Sunday, March 3, 2013

Beat the Press

David Gregory was on air, harassing John Bohner about the sequester.  The usual things were said.   What Bohner did not say is sorta interesting.  Bohner did not say that the sequester was small and he did not say that the sequester was all about fake cuts, after sequester the US government will spend more than it spent last year.  In short, the sequester is about chicken feed.
   So John Bohner is perfectly happy to have a not-very-important issue taking up air time and the limited attention span of TV newsies.  Does this mean Bohner thinks he "won" on the sequester? 

Saturday, March 2, 2013

Dr. Suess revival

Saturday Wall St Journal, Best selling hard cover fiction.  We have Green Eggs and Ham, One Fish Two Fish Red Fish, Blue Fish, The Cat in the Hat, Fox in Sox, Dr .Suess's ABC, and Hop on Pop. These took places 2,3,5,7,8,10.   The good doctor took 6 out of 10 spots this weekend.  All of these are old favorites that I remember reading aloud to my children back in the day.  Dunno what this means in the larger scheme of things.  AS you might guess, no Dr. Suess books made in the Fiction E-books list.  Which figures, it's hard to imagine reading Dr. Suess to small children off a Kindle. 

Thursday, February 28, 2013

Cannon Mt Ski Weather

We didn't get any snow.  Despite Winter Storm Warnings, clever weather maps, endless babbling by TV newsies, no snow.  Its beautiful, sun is out, icicles are dripping, tramway is taking a day off.  But no snow.  There is plenty left on the mountain, but it would have been nice to get that foot of new snow the TV promised but failed to deliver.

Why have they not discovered a "root cause"?

For the lithium battery problem on the 787?  According to yesterday's Wall St Journal, the National Transportation Safety Board doesn't have anyone who knows anything about batteries or lithium, or even lithium batteries.  They are much more complex than those lead acid car batteries whose chemistry we learned in high school.  At least at my high school.
  Apparently both the Japanese and US safety boards have a single charred battery, taken from a 787, sitting on the bench, looking burnt.  The investigators have no clue as the how they came to catch fire.  And that's where it stands.  They haven't taken the batteries apart, analyzed the charcoal for dendrites, molten lithium, or whatever, 'cause they don't know how.
Gonna be a long time before those 787's fly again.

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Feds and Staties go after Fung Wah Bus

The cheapest trip between Boston and NYC is the Chinatown bus, fare go as low a $10 one way a couple of years ago.  It's still cheaper than the Hound, Trailways, Amtrak, or flying.  Fung Wah has been running for at least ten years that I know of.
   According to the Wall St Journal, the Massachusetts authorities have petitioned the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to take 21 of Fung Wah's 28 buses off the road for cracked frames.  The Feds obliged by shutting down all 28 Fung Wah buses.
  Fung Wah says service is continuing using chartered buses.
  Someone made the right campaign contributions.  Or failed to make them.

Feds take out the Scooter Store

You must have seen the ads on TV.  Happy grandmother seated in an electric wheel chair, whirring about the kitchen.  Voice over saying "Medicare or your insurance will defray all costs."  Looks like the Scooter Store hasn't been making political contributions to Obama.  The Feds used 150 agents to raid the Scooter Store, shutting them down.  They claim the Scooter Store has been gouging Medicare.  Never the less the TV ads are still running. 
   Better the Scooter Store, than Gibson Guitar. 

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Toasting BP

Lawyers have been submitting plenty of billable hours in the three years since BP's well blew in the Gulf of Mexico.  Today they are actually in court, making arguments to a jury.  One thing the delay has done is allow time for people to forget what happened. 
  Let's do a little review.  The BP well was drilled 13000 feet into a high pressure gas and oil deposit.  For some reason BP decided not to bring the well into production.  Instead BP tried to shut it down.  They pumped cement between  the drill pipe and the rocky hole to seal it.  After the cement was given enough time to harden, pressure readings indicated that the cement job was leaking.  Donald Vidrene and Robert Kaluza, two BP executives aboard the drill rig, ordered the readings ignored and to proceed to pump out the drilling mud.  Personnel from Trans Ocean (rig owner) and Halliburton (cement contractor) protested, saying the well was leaking high pressure natural gas.   The BP men ignored this advice and continued to pump out the mud and replace it with sea water.  The mud is very heavy and a 5000 foot column of mud is enough to contain the gas.  Seawater is much lighter and cannot withstand gas pressure.  The highly flammable natural gas, under great pressure, forced its way all the way up the drill pipe out onto the drill rig and ignited.  The resulting fires and explosions sank the rig and killed 11 workers.   Mr Vidren and Mr. Kaluza took the fifth amendment to avoid testifying at the inquiry, and then fled the country.
   An attempt was made to close the blow out preventer, a 500 ton valve on the sea floor to shut off the drill pipe.  This attempt failed.  Better than a year later, the blow out preventer was salvaged from the sea floor and brought up to a dock.  Engineers reported that the drill pipe was off center which prevented the rams from closing the pipe off.  That's a major design failure of the blow out preventer.. 
  The root cause of the accident is the decision by the BP executives on the rig to ignore indications of a leak and pump out the drilling mud.  The failure of the blow out preventer is a secondary issue, apparently that design is an industry standard.  I won't fault BP for using an approved industry standard device, even it failed to work. 
   The above information is from the Wall St. Journal, the only paper to cover the accident.  The rest of the MSM were conspicuous by their absence.