Bernie Sanders was on Meet the Press this morning. He came out strongly against "income inequality". Sounds good Bernie, but whatcha gonna DO about it? Far as I can see, Bernie is just whining about a problem, he does even bother to quantifiy it, like just how bad is it right now? Unless you can put numbers on the problem, you don't know squat about it.
And, whatcha gonna DO about it? Hike my taxes? Increase federal regulation? Howza about cutting the cost of US health care? We are putting 19% of GNP into health care. Our international competitors, places like Germany and Japan, and Britain, first world industrial countries, only put 8% of GNP into health care. For spending (wasting) twice as much money on health care, the US health is no better, in fact slightly worse than many first world countries.
Howsabout killing the war on coal? Howzabout doing oil exploration leases off shore and on federal land? Howsabout doing Keystone XL?
Bernie, until you say what you want to do about "income inequality" you ain't speaking to me.
Sunday, September 13, 2015
Saturday, September 12, 2015
The Lore of the Battery
Car battery that is. It's a fairly dependable gizmo, except in winter when your car fails to crank. They last four winters on average. A battery works like a bank account, you put juice in, and later you can take juice out. If you fail to put enough juice back in after a hard winter start, the battery may not be there next time. In winter you need to run the car engine for as much as a half hour after a cold weather start.
Batteries are temperature dependent, they work much better when at room temperature than they do at - 40 F. A cold winter morning might have the entire car chilled down to -40 F. Wait until early afternoon and things might have warmed up to a mere 0 F. This might not help if you gotta get to work at 8 AM, but if you just need to go the store, wait til things get warmer. Brush the snow off the car and it will soak up sunshine and get surprisingly warm. Keeping the car in even an unheated garage will keep it 20-30F warmer than parking it outdoors. Starting is a lot easier at 0 F than at -40 F. And after getting her started, be sure to run her long enough to charge the battery up.
Lotta new cars now come with a battery voltage gauge or indicator. A new fully charged battery might show 13.2 volts. This "sulfation charge" will go away, dropping the battery voltage down to say 12.5 volts after just a whisper of discharge, say running the head lamps for 10 minutes. Call 12.5 volts normal full charge. As the battery discharges, the voltage drops. By 11 volts, you have trouble, your car may not start next time. At 10 volts it surely won't start.
When the engine is running, the alternator will maintain 14-15 volts on the electrical system, it has too, the battery won't accept charge unless the alternator voltage is a volt or two greater than battery voltage. If you don't have 14-15 volts with the engine running, you have alternator trouble, and shortly you will have a discharged (flat) battery and the car won't start. If the alternator has been doing it's job, and the car won't crank, you have battery trouble. They only last four winters, and maybe yours is just shot and needs replacement. Last new battery I bought set me back $50.
Naturally, you need the engine off, to see the battery voltage. With the engine running, you are seeing alternator voltage.
Batteries are temperature dependent, they work much better when at room temperature than they do at - 40 F. A cold winter morning might have the entire car chilled down to -40 F. Wait until early afternoon and things might have warmed up to a mere 0 F. This might not help if you gotta get to work at 8 AM, but if you just need to go the store, wait til things get warmer. Brush the snow off the car and it will soak up sunshine and get surprisingly warm. Keeping the car in even an unheated garage will keep it 20-30F warmer than parking it outdoors. Starting is a lot easier at 0 F than at -40 F. And after getting her started, be sure to run her long enough to charge the battery up.
Lotta new cars now come with a battery voltage gauge or indicator. A new fully charged battery might show 13.2 volts. This "sulfation charge" will go away, dropping the battery voltage down to say 12.5 volts after just a whisper of discharge, say running the head lamps for 10 minutes. Call 12.5 volts normal full charge. As the battery discharges, the voltage drops. By 11 volts, you have trouble, your car may not start next time. At 10 volts it surely won't start.
