My question is, why drones? Why not manned aircraft? Unmanned drones are expensive and are intended for missions too dangerous to risk pilots on. Is Libyan airspace that dangerous? It's a no-fly zone, which means anything the radar sees taking off gets a fighter vectored onto it, and it's dead. That leaves SAM. Is the SAM problem that bad in Libya?
The drone pilot's vision is restricted to a TV set. I maintain a pilot in the cockpit, with binoculars, has a better chance of spotting targets, and aiming weapons accurately than a drone operator half a world away, sitting in an air conditioned trailer in Nevada.
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Friday, April 22, 2011
Tax Reform, Federal Income Tax that is. Pt II
I used to think a flat tax, no deductions, no exemptions, no credits, no nothing, with a rate cut, would bring in enough revenue to run the country. Now I'm not so sure.
Federal expenditures were 17% of GNP from the end of WWII to Obama. So, it would seem reasonable to make a tax rate of 17% and that would pay the bills. No tax hike.
I looked at the federal rates from 2010. They start at 10% and work up to 33% at $370,000 per year. They don't hit 17% until you hit $50,000 (single) and $100,000 (married). That's after deductions, exemptions, credits and what have you ("stuff"). We need 17% to maintain the government at the pre Obama level. It looks to me like we need more than the current rates to furnish 17% of GNP to keep the government in money. If we drop all the "stuff" we probably cannot cut the rates much and still furnish government revenue of 17% of GNP.
Even with really solid spending cuts, the Feds are gonna be short of revenue.
Federal expenditures were 17% of GNP from the end of WWII to Obama. So, it would seem reasonable to make a tax rate of 17% and that would pay the bills. No tax hike.
I looked at the federal rates from 2010. They start at 10% and work up to 33% at $370,000 per year. They don't hit 17% until you hit $50,000 (single) and $100,000 (married). That's after deductions, exemptions, credits and what have you ("stuff"). We need 17% to maintain the government at the pre Obama level. It looks to me like we need more than the current rates to furnish 17% of GNP to keep the government in money. If we drop all the "stuff" we probably cannot cut the rates much and still furnish government revenue of 17% of GNP.
Even with really solid spending cuts, the Feds are gonna be short of revenue.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
BP is going to sue over the Gulf oil spill
That's right, BP is going to sue the maker of the blowout preventer that failed to prevent, and the owner of the drill rig.
Actually, the BP man on the drill rig bears great responsibility for the blowout. He ordered skipping three leak tests of the cement job, any one of which would have showed the cement job had failed and was leaking high pressure natural gas up the well. Then they pumped out the heavy drilling mud and the well blew. This individual has never testified and in fact, left the US to avoid being put on the witness stand.
The blow out preventer, a 500 ton valve on the well top, was supposed to close and shut off the oil. It failed. It was salvaged last summer and inspected on a Lousiana dock last month. Apparently the drill pipe was a little off center and the "shear rams" won't work unless the pipe is right on center.
This is described as "a design failure". They got that right. In action the blow out preventer sits on the bottom, with 5000 feet, (one mile) of pipe reaching up to the drill rig floating on the surface. It doesn't take much to allow the drill rig to drift off position by a few hundred feet, pulling the pipe off center. Any blowout preventer that can't close no matter where the pipe is located is useless.
Apparently this blowout preventer met industry standards and they haven't done anything to stiffen those standards since the blowout. And, industry rumor has it that blowout preventers often are not strong enough to seal the very heavy and strong pipe used in deep water drilling. So in real life, the maker of the blowout preventer was doing what they had always been doing, making blowout preventers to industry standards. That shouldn't make them liable, although BP has plenty of expensive lawyers and you never know what a US court will do.
Was it me, I would require all blowout preventers pass a real test, right on the deck of the drill rig before lowering them into the sea. The preventer should seal a piece of the strongest pipe used in the well. In fact it ought to pass that test with a single failure, one dead battery, one broken wire, one leaking pipe, one empty air tank, etc. And pass that test with the pipe off center.
The drill rig owner is the same case, they were operating in accordance with industry and Coast Guard standards. In actual fact, when the rig caught fire it knocked out electric power, putting out the lights (the accident happened after dark), and killing the fire pumps. The rig is floating in the ocean, there is no lack of water to fight the fire, but when the fire hoses and the sprinklers go dead, the fire wins. They should have had about four engine driven fire pumps in four separate locations. The should have had sprinkler protection on the drilling deck, in the power room, and at the life boats. They should have had emergency lighting. But, none of these things are required and so that were not done. They are still not required. And so, should justice be done, the drill rig owner isn't liable, but again, expensive BP lawyers and US courts might give BP a courtroom victory.
