The-Asterisk

This past week has been the nadir of the relationship between law enforcement and black males. We have seen - literally - Alton Sterling get shot in Baton Rouge, LA and we watched Philando Castile die outside of Minneapolis, MN. Then, just two days later, a black man with an assault rifle opened fire from a sniper's position in Dallas, TX, killing five police and wounding twelve others. Before the police cornered him and later killed him, he told the police that he wanted to kill as many white people, especially police, as he could and that he was upset over #BlackLivesMatter. The modern era of victim politics regarding black males getting shot by police began after Michael Brown was shot by a policeman in Ferguson, MO after Brown had reached into the police cruiser and tried to wrestle the officer's firearm from him. To a dispassionate observer (and a DoJ monitored review board), Brown's death was an obvious case of self-defense but the people of Ferguson and the hoard...

I have done a bit of painting at my office lately. No, I don't love painting, I just think I can get it done quicker, as good or better than many painters and a heck of a lot cheaper. It seems that the really good craftspeople are so busy that they have trouble finding the time to do another job and I needed it done quickly. In my opinion, the worst thing about painting is masking. Unless you are a real pro, you need to mask. It is a tedious task, putting tape all around the doors, around the windows and up around the ceiling. If you are using a roller, you cannot get close enough to the ceiling grid without touching it or the ceiling tiles, so what do you do? Well, the first couple of rooms I painted, I pushed the tiles up and toward the center of the room, but with the hanger wires, the insulation and the ductwork above the tiles, that is a huge problem and can also mess up the tiles themselves. Then it hit me! No, not literally, but I had a pile of wooden paint stirrers lyin...

I am sitting at the breakfast table, contemplating Presidential politics, wondering who would end up being the nominees and knowing that NO ONE has a clue how this will all turn out. Then it hit me like a two ton heavy thing ... Donald J. Trump  is actually using Barack Obama's playbook with some heavy editing. Hear me out on this one. People complain that Trump has no experience in government. Obama had very little experience as well. Right after being sworn in as a US Senator and as soon as he could get the furniture set up in his new office, Obama began his purposed journey to the White House. People say that they don't know how Trump would vote or what he stands for. Obama, when he actually voted, pretty much toed the party line. I don't believe he authored any significant legislation during his short time in federal or state office. No paper trail there. Obama was a rock star. He had star power after that eloquent 2004 Democrat National Convention speech whe...

The reason that I created The-Asterisk blog is that so much in life is not quite as it is purported to be. Everything seems to have those little asterisks which let you know that YMMV (your mileage may vary.) Most of my blogging centers around politics, which is a target-rich environment for asterisks, but from time to time I discover things in my personal life which I think would be of value to others. Today, I was preparing a commercial suite for a tenant to move in on the first. Because we are splitting the suite, I needed to replace two passage door levers (they aren't door knobs anymore) with latches which have locks and  keys. I also needed to replace a worn out lever on the back door of the suite. I recently had purchased three locksets from a local locksmith company. You don't normally find commercial door hardware at Lowes or Home Depot. The sizing or backset is different between commercial and residential levers. For the rest of this blog, I am going to call these...

I am reading a book called The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels by Alex Epstein. In it, the author goes over some of the doomy and gloomy predictions the Cassandras of the 1970s and 1980s made and how they were not only completely off on the timeline, but they were totally 180 degrees out of sync with what has happened to the supply of oil, coal and natural gas in the years hence. It occurred to me while reading, that if Jimmy Carter had been Barack Obama and somehow could have waved a magic wand and cut fossil fuel use by 80% after the early and dire predictions had been heeded, then these doomsayers, such as Paul Ehrlich and James Hansen , would have been regarded as prophets and savers of the planet. As it was, their voices were largely ignored by the vast majority of the world, the oceans didn't rise, England didn't burn up and waste away by 2000 and not only have we avoided mass starvation, but the population of the earth has continued to increase and the quality of lif...

