Month: July 2017

The Guardian

The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also known as the Iran nuclear deal) is excellent; it is far better and more extensive than I ever expected (Don’t upset the balance of power in the Middle East, 23 June). If followed by all parties, it blocks all avenues for Iran to develop nuclear explosives. To be sure, it is vehemently opposed by Israel’s prime minister Netanyahu and Republicans in Congress.  Continue reading “Iran nuclear deal must be allowed to thrive”

Mail.com

DENVER (AP) — For decades, a well-funded conservative group has helped state lawmakers across the U.S. write legislation to rein in unions, expand charter schools and lower taxes. Now, it’s expanding to the final frontier: normally nonpartisan city halls and county governments, which have become a bastion of liberal resistance to President Donald Trump.

The American Legislative Exchange Council is one of the country’s most prominent conservative groups, and its annual convention in Denver last week drew thousands of state legislators and lobbyists for panels on school choice and marijuana legalization, as well as speeches from conservative luminaries like Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and former Senator James DeMint.  Continue reading “US conservatism expands to final frontier: City Hall”

Mail.com

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Federal authorities planned to announce charges Thursday in what was described as a domestic dispute aboard a cruise ship in U.S. waters off Alaska that led to the death of a 39-year-old Utah woman.

A suspect was taken into custody, the FBI in Anchorage said late Wednesday. Princess Cruises said the woman died Tuesday night on the Emerald Princess, which was carrying 3,400 passengers and 1,100 crew members on a weeklong trip that left Sunday from Seattle. The ship docked in Juneau, Alaska, on Wednesday morning.  Continue reading “Federal authorities to announce charges in cruise ship death”

Mail.com

WASHINGTON (AP) — They couldn’t pass a repeal of “Obamacare,” or find the votes for a White House-backed replacement. So now Senate Republicans are lowering their sights and trying to unite behind a so-called “skinny repeal” that would merely undo just a few of the most unpopular elements of Barack Obama’s law.

The “skinny bill” is an admittedly lowest-common-denominator approach, and it may not even have the votes to pass, either. But as Republicans search for how to keep their years-long effort to repeal and replace “Obamacare” alive, they’re coming to believe that the “skinny bill” may be the only option left.  Continue reading “GOP eyes narrow bill to advance goal on “Obamacare” repeal”

Governing

Becoming a law enforcement officer in South Carolina will require psychological testing under a new requirement aimed at weeding out people not suitable for the job.

The board that oversees the state’s Criminal Justice Academy voted unanimously last week to mandate the screening for all aspiring officers. Starting Jan. 1, all law enforcement agencies’ potential new hires must bring proof of the testing to enroll for training.

“In the environment we’re policing in today, with the scrutiny of law enforcement, obviously this is more important than ever,” said State Law Enforcement Division Chief Mark Keel, chairman of the Law Enforcement Training Council.   Continue reading “Psychological Tests Now Part of Police Interviews in South Carolina”

ABC News

People who used e-cigarettes were more likely to kick the habit than those who didn’t, a new study found.

Nicotine patches, gums and medications are known to aid smoking cessation, but there’s no consensus on whether vaping devices can help anti-smoking efforts. The U.S. research is the largest look yet at electronic cigarette users and it found e-cigarettes played a role in helping people quit.   Continue reading “Blowing smoke? E-cigarettes might help smokers quit”

Haaretz – by Ido Efrati

The Agriculture Ministry will launch a pilot project to grow hemp, a strain of cannabis, for industrial use after the Justice Ministry this week removed hemp from the list of substances with the legal status of dangerous drugs.

This will not be the first time hemp has been officially cultivated in Israel – in November 1942 Davar newspaper carried a report on the cannabis harvest in Kibbutz Dafna.  Continue reading “No Longer Illegal, Hemp Is Back in Israel After 75 Years”

NPR – by John Ydstie

After a two-day meeting in Washington, D.C., Federal Reserve policymakers say they’ll keep their benchmark rate in a range between 1 percent and 1.25 percent for the time being.

Fed officials said “job gains have been solid” and the U.S. “labor market continues to strengthen” in the statement after a meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee.

The officials described economic activity as “rising moderately.” They noted that unemployment rate has declined since the beginning of the year. The Fed is close to meeting its mandate to maximize employment.  Continue reading “Federal Reserve Holds Interest Rates Steady”

Tech Dirt – by Tim Cushing

The Government Accountability Office has taken a run at the TSA’s Behavioral Detection program in the past. Its findings were far from complimentary. Specially-trained “Behavior Detection Officers” (BDOs) were basically human coin flips. Deciding whether or not someone was a threat came down to a lot of subjective readings of human behavior, rather than proven principles.

In response to this report, the TSA started trimming back the number of BDOs it deployed, converting about 500 of them back into regular TSA officers. But the TSA still believed there was something to its pseudoscience patchwork, so it’s still sending out 2,600 BDOs to covertly stare at travelers’ throats and eyes (no, really) until terrorism reveals itself.  Continue reading “There Is Simply No Scientific Backing For TSA’s Behavioral Detection Program”

Dear Ma and Pa:

I am well. Hope you are. Tell Brother Walt and Brother Elmer the Marine Corps beats working for old man Minch by a mile. Tell them to join up quick before all of the places are filled.

I was restless at first because you get to stay in bed till nearly 6 a.m. But I am getting so I like to sleep late. Tell Walt and Elmer all you do before breakfast is smooth your cot, and shine some things. No hogs to slop, feed to pitch, mash to mix, wood to split, fire to lay. Practically nothing.  Continue reading “Farm Kid Writes Home After Joining the Marines”

Air University

Frederick the Great’s Military Instruction was written between the War of the Austrian Succession and the Seven Years War and translated into English by Lieut.-Colonel T. Foster at the end of the 18th century. The dedication to Major General Goldworthy is dated March 1797. I am typing in the 5th edition of 1818. I will get the full text of the dedication, title page, and preface by Foster in later. Getting the main text in first is more important. There are surely typos still in it, but many of the unusual spellings (e.g. defence, pretense, vallies, variations on Konigingraetz) are from Foster. I haven’t put in all the accents on French words like defile and depot, and umlauts are converted to e’s following the umlauted vowel. The schwa vowels that look like oe stuck together or ae stuck together have been decomposed. I’ll try to make up a list of the more exact versions of such words with the Latin 1 codes in place later. Please let me know if you come across the sort of typos where you see “or” where you are expecting “on” that slip through a spelling check program. Thanks to Stuart McAlpine for sending in a proofreading that I will be checking against Foster to correct my errors.   Continue reading “Frederick the Great’s Military Instruction to Generals”

WOW! here is someone’s F’d UP NOTION!! (We’ve been warned of standing armies) Right!?

Yahoo News

President Trump announced on Wednesday a new policy barring trans people from serving “in any capacity” in the military and claiming that their service creates “tremendous medical costs and disruption.”

But about one-fifth of the transgender population in the US are veterans of the military — meaning that transgender people serve in the military at approximately twice the rate of the general population, according to a 2014 report by researchers at the UCLA School of Law.    Continue reading “Transgender people are twice as likely as the general population to serve in the military”