Are there enough Greenie voters to matter?

The Biden administration does not seem to be able to count.  They are jacking up fuel prices to hurt everybody just to please the Greenies.  Greenies believe that drilling for oil and mining coal is a sin against Gaia.  They believe we can keep from freezing to death in a New Hampshire winter with wind and solar.  They don’t understand that solar goes away every evening at sundown and wind can stay calm for days.  As I write this, high in the White Mountains, not a breath of air is stirring.  In short, Greenies believe in things that are not real.  Superstition we used to call this kind of thinking. 

   Anyhow, to get down to winning elections.  Do the Greenies really count?  The population of the US is like 330 million, of which at least half are old enough to vote.  Call it 150 million voters.  How many Greenies are there?  A million would be a lot, but not enough to win an election. 

   The Biden Administration, those faceless people that write Biden’s speeches and executive orders, would do better to concentrate on the majority of real voters and not the thin wedge of Greenies. 

 

Biden calls Putin a war criminal.

We didn’t used to do that sort of thing.  I don’t remember anyone calling Hitler a war criminal during WWII.  After victory over Germany and Japan, we occupied the countries, and then we set up Nuremburg and what ever we called the one in Japan, had some war crimes trials, got some guilty verdicts, did some death penalties. 

  But we didn’t go about calling enemy heads of state war criminals while the war was going on, be it a hot or a cold war.  Putin probably deserves it, invading a smaller, peaceful, neighbor and slaughtering its civilians is a horrible thing to do.  

   Plus, we won’t be able to put Putin on trial until we defeat and occupy Russia, which is a tall order.  So unless something strange happens, Biden’s accusation of war crimes remains at the level of political propaganda, rather than the operation of an impartial justice system. 

What schools should NOT teach.

 Race.   Don’t teach that one race is or was superior to another race[s].  Stick with Jefferson, “All men are created equal”.  Do teach that the US Civil War was waged to abolish slavery, and it was successful in this. 

 

Sex.  Teaching about any kind of sex before the children reach puberty is destructive and we should not allow it.  Before puberty, the kids simply do not know what sex is about, and teaching about it, against it, in favor of LGBTQ issues, gay marriage,  transgender issues (changing sex), or what ever is destructive.  After kids reach puberty, a school sex education course that tells how to avoid sexually transmitted diseases and for girls how to avoid getting pregnant before graduation is OK, but no more.

 

Politics.   Don’t teach current political conflicts.  If you just have to teach some politics, teach about political controversies in the past.  “No Taxation without Representation” is a good place to start.

 

Urban Mining to save the planet

Urban Mining.   This is a British article which is actually about recycling.  We toss a lot of stuff, some of it is valuable, electronics for example, most of it is worthless.  The author talked about the need for a "well sorted waste stream" but never got around to saying how the sorting might be done.  Do we want to force homeless people to stand at the dump sorting glass bottles by color and grabbing the odd piece of electronics out of the waste stream?  I don't think so.  

Up here in New Hampshire we have the sorting mostly under control.  We have separate bins for glass bottles, tin cans, aluminum cans, plastic bottles, newspapers. magazines, miscellaneous paper, old clothes, cardboard, and electronics.  Only the electronics, mostly dead TV sets and dead desktop computers, seems to have much potential of yielding rare earth metals, or lithium, or copper or gold or silver.  The town dump  (transfer station for the trendy minded) sends the electronics off somewhere, I don't know where, every so often.   Where ever the stuff goes, it is a pretty well sorted waste stream for "urban mining".

Been off the air for three days,

Sorry about that.  Hughesnet stopped connecting to the internet Friday night.  I thought they might be back or my computer might recover.  Saturday it snowed hard all day and I though the snow might be blocking the satellite signal.  Sunday, nobody is at work on Sunday.  I called the Hughesnet number Monday.  It took an hour to get them to schedule a service man.  Best the telephone people could do was get a service man out on Thursday.  But, mid afternoon a serviceman called to see if he could come today.  I said yes, come as soon as possible, and I will have coffee.  The serviceman showed up, reseated a few connectors and bingo, internet was back.  Anyhow that is why no posts on Saturday or Sunday.  

