Radar Recon on the Taliban

The RAF is taking delivery on their new recon aircraft, Astor, named after the radar rather than the airframe. (Airborne Standoff Radar). It's a twin engine jetliner (a Bombardier Global Express) with the radar mounted in a canoe shaped pod underneath the fuselage. It is said to be sensitive enough to detect men walking on the ground. It's a smaller and cheaper version of the USAF Jstars and Rivet Joint. Size reduction comes from leaving off the 20 odd flying radar observers and just data linking the radar "take" to a ground station, resulting in a much smaller aircraft overall.
The computers onboard that do all the work are running Windows. Aviation Week interviewed a British official. He said "There are lots of things we would like to do better-- such as faster boot times...." Later one he admits that rebooting the Windows computers can take as much as finve minutes. That's Windows for you, sluggish and crashprone.

The Great Chipmunk Escape

Chipmunk spent a day lurking under the washing machine. Cat's attention span wavered, and last night chipmunk scurried across the living room and dove under a bookcase. It must have gotten hungry, there isn't much worth eating in the cellar. Any how cat got another tour of chipmunk guard duty, but never scored.
This morning, while cat was out, chipmunk reappeared. I was able to herd it out the open front door and back into the woodpile. I do hope it finds something to eat and drink after a day long fast under the furniture.

Gm, the Bad and the Ugly. Buying Chrysler.

GM senior management just demonstrated yet again a complete lack of common sense. They have a car company that has too many factories, too many over paid workers, too many dealers, no decent products, worthless stock, a credit rating in the toilet, and money is running out. And they are wasting time dickering to buy Chrysler, a second car company in just as bad, or maybe worse shape? For what?
Chrysler is so worthless that Daimler gave it away to Cerberus. If memory serves Daimler paid $30 billion for Chrysler ten years ago and they dumped it for a couple of billion in stock, not cash last year. That's 'cause Chrysler's liabilities in terms of plump UAW pensions far outweighed any money it could ever make.
GM cannot afford it, hell, GM can't afford to buy toilet paper for the company restrooms. Why in the name of all that's holy are they thinking of making their problem bigger? GM needs to fire all their senior management starting with CEO Rick Wagonner and going down about three levels from there. The GM suits have performed one disaster after another, going back 20 years when they threw away billions of dollars just to get Ross Perot off their board.

The Good news from GM, Volt is coming

A long article on the coming Chevy Volt in Popular Science. The project is real. The battery will be lithium ion. They have two battery suppliers, both of which have delivered prototype batteries to GM. A123 Systems from Massachusetts and Compact Power Inc from Korea. The battery specs call for 40 mile range, weight less than 400 pounds, push the car from 0 to 60 in 8 seconds, a ten year 150000 mile service life, and store 16 kilowatt hours, which is close to the electricity my house uses in a day.
Ten "Mali-volt" test vehicles (Volt drive train in a Malibu body) are running around GM test tracks. The first Volt prototypes will hit the track this month. The batteries are under test, both charge/discharge cycling and oven testing to evaluate life. Battery life is critical, the battery is the most expensive part of the car. If it fails under warranty GM will loose money, if the car gets a reputation of battery dying at 50000 miles resale value will nosedive.
The Volt project is real, not vaporware. GM will bring the car to market in 2010. If it works properly, it ought to sell for something in the mid thirties, which is Prius money. Prius sells briskly even though it's too costly to make economic sense. With a 40 mile battery range, plenty of Volt owners could go for months on just electricity, no need to buy gas at all.
With luck, Volt will give GM a real product, something that people buy 'cause they like it.

Why I won't vote for Obama

1. Obama has promised repeatedly to pull the Army out of Iraq as soon as possible (ASAP). That will turn Iraq over to Islamist extremists, Al Queda, the Taliban, the Wahabis, the Iranians, there is no lack of them. Once that happens, the rest of the middle east will follow. With the exception of Israel, no middle east government has the strength to resist the call to Jihad. Without American support, the tender young government in Iraq will fall, and the Islamists will win. The Iranians will get nukes, and dominate the region. The Saudi's will collapse and Amadinajad will own all their oil. Once this catastrophe happens, there is no recovery. We will have to live with world oil supplies controlled by our enemies.

2. Obama will turn today's stock market crash into a long lasting depression. He and his people believe in the goodness of government furnished health care, housing, easy mortgage money, education, child rearing, alternate energy and countless other expensive goodies. They don't understand that the money to furnish all these goodies has to come out of taxpayers and industry. He doesn't understand that squeezing the necessary funds out of taxpayers will cripple our economy and turn the US into Europe, a place with no growth, 10% unemployment, a declining birth rate and a hostile underclass.

3. Who will Obama appoint to the Supreme Court? Tony Rezco? Jeremiah Wright? Bill Ayres? Does Obama have any friends who aren't leftwingers? The country is stuck with Obama's choices for thirty years.

An Obama administration will damage the United States in ways that cannot be repaired for a generation.

Mighty Hunter has struck out

Yesterday I'm sitting on the deck, soaking up some Indian summer warmth before the winter starts. From under the deck comes the crash of falling firewood. Damn, I think, that cat is getting clumsier than ever. A few minutes later cat trots up the stairs with a chipmunk in it's jaws. Musta been hiding in the woodpile. As usual, cat heads right into the house, planning to disembowel and eat chipmunk on the living room rug. I move to intercept cat. Cat drops chipmunk on the rug.
Chipmunk has been doing a good job of playing dead. Comes to life and runs for it. It's fast, and leads a merry circus around the house, cat in hot pursuit. Instead of zooming out the open door, chipmunk dashes down the cellar stairs. I turn on the lights and find cat patrolling the washing machine. Chipmunk has more patience than cat, it's still in the basement. Cat is still doing occasional washing machine patrol, but so far without success. That's why it's name is Stupid Beast.

Knight Rider meets Baywatch

Watched this revival of the old (70's? 80's?) TV action adventure show. Like the original, the show features a hunky secret agent driving a talking car. In the original show the car had an impressive voice, deep, well modulated, calm, and knowledgeable as Mr. Spock. Michael, the good looking male lead, had a deep relationship of trust and friendship with the car. To the exclusion of girls it seemed.
The revival fixed that right up. Michael now has two girlfriends, one who he has been sleeping with, and a real cutie who wants to start sleeping with him. The scene is California beach/surfing, with the car, (black Mustang) simmering in a sandy sun struck beach parking lot while Michael, and his cutie, step over acres of bikini clad tanning girls and rub elbows with hunky surfers. I kept wondering if the Mustang's upholstery would melt after parking all day in the sun.
The plot is a bit difficult to follow. After a shoulder launched anti tank missile strikes home on the car, there is an explosion, fire, smoke, and then the camera closes up on a smoking crater where the car had been. They cut to commercial. After the 5 minute commercial break, the show returns, and we are underwater, looking at the car, converted to a cozy minisub, with Michael and the cutie inside. Just how the car got over the 500 foot cliff and into the water, ahead of the missile, without so much as a splash is left to the viewer's imagination. The dialog is weak on proper names, so I missed the name of the first girlfriend and the gorgeous Asian American cutie.
I may watch it next week to see if the cutie is still in the show. Her bikini was cute too.