Cannon Mt. Ski weather

Woe to the snow.  It's 50 degrees and raining lightly.  Forecasts are for more of the same.  They canceled snow making last night on account of warmth.
 

Rustling amid the Grass Roots

This morning I sent the following e-mail to both my Senators, Jeanne Shaheen and Kelly Ayotte.

Dear Senator,  

   Please vote against any “assault weapons” law.  There are no objective differences between deer rifles and “assault rifles”.  An “assault weapons ban” in real life is an attempt to ban everything that shoots. 

   Please vote against making the current background checks more onerous.  Background checks are a way for bureaucrats to deny citizens the right to purchase firearms.  Background checks are a way for creating a government list of guns and gun owners.  Such a list can be used to confiscate citizen’s guns or target them for harassment. 

   America remains one of the last countries of freedom and liberty on Earth.  We prize that and want to keep it that way.  Since colonial times armed citizens have defended the land against Indian raiders, Caribbean pirates, and Redcoats, to name a few.  As late as 1940, Japanese Admiral Yamamoto said “To invade the United States is impossible.  There would be a rifleman behind every blade of grass.”

   Armed citizens stop a great amount of crime.  Criminals know that citizens will shoot to kill in self defense.  They also know that many citizens have arms.  A large number of would be criminals are unwilling to risk their lives for small gains.

  The massacre in Connecticut was horrible.  It was committed by a homicidal maniac.  Depriving honest citizens of access to firearms won’t stop homicidal maniacs in the future; in fact it will encourage them.

--

David J. Starr

Blog:  http://www.newsnorthwoods.blogspot.com

Bombing the Syrian reactor

Elliot Abrams, long time man about the state department, writing in Commentary about the Syrian reactor.  Way back in 2007, the Israelis asked the Bush administration to receive Meir Dagan, chief of Mossad, at the White House.  The Bush people asked  Dagan to make his presentation to the National Security Adviser, Stephan Hadley, Elliot Abrams, and Dick Cheney. 
   Dagan's presentation was explosive.  The Syrians were building a nuclear reactor from North Korean plans, with North Korean technical assistance. 
   Revelation of this hot potato led to a series of joint US-Israeli meeting on what to do. Options were military (air raid)  or diplomatic (UN security council).  Somehow Washington managed to keep this super juicy secret secret.  Finally Bush decided to go the diplomatic route.  The Israelis told Bush that going to the UN was unacceptable to them and they would have to act. 
     A couple of months later, the Israeli Air Force blew the reactor to bits.  Afterwards Bush told the Israelis that he understood.  Both the Americans and the Israelis said nothing about a reactor as the target of the Israeli air strike.  Neither did the Syrians.  The Syrians just bulldozed the bomb craters and the wreckage flat and pretended that nothing had happened. 
   I wonder if the Israeli's will dare to share such intelligence with the Obama administration when Iran's turn comes up.  Or will they figure Obama will leak it to the press?
Come to think of it, there was a mysterious explosion at an Iranian nuclear facility a few days ago.  Wonder who knew about that one.

787 battery fires

A front page piece in the Wall St Journal on the 787 battery problems.  After three weeks of investigating they haven't been able (or willing) to point a finger at the problem.  "Laboratory tests have not produced any 'significant findings'". 
  There is one interesting fact that has not been published.  There were battery chargers aboard those two 787s.  Did they survive the fires?  If so, are they working properly now?  When bench tested, did they pass all requirements properly?
The battery charger takes electricity from the aircraft generators and charges the batteries at the right rate and stops charging when the batteries reach full charge. Failure of the battery charger can overcharge the batteries which can cause the fires.  If the battery chargers are OK, then it points a finger at the battery itself.  If the battery charger is defective, then that points the finger elsewhere.
   Meanwhile Boeing and Boeing's customers are loosing money.

Join the Infantry

Back when all guys were subject to the draft, nobody wanted to get drafted into the Army.  Everybody wanted the Air Force first of all.  If they couldn't get into the Air Force, they tried for the Navy.  Only after all else was exhausted would anyone consider the Army.  Nobody wanted to be issued a rifle and assigned to the infantry.  Too much hard work, and dangerous to boot. 
  The other day I watched the cute newshens  on Fox announce how wonderful it was that 250,000 positions have been opened up to women.  At least guys are smart enough to know that joining the infantry can be hazardous to their health.  Apparently chicks don't understand that yet.

Annual NH Republican Party meeting

It was zero outdoors when I started up the car to drive down to Bedford.  Sun was just coming up, little traffic at 7 AM and trusty Mercury hummed down I93 at 80 mph.  Smooth and quiet, not a Statie to be seen.
   The meeting started up at 10 AM with speeches.  Endless speeches.  All pleading for party unity, motherhood and apple pie.  Nothing substantive, just happy talk.  By noon we moved onto amendments to the party bylaws.  The only useful amendment called for making a readable party platform, overall length of one typewritten page, planks less than a dozen words.  That was voted down resoundingly. 
   Lunch break at 1:30.  Note to self, next year, brown bag it.  The party lunch was a $10 sandwich and chips.  Pretty low speed sandwich, no where near as tasty as the Gold House or Porfido's. 
  It was 4 PM before we got to the only matter of substance, electing a new state party chairperson.  Jennifer Horne defeated Andrew Hemingway, thank goodness.  After that, I drove home, getting in after dark.  A long day. 

Whither the 787?

It's pretty clear now that lithium batteries are molotov cocktails waiting to light off.  The anode and the cathode are separated by merely a sheet of plastic.  Any flaw, crack, or pin hole in the plastic and the electrodes touch, a dead short, and they get hot.  The lithium melts at only 350 some degrees, and molten lithium is as reactive as sodium.  Sodium is so reactive that it will burn underwater. 
  So what to do?  In the real world, the fix is straightforward, replace the lithium batteries with Nicads or nickel metal hydride, or even plain old lead acid.  And replace the battery charging unit with one designed for the new battery chemistry.  A few days of design work, run off some CAD drawings, write up change instructions, email them out to the field. 
  In the FAA and airline world, nothing is that simple.  At a guess,  the FAA paperwork, reviews, design studies, test procedures, parts lists, and plain old stuff, could take half a year.  Leaving the 787's,. Boeing's world beating new product, grounded for half a year.  It's already years behind schedule, and another 6 months delay might be more than Boeing and Boeing's customers can stand.  Watch for cancellations in Boeing's 800 airplane backlog.  And watch for new orders for the Airbus 350, which competes with the 787 even thought it hasn't flown yet. 
   Clearly FAA is hoping that something will turn up that will allow the 787 to keep flying with the existing lithium batteries.  Could be anything, a defect in the battery charger, a manufacturing flaw at the battery maker, an extra inspection every flight, some extra insulation installed somewhere, anything.  Otherwise, FAA will be under intense pressure to  get the paperwork done and let the plane fly again.  FAA (any any other bureaucrats)  hate that.  Plus remember that FAA is the outfit that OK'ed use of the lithium batteries in the first place, and nobody likes to admit they made a mistake.