Becoming a Veteran Parent

With the college graduation of my youngest child yesterday, I become a true veteran parent, one who has raised 'em,loved 'em, and gotten 'em all thru college. I done my duty and now I can relax. Whew.
Graduation from Brooklyn Poly Tech was not held on campus, instead we subwayed down to the Lincoln center at 66th street, an hour ride each way. And very few seats. We only got two tickets, so Mom and Dad went; siblings, uncles, and aunts had to watch it on U-Tube.
The graduates at this engineering school all had names like Gupta, Patel, Wang, Lee,and Nguyen. Very few Smiths, Jones, Clarks, or Johnsons. Operation of America's industry will be in the hands of the children of recent immigrants. Children of the older Anglo Saxon families are not bothering to learn engineering. Let's hope they can find jobs in this economy.

So here I am in Brooklyn

Youngest son is graduating tommorrow from Brooklyn Polytech. I drove down. Spring has just barely taken hold in the up country, but down in the lust lowlands, it has arrived. I took in the Connecticut Trolley Museum on the way, to break the 7 hour drive. The Trolley's have a parking problem, the place was all parked up and people were parked up and down the road. The local cops were running around threatening to tow every single car. I wound up parked at a strip mall a mile away and took a shuttle bus. The Trolleys had one vintage open seat car in like new condition, varnished wood gleaming, brass polished, paint bright, and giving rides. And a half a dozen fixer-uppers in the car barn. I took some pix and then pressed on. Gas is $4.25 in Connecticut, up from $3.89 in the northwoods. Took the Hutchison River Pkwy all the way to the Whitestone bridge. Traffic backed up on the Whitestone tolls and remained back all the way to Brooklyn. One good reason to retire to New Hampshire.

The Massey Mine explosion

Massey Energy Company's big branch mine in West Virginia suffered a massive explosion that killed more than 20 miners and destroyed the entire mine. This was about a year ago. Massive finger pointing ensued. Miners, the union, and the mine regulators blamed the company, the company claimed it was an unforeseen act of God.
Yesterday a blue ribbon panel appointed by the state governor issued a report. NHPR offered an unsatisfactory summary, a few sound bites, and no meat. We want to know what specific act[s] of omission or commission caused the disaster, and the NHPR summary said nothing substantive. I did a bit of web searching and was unable to find much better.
There ought to be regulations about gas alarms and mine ventilation. Was Massey in compliance with those regulations? Are the existing regulations stiff enough? Inquiring minds want to know.
Statements like "The company put production ahead of safety" tell us nothing, they are just partisan sound bites.

"Dialogue"

Obama was giving his daily speech, this time at the State Department. He explained that the entire secret of fixing the Bahrain problem was "dialogue". The audience of cookie pushers gave him a big hand for that one.
Too bad so many people believe in "dialogue". Talking only works when the two sides have something in common that they wish to preserve. When the sides hate each other's guts, and have like or nothing in common, remember old Otto von Bismarck.
"Not through speeches and majority decisions will the great questions of the day be decided - that was the great mistake of 1848 and 1849 - but by iron and blood."

Herman Cain polls FIRST in Iowa

The headline says it all. Article here. I like Cain.

UAV or manned aircraft?

Aviation Week has a nice cover story on the AT-6, a newish light fighter. It's a single engine two place turboprop that looks pretty much like the classic WWII P51 Mustang. Such an aircraft is much cheaper and has better loiter time than a pure jet. So long as it never encounters enemy jet fighters, it's good cheap air support for your ground forces.
The Aviation Week article doesn't talk much about those issues. They do a lot of talking about the "network centric" features that allow rapid data transfer. Not that I would buy a fighter plane to do rapid data transfer, I buy fighter planes to put ordnance on target. Then they enthused about the "intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance" (ISR) capabilities, in simple words you can load camera pods on the wings and do photo recon with it. That's nice, and versatile and all, but that's not the reason I buy fighter planes.
Then they opine that something like this can be superior to UAV's, which is true. Two sets of eyes in a cockpit is better at spotting ground targets than any amount of camera pods.

America's Most Wanted List

With the recent unlamented demise of Osama Bin Ladin, the FBI's ten most wanted list got updated, according to the Wall St Journal. The top slots are filled with Islamic terrorists, but the last slot is Daniel Andreas San Diego. Mr. Diego is a US citizen and is wanted for animal rights terrorism. He is accused of bombing two companies, Chiron a vaccine maker, and Shaklee a maker of vitamins and shampoo. Mr. Diego objects to the use of animals in testing their products.
Does this mean that animal rights terrorists are the next bad guys, after we deal with Al Quada?
How tough can animal rights terrorists be, compared to Al Quada? Could this be the famous light at the end of the tunnel?