When the engine is running, the alternator will maintain 14-15 volts on the electrical system, it has too, the battery won't accept charge unless the alternator voltage is a volt or two greater than battery voltage. If you don't have 14-15 volts with the engine running, you have alternator trouble, and shortly you will have a discharged (flat) battery and the car won't start. If the alternator has been doing it's job, and the car won't crank, you have battery trouble. They only last four winters, and maybe yours is just shot and needs replacement. Last new battery I bought set me back $50.
Naturally, you need the engine off, to see the battery voltage. With the engine running, you are seeing alternator voltage.
Friday, September 11, 2015
Boeing going with flapping wings
Well, not quite. The redesign on the 777 (big, twin aisle, twin engine) goes with a longer wingspan. Presumable they wanted some more lift, to lower the landing speed. If the wing is larger, it will generate enough lift to keep the plane in the air as it slows down to land. A lower landing speed is safer, these are awfully big and heavy vehicles to go careening onto the runway at 150 mph.
Trouble is, air port taxiways, laid out years ago, are only so wide. And so, Boeing is planning on folding the wingtips to ease the 777X into its gate.. Like WWII carrier airplanes. Only the outer 11 feet of the wing is planned to fold, complete with hinges, actuators, and locking pins. This opens variety of comedy moves, should the aircrew forget to fold the wingtips before taxing in and hit all sorts of things.
Wow. talk about mechanical complexity. Let's hope it works. It probably will. It's not more complicated than those wonderful Boeing flaps, which come out, and out, and full flaps actually converts the aircraft into a biplane.
Trouble is, air port taxiways, laid out years ago, are only so wide. And so, Boeing is planning on folding the wingtips to ease the 777X into its gate.. Like WWII carrier airplanes. Only the outer 11 feet of the wing is planned to fold, complete with hinges, actuators, and locking pins. This opens variety of comedy moves, should the aircrew forget to fold the wingtips before taxing in and hit all sorts of things.
Wow. talk about mechanical complexity. Let's hope it works. It probably will. It's not more complicated than those wonderful Boeing flaps, which come out, and out, and full flaps actually converts the aircraft into a biplane.
Thursday, September 10, 2015
JEB offers his tax plan
One of the first, maybe the first, to come out with a concrete proposal. He posted it on the Op Ed page of Wednesday's Wall St Journal. The "MSM" (NYT and WaPo) probably won't carry it, but the Journal has four times the circulation of the NYT, and even a bigger lead over WaPo.
JEB proposes three personal income tax rates, 10%, 25%, and 28%, 20% on corporate profits, and 100% write off of capital improvements. All decent ideas. He proposed closing loopholes although he failed to get specific and name loopholes. He is happy to have 15 million people owe no federal income tax. He will scrap the "alternate minimum tax". He will increase the standard deduction, expand "earned income tax credit" and retains the charitable contributions deduction.
Let's give JEB credit for addressing a real issue, and proposing real reforms.
However I would do it a little bit differently. I believe that every one, no matter how poor, ought to pay some tax, just to let them feel the pain. It need not be much, 5% would do fine. But everyone ought to pay something. The "earned income tax credit" serves to zero out low income people's taxes, so long as they have some children. The formula and rules for earned income tax credit are so complicated that nobody really understands what's going down. Was it me, I'd scrap the entire thing, just to simply the tax code. Set the bottom rate at 5%, and be done with it.
While we are at it, outlaw all those "worksheets" the IRS puts in the 1040 instructions. If they cannot state a tax rule in a single sentence of plain English, the rule is too complicated and we should scrap it outright. Those little worksheets walk the taxpayer thru an indescribably complex rule. We don't need indescribably complex rules.
Close loopholes. Just about everything on Schedule A is a loophole. Drop them all, medical, mortgage interest, state and local taxes, and the rest. Set the middle tax bracket at 17%. After deductions and hassling and rassling and loosing an entire weekend to doing my taxes, I always wound up paying 17% after all the mickey mouse.
