Words of the Weasel Part 31

We have Senator Chuckie the Schumer on NBC saying "The IG cleared Eric Holder on the Fast and Furious matter."  Not true.  The guilty agency, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, works for Holder.  It's part of the Justice Department, of which Holder is the head.  Doesn't matter how much whitewash the Justice Department IG uses, Holder, as head of the department is responsible for the actions of all his subordinates.  Holder is personally responsible for what ever his department does.  His job is to insure that laws are not broken by his people.  He has plenty of Assistant Attorney Generals to keep track of every office.  If BATFE did it (which they did) it's Holder's fault.  By definition.
  It's so good the learn that a US senator doesn't understand this.  And it's so good that New York voters keep electing this turkey.

Words of the Weasel Part 30

Distraction.  David Gregory's word for the IRS scandal, used this morning on Meet the Press.  Lefties love it, distraction sounds so much nicer than scandal. 

Support your constituents.

We have a Democratic US rep from New Hampshire, a far northern and rural state.  We are so far north we touch Canada.  Winter up here lasts into May.  We had four inches of fresh snow at my place just seven days ago.  We all heat with oil.  $4 a gallon oil.   One oil delivery can set us back $700.  
  We are a rural state.  We don't have mass transit, commuter rail, light rail, plain old diesel bus service or even taxis.  Up here we drive to work, every day.  At $3.70 a gallon.
   We are not addicted to oil.  We use as little as possible.  But we must get to work.  And we must heat our houses.
   We want lower prices for essential fuel.  Now we have a project to pipe vast amounts of crude oil to American refineries from a friendly neighboring country. That will be turned into gasoline and furnace oil, vastly increasing the supply.  We all know the law of supply and demand, increase the supply and the price goes down.  Plus building the pipeline will put a lot of unemployed people to work and increase demand for a zillion different industrial items. 
  And so how does our gallant Democratic US rep vote? 
  Annie Kuster voted to kill the pipeline.   Just to support all her constituents. 
  We better remember in November.  Or Kuster will have us all living a Hiawatha lifestyle. 

What the Air Force dumps, the Navy buys.

Global Hawk.  A humungous unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)  with a take off weight of 16 tons.  That's DC3 kind of weight.   Will stay up all day (24 hours) and  carries nothing but surveillance equipment.  Exact nature is classified, but cameras, radars, IR, snooping receivers.  The Air Force paid  $222 million apiece for 43 of 'em.  That money will buy a brand new 787 jetliner, which seems kinda pricey.   At this point the Air Force wants to mothball its entire fleet of 'em.  Probably cause the intel they gather doesn't help the Air Force mission much.  They bought the things to help out the Army in Afghanistan.  Now that Afghanistan is winding down, and budget cuts are looming, so they want to mothball the pricey beasties.  The program has friends in Congress who are trying to keep it alive.
   Now, the Navy wants in.  They claim a world wide sea surveillance mission and they want to buy 70 of 'em.  The Navy gets a slightly better price than USAF did, $189 million apiece.  Of course the Navy couldn't re use the retiring Air Force birds, the Navy wants to buy new.  Northrup Grumman loves that.  Total program cost, $13 billion.

Dandelions, Part Deux

The grass and the dandelions had a whole week to grow while I was away.  In fact, due to the rain storm that followed me home, they got an extra day before getting mowed.  Few golden blossoms popped up in the lawn, less than a dozen, and this morning I was able to pluck 'em all.  The previous day's rain softened the soil and most of 'em came up by the roots.  Die, dandelion, die. 

Microsoft, cyber espionage enabler

The TV news has been full of stories about hostile Chinese hackers stealing plans, programming, codes, and whatever for things like the F-35 jet fighter, anti-ballistic missiles, and the rest of the advanced US weapons systems.
   This would not be possible EXCEPT for Microsoft Windows.  Microsoft has deliberately perforated Windows with back door loop holes that make breaking into a Windows machine child's play.  For instance Autorun, a "feature" that loads and runs any program off of flashdrives.  Stick a flashdrive in a USB port and that machine is totally yours.  Stuxnet spread via autorun and so did the Bertlesmann - Sony rootkit of 2005.  No user cares much about autorun, but the Microsofties love it and have kept modifying it and making it more powerful and more difficult to turn off.
  For instance "remote job entry"  which by its very name tells you it is a back door.  Lord help the security minded owner who turns off "remote job entry",  Windows won't reboot without it.  Don't ask me how I know this. 
   For instance, Internet Exploder, which will download and run malicious code off websites, infecting your machine for merely visiting a hostile website.  Web browsers should NEVER download or run anything off the web unless the user specifically clicks on something.
  For instance allowing executable programming to be hidden inside of Office documents.  And furthermore allowing Internet Exploder to pass these infected documents directly to Office to be run by just clicking on them.
   There are lots more.  Windows is so big, so complicated, and so flaky that no one understands the whole thing.
   But as long as we run Windows, we make everything  available to our enemies.

787 batteries in hand, now to fix APU overheating

APU, Auxiliary power unit, a little turbine powered generator located  in the tail  to furnish electrical power on the ground when the main engines are shut down.  We had 'em on military transports, so we could have aircraft power for lights and electronics and cargo door motors while on the ground in remote dirt strips with no ground power.  Also used for engine starting.  I was surprised to learn that a civilian airliner like the 787 had an APU.  787 is intended to operate from real airports that have ground power equipment.
  And,  Boeing and / or Pratt & Whitney seems to have screwed up the design of the 787 APU.  Shutting down the APU on the ground automatically closes the APU intake door, cutting off airflow and overheating the APU.  Heat build up is so bad it warps the APU drive shaft out of true after about 20 minutes.  It does eventually cool down and straighten out.  But if the APU is restarted before cooldown (2 hours) bad things happen.  United Airlines, a 787 operator,  says "Bowed rotor shaft can cause turbine rub and  significant damage".   Like a new APU for God Only Knows how much money.  
   Adding insult to injury, Boeing says that leaving the APU in "run" will keep the air intake door open, but, this only works on ground power.  The APU battery only has enough juice to hold the door open for 15 minutes, where as it takes a hour of open intake door to keep the APU from over heating.   Which is weird,  The APU battery is good for 30-40 ampere hours, which ought to be enough to keep a door solenoid powered for a whole day.  If this is true, it means the APU battery barely has enough juice to start the APU, and any drain, say from keeping the intake door solenoid power for a couple of hours, means the APU battery won't have enough charge to start the APU.  Which is a nice way of saying that the APU will fail.  Bad scene.
Good luck Boeing, you are gonna need it.