The losers (Lockheed Martin and Boeing) filed a protest of the contract award to Northrup Grumman. GAO ordered a stop work for 100 days while they sort thru the paperwork. Take a 3 month schedule hit right there. GAO might, after the 100 day hangup, approve the contract award or order the contract rebid, which will take a year.
The losers objections are unclear, and mostly unpublished. What has come out is the Air Force looked at the bidder's re recurring engineering bids and using a lot of bad past experience doubled all the bids. Not a bad idea, contractors typically bid low to get a foot in the door, thinking that they will be able to get their profit margins back up when the Government orders changes, which it always does. But, what ought to happen when the contractor's underbid, is the government holds them to the original contract. Fifty years ago, Lockheed under bid on the C-5 job. USAF made them eat the difference between what Lockheed spent and what Lockheed bid.
Fifty years later, USAF lacks that kind of stones. And, the last big program USAF put out for bid, the KC-46 tanker job, was a disaster. Boeing protested the award to Airbus, got the contract rebid, and walked away with it. And Boeing is doing cost overruns and schedule slippages right now.
It's hard to tell from where I live want the real story is. Could be, GAO is allowing a frivolous protest to slow the program down. Could be USAF did another KC-46 style bungle. Could be Pentagon procurement regulations are so screwed up that nothing works. Any way, the program is delayed by the bureaucrats, and delays always raise the cost to the taxpayer.
Thursday, November 12, 2015
20 Best Handguns
Washington Times internet posting here. They show nice big pictures of 20 different handguns, nineteen of 'em automatic pistols, and one snub nosed revolver chambered for a ridiculous load. The automatics are a mix of full sized service pistols and tiny belly guns. Most of 'em were just under $500, which is significant money for most of us.
First time buyers should be aware that it is extremely difficult to hit anything with a pistol. If you can find a pistol that fits your hand properly, you can vastly improve your chances of hitting the bad guy. A story. Back in USAF they issued us .38 revolvers for target practice and qualification. The issue revolvers were in miserable shape. All the checkering was worn off the wooden grips, the grips had been marinated in gun oil for 20 years and they were slippery. Each shot made the grip twist in the hand, throwing your aim off for the next shot. The grips were too small to get all your fingers around, my pinkie finger either waved free in air, or slipped underneath the butt and damn near dislocated with each shot. My target shooting was miserable with the issue .38
Later, on a sandpit shooting afternoon, a friend let me shoot his commercial .38 revolver. It had nice big wood grips, good sharp checkering, nice and dry, good smooth trigger, shot like a dream.
Before you shell out $500 for a handgun, you want to shoot the thing, say twenty rounds, and see if it agrees with you. Then think about revolvers. A home defense gun might spend 20 years in a night table drawer, loaded, unloved, unlubricated, but that one time something bad happens, you want it to work. A double action (pulling the trigger cocks the hammer) revolver is good for this. You just pull the trigger and the gun goes bang. No safeties, no slide to work, no magazine releases to avoid. And it stores loaded, and un cocked, all the springs uncompressed. In automatics, the magazine spring is fully compressed when the magazine is loaded and the hammer or striker is cocked. Over the years, compressed springs can weaken, or even break.
Pistols come in various sizes, too damn big (Dirty Harry's .44), service pistol (cop's holster gun) and pocket pistols. Service pistols shoot best, they have enough weight to soak up the recoil of a decent load, a long enough sight radius to be easy to aim, big enough grips. Unless you are planning to carry the gun in your pocket, there is no reason to mess around with pocket pistols. They are harder to shoot, harder to get a hit with, and are often chambered for wimpy little loads that won't stop a bad guy, but just make him mad.
You want a handgun chambered for a standard, widely available load. These are .38 Special, 9 mm Luger, and .45 ACP. There are a lot of other loads out there. Any thing less than .38 special isn't big enough, anything more than .45 ACP is too damn big. The lighter the gun, the harder it will kick, which throws your accuracy off. The shorter the barrel, the fiercer the report. For example, the classic 1911 .45 government model automatic pistol weighs 39 ounces, has a 5 inch barrel, and handles the big .45 ACP load reasonably well. I have seen ads for little pocket pistols weighing only 14 ounces, with 3 inch barrels chambered for .45. I would not care to shoot one, too much kick, too loud a report.
First time buyers should be aware that it is extremely difficult to hit anything with a pistol. If you can find a pistol that fits your hand properly, you can vastly improve your chances of hitting the bad guy. A story. Back in USAF they issued us .38 revolvers for target practice and qualification. The issue revolvers were in miserable shape. All the checkering was worn off the wooden grips, the grips had been marinated in gun oil for 20 years and they were slippery. Each shot made the grip twist in the hand, throwing your aim off for the next shot. The grips were too small to get all your fingers around, my pinkie finger either waved free in air, or slipped underneath the butt and damn near dislocated with each shot. My target shooting was miserable with the issue .38
Later, on a sandpit shooting afternoon, a friend let me shoot his commercial .38 revolver. It had nice big wood grips, good sharp checkering, nice and dry, good smooth trigger, shot like a dream.