  Since Friday all the TV talks about is Ukraine and the terrible Russian bombardments.  Wall St journal didn't come today.  So I really don't have anything new to post about. 

Ukraine war according to Aviation Week.

 Aviation Week has been a very reliable source over the years.  I think things really happened the way they say it did.

Putin planned on a lightening swift war.  He planned to missile the Ukraine’s air defenses, missile launchers, radars, airfields. He wanted to take Ukraine’s cities, like Kharkiv in the first two days. He planned on eliminating Ukrainian president Zelenskyy by forces sweeping into Kyiv, also in the first two days.  

   Instead Ukraine put up a stout defense under the inspirational leadership of President Zelenskyy. After a week of fighting no major city had fallen to the Russians.

   The Russian armed forces were not as formidable as they had been cracked up to be. For instance the Russians launched 450 cruise and ballistic missiles during the first week.  In 2003 the US launched 504 such missiles on the first night of hostilities with Iraq.  The Russians tried to capture Antonov Airport, only 19 miles from Kyiv.  Ukraine’s Stinger missiles destroyed two Russian jet fighters, two Kamov helicopter gun ships.  Two dozen Russian MI-8 helicopters landed an attack force, with much larger forces poised to fly in on IL74 transports as soon as the airport was secure.  Ukrainian forces counter attacked the heli born force.  The original Russian force was over whelmed and driven off the airport into the woods.  The Russians counter attacked with 300 helicopters and fighting continued for days.  When the fighting ended the runway was too damaged to allow the IL74’s to land. 

   That 40 mile long Russian road convoy had many vehicles run out of gas.  The old trick of removing all the street signs worked and got the Russians lost, circling around until they ran out of gas.  At which point the Russian troops abandoned their vehicles. 

We cannot give Ukraine to Putin.

Putin’s attack on Ukraine is the first such aggression since Hitler started WWII.  That was 70 years ago.  Since the end of WWII, the US has forbidden aggressive countries from attacking other countries.  We have even fought wars, Korea and Viet Nam, to prevent attackers from taking over their victims.  If we let Putin take over Ukraine, it tells the world that it is now possible to take over other countries, the Americans won’t stop you.  This is not good. 

   At this point, stopping Putin runs a real risk of war with Russia.  Putin has threatened to use nukes.  We could tell Putin that if he uses nukes we will retaliate.  Show him our list of targets, in order of value.  Tell Putin if he nukes something in Ukraine, or anywhere else, we will nuke something of his, of somewhat greater value than what ever he nuked.  Biden probably cannot do this; every one knows that Biden lacks the courage to go to the brink.  Trump could pull it off. 

    When 2024 gets here, every voter should ask him/her self “Does this presidential candidate have the courage needed to risk war to protect victim democracies from aggressors?”

Vacuum Bombs and Cluster bombs.

 These are not new.  We had them in Viet Nam.  Nor are they outlawed far as I know.  Some talk on TV indicated that the TV person had no idea what these two weapons are. 

   The cluster bomb, or cluster bomb unit (CBU), is an air dropped anti personnel munition.  It is a big sheet metal container, perhaps five feet long and weighing maybe 750 pounds.  The container is filled with grenades, small explosive charges, each with its own detonator.  When dropped, an explosive charge blows open the sheet metal container and all the grenades are freed.  Each grenade arms itself after it turns over a hundred times or so.  One cluster bomb will cover a much larger area than a plain old iron bomb.  Against infantry, a cluster bomb can be very deadly. 

  The “vacuum bomb” is what we used to call a fuel air bomb.  It is just a big tank of flammable gas, natural gas, propane, whatever.  When it hits the ground, a big valve opens and all the flammable gas is released.  After a few seconds, to give the gas time to mix with air, a detonator ignites the cloud of fuel air mixture.  Pound for pound, flammable gas provides far more energy than TNT, so the explosion of a fuel air bomb is intense. 

