘Pubs are apparently in a race to see who can waste more of our tax money.

Farm bill cuts judged both too much, not enough

By Tom Howell Jr. – The Washington Times, Monday, June 17, 2013

A year after they failed to pass a farm bill and suffered for it in several big congressional races, House Republicans think they’ve finally got the right balance to fund agricultural programs while weaning more Americans off food stamp benefits.

Speaker John A. Boehner has thrown his weight behind bringing this year’s bill to the chamber floor, and debate kicks off on Tuesday.

But House GOP leaders will have to bridge divides within the GOP, and may have to count on getting Democratic votes for passage. The Senate, led by Democrats, passed its own version last week.

Both the Senate and House bills would end direct payments to farmers in favor of more extensive crop insurance programs.

But the sheer size of spending contained in the bills — particularly on food stamps, which takes up 80 percent of the Senate’s five-year, $500 billion farm bill — could become a sticking point during the House debate.

“The bill should be rejected outright for its price tag and its expansion of the government’s outsized and outdated role in American agriculture,” Stephen Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, said Monday.

The Senate passed a farm bill last week that cuts the food-stamp program — now known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) — by about $400 million a year, or half a percent.

But the House version goes further, cutting SNAP benefits by $2 billion a year, or a little more than 3 percent, and making it more difficult for some people to qualify.

Now, isn’t that great. $1Trillion of waste and the dems brag they cut $400 million, or one-half of a percent while the ‘Pubs brag they’ve cut three percent.

Some GOP lawmakers say that’s still not enough, while House Democrats argue that low-income families cannot absorb the cuts. As of Monday, 134 of them had co-sponsored a resolution that asks members to reject any legislation that reduces food stamp benefits.

…

House Agriculture Chairman Frank D. Lucas, Oklahoma Republican, who shepherded the House bill through his committee in May, noted that “no other committee in Congress is voluntarily cutting money, in a bipartisan way.”

Rep. Collin C. Peterson, Minnesota Democrat and the ranking minority agriculture committee member, said “it is past time to get this bill done.”

But Americans for Prosperity, a conservative political advocacy group, said Monday it will launch an advertising blitz in a bipartisan slate of 15 congressional districts, including Mr. Boehner‘s, that takes aim at the House bill. The group says the bill is bloated by food-stamp spending and that “well-connected corporations” will get the rest of the funds.

Last year, Mr. Boehner declined to bring a farm bill to the House floor to avoid a nasty intraparty fight ahead of the November elections, as farm state Republicans pushed for crop subsidies while other GOP conservatives demanded widespread cuts. — Washington Times.

The establishment ‘Pubs who support this welfare bill shouldn’t be concerned what their dem congressional friends think of the Food Stamp Welfare bill. No, they should be more concerned what their constituents think. The next congressional primary is only a year away. Pubbies, vote for this and I can guarantee you’ll have primary opposition next year. I’m already hearing increasing rumbles of discontent.
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Friday Follies for June 7th, 2013

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There are so many items to post about today that it’s almost overwhelming.  Where shall we start?

How about some bullet items.

As you can see, there are numerous subjects for a post. However, everyone is focused on the revelation that the NSA has been seizing call data for ALL (I’m still not sure that is accurate,) Verizon subscribers—and Verizon isn’t the only carrier involved!

What people are overlooking, is that this isn’t new. What is new is the volume of the data and the scope of the data seized.

The movies have misrepresented call tracing since the advent of the digital switch. Way back in the ’30s and ’40s, telephone switches were analog. In order to trace a call, you can to follow, trace a call, through the internal connections of the switch. It was a slow and laborious process.

With the advent and deployment of digital switches and modern call routing techniques, it’s much, much easier. A call detail record is created when the call is dialed. More data is added when the connection is made and additional data, timestamps, is added until the call is terminated. If either the originating or destination number is known, a carrier can retrieve the call data in seconds—a minute or two at most.

What is NOT available is the conversation.

You see, when digital switches were deployed in the ’60s and ’70s, the audio of the calls were digitalized, compressed, to better utilize and manage the telephone circuits between switches. If you tapped in on a circuit, you’d hear nothing. It’s digital data, not analog audio. The only place to tap is what is known as “the last mile,” the circuit between your home and the local switch. When wiretaps were granted, the taps had to be placed at or near the subject’s premises.

Digital central office and long distance switches weren’t designed to enable tapping and many, most perhaps, still aren’t. It’s extremely difficult. The FedGov, using FISA, asked the major telco carriers, in the early years of the 21st Century, to develop switches to enable tapping and to retrofit existing switches. It would be extremely expensive to retrofit the deployed switches and the carriers told to FedGov to pound sand.

The carriers did, as new switches were added and older switches replaced for added capacity, comply with the FedGov’s directives. Eventually, their networks will be replaced with switches that will have the capability of listening in on live conversations—but that time is still in the future. The transition will continue for several years, maybe a decade or more. Businesses just won’t replace a large, significant portion of their infrastructure at a whim of bureaucrats.  The expense would put them out of business.

However, the FedGov has carriers over a barrel…and a club called the FCC. The FCC licenses telecommunications carriers and using the threat to withdraw that license, can coerce the carriers into doing whatever the Feds want—within some fiscal reason. That’s why the transition has and will take significant time.

So, we have a reprieve for awhile. I don’t know how long. Years, maybe? A decade, possibly? We must put that time into good use. First, by electing a CONSERVATIVE congress. Next, repeal the Patriot ACT and disband DHS, or, failing that, severely curtail their power and scope.

It’s not too late…yet, if we are to preserve out liberty.

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