Actually, the BP man on the drill rig bears great responsibility for the blowout. He ordered skipping three leak tests of the cement job, any one of which would have showed the cement job had failed and was leaking high pressure natural gas up the well. Then they pumped out the heavy drilling mud and the well blew. This individual has never testified and in fact, left the US to avoid being put on the witness stand.
The blow out preventer, a 500 ton valve on the well top, was supposed to close and shut off the oil. It failed. It was salvaged last summer and inspected on a Lousiana dock last month. Apparently the drill pipe was a little off center and the "shear rams" won't work unless the pipe is right on center.
This is described as "a design failure". They got that right. In action the blow out preventer sits on the bottom, with 5000 feet, (one mile) of pipe reaching up to the drill rig floating on the surface. It doesn't take much to allow the drill rig to drift off position by a few hundred feet, pulling the pipe off center. Any blowout preventer that can't close no matter where the pipe is located is useless.
Apparently this blowout preventer met industry standards and they haven't done anything to stiffen those standards since the blowout. And, industry rumor has it that blowout preventers often are not strong enough to seal the very heavy and strong pipe used in deep water drilling. So in real life, the maker of the blowout preventer was doing what they had always been doing, making blowout preventers to industry standards. That shouldn't make them liable, although BP has plenty of expensive lawyers and you never know what a US court will do.
Was it me, I would require all blowout preventers pass a real test, right on the deck of the drill rig before lowering them into the sea. The preventer should seal a piece of the strongest pipe used in the well. In fact it ought to pass that test with a single failure, one dead battery, one broken wire, one leaking pipe, one empty air tank, etc. And pass that test with the pipe off center.
The drill rig owner is the same case, they were operating in accordance with industry and Coast Guard standards. In actual fact, when the rig caught fire it knocked out electric power, putting out the lights (the accident happened after dark), and killing the fire pumps. The rig is floating in the ocean, there is no lack of water to fight the fire, but when the fire hoses and the sprinklers go dead, the fire wins. They should have had about four engine driven fire pumps in four separate locations. The should have had sprinkler protection on the drilling deck, in the power room, and at the life boats. They should have had emergency lighting. But, none of these things are required and so that were not done. They are still not required. And so, should justice be done, the drill rig owner isn't liable, but again, expensive BP lawyers and US courts might give BP a courtroom victory.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Words of the Weasel Pt 18
"A clean bill to raise the debt ceiling". That's what Obama wants. "Clean" sounds so virtuous, all bills ought to be "clean". What "clean" really means is a bill to raise the debt ceiling without any troublesome requirements to cut federal spending attached to it.
Hand or power tools?
I was just prepping some wood for a home project. Ran it thru the jointer, and it looked pretty good, all clean and smooth, but.. It wasn't square. One edge was definitely thicker than the other. In fact I could see by eye that the board was tapered from side to side, like a clapboard.
Jointer can't fix this. Jointer will make board faces flat, but it does nothing about making 'em parallel. Proper power tool for that job is a thickness planer, which I don't own.
So, break out a hand plane. Clearly a job for the big 24 inch long try plane. It's a beautiful Record I inherited from my mother. It probably costs more than my jointer did. The iron was sharp, and with a little adjustment of depth-of-cut and blade angle, it was making paper thin curly shavings running the length of the board. I'm not a real hand plane pro, what little I know was taught to me in middle school shop class and that was a long time ago. But, it only took a couple of minutes to square up a four foot plank.
Jointer can't fix this. Jointer will make board faces flat, but it does nothing about making 'em parallel. Proper power tool for that job is a thickness planer, which I don't own.
So, break out a hand plane. Clearly a job for the big 24 inch long try plane. It's a beautiful Record I inherited from my mother. It probably costs more than my jointer did. The iron was sharp, and with a little adjustment of depth-of-cut and blade angle, it was making paper thin curly shavings running the length of the board. I'm not a real hand plane pro, what little I know was taught to me in middle school shop class and that was a long time ago. But, it only took a couple of minutes to square up a four foot plank.
The DMV in the 21st Century
NH is right up to date. I was able to renew my driver's license on line. Beats standing in line at the DMV. Pretty soon all citizens are going to have internet access, a computer and a printer, AND a credit card just to get thru the day's business. God help those lacking all this hi tech stuff.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Standard & Poor's cuts Uncle Sam's credit rating
This is certainly a wakeup call, gets everyone's attention.
It is ironical that this bad news is coming from a firm that used to give AAA ratings to mortgage backed securities. Standard & Poor's bears great responsibility for causing Great Depression 2.0.
It is ironical that this bad news is coming from a firm that used to give AAA ratings to mortgage backed securities. Standard & Poor's bears great responsibility for causing Great Depression 2.0.
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