Before you shell out $500 for a handgun, you want to shoot the thing, say twenty rounds, and see if it agrees with you. Then think about revolvers. A home defense gun might spend 20 years in a night table drawer, loaded, unloved, unlubricated, but that one time something bad happens, you want it to work. A double action (pulling the trigger cocks the hammer) revolver is good for this. You just pull the trigger and the gun goes bang. No safeties, no slide to work, no magazine releases to avoid. And it stores loaded, and un cocked, all the springs uncompressed. In automatics, the magazine spring is fully compressed when the magazine is loaded and the hammer or striker is cocked. Over the years, compressed springs can weaken, or even break.
Pistols come in various sizes, too damn big (Dirty Harry's .44), service pistol (cop's holster gun) and pocket pistols. Service pistols shoot best, they have enough weight to soak up the recoil of a decent load, a long enough sight radius to be easy to aim, big enough grips. Unless you are planning to carry the gun in your pocket, there is no reason to mess around with pocket pistols. They are harder to shoot, harder to get a hit with, and are often chambered for wimpy little loads that won't stop a bad guy, but just make him mad.
You want a handgun chambered for a standard, widely available load. These are .38 Special, 9 mm Luger, and .45 ACP. There are a lot of other loads out there. Any thing less than .38 special isn't big enough, anything more than .45 ACP is too damn big. The lighter the gun, the harder it will kick, which throws your accuracy off. The shorter the barrel, the fiercer the report. For example, the classic 1911 .45 government model automatic pistol weighs 39 ounces, has a 5 inch barrel, and handles the big .45 ACP load reasonably well. I have seen ads for little pocket pistols weighing only 14 ounces, with 3 inch barrels chambered for .45. I would not care to shoot one, too much kick, too loud a report.
Wednesday, November 11, 2015
Debate Watch Party
We had another one. Not bad. Chris Christy came on strong on the junior debate. Fox and WSJ did a highly professional job with the questions and with the moderation, far far superior to those CNBC clowns last month. In the main event, everybody looked pretty good. I didn't see a clear cut winner, everyone looked pretty good. No body choked up.
Tuesday, November 10, 2015
Headlights, auto turn off
Used to be, headlights were on a switch on the dash. They came on when you pulled a knob out, and went off when you pushed the knob in.
Simple days, long gone. Now the car's microprocessor leaves the headlights on to give you some light to get to the door and find the front door key.
Except, the microprocessor doesn't get it right. Either the headlights go off too soon, leaving you fumbling in the dark, or they stay on too long, leaving you standing out in the rain, watching to make sure the microprocessor does finally turn the headlights off, to avoid running down the battery. Most of us have experienced a car with a flat battery after someone failed to turn ALL the lights off. And we don't trust microprocessors to get it right.
Mostly the microprocessors start timing the head light turnoff time from when the ignition is turned off. Bad idea. Better results would be had by starting the turnoff timer when the driver's door opens and closes. The driver may have some packages on the passenger's seat he needs to bring into the house. Which requires some fumbling around in the dark. For that matter, the microprocessor should check for other door openings and closings. The driver may have some groceries in the back seat, and the headlamp timeout should start when the last door is closed.
It will take Detroit about 50 years to get this right.
Simple days, long gone. Now the car's microprocessor leaves the headlights on to give you some light to get to the door and find the front door key.
Except, the microprocessor doesn't get it right. Either the headlights go off too soon, leaving you fumbling in the dark, or they stay on too long, leaving you standing out in the rain, watching to make sure the microprocessor does finally turn the headlights off, to avoid running down the battery. Most of us have experienced a car with a flat battery after someone failed to turn ALL the lights off. And we don't trust microprocessors to get it right.
Mostly the microprocessors start timing the head light turnoff time from when the ignition is turned off. Bad idea. Better results would be had by starting the turnoff timer when the driver's door opens and closes. The driver may have some packages on the passenger's seat he needs to bring into the house. Which requires some fumbling around in the dark. For that matter, the microprocessor should check for other door openings and closings. The driver may have some groceries in the back seat, and the headlamp timeout should start when the last door is closed.
It will take Detroit about 50 years to get this right.
Specter, the movie
It's a Bond movie. I'd rate it medium good against all the other Bond movies. We don't watch Bond movies to see character development, true love, political points made, conventional tragedy, or Shakespearean eloquence. We go to Bond movies for the action, the pretty Bond-girl, the evil Bond-villain, Q's lethal gadgets, the car chases, the fighting, and the shooting. In this vein, Spectre delivers.
