This, from the New York Times, as linked to by Drudge:  the federal government wants to regulate navigation systems in cars, both built-in systems and phone/tablet apps that can be used for navigation.  Their voluntary standard is this: Last year, after negotiations with the industry, the Transportation Department released voluntary guidelines for automakers stipulating that any navigation system should not take more than two seconds for a single interaction, and 12 seconds total. Not mentioned in this article, but elsewhere... Read more

I’m not a big fan of guest-worker programs, and I think that tech firms pressing for more H1-B visas don’t face genuine worker shortages so much as shortages of fresh graduates with exactly the right skills and willing to work for low pay.  (In my field, employers are accustomed to on-the-job training and providing time off for new hires to study for actuarial exams — what tech firms are doing seems to be the equivalent of expecting that newly hired... Read more

A more dreary set of news reports I haven’t seen in a while: 1.  We’re replaying Vietnam in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Where does this end?  The last report I read was Obama, or someone in his administration saying, “it’s not our fault, it’s the Iraqis fault.”  Yeah, right.  My son shouldn’t have been running around barefoot on the docks last night when he got his splinter.  It was his fault?  Did that preclude us from taking him for treatment when... Read more

(This comes out of comments to another post, but I wanted to separate this into another discussion.) Is legalization of illegal immigrants “amnesty” or a “path to citizenship” or something else? Think of “amnesty” in any other context:  it doesn’t mean extra privileges to violators, but simply removing penalties. A “library amnesty” like this one in Chicago (the first hit in my google search) means that fines are erased for individuals who return books, regardless of how overdue they are.... Read more

Here’s Drudge this morning: And here’s one of those links:  “Obama ‘committed to escalating lawlessness’” — a commentary by Sen. Jeff Sessions on breitbart.com. I don’t really have too much to say on this; or, rather, I don’t really think I have anything to offer besides just linking to what others have written.  But I find it all very worrisome.  The administration is claiming — either out of willful deception or stupidity — that the surge in minor illegals (up... Read more

So I’m as impressed by Dave Brat’s win as anyone else, and I’m not pleased by CNN’s glib “tea party” identification, as I haven’t seen anything indicating that Brat wrapped himself in the Tea Party mantle, so much as that he emphasized that he was more trustworthy and Cantor was out-of-touch with his constituents (which Cantor compounded by being, well, out-of-touch with his consitituents). The CNN article also downplays the significance of the win, noting that Lindsey Graham, an amnesty... Read more

Here’s an article from the Washington Examiner (as linked to by Drudge):  “Women are having fewer kids, and demographers don’t know why.” The bottom line:  the fertility rate has been dropping dramatically in the years since 2007, from 2.1 to a current 1.86, and demographers are struggling to understand “why the decline in fertility has persisted even as the worst effects of the labor market have abated.” One clear trend is that women are waiting until older ages to have... Read more

I’m afraid the anti-Bergdahl crowd may have jumped the shark.  Current claims are that (a) he converted to Islam in 2010 and declared himself to be a mujahid, (b) seemed reluctant to leave his captors, and was even tearful and comforted by them, and (c) was shaved completely in accordance with Islamic practice for suicide bomber (OK, this last connection was suggested by a commenter on a blog post I read this morning). Which all starts to remind of the... Read more

So, in commemoration of D-Day, I can’t really tell you stories about my family’s experiences during the war, as neither of my grandparents served (one was already 42, and the other had a “critical to the war effort” job stateside).  I suppose I could tell you stories about my German in-laws and their experiences during the war, but I’ve already mentioned some of this in passing and the rest will wait ’til later. But a “facebook friend” of mine, a... Read more