In the age of Twitter and Snapchat, traditional blogs seem so Gutenberg-ish, don't they? I mean, who has the two or three minutes it takes to link out of their Facebook feed, their Twitter timeline or their Snapchat blur to read someone's musings? I have fallen victim to this phenomenon. I tend to pontificate on Facebook where 30 or 40 of my best friends can avail themselves of my hyper-important opinions. Ha! Talk about broadcasting ! But, it is so easy to comment or post when you are right there, in the moment. If the best of my brain at that instant goes to Facebook or even Twitter, then pulling up the ol' Blogspot  New Post screen seems almost quaint, like making an apple pie from scratch. So, what to do? Is there a happy medium or an unhappy compromise? I think that I can put my comments up on my blog and keep them short enough so that they can be connected back to Facebook without losing my 'local' audience, but allow the rest of the world to swerve into ...

As many of you may know, I, T. Hyphen Asterisk, was in the Navy for over 30 years both active and reserve. The entirety of my career was spent "behind the green door" in secure spaces. In my case, the green door was entire buildings, but for many of my fellow sailors, it could have been a cramped, closet sized compartment on a ship or a sub. Nevertheless, the intelligence which we gathered gave the US and our allies the edge in putting the Cold War to bed (despite the best efforts of traitors such as Aldrich Ames, Ronald Pelton and the Navy's scourge, John Walker .) After joining the Navy Reserve, my assignment was to a unit which worked in and around the NSA in this iconic building. One of the missions which our organization was assigned to prosecute was Own Force Monitoring or OFM. If you have ever been on a military base, you certainly saw the stickers on every telephone reminding you that your conversations may be subject to monitoring. Well, guess who did the mon...

All of the brouhaha here , here , here , here and here , about  Indiana over the Religious Freedom Restoration Act is really much ado about nothing. First, one thing I can say without reservation is that conservatives SUCK at messaging. SUCK! Conservatives care about the end result, not the journey to get there. Liberals know how to spin and are willing to spend years in the wilderness as they slow chip away at the edifice of social norms. George Stephanopolous' well orchestrated attack on Gov. Mike Pence on This Week, last Sunday was no accident. Pence had to have known that he would be punching the tar baby. Why he chose to subject himself to such a set-up is puzzling. As George kept baiting him with the question "Under this law, is it legal for a florist to deny service to a same-sex couple citing religious reasons?" and later "So, answer yes or no, is it OK to discriminate against gays in Indiana?", the governor was not going to take the bait, so he ...

For those of you without a Netflix account, shame on you! That means that you likely have never watched House of Cards . Kevin Spacey's exquisitely played character, Francis J. Underwood, is the protagonist of this series, now in its third season. Caution: Spoiler Alert. Plot twists ahead. To call Frank Underwood "ambitious" would be like calling Donald Trump "an achiever." Underwood grew up poor in rural Gafney, South Carolina, went to college at The Sentinal (Citadel, anyone?), then ended up running for Congress in South Carolina's 5th District after marrying Claire, a young, well-to-do college girl from suburban Dallas. In Season 1 he was the House Majority (Democrat) Whip. Denied his promised Secretary of State position after helping with the election of President Garrett Walker, and feeling double-crossed, he and Claire went on a conniving and scheming (and somewhat murderous) tear in Washington DC. In Season 2, as a classic manipulator and pul...

I will probably "step in it" on this one, but I wanted to comment on former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani's recent, rather un-PC comment that President Barack Obama doesn't "love America". It was quite a dumb thing for a seasoned politician to say even if it was a private event (ask Mitt "47%" Romney about that) unless he really wanted to evoke comment and controversy. When Giuliani attempted to walk his comment back last week, he really didn't say what I think he really meant. Let me see if I can "help" him with that effort. President Obama loves America. He would just love it to be different and it is his love for the country he knows America could be that he twice ran for, and was elected as its President. Less than a week before his election in 2008, Barack Obama told the world, “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.” Certainly, no one can argue that he has not been rathe...

