How much does Patriot really cost???

Does the Patriot anti aircraft missile system really cost $1 billion per system?  A Patriot system consists of a tracked vehicle to carry the missiles and the radar, 6 or maybe 8 missiles and good radar.  They sell tanks for like $50 million and a tank carries an expensive high power gun that Patriot doesn’t need.  The missiles ought to go for $10 million or so.  The radar would be a phased array type, which is pricey, may $20 million. 

   Add it all up and we have a price tag of $150 million.   That’s not cheap, but is a whole bunch less than $1 billion which is the cost of a Patriot system according to the TV. 

   It would be nice if some newsies checked out the costs on Patriot.  If newsies can count that high. 

 

Baldwin either did not know or did not comply.

 When you pick up a gun, any gun, even your own gun, you check it for being loaded.  Pop out the magazine, swing out the cylinder, look in the chamber to be sure no live rounds are lurking therein.  Basic rule of gun safety.  I learned it at summer camp when I was twelve. 

   Looks like Alex Baldwin did not comply.  The TV doesn't talk about that much. 

The Federal Debt Limit

 It’s a law (buried somewhere in DC) that sets a limit to how much the US Treasury can borrow.  Lately US taxes have been high enough to pay 60% of federal spending.  The Treasury borrows the other 40% to pay the rest of the bills.  Now that we have hit the debt limit, and there is a good chance the Republicans will refuse to raise it, the Treasury is limited to selling off various assets.  Treasury secretary Janet Yellen has said this will keep paying the federal government’s bills until June of this year.

   Last time this happened, maybe ten years ago, the government shut all the national parks and laid off all the “non essential” government workers.   This went on for some months.  It didn’t bother me.  My mail still got delivered, Air Traffic Control kept the airlines flying, I wasn’t expecting an income tax refund so putting the IRS on furlough was OK by me, and Cannon Mountain is a state run park, not federal. 

   This time maybe we could do some belt tightening to keep the federal deficit down. Like laying off those “non essential” bureaucrats for good.  Cut appropriations for the FBI, CPSC, FAA, CIA, FEC and others in half.  Look at military spending.  See what we can do to end “gold plating” of weapons systems, and improve the ratio of “tooth to tail” of all branches.  And Congress critters and their staffs don’t get paid until the budget is balanced somehow, more layoffs or more borrowing or something.   

    

Fireball Cinnimon Whisky

 I had read somewhere that Fireball was the best selling whisky all over New Hampshire.  So, to see what it was I bought a tiny bottle at the State liquor store.  I mixed it with ice and club soda.  The result was not happy.  It had a sweet taste, like sherry.  Quite strong actually.  Not like the whiskey I usually drink which has a hard to describe flavor.  It's good that I bought a really small bottle of Fireball. 

What happened to the Neanderthals?

   It used to be that carbon 14 dating of Neanderthal sites and modern human sites showed a 20,000 to 30,000 year overlap.  The Neanderthals were believed to had co existed with modern humans in Europe for 20 or 30 thousand years. 

    Then there was a recalibration of the Carbon 14 data that showed the Neanderthal sites disappeared about the same time that sites of modern men appeared.  Which leads to the obvious conclusion that Neanderthals lost the competition with modern man and were wiped out.  Unpleasant idea, but likely.

Carbon 14 data is tricky.  Energetic particles from the Sun and cosmic rays strike ordinary Carbon 12, and turn it into radioactive Carbon 14.  This has a half life of 14 thousand years, a good long time.  Living organisms take in both sorts of carbon.  When the organism dies it stops taking in carbon.  By measuring the radioactivity from the carbon 14 in the organic material we can tell how many years has passed since the organism died.  It’s a delicate measurement; the radioactivity of the Carbon 14 is not very strong, compared to say Uranium.   It gets even weaker as time goes by, 14 thousand years, Carbon 14 half life, reduces the radiation by half. 

