Body and fender work, in fiberglass.

That 787 that caught fire at Heathrow.  The fire started when the emergency locator beacon caught fire.  This gadget transmits distress calls on 121.5, 243, and 406 Mhz in the event of a crash.  It was intended to guide searchers to the crash site, in the rare event that the crash of a big twin aisle jetliner isn't perfectly obvious from the air. Perhaps to guide rescuers to survivors floating around in liferafts after a mid ocean crash.  The ones we had on the C-133 transport would detach from the aircraft and float, so they would not go down with the sinking aircraft.  The C-133 model also had the annoying habit of going off accidentally while parked on the ramp.  When this happened we had a real Chinese fire drill, we had to go out to each and every C-133 to see which one jamming the Guard frequency with beep-beep noises.
  The emergency beacons on the 787 are Honeywell Rescu 406AFN . The cute spelling of the name is a Honeywell marketing idea. The aircraft carries two of them, one above the forward lavatory, and one above the galley.  The one above the galley started the fire. The device was FAA certified  back in 2005 and is in service on a variety of aircraft types.  As might be expected, they are battery powered, and being right up to date, they use lithium batteries.  It was not clear whether a short circuit inside the beacon started the fire or the batteries spontaneously combusted. 
  Which leaves Boeing with a huge burned spot in the carbon fiber fuselage in need of repair.  There was a good deal of discussion in Aviation Week about just how such a repair might be made.  Presumably they lay a big piece of carbon fiber mat over the hole and paint it up with resin.  Like repairing a Corvette's crash damage. 

Fixing Detroit, the NHPR way

NHPR did a long piece on the Detroit bankruptcy Sunday morning.  According to them, the bankruptcy is a blessing in disguise.  It creates vacant lots, in which the Detroit survivors can raise vegetables.  Locally grown food.  They didn't quite have the chutzpah to claim they would be organic.  This was far better use of the land than homes and businesses.  They didn't say how many vegetables you would have to sell to make as much as a welfare check. 
   Then the listed all the veggies you could grow.  Okra, fiddleheads, and collard greens mostly.  And other southern stuff that I have never eaten, and don't ever plan to eat.  Never mentioned green peas or beans, carrots, potatoes, beets, lettuce, tomatoes, or cabbage, you know, real veggies. 
   The authors wanted Detroiters to give up well paid production line work and go back to dirt farming, southern style. They were serious too, not doing an April Fool's day piece.  And April is long time ago. 
   I'm not in favor. 

Congratulations to William & Kate

According to the TV hanging in McDonald's, the baby is a boy, 8 pounds 6 ounces, born at 4:24 PM.  British time we can assume?  That's 10:24 AM Eastern Daylight Savings Time, or maybe an hour later, depends upon British time.  The Brits used to have "double summer time" two hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time.  In that case it's 11:24 our time, otherwise 10:24 our time. 
   Congratulations to the happy parents and to all their countrymen.  And all the honorary Brits all over the world, of which there are a lot. 
   Good Show. 

Infrastructure in NH

Democrats did a lot of whining about lack of infrastructure maintenance in NH.  It was so bad they wanted to hike the gas tax for it.  Jeeze to hear the democrats talk, you'd think we were going back to dirt roads.
Yesterday they started resurfacing Streeter Pond road.  I'll grant that Streeter Pond was in pretty bad shape, but it's so low down on the totem pole, it isn't even a second class road, it's third class or fourth class, as low as a road can go.  I only use it to get to Varney & Smith's lumber yard from Franconia.  Other than that, only the few farmers who live on it, care.
  They had a big ole yellow road grader taking up the old pavement, right down to the dirt.  Plain old brown dirt, none of your pricey gravel fill up here.  This is more than the usual slap on another coat of asphalt quickie repair. And they didn't have to hike the gas tax to get 'er done.

Anti Gravity

You don't believe in anti gravity?   Then what is it that pops the piece of trash right back up out of the trash basket?  The trash does a trampoline act and bounces out on the rug, sneering at you to bend over and pick it up?  I say it's antigravity.

The Black Community is mad about the Zimmerman verdict

I can understand where they are coming from.  Teen aged boy is shot dead.  They don't believe Zimmerman's story of self defense, even though the jury did believe it.  They just want revenge.  That's natural.  They used to declare blood feuds over less. 
  The purpose of courts and the justice system is to prevent just that.  The blood feud was still alive as recently as the Hatfields and the McCoys.   Responsible public officials are supposed to talk about the progress that has been made and to discourage violence.  
  The black community has things that anger them that go way back, back before the Civil War.  Things like slavery, poverty, lack of respect, rotten schools, and others.  A lot of these issues trotted out and attached themselves to Trayvon Martin.  Yesterday's demonstrations are partly about Zimmerman's acquittal and largely about those other issues. 
  The civil rights movement of fifty years ago addressed the legal and political side of this.  The movement had concrete policies, desegregation and voter registration that had concrete remedies in laws.  Those laws got passed, and are still in place. This ground was well covered by the end of the sixties.  Today's black leadership cannot think of anything else that could be addressed by law.  So instead they talk about "having a discussion on race", which is a code phrase meaning, "We don't have any ideas to fix things, but we are still unhappy."
  

Words of the Weasel Part 29

Revenue.  That is Democrat speak for "taxes".   "We need more revenue" sounds better than "Let's hike taxes."
Investment.  Democrat speak for "spending".   "Let's invest in our schools" sounds better than "Lets spend more money on schools."