Why I hate auto correct on my iPhone

School lockdown lifted; phone's autocorrect created threatening message

A lockdown has been lifted at West Hall high and middle schools after law enforcement traced a text message to a student at Lanier Technical College, Hall County Schools spokesman Gordon Higgins said.

Someone in the West Hall community received a text message saying "Gunman go to West Hall this afternoon." That message was received around 11:30 this morning.

That person in turn contacted law enforcement.

"Law enforcement called West Hall High School and told them to go into lockdown until they could get there and have a chance to do an investigation in terms of determining where this call came from," Higgins said.

They were able to trace the message, and the person who sent it had no intentions of harm, Higgins said. The person meant to say "Gunna go to West Hall this afternoon," but autocorrect changed it to "gunman," according to Sgt. Stephen Wilbanks with the Hall County Sheriff's Office.

Mitt Romney didn't win last night, nor could he possibly have won

  

The best he could do was not lose, and that is what he did.  He won his (one of three) home state by a narrow margin, and he won Arizona outright.  The good news for Mitt is that he did not really need to win.  He only had to make sure he did not lose.  So on to Super Tuesday, where I suspect having the only real machine in place will allow Mitt to distance himself from the field.  

I'd rather own Apple than . . .

   

Poland.  Cuz it's worth more.  Than the whole country.

Early word out of Michigan

Is that turn out has been low.  That should help Romney because his machine should be better.  He has way more money and his old man used to be Governor, which ought to count for something.  Of course, I suppose the Santorum people are more enthused and that should count for something, too.  It is just that my experience has been that machine and money count for more, especially in primaries.

I hate open primaries

Our electoral system is not pretty, but it generally works pretty well.  However, open primaries (those where any registered voter can vote for anyone in any party primary), hurt and do not help the process.  Remember, our the general election of our Presidents is not by popular vote.  Forget about the electoral college, there are all kinds of institutional and practical constraints on anyone outside of a party nominee mounting, let along succeeding, in a national campaign for office.  And I like it that way.  After the field on both sides gets winnowed down, most people vote not for the candidate of their dreams, but of the better of the two, if not the  lesser of two evils.  It has worked fairly well.  And during the primaries, winning the party nomination has driven each nominee toward ideals and electability has driven them toward moderation and compromise.  But in States like Michigan where Democrats may freely, easily and without consequence vote in the Republican primary, the process gets prostituted.  Since there is only one person running for the Democratic nomination, registered Democrats not only have no procedural impediments to voting in the Republican primary, they have no incentive no to.  A Democrat's vote is worthless in their own primary, but can damage the Republican candidate that is most likely to defeat their boy.  I suppose, since the Republicans tend to have more common sense, pragmatism and are less purely ideological in their decision making, the open primary process works more for them then against them.  However, if I were a Santorum backer in Michigan, I would not vote for him today for one reason.  He solicited Democrats to cross over to defeat Romney because he knows Romney has a better chance of beating Obama.  Persuade the people of your party that you have a better vision, are more in line with their beliefs and that you can beat Obama, but do not try to win at the cost of weakening the party.  I find it odious, though I know it is part of the system today.  I do not think it will matter and may have a backlash effect, but the Michigan primary is clearly up for grabs so who knows.

Among the questions I never thought to ask . . .

. . . is why astronauts like horseradish and tabasco sause.  Other hot foods, too.  Turns out that without gravity, there can be no post nasal drip.  Which sounds like a good thing, but it really isn't.  If your sinuses don't drain, then you are constantly stuffed up.  And hot foods like shrimp cocktail with lots of horseradish work zero-G medicinal wonders.  Even if the shrimp do taste like card board.

What happens when you implement a failed social model with a centralized government overtaxing to provide too many "social services"?

You run out of money.  Just like the UK has.  Just ask Chancellor George Osborne.  Or you could re-elect Obama and find out on your own.