Strange Putin Photos.

I have seen two such photos on the Internet so far.  They start in an enormous room, with a huge table, 40 or 50 feet, running down the middle of the room.  They show Putin sitting at the head of this huge table.  At the way far end we see a handful of flunkies of one sort or another.  And 30-40 feet of table between Putin and the flunkies is unoccupied.  Is Putin off on an ego trip or what?

 

Cogeneration.

 To make electricity steam boilers produce hot high pressure steam.  The steam goes into steam turbines which turn the alternators that actually make the electricity.  The steam, cooler and lower pressure comes out of the turbine.  This waste steam is too cool and too low pressure to feed into a turbine, but it is plenty hot enough for space heating.  Locate your building close to an electric power station and you can heat it with waste steam from the turbines.  The electric company will be glad to sell it to you at a good price. 

   For cogeneration to be really effective, the electric power station has to be located downtown where there are plenty of buildings needing heat.  This works, electric power stations run quietly, are not very big, and make fine neighbors.  I used to own a triple decker in Cambridge right off Western Ave.  There was a nice power station right on Western Ave. 

   For fossil fuel plants cogeneration works fine.  Nuclear plants not so much.  The greenies hate nuclear power and put out all kinds of anti nuclear propaganda and run off demonstrations at nuclear plants under construction.  So we can skip nuclear plants for cogeneration. 

   But we ought to insist, thru our public utility commissions, that new fossil fuel electric power stations be located downtown so that cogeneration is possible.  It will save a good deal of fuel over the years.

Damn the Greenies, full speed ahead.

    The TV said Biden was negotiating with the Europeans about cutting off Russian oil and gas sales to Europe and America.  What Biden-the-Woke should do is stop American buying Russian oil and gas.  Let the Europeans figure out if they want to subsidize Russia or not.  We don’t have to, we have solid petroleum reserves on American soil and we should use them rather than pay money to Putin.  Who will use the money to invade Ukraine. 

   The American greenies are dead set again this.  They think we can run our society without drilling for oil and gas.  They are wrong.  To provide central heat to our homes in the dead of winter, and gasoline to drive to work, takes fossil fuels.  I cannot run my car on solar or wind.  Nor can I make it thru a real winter up here on solar electricity that goes away when the sun goes down.  I need electricity to make my oil burner work.  When the juice goes off, the oil burner shuts down, and my pipes freeze in a few hours. 

   We were producing enough oil and gas to supply the entire country when Trump left office.  Given a bit more than a year, Biden has reduced American production to the point that we don’t have a surplus to ship to our European allies, and we don’t have enough to even run America.  We could easily jack up production to where it was when Trump left office last year.  Biden doesn’t want to do this because of all the nasty things the American greenies would say.  There aren’t that many greenies in the country, Biden could bring oil and gas production back and the majority of the voters would cheer.  The majority of voters far out number the greenies.

No Fly Zone Enforcement

There has been some talk about how the US might enforce a no-fly zone by shooting down any Russian aircraft that violated it.  It would not work quite that way.  Upon detecting a Russian aircraft in the no fly zone, the US fighters would radio it, on guard frequency, and order it out of the area.  If the Russian complies, all is well and good.  If it does not comply, the US fighters would follow up with the traditional shot across the bow.  And possibly some hot rod flying to scare them off.  Only after all that fails would shooting start for real.  

Another question.  Would shooting down a single Russian fighter be enough to kick off nuclear war?  During the Cold War, the Russians shot down several US recon aircraft.  We sent diplomatic nastygrams to the communists, but we didn't threaten war over a single aircraft.

Taiwan is different from Ukraine.

The TV has been talking up China’s threat to invade and conquer Taiwan, comparing it to Ukraine.  There is one big difference between the two.  There is a 120 mile wide strait between Mainland China and Taiwan.  It’s blue water, deep enough to float air craft carriers.  Chinese army has to cross this strait by ship.