I just read this insightful piece  (not inciteful , well... maybe a tiny bit inciteful) by Kurt Schlichter. It is entitled, "Ignoring Conservatives = President Hillary" It is about how Republican presidential candidates will ignore conservatives at their own peril. My takeaway from the article, though, is what he wrote in the second part of the piece under Lessons Three and Four. It is about how candidates need to use social media for more than 140 character fluff pieces. I would have titled the article "Je Suis Iowa", but since the Townhall.com editors didn't choose that name, I took it! I have followed Kurt on Twitter for many years and he has followed me since way back in the day. His acerbic wit and biting commentary make following him fun, and his ability to toy with trolls like a cat plays with a wounded field mouse never fails to entertain. He knows Twitter and knows how to use it, so his suggestion on how candidates can connect with potential voters i...

While going through some old stuff, I found this 1990 letter to my Congressman. Although it was written 25 years ago is it still a valid idea?     April 13, 1990 Congressman Owen Pickett Washington, DC Dear Congressman Pickett,         I would like to propose an alternate form of taxation. As an independent business owner, I am acutely aware of the twisted and grossly unfair way that we are taxed. Let me tell you right off that I do not mind paying taxes… my fair share, that is. I feel very strongly that all people should pay taxes. Our system of government 'persuasion' by non-taxation has everyone constantly worried about the tax consequences of every business decision. The first question is not whether something is good for business, rather we worry about how it will affect our taxes. We as a people give billions of dollars per year to banks just so we do not have to give it to the government. Is this logical? I think not....

Sustainability . It is one of those words whose meaning has shifted, in recent years, from the dictionary definition to a more trendy meme-style  feeling. When I hear "sustainability", I think of environmental activists and left-wing reactionaries with an agenda to sell but I also think about average folks who just want things to work year after year in a non-wasteful manner. You probably thought this posting was going to be about how businesses can operate in a more sustainable environment, but I want to talk about another aspect of sustainability... back to the dictionary meaning of the word: "able to be maintained at a certain rate or level." I want to know why businesses cannot exist in a sustainable, non-growth manner. Friday's Wall Street Journal had an article about how Tesco, UK's massive grocery and merchandise retailer, is struggling to continue its growth curve. Because growth has subsided, the Tesco stock has plummeted over the past 12 mont...

(The-Asterisk asterisk: I was writing this post before the Apple announcements on September 9, 2014) I am not an expert in the minutiae, but I know a bit about security. Here is my 'simple man' idea to fix the rash of fraudulent credit card charges and debit card withdrawals happening more and more these days. Let's first stipulate that just about everyone has a smart phone onto which an app can be installed, or to which a text message can be sent. Every credit card on file would be registered with an app installed on a phone belonging to the cardholder. Even with multiple cards of various types, the user would be covered (hopefully by a single app.) So, when you go into Target or Home Depot to make a purchase with your compromised credit card, you swipe it at the point of sale (POS) and during the verification process, a challenge procedure is triggered. The credit card clearing house would send an alert message to your app (or a text message to your phone). Thi...

It all started with a lightning strike last week. We love the TV show 24. Jack Bauer is the man, so we DVR'd the series when it started again in May. Last week a TREMENDOUS thunderstorm moved through our area and there was a lightning strike at our house. It was so close that there was no delay between the flash and the thunder. Nothing appeared damaged until Monday night. We always start watching the show about 15 minutes after it starts so that we can zip through the annoying swamp of commercials. So, we settled into the den around 9:15 and turned on the DirecTV box and the TV. "No Signal" was the message on a beautiful blue background. The little orange light on the front of the DVR indicated that it was recording the show so I didn't want to power cycle the box, but after 20 minutes of trying, I determined that the satellite receiver had taken a hit. No 24 for us tonight and we had no recording of this episode. The next day, I went looking for the vi...