JEB proposes three personal income tax rates, 10%, 25%, and 28%, 20% on corporate profits, and 100% write off of capital improvements. All decent ideas. He proposed closing loopholes although he failed to get specific and name loopholes. He is happy to have 15 million people owe no federal income tax. He will scrap the "alternate minimum tax". He will increase the standard deduction, expand "earned income tax credit" and retains the charitable contributions deduction.
Let's give JEB credit for addressing a real issue, and proposing real reforms.
However I would do it a little bit differently. I believe that every one, no matter how poor, ought to pay some tax, just to let them feel the pain. It need not be much, 5% would do fine. But everyone ought to pay something. The "earned income tax credit" serves to zero out low income people's taxes, so long as they have some children. The formula and rules for earned income tax credit are so complicated that nobody really understands what's going down. Was it me, I'd scrap the entire thing, just to simply the tax code. Set the bottom rate at 5%, and be done with it.
While we are at it, outlaw all those "worksheets" the IRS puts in the 1040 instructions. If they cannot state a tax rule in a single sentence of plain English, the rule is too complicated and we should scrap it outright. Those little worksheets walk the taxpayer thru an indescribably complex rule. We don't need indescribably complex rules.
Close loopholes. Just about everything on Schedule A is a loophole. Drop them all, medical, mortgage interest, state and local taxes, and the rest. Set the middle tax bracket at 17%. After deductions and hassling and rassling and loosing an entire weekend to doing my taxes, I always wound up paying 17% after all the mickey mouse.
Wednesday, September 9, 2015
Long Range Strike Bomber (LRS-B)
This is a proposed US Air Force project. estimated at $80 billion, that Aviation Week thinks is close to contract award to either Boeing-Lockheed-Martin, or Northrup Grumman. A think tank organized conference talked a lot about it. One thing they didn't talk about was the mission such an aircraft might perform. Is it supposed to penetrate Soviet or Chinese air defenses and nuke Moscow or Peiping? Is it supposed to do maritime patrol in the Atlantic? Is it supposed to carpet bomb ISIS held places in the Mid East? Is it supposed to operate against defended airspace?
Since Viet Nam, USAF bombing missions have been flown by fighters, with bombs hung under their wings. It seems to work, and it's not clear to me what the Long Range Strike Bomber could do to justify its $80 billion project cost.
The proposed aircraft does not seem all that formidable. We are talking subsonic, 12,000-20000 pound bomb load and a range of only 2500 miles. Where as the ancient B52 (still flying) could hoist 70000 pounds of bombs and could range out 4400 miles. The WWII propeller driven single engine Douglas Skyraider could manage a 20,000 pound bomb load. So we are talking about a smallish aircraft with not much range. Think about tanking in the way in, tanking again on the way out, and if you miss your tanker rendezvous you run out of gas. That's the way we got the short legged F105 Thunderchiefs (Thuds) to Hanoi and back.
The last successful bomber program USAF managed was the B52 program back 60 years ago. Since then they did the supersonic B58 Hustler, which although fast, didn't carry enough bomb load to do anything worthwhile unless the bombs were nukes. And we don't use nukes any more. There was the B70 Valkyrie, big, supersonic, but never got into production. Then the B1 Lancer project, supersonic, cool, but very expensive and lacking in range and payload. And finally the B2 project, successful, good range and payload, really stealthy, but at $1 billion a copy, just too expensive. They shut down production after building only 25 of them.
Given that sorry record, I think it behooves Congress and the MSM to raise some questions about the need for the LRS-B project.
Consider taking a commercial jumbo airliner, taking out the seats, hanging missiles under the wings.
Since Viet Nam, USAF bombing missions have been flown by fighters, with bombs hung under their wings. It seems to work, and it's not clear to me what the Long Range Strike Bomber could do to justify its $80 billion project cost.