  I am not hep to just how the Carbon 14 dating was adjusted, but the result moved the oldest Neanderthal sites back 20 to 30 thousand years, putting then up again modern men moving into Europe. 

 

 

 

How many more pieces of classified will turn up?

 So far we have four separate stashes of classified on Biden owned houses or rented offices.  Wanna bet some more classified will surface shortly?

1917 (Movie title) 2019 (date movie released)

In the height to World War I (1917 was the last full year of the war, armistice was declared in November 1918). Two British infantry men are sent on an important mission to deliver orders calling off an attack planned for the next morning.  The movie starts with long long shots of our two heroes striding thru trenches, walking across no man’s land, walking across a green pasture with a couple of cows grazing is it.  Scenery is not all that pretty and nothing happens. 

   While hiding our in a ruined barn watching a dog fight, one of the planes crashes right into the barn.  They pull the pilot out of the burning wreck.  Dunno what the Kaiser told his pilots, but this one, after they save his life, pulls out a gun and shoots one of them.  His buddy puts some rifle bullets into the German pilot and then comforts his buddy as the buddy dies in his arms. 

   The survivor does eventually make it to the unit he set out for and delivers the written orders canceling the attack.  End of movie.

    I was not impressed.  The protagonists never do anything memorable, they just act as targets.  They do a lot of walking, and hitch a ride on and army truck, but this isn’t all the interesting.    

Notices to Airmen.

 That’s what they were called back in the 1960’s when I was serving in the Air Force.  They listed things pilots needed to know before a mission, things like closed runways, Military flying exercises, new high tension power lines.  I hear our transportation secretary had the time to rename the Notice to Air Missions.  Airmen was too sexist for Mr. Buttigieg.  While having time to fiddle with the name, he did not have time to make sure the system was in good enough shape to continue producing NOTAMs to pilots.  I am so glad Mr. Buttigieg is so woke as to change names but not make sure the system works. 

In the Air Force we never took classified home.

 My Air Force service was in the 1960’s.  Each office in the unit had a safe for classified.  If I needed to read a piece of classified, I went to the unit office.  The NCOIC (NCO in Charge) would open the safe.  I would sit and read the classified in the office.  When finished I would hand the classified back to the NCOIC and he would lock it in the safe.  We never took classified out of the office, let alone home. 

  The TV news is chewing over Biden's (and Trump’s) numerous stashes of classified at the former President’s and serving president’s homes.  We would not have allowed that in the Air Force when I was serving.

Gas Stoves

Speaking as a cook, gas stoves are far better than electric stoves.  Gas stoves are hotter, boil water faster.  Turn down the heat on a gas stove and the heat goes down, right now.  Turn down the heat on an electric stove and a long time goes by, burning your food, before anything useful happens, like the heat going down. 

   Gas burns clean, far cleaner that the wood fires that heated human’s caves for 500,000 years in the past.  Far cleaner than smoke from a cigarette, of heaven help us smoke from, a cigar.

  Gas stoves use almost all of the heat energy in the gas to heat the food.  Electric stoves only use 40% (at best).  Back in the electric plant fuel is burned to make steam to turn steam engines that drive the electric generators.  Hot high pressure steam goes from the boiler into the steam engine.  Much cooler, lower pressure steam comes out of the steam engine.  Only while the piston of the steam engine can keep going down, expanding the hot steam, converting heat energy into mechanical energy, does the heat energy of the fuel get converted into electricity.  For current technology, only 40% of the heat energy goes into making electricity, the other 60% goes into heating up the plant’s cooling system.

Was the FAA system that crashed this morning running Windows??

 

FAA tried to make a nationwide failure sound a little better by calling it "glitch".  A better word for a 

nationwide failure is "crash".  

Windows is so full of holes the any sharp high school kid can break into it and do anything he wants. 

It is only fit to run games for children.

Lets hear it FAA.  Were you running on Windows?