  Up until Biden, the US promised to defend Taiwan by the US Navy steaming into the Taiwan Strait and sinking the Chinese invasion force.  Today, a lot of people, me included, fear that Biden lacks the courage to back up 70 years of American promises and order the US Navy into action.  We fear Biden will chicken out in the clutch.

   To prevent this disgraceful action, every American needs to get to the polls in November, and vote a straight Republican ticket. 

 

Shelling a nuclear power plant is craziness

 Apparently the Russians want to do Chernobyl all over again.  Shelling a running nuclear power plant is asking for another Chernobyl.  A nuclear plant needs a lot of stuff working to keep it running safely, the cooling system, the fire fighting equipment, the control room, electric power to move the control rods, and more.  Shelling the plant is likely to break something essential.  

   If they just want to control who gets power, and turn the lights out on the Ukrainian resistance, all the Russians need do is surround the plant, wait for the operators to get hungry, and offer them food if they come out and turn the place over.  Shelling is no part of this. 

Big Molotov Cocktails.

 Back in high school I knew a boy, Hungarian boy by the name of Tom Beyargin.  He had been active in the 1956 Hungarian uprising against the Russians.  Hr had gotten out of Hungary just a day before the Russians closed the western border of Hungary.  He told some hair raising stories about resisting the Russians in Buda Pest.  

  The Hungarians would lay down ordinary pie pans, upside down, across the city streets.  The pans looked just like land mines.  No tanker is going to drive his tank over a land mine.  The Russian tanks would stop and a tanker could get out to look the things over.  There was usually a Hungarian with a rifle on street level to deal with him.  Meantime a Hungarian would heave a gallon jug sized Molotov cocktail out a 3rd or 4th story window.  Since the tanks were stopped it was easier to hit them.  A gallon of gasoline was enough to set any kind of tank on fire.  After a few days of this and the tankers became extremely reluctant to drive down any city street.

Dumping Putin

 The Russians would have to do it of course.  The Russian power structure, Army Generals, Politburo people, industrialists, the heavy duty kind of people, would have to become convinced that Putin was driving Russia into a disaster.   Then should enough of them get together they could force Putin out of power, the way they did Khrushchev years ago.  It could get touchy.  Should Putin catch wind of this, he would order everybody arrested.  

We probably would not know of a move to remove Putin until after it happened.  Unless we have another deep sleeper agent in the Kremlin, like the famous Oleg Penkovsky, we would not hear.  Planning to remove the head of state is high treason and would only be done in the deepest of secrecy.

State of the Union

 It went on past my bedtime and ran for ever.  I noticed a lot of empty seats in the House chamber.  Used to be, every seat was full and the room was jammed.  Not so much last night.  Biden didn't say much of substance, although he read well off the teleprompters.  Only two cases of lost train of thought that I noticed.  Not too shabby for Slow Joe.  He never spoke about getting oil production back up.  Most of what he said was either motherhood and apple pie, or the party of more free stuff promising more free stuff.  He wanted to lower drug prices but he never mentioned the sure fire way to make that happen, namely allow import duty free of drugs from any decent first world country, Canada, the EU, Japan, etc.  Republicans need to campaign hard to win the Congress. All American voters need to go to the polls in November and never vote for a democrat again.  We have seen how badly democrats have run the country this last year of Biden.

A no fly zone for Ukraine.

 There is a blond young woman from Ukraine in Washington.  Her English is excellent, she is pretty and she sounds like a very effective spokeswoman for Ukraine.  She was asking for a no-fly zone to keep the Russian air force out of the fighting.  Sounds nice.

