Sunspots

Lotta talk on the internet about a solar something-or-other concerning sunspots, or rather the lack of them. Some in climate "science" are claiming that a sunspot drought will save us from Global Warming.
Doubtful. Sunspots have been observed for some 400 years. They wax and wane on an 11 year cycle, and they do effect high frequency (2-30 MHz) radio communication. During sunspot maximum radio amateurs can work stations all over the world. During sunspot minimum they may have trouble working a friend in the next town.
Needless to say, amateurs pay a good deal of attention to sunspots. Right now we are at sunspot minumum, and it's the lowest minimum on record. Like zero spots visible, and we are late coming out of it. We should have a lot more sunspots right now than we do. Based on this sunspot drought some people are predicting an abnormal sunspot cycle. This has happened before, and no reason to believe it won't happen again.
There is little reason to believe that sunspots have anything to do with Global Warming. No weatherman will say that sunspots effect the weather, and climate is just long term weather forecasting. The climate "scientists" will say almost anything, you gotta watch them carefully.
We have about 30 years of satellite data on "the solar constant", i.e. the amount of sunlight falling on the earth. The satellites show about 1350 watts per square meter. If you look hard at the plots of satellite data, you can see the 11 year sunspot cycle, it's about plus/minus 1 watt/sq meter, that's a variation of like 0.1%. Weathermen and most reasonable people feel that is way too small to make any difference in weather.
But expect to see a good deal of talk about it on slow news days.

Mouse Guns.

New issue of American Rifleman has a review of the Diamondback DB380 pistol. It's an automatic chambered for 380 ACP, polymer frame, six shots. Looks like a mini Glock, a pocket pistol.
Somewhere in the writeup they mention the DB380 had seven failures-to-feed while they were testing it. Wow! Four failures occurred with hollow point ammunition and 3 with round nose full metal jacket ammunition. This negates a common excuse for failure-to-feed in automatic pistols, hollow point ammunition. Looks like the DB380 has about as much trouble with full metal jacket as it does with hollow points.

The authors of the review suggest (but don't guarantee) that this might go away after shooting the gun in for a while longer.

Sounds like a good reason to get a .38 snub nosed revolver.

Obama and the War Powers Act Part 2

Meet the Press went over the matter just this morning. Funny thing, the Republicans on the panel were more supportive of the Libya war than the Democrats. The Republicans both said something like "We wish Obama would talk up the need for Libya to both voters and Congress men. It's something that needs doing, but Obama ain't doing it right." Which has to count as more supportive than the Democrats on the same panel nattering about War Powers.

Obama and the War Powers Act

Ya gotta wonder about Obama. Basic lesson from history, if you want to get in a war you need support from the voters and from Congress. Lack of such support doomed the Viet Nam war effort. Congress passed the War Powers Act to prevent a gung ho president from dragging the nation into another Viet Nam war.
So Obama decides to intervene in Libya without going to Congress and asking for support (in effect a declaration of war). Dumb move. We been bombing the crap out of Quaddafi for two months, and the bastard is since there. And now, Congress is making noises about War Powers and disapproval, and cutting off funding.
Obama should have gone to Congress two months ago and gotten a resolution that whackng Quadaffi is in the national interest. It would have passed, Quadaffi is scum who is better off dead. But now, Obama may be wrapped around the Congressional axle for lack of forethought.

So why did the Roman Empire Fall?

The perennial question of ancient history. Many historians have chimed in on this one. The empire was, at its peak, immensely strong. At the center of the empire was the Mediterranean Sea, offering water transport to and from all points. The empire controlled the entire shoreline of the Mediterranean, which for the first time in history, put down the pirates. Pirates are not suppressed in blue water encounters with naval vessels, they are suppressed by taking over their home ports. The empire was the first to profit from widespread sea trading. Water transport was so cheap that the city of Rome fed its people on grain imported from far away Egypt. So what laid the empire low?
Perhaps it was the lack of a succession mechanism. When the emperor died, a civil war often broke out to determine the next emperor. Nothing saps the strength of an empire like a civil war. In addition to the killing and the property damage, the survivors are likely to adopt a life long "keep your head down" attitude and contribute as little as possible to keeping things running.
Then there must have been technological diffusion. In Julius Caesar's time (first century BC) the legions were far superior to the Gauls and the Celts and everybody else. The Legions knew about marching in step, staying in ranks, obeying orders, and they had better weapons too. Caesar tells of Gauls having to drop back from the front line, lay their bent swords on the ground, and pull them straight again. The legionary gladius didn't have this problem, due to superior Roman smith craft.
By say 300 AD, this superior Roman technology must have diffused out into the wider world, and the legions found them selves fighting barbarians who were as good as they were. Some of this diffusion must have come from the Roman practice of enlisting barbarians to fill the ranks of the legions. After serving a 20 year enlistment, the retired veterans must have known everything there was to know about Roman military art. Plenty of them must have returned home to where ever and passed on what they had learned.
There are other reasons, such as failure of the Roman tax base, that have been widely discussed by historians, the notions of repeated succession crisis and technological diffusion are my own.

Can Boeing sell the V22 Osprey?

Apparently the US has bought about all the V22's it wants. To keep the Boeing production line open, and all the workers employed, Boeing is looking to sell the V22 tiltrotor to any foreign country with money. A lot of money, V22 is expensive. Much more expensive than helicopters.
According to Aviation Week, notes that "V-22's ship board accoutrements- including folding wings and electro magnetic hardening- account for nearly half the cost." Wow.
And "A particular headache for the V-22 has been engine on wing time, now averaging 100-200 hours in the harsh conditions of Afghanistan" Double wow. J-75 fighter plane engines gave 1000 hour service back in the 1960's.
Boeing has an expensive-to-buy and expensive-to-fly machine here. Good luck finding customers for it.

Protect electric power grid

Op ed piece in the Wall St Journal, decrying to failure of the government to "protect the electric grid" from hostile Chinese hackers.
Sorry, it is the responsibility of the power companies to protect their assets, not the government. All that is necessary is to make sure that control of generators and other machinery never goes over the public internet, and that Windows computers are never connected to the internet. They can even use cheap PC's so long as they run Linux and not Windows.
State public utility commissions should be asking their regulated power companies about use of the public internet.