Preview

Science was invented in the middle ages

   The Ancients did not have science.  The Hittites were the last to invent/discover something important, namely how to smelt iron back about 800 BC.  The Romans in 200 AD did not have any materials or tools that the Hittites did not have a thousand years before. 

Science is a way of looking at the world.  Science takes facts, from observations, and from experiments, and forms theories that are supported by those facts.  Science does not take ancient authors writings or popular ideas into account, only facts.  Roger Bacon spelled out how to do science in the 1300s.  Science has been very successful.  In the last thousand years we have developed gun powder, printing, electric telegraph, steam railroad, radio and TV, automobiles, aircraft, and a whole raft of  stuff that makes modern life a whole bunch more comfortable than it used to be.

When reading about scientific discoveries you should look for the facts behind the discoveries.  If there are no facts given in what you read, it is not science.

Science is dynamic, it keeps finding new stuff.  When I took geology in college, many years ago, the professor did not believe in plate tectonics.  Now, 60 years later, everybody knows about and believes in plate tectonics.  New science starts small, with perhaps just one article in one journal.  At first few people know of the new science and it is called “tentative” (maybe true maybe not).  As time goes on more and more people learn of the new science and it becomes widely known and accepted.  When it gets written into college textbooks you can say the idea has become generally accepted.  Acceptance is rarely one hundred percent.  For instance we still have people who believe the earth is flat.  When you are looking at science you need to be aware that not all the ideas called scientific are generally accepted. 

 Republicans need to do a RINO hunt.  Nineteen House RINOs denied the Republican party a Speaker of the House from the Republican party.  Dunno what happen next.  This could be the start of two years of  deadlocked votes in the House.  Democrats could not have hoped for anything better for them.  I don't have a list of the RINOs, none of them are from New Hampshire.  We don't have an Republican House or Senate members.  We had chance to vote out three Democrat Congresscritters last month, but it didn't happen.  Too bad.

Watching the crowds at midnight.

 Usually I fall asleep long before midnight on New Years Eve (or any other night for that matter).  This year I took an evening nap at 4:30.  I woke up at 11:30 so I turned on the TV and watched the New Year’s festivities at Times square and at Nashville.  Big crowds both places.  Everyone looked happy, smiling and laughing, some hugging and kissing, a little singing.  I came away thinking America is still in fairly decent shape if we can put forth such large happy crowds. 

Trump’s Taxes

   Democrats forced Trump’s income tax returns into public knowledge.  Trump managed to pay a surprising low income tax.  Absolute zero one year, and just a few hundred dollars in other years. 

Of course, Trump does not do his own taxes.  He hires the best tax lawyers and tax accountants that money can buy.   They found loopholes and special deals scattered throughout the tax code, and used them all. They probably stretched one or two of them farther than anyone else ever did. 

  The IRS is supposed to check or even audit the tax returns of wealthy taxpayers to keep them straight.  IRS never objected to the Trump returns.  It may be the IRS failed to check Trump’s returns, or Trump’s tax people were smarter than the IRS tax people (not unlikely).

   It is a long standing principle of US law that is a perfectly legal to arrange one’s affairs to minimize your tax liabilities.  Trump obviously did a fair amount of this.  It’s perfectly legal.

   Until the IRS comes right out and accuses Trump of tax evasion (they haven’t)  I am going to believe that Trump’s tax returns are legal. 

   We should straighten out the incredible complicated US tax code.  The whole thing fills shelf after shelf.  It is written in lawyer speak which confuses us regular people.  Those of us who still do our own taxes only have J.K. Lasser’s book.  In one 8 ½ by 11 paper back only ½ inch thick, J.K. Lasser gets every thing we need to know packed into a lot less that the shelves and shelves of binders holding the whole tax code.  Those who don’ use J.K. Lasser take their records down to H & R Block and they get them out in good enough shape to prevent an IRS audit of the tax payer. 

Happy New Year

 What more can I say?