  Trouble is having the US Air Force enforce the no fly zone could lead to war between us and the Russians.  We have made it a point to avoid that ever since the end of WWII.  The old Soviet Union was nearly as big as we were, and they had nukes.  After the Soviet Union failed, new nations formed out of the old Soviet Union wanted out of the Union.  About a third of the old Soviet Union escaped, so Putin is running a much smaller country that would be easier to defeat.  But, they still have a lot of nukes, and they would probably use them on us before they would accept defeat.  And we would likely retaliate and things go down hill from there. 

    Anyhow I don’t think it would be a good idea for us to declare and enforce a no fly zone in Ukraine.  Too dangerous.   We should stick with supplying SAMs, Stinger and Patriot.  Stinger is shoulder fired, which means it has to be fairly light.  However, light as it is, Stinger had enough punch in Afghanistan to bring down anything the Russians were flying.  Little to no training is needed to use Stinger; it is a point and shoot system.  Patriot is a bigger and fancier system.  It has a tracked vehicle to carry the missiles and the radar.  Crews need probably a week of training before they can make Patriot perform. 

Siege. Starve out the enemy

 Traditional way to take castles, cities, and the like.  Surround them, cut off their supplies, and wait for their food to run out.  It has worked for thousands of years.  From what I see on TV (reliable that is) the Russians have not yet surrounded Kyiv.  Last general I remember who neglected this essential step was German general Paulus at Stalingrad.  He was defeated and he and his entire army was killed or captured. 

Air Supply for Ukraine.

 We could fly weapons into Ukraine.  They must have at least one airport in Ukrainian hands, far enough back to avoid Spetnaz snipers taking the runways under fire.  Use big USAF transports.  Give them fighter escort just in case.  Equip then with Common Missile Warning System which uses TV cameras to detect a SAM launch and the microprocessor gets on the aircraft intercom and cries “Missile missile missile”.  That gets the crew’s attention every time.  Also equip the transports with flare dispensers and radar jammers to deflect any missiles launched.  Land on the Ukraine airport.  Pop the rear cargo door open and push all the pallets full of supplies and weapons out of the aircraft and onto waiting trucks.  Close rear cargo door and takeoff immediately. 

What Schools should be teaching. Part II

 Public speaking.  All too many kids simply do not understand about speaking up and speaking clearly.  At my old high school all seniors were required to take public speaking which met once a week.  The course was taught by the school headmaster, old Daniel D. Test (Master Dan).  He taught it in the old school theater (the school has since built a fine big new theater).  We had to say our piece from the stage.  Master Dan would seat in the back most row of seats to insure that we spoke up so he could hear us.  Every so often some luckless student would hear Master Dan shout out "I cannot hear you!" from the back row. 

Some years later, taking Air Force ROTC, we had close order drill, from an Air Force Manual 54-12.  There was a section that discussed "command voice" and the need to give commands loudly and clearly when drilling cadets (or troops).  At debriefing after one after noon drill session I was gratified to here one to the instructors, a commissioned Air Force officer, say "Mr. Starr had the only decent command voice out there this afternoon."  I didn't say anything, but I thought back on Master Dan's public speaking course.   

Today we have a lot of people who don't speak up, who mumble, leaving the rest of us wondering what they were trying to say and if it is worth asking them about it.  This includes people who ought to know better, like movie actors.  The old line movie actors, Humphrey Bogart, Gary Cooper, John Wayne, and company always spoke clear as a bell.  The new breed no longer understand about that, and they don't speak up and they mumble.  There was a scene in Game of Thrones with Jaime Lannister and Briene together in a hot tub sharing chit chat.  I would have loved to hear what they had to say to each other. I could not catch a word from either of them.  

Your children will go farther in later life if they understand about speaking up, loudly and clearly.

How long should it take to conquer and subdue a country the size of Texas

 So far the Russians have been at it for three days. According to the TV, the Ukrainians have put up a stout defense and slowed the Russians down.  I'm not an experienced Army guy (my service was in USAF), but I would have expected conquering a piece of real estate the size of Texas would take three weeks (or more).   I wish the Ukrainians well and I love hearing about Russians getting shot down by little old grandmothers wielding AK47s. I am not really convinced that the Russians have been repelled, yet.   Some video of Stingers taking down Russian choppers would be nice.  Some video of Javelin anti tank missiles taking out tanks, or armored personnel carriers, or just plain army trucks, would also be nice. 