Daniel Craig delivers a satisfying Bond. He plays a taciturn, driven Bond, with some scores to settle, and some lost loves to mourn. He has an icy stare. And a good right hook. He needs a better tailor, his suits don't fit him very well. Bond has no sense of humor, never cracks a joke or uses a pun. This is one serious and scary dud
Lea Seydoux makes a decent Bond girl. She is plenty good looking enough, and has some of her own issues. We see her standing up to 007 and making it work for her and for Bond.
The movie suffers from some poor technical work. The soundman doesn't capture all the dialog. It could be worse, but a fair number of bits of dialog were unintelligible. It was not a full fledged curse of the soundman, but more like just bad wishes from the soundman. And the camera man was into under exposure. A lot of scenes were just annoyingly DARK, the only thing you could see was the actor's face, and sometimes not even that. I'd find myself saying, "Open up your damn lens" to the screen. When the camera man did set the exposure properly, he would introduce a misty soft focus effect similar to filling the set with smoke. Also annoying. At least we didn't have to put up with 3-D goggles.
The car chase didn't seem very real, not real the way Steve McQueen's Mustang blasting thru San Francisco did in Bullitt.. The cars sort of floated and pulled off some unbelievably sharp turns into alleys at speed, to the point where I figured I was watching CGI.
A lot of plot holes. For openers, Bond manages to get from London to Rome, with his car (Q's hottest newest Aston Martin) in one quick cut-to-black. You'd think at least a shot of driving the Aston onto a Channel car ferry would be in order. Bond manages to collapse an entire 6 story masonry building with a few rifle shots. There is a lot of travel, but it is never clear where they are going to, coming from or traveling thru. The Bond-villain goes from fairly handsome, to horribly scarred and I never knew how. There is some high level skullduggery between the new M, and a snivel service weasel dubbed C which is unclear. Bond confronts the father of the Bond-girl with a lot of snarling back and forth which was unclear to me, and the resolution of the face-off is brutal and weird and unexplained. Ah well, it's a Bond movie and it don't have to make sense.
Anyhow, if you like Bond movies, this one is pretty good. The critics panned it, but the critics don't like Bond movies, they like Shakespeare, which Bond movies are not.
Daniel Craig delivers a satisfying Bond. He plays a taciturn, driven Bond, with some scores to settle, and some lost loves to mourn. He has an icy stare. And a good right hook. He needs a better tailor, his suits don't fit him very well. Bond has no sense of humor, never cracks a joke or uses a pun. This is one serious and scary dud
Lea Seydoux makes a decent Bond girl. She is plenty good looking enough, and has some of her own issues. We see her standing up to 007 and making it work for her and for Bond.
The movie suffers from some poor technical work. The soundman doesn't capture all the dialog. It could be worse, but a fair number of bits of dialog were unintelligible. It was not a full fledged curse of the soundman, but more like just bad wishes from the soundman. And the camera man was into under exposure. A lot of scenes were just annoyingly DARK, the only thing you could see was the actor's face, and sometimes not even that. I'd find myself saying, "Open up your damn lens" to the screen. When the camera man did set the exposure properly, he would introduce a misty soft focus effect similar to filling the set with smoke. Also annoying. At least we didn't have to put up with 3-D goggles.
The car chase didn't seem very real, not real the way Steve McQueen's Mustang blasting thru San Francisco did in Bullitt.. The cars sort of floated and pulled off some unbelievably sharp turns into alleys at speed, to the point where I figured I was watching CGI.
A lot of plot holes. For openers, Bond manages to get from London to Rome, with his car (Q's hottest newest Aston Martin) in one quick cut-to-black. You'd think at least a shot of driving the Aston onto a Channel car ferry would be in order. Bond manages to collapse an entire 6 story masonry building with a few rifle shots. There is a lot of travel, but it is never clear where they are going to, coming from or traveling thru. The Bond-villain goes from fairly handsome, to horribly scarred and I never knew how. There is some high level skullduggery between the new M, and a snivel service weasel dubbed C which is unclear. Bond confronts the father of the Bond-girl with a lot of snarling back and forth which was unclear to me, and the resolution of the face-off is brutal and weird and unexplained. Ah well, it's a Bond movie and it don't have to make sense.
Anyhow, if you like Bond movies, this one is pretty good. The critics panned it, but the critics don't like Bond movies, they like Shakespeare, which Bond movies are not.
Monday, November 9, 2015
Gitmo
Obama has been trying to close the place since he was elected. Seems to be very firm on it. Has not had much luck. The thugs still in Gitmo are really bad people who will go back to waging guerrilla war on the middle east if we turn 'em loose.
