Cannon Mt Ski Weather

Good.  Very Good.  We got 2-3 inches last night, and 2-3 inches the night before.  Today the sun is out and the temperature in mid to upper 20's.  Perfect for skiing.  Trails are all in good shape.  More snow is forecast for the weekend. 

Lithium Batteries

New Aviation Week came in, and it has stories about the 787 and its battery.  So far it looks like the battery is the culprit, not the charger or 787 wiring.  Boeing is floating the idea of adding a fireproof battery box to contain the fire when the battery decides to burn up.  Silence from FAA and airlines.  I cannot imagine either of them being happy about that solution.  Boeing is wringing its hands over the idea of changing back to ordinary batteries, say nickel cadmium or nickel metal hydride.  The paperwork burden looks awful, it would add a couple of hundred pounds to the empty weight and Boeing is still hoping some magic discovery about the battery will yield a non flammable lithium battery.   The Japanese battery maker has not been heard from. 
   Personally, I think Boeing ought to bite the bullet and get rid of the lithium and get the plane flying again.  They can appeal to their Congressmen to expedite the paperwork thru FAA.  It will cost, but having $200 million airliners piling up around the factory costs too.

Apple Got Hacked

Yesterday Apple announced that a "small number" of employee's Mac's were infected by visiting a software development site.  Wow, a Mac attack after all that Appletalk about how only Windows gets infected by virii.  A "small number" presumably means something less than all the computers at Apple.  And, hard working Apple employees were infected at a software development site, not those nasty porn sites.  Apple workers never watch porn on the job.  Right.
  Since the infection occurred by just visiting a website, that means the browser did it.  The Apple browser got stupid and ran a program off that website, something it should never do, but all commercial browsers are doing today. 
  What the world needs is a secure browser that never ever executes programs from anywhere.  You would think such a browser would sell fairly well.  Maybe some of the flashier websites would look less flashy, but I'll take secure over flashy anyday.

Cannon Mt Ski Weather

We got four inches of decent snow last night.  It's down below freezing again.

What's the State of War, today?

The chattering classes are all worked up about the War on Terror killing American citizens.  Not mentioned much is that Obama doesn't do War on Terror.  He calls it something else, I forget what.  No matter what Obama calls it, he's been doing some really warlike things.  That raid on Bin Ladin, and all those drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen certainly aren't regular Constitutional law enforcement.  They are acts of war. 
   In actual fact we have been treating Al Quada like an enemy nation-state ever since 9-11.  We have been waging war against them, and the laws of war permit damn near everything.  Under the laws of war we can bomb cities, torpedo ships, shoot enemy soldiers, execute enemy spies, shoot down enemy admirals in mid air, herd civilians into concentration camps, and bombard towns.  About the only things the laws of war forbid are poison gas and maltreatment of prisoners.  That leaves a whole range of hurt that can lawfully be applied to the enemy. 
   Once someone determines that so and so is enemy,  the hurt locker is opened, and his ass is grass.  "Someone" is not well defined.  Most of the original inmates of Guantanamo were fingered by Afghani's and turned over the the Americans, who flew 'em out of the country to a warm tropical clink.  Many of those drone strikes in Pakistan are flown based on intelligence from the Pakistani Inter Service Intelligence (ISI) agency.  Which is pure as the driven snow and would never ask the Americans to snuff a personal enemy.
   In real life, "someone" is probably a kill committee of Lt. Colonels and CIA middle management types.  Once these guys declare you to be an enemy, you are in a world of hurt.  Obama may boast that he reviews the kill list personally, but that's pure bragging, he just initials a list that is presented to him.
    And the kill committee right now doesn't seem to care if the target is an American citizen or not.  Which is not as much of a problem as their total liberty to add targets to the snuff list pretty much at will.  I'm thinking we need to regularize the proceeding of the kill committee.  As long as their decisions to add targets are reasonable,  I have no problem with adding US born targets, just so long as they have done enough bad stuff to justify snuffing them and we have decent evidence that they really did what we accuse them of doing.
   In short, we need to make the rules of engagement for the kill committee as tight as the rules of engagement that hinder USMC and Army infantry. 
 

Sequester won't hurt economy, or defense

Despite all the heavy breathing, whining and wailing, the sequester is only $100 billion in cuts, many of them fake cuts.  The US budget is $3.8 trillion of 2013.  The sequester is a measly $100 billion, about 3.8%.  A 3.8 % cut isn't going to hurt anything.   And if we cannot bring ourselves to do a 3.8% cut we are doomed to go down the same drain the Greeks are going down.
   You have to remember that each dollar Uncle Sam spends is a dollar taken away from citizens, who have better uses for the money that Uncle ever will.  Government spending hurts the economy by reducing demand from citizens.  

Damn the Defiant

Antique 1962 gem that turned up from Netflix.  A deep sea, age of fighting sail, sea story.  With Alec Guiness in the Royal Navy as captain of HMS defiant, with a nasty first lieutenant played by Dirk Bogarde.  Made in England.  Great sets and costumes.  Real sailing ships, billowing sails, towering rigging needing climbing.  Broadside to broadside action.  Guiness is his usual self, breathing life into the part.  Beautiful sound work, fine photography, in color, plenty of light, steady camera, sharp focus. A fun flick.