The proposed aircraft does not seem all that formidable. We are talking subsonic, 12,000-20000 pound bomb load and a range of only 2500 miles. Where as the ancient B52 (still flying) could hoist 70000 pounds of bombs and could range out 4400 miles. The WWII propeller driven single engine Douglas Skyraider could manage a 20,000 pound bomb load. So we are talking about a smallish aircraft with not much range. Think about tanking in the way in, tanking again on the way out, and if you miss your tanker rendezvous you run out of gas. That's the way we got the short legged F105 Thunderchiefs (Thuds) to Hanoi and back.
The last successful bomber program USAF managed was the B52 program back 60 years ago. Since then they did the supersonic B58 Hustler, which although fast, didn't carry enough bomb load to do anything worthwhile unless the bombs were nukes. And we don't use nukes any more. There was the B70 Valkyrie, big, supersonic, but never got into production. Then the B1 Lancer project, supersonic, cool, but very expensive and lacking in range and payload. And finally the B2 project, successful, good range and payload, really stealthy, but at $1 billion a copy, just too expensive. They shut down production after building only 25 of them.
Given that sorry record, I think it behooves Congress and the MSM to raise some questions about the need for the LRS-B project.
Consider taking a commercial jumbo airliner, taking out the seats, hanging missiles under the wings.
Tuesday, September 8, 2015
It ain't the Hispanic vote that Republicans need
Not like they need the woman's vote.
Romney lost the woman's vote by 10%. Women are 50% of the voters. He lost the Hispanic vote by a bigger percentage, but there are a lot fewer Hispanics than there are woman. Yet the newsies are forever yakking about the importance of the Hispanic vote, they never talk about the woman's vote, or woman's issues. In Romney's case, if he had cut Obama's margin among women down to 5% from 10% he'd be president right now.
Aside from coverage of Democrats decrying a "war on women" I don't hear much about woman's issues. There was that "Julia" ad explaining how much free stuff the Obama administration is giving away. That got roundly mocked in the blogosphere. There was the female George Mason student (name escapes me now) that cried out for free contraceptives. And now we have the push to defund Planned Parenthood over the fetal organ selling scandal.
How do women feel about all this? I haven't seen any polling. I'm a guy, and I'm old enough and wise enough to understand the women don't see things the way men do. And that unless I ask the women, I don't know nothing. Was I running for president I would do what ever it takes to get the women to vote for me. It's just I don't really know what that might be. We have done a lot of evening out in the labor market, in college, and employment and promotion. I don't see that there is much more that can be done in those areas.
How do women feel about abortion? Are they for it, agin it, or split 50-50? Used to be they were split. Is this still true? Defunding Planned Parenthood is an anti abortion move. Will it gain women's votes? Or loose them?
Where do Republicans stand on paid maternity leave? Some companies have it, dunno how many. Is this an election winning issue? Obamacare promises to pay for contraceptives, should we support this as we talk about scrapping Obamacare?
What other issues matter to women?
Romney lost the woman's vote by 10%. Women are 50% of the voters. He lost the Hispanic vote by a bigger percentage, but there are a lot fewer Hispanics than there are woman. Yet the newsies are forever yakking about the importance of the Hispanic vote, they never talk about the woman's vote, or woman's issues. In Romney's case, if he had cut Obama's margin among women down to 5% from 10% he'd be president right now.
Aside from coverage of Democrats decrying a "war on women" I don't hear much about woman's issues. There was that "Julia" ad explaining how much free stuff the Obama administration is giving away. That got roundly mocked in the blogosphere. There was the female George Mason student (name escapes me now) that cried out for free contraceptives. And now we have the push to defund Planned Parenthood over the fetal organ selling scandal.
How do women feel about all this? I haven't seen any polling. I'm a guy, and I'm old enough and wise enough to understand the women don't see things the way men do. And that unless I ask the women, I don't know nothing. Was I running for president I would do what ever it takes to get the women to vote for me. It's just I don't really know what that might be. We have done a lot of evening out in the labor market, in college, and employment and promotion. I don't see that there is much more that can be done in those areas.