These guys are in Gitmo for waging war on the US. They were captured on foriegn battlefields. They aren't regular criminals, in stir for murder, rape, arson, and drug dealing. They are in stir for fighting against the US armed forces. Under the laws of war, we are entitled to hold them prisoners until the war is over. Which isn't gonna happen anytime soon. It's more humane than what used to happen in the bad old days.
The intense opposition to closing Gitmo and moving the prisoners to stateside lockups comes from the public distrust of US judges. The public fears judges will turn these guys loose inside the country because they have not been accused, let alone convicted of a crime in court. The normal civilian law of the United States, based on the 13th amendment, requires conviction of a crime in order to hold people in jail. These guys haven't committed crimes in the ordinary civilian sense of the word. They are Islamist fighters, who will burn, bomb, and kill if let out. It's preventative detention, but US law doesn't allow preventative detention.
And US judges, cut from fairly stupid cloth, might well turn them loose.
These guys are in Gitmo for waging war on the US. They were captured on foriegn battlefields. They aren't regular criminals, in stir for murder, rape, arson, and drug dealing. They are in stir for fighting against the US armed forces. Under the laws of war, we are entitled to hold them prisoners until the war is over. Which isn't gonna happen anytime soon. It's more humane than what used to happen in the bad old days.
The intense opposition to closing Gitmo and moving the prisoners to stateside lockups comes from the public distrust of US judges. The public fears judges will turn these guys loose inside the country because they have not been accused, let alone convicted of a crime in court. The normal civilian law of the United States, based on the 13th amendment, requires conviction of a crime in order to hold people in jail. These guys haven't committed crimes in the ordinary civilian sense of the word. They are Islamist fighters, who will burn, bomb, and kill if let out. It's preventative detention, but US law doesn't allow preventative detention.
And US judges, cut from fairly stupid cloth, might well turn them loose.
Sunday, November 8, 2015
Syria
Syria a smallish wartorn middle east country just to the north of Israel. Has been run by the Assad family and the Alawite sect for decades, maybe more. Dunno just how the Alawites differ from Sunni or Shia, but its enough to matter somehow. Could be the Sunni and or the Shia detest the Alawites. Could be the Sunni would rather have the Alawites running things than the Shia. Or vice versa. I don't know, and our clueless newsies have no idea either.
The current Assad running Syria, a certain Bashar, fairly recent heir to the throne, has not been doing well. He has angered a sizable portion of his population to the point of armed rebellion against his regime. ISIS has set up shop and controls a big slice of Syria. Other "moderate" non-ISIS but anti Assad rebel groups are active, but probably not as active as ISIS. By now, Assad's control of the country is shaky, ISIS is as strong (or stronger) than he is. The Russians have decided to back Assad, probably in return for basing rights in Syria. Assad needs all the support he can get.
US policy, such as it is, favors dumping Bashar Assad. Not a a bad idea, but for it to work, we have to have someone to replace him with. We need a name, and we don't have one. ISIS has a name, Allah. The "moderate" rebels must have some leaders, but who ever they are, they haven't made it onto US TV news. Until we find a Syrian leader with some name recognition, at least inside Syria, and some popularity, our anti Assad, anti ISIS operations are going exactly nowhere.
We should be talking to the Israeli's about Syria. They have agents in Syria, who actually speak the language, and a much better idea of who is who, and which end is up, than CIA ever will. To bad Obama has been dissing Netanyahu. The Israelis are less likely to level with Obama than with someone who has supported Israel over the years.
The current Assad running Syria, a certain Bashar, fairly recent heir to the throne, has not been doing well. He has angered a sizable portion of his population to the point of armed rebellion against his regime. ISIS has set up shop and controls a big slice of Syria. Other "moderate" non-ISIS but anti Assad rebel groups are active, but probably not as active as ISIS. By now, Assad's control of the country is shaky, ISIS is as strong (or stronger) than he is. The Russians have decided to back Assad, probably in return for basing rights in Syria. Assad needs all the support he can get.
US policy, such as it is, favors dumping Bashar Assad. Not a a bad idea, but for it to work, we have to have someone to replace him with. We need a name, and we don't have one. ISIS has a name, Allah. The "moderate" rebels must have some leaders, but who ever they are, they haven't made it onto US TV news. Until we find a Syrian leader with some name recognition, at least inside Syria, and some popularity, our anti Assad, anti ISIS operations are going exactly nowhere.
We should be talking to the Israeli's about Syria. They have agents in Syria, who actually speak the language, and a much better idea of who is who, and which end is up, than CIA ever will. To bad Obama has been dissing Netanyahu. The Israelis are less likely to level with Obama than with someone who has supported Israel over the years.
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