Biden nominates new Supreme Court Justice

 She is a woman.  She is black.  I never heard of her before.  It would be nice to have someone tell what her judicial philosophy might be, or some important cases that she has ruled upon.  I am OK with black women, but it would be nice to hear where she are coming from.

Cannon Moun tain ski weather

 It started snowing around 6 AM today and it is still coming down.  We have at least four inches now, and more to come.  Skiing ought to be great tomorrow.  

Ask of 6 PM Friday, I have 8 inches of fresh fluffy powder snow on my deck.  Skiing will be first rate tomorrow at Cannon.

Sanctions against Putin?? Do any of Biden's sanctions hurt much??

 You want some good sanctions?  How about a 25% tariff on everything made in Russia?  How about blocking ALL Russian banks from any kind of support from western banks?  How about requiring all Russian visitors to the US to show vaccination cards, submit to covid testing and do a 10 day quarantine in a facility of our choosing.  How about refusing to accept Rubles in payment for anything?  How about turning US oil production back on, like it was under Trump, and supplying European fuel needs.  Greenies would freak out, but there are not enough greenies to matter in the November elections. 

Putin finally did it.

 US intelligence sources had been predicting the Russians would invade Ukraine.  Looks like they got that right. if a little late.  I haven't seen much video of the invasion yet.  

How much resistance will the Ukrainians put up?  So far, the video of traffic jams of people fleeing Kiev are not encouraging.  I am thinking of the British back in WWII where the Germans bombed them heavily.  The Brits had bomb shelters and used them.  There are period photos showing London subway stations (tube stations the Brits call them) turned in to dormitories.   No stories or photos of the Brits fleeing German bombing.  

   We could use some video of Ukraine troops (or anyone) using American Stinger missiles on Russian warplanes.  Years ago in Afghanistan the Stingers were good enough to drive the Russians out of the place. Stinger is a shoulder fired missile which means it can be anywhere, no need for fancy tracked launch vehicles.  Despite being light enough to be man carried, Stinger had enough punch to bring down anything the Russians were flying in Afghanistan.  

  We could also use some video of American Javelin anti tank missiles on Russian tanks.  Javelin is "man portable" although at 50 pounds, it ain't light.  It is said to have a tricky warhead than can defeat reactive armor on tanks.  And it can do a pop up maneuver in which it comes in low, shoots up high and dives on the tank striking the tank's roof where the armor is thinnest.  It has range of like 1000 meters, which means it can be fired at the enemy without risking your life.  

Both Stinger and Javelin are simple enough to handle that anyone can work them after the sketchiest of training. 

Biden blows another one

 TV is telling me that Biden gave Putin a list of cyber targets that he wasn't supposed to attack.  Dumb and dumber.  He just told Putin where to attack our cyber infrastructure.  You never tell adversaries where you are vulnerable. 

The Rhinelands vs nibbling on Ukraine

 In the early 1930's the Germans, who had been forbidden to militarize the Rhineland by the Versailles treaty, went ahead and militarized the Rhineland.  The other two great powers, the British and the French, stood by and let it happen.  Everyone had so many horrible memories of WWI that nobody dared risk any sort of military effort.  In actual fact, that year, the British and the French had plenty of military power, they could have intervened, deposed Hitler, and prevented WWII.

Putin just sent the Russian army into a couple of bits of Ukraine that had been on his side for years.  It's less than the MSM had be talking up, but it is still an invasion of Ukrainian soil.  It is not a straight drive of Russian tanks for Kiev, but it is certainly against international law.  Does Biden have the stones to oppose it?  Or who ever it is writing Biden's speeches and putting them on the Teleprompter.  We never have heard who is really running Biden, and what sort of backbone they might possess (if any).