How do women feel about abortion? Are they for it, agin it, or split 50-50? Used to be they were split. Is this still true? Defunding Planned Parenthood is an anti abortion move. Will it gain women's votes? Or loose them?
Where do Republicans stand on paid maternity leave? Some companies have it, dunno how many. Is this an election winning issue? Obamacare promises to pay for contraceptives, should we support this as we talk about scrapping Obamacare?
What other issues matter to women?
Monday, September 7, 2015
Looking for a platform? Try Patent Reform
My advice to all those running against Trump. Offer some ideas, like what you would do if elected. Trump does this, and it's one of the things that keeps him up in the polls. Most pols these days go out of their way to avoid speaking out on issues, 'cause once you take a side on an issue, all the voters on the other side of that issue, will never forget or forgive. The voters on your side, forget and do you no good.
So, how about an issue that everyone is in favor of? Sure winner, you get some free media, and you don't make enemies. What issue might that be?
Howsabout patent reform. The current US patent system discourages innovation. As soon as you bring a new product to market, you get a patent troll suing you for infringing some obscure patent that he, the troll, just happens to hold. Who can not be in favor of fixing this? Except for the patent trolls that is. But there just ain't enough patent trolls in the world to matter.
What to do? First clean up the patent application business. Right now, you can get a patent on anything, written as vaguely and as broadly as to be a barn door. Anything will go thru it. We ought to not allow any patents on software, nor any patents on "business methods", nor patents on arbitrary arrangements of things, like the QWERTY keyboard or the Morse code. We should demand a working model of the patented idea. If you cannot make a working model that works, you don't have a patentable idea. We should demand that the idea be really new, not "obvious to anyone skilled in the art". Which means the patent examiner needs to actually contact some of those skilled in the art and see what they think about the pending patent. Especially we should not grant a new patent on a minor change. I hear big pharma has been granted new patents on existing drugs after they merely changed the size of the pill.
Then we need to keep the trolls out. To have the standing to sue for patent infringement, you need to be making and selling product yourself that uses the claimed patent. You cannot just be a law office with a bunch of vague patents and some mouthy lawyers. Unless you are actually making something useful, you don't get to sue.
Any, make patents non transferable. The patent rights are granted to the inventor, or the inventor's company. The patent owner can collect royalties on his patent but he may not sell the patent to the trolls.
So, how about an issue that everyone is in favor of? Sure winner, you get some free media, and you don't make enemies. What issue might that be?
Howsabout patent reform. The current US patent system discourages innovation. As soon as you bring a new product to market, you get a patent troll suing you for infringing some obscure patent that he, the troll, just happens to hold. Who can not be in favor of fixing this? Except for the patent trolls that is. But there just ain't enough patent trolls in the world to matter.
What to do? First clean up the patent application business. Right now, you can get a patent on anything, written as vaguely and as broadly as to be a barn door. Anything will go thru it. We ought to not allow any patents on software, nor any patents on "business methods", nor patents on arbitrary arrangements of things, like the QWERTY keyboard or the Morse code. We should demand a working model of the patented idea. If you cannot make a working model that works, you don't have a patentable idea. We should demand that the idea be really new, not "obvious to anyone skilled in the art". Which means the patent examiner needs to actually contact some of those skilled in the art and see what they think about the pending patent. Especially we should not grant a new patent on a minor change. I hear big pharma has been granted new patents on existing drugs after they merely changed the size of the pill.
Then we need to keep the trolls out. To have the standing to sue for patent infringement, you need to be making and selling product yourself that uses the claimed patent. You cannot just be a law office with a bunch of vague patents and some mouthy lawyers. Unless you are actually making something useful, you don't get to sue.
Any, make patents non transferable. The patent rights are granted to the inventor, or the inventor's company. The patent owner can collect royalties on his patent but he may not sell the patent to the trolls.
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