Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Snow is forecast
They can't just forecast snow any more, they have to do this "Winter Storm Watch" thing. They are predicting 4-10 inches in the White Mt's which is where I am. We shall see if we get so much as a single flake.
Manhatten
The Wall St Journal Weekend edition had one of those lifestyle articles on nifty things to drink. This time it was the Manhatten. Sounded tasty, and easy to mix, and I decided to bring some class to my 5 o'clock happy hour routine. So I picked up a bottle of sweet red vermouth, and a bottle of Angostura bitters. When I started to mix the first one, I found I was out of Maraschino cherries. Damn, back to plain whiskey & soda. And back to Mac's Market next day for cherries.
With all ingredients on hand, it mixes easily. Two shots bourbon, a shot of sweet red vermouth, 6 dashes of bitters, and a cherry. Pour all the stuff into a short glass and add all the ice that will fit. It's very smooth. Resist the temptation to mix a second one, you will never make it to dinner after two of these babies.
Remember that American cocktails were invented during Prohibition to cover up the truly awful tasting booze served in those days. The Manhatten is effective at that. Slides down the throat with nary a tickle.
With all ingredients on hand, it mixes easily. Two shots bourbon, a shot of sweet red vermouth, 6 dashes of bitters, and a cherry. Pour all the stuff into a short glass and add all the ice that will fit. It's very smooth. Resist the temptation to mix a second one, you will never make it to dinner after two of these babies.
Remember that American cocktails were invented during Prohibition to cover up the truly awful tasting booze served in those days. The Manhatten is effective at that. Slides down the throat with nary a tickle.
They are tracking you
Couple of days ago Instapundit posted about a sale on watches at Amazon. Being in a window shopping mood, I followed the link and looked at a huge sport watch chronometer. It looked so cool I did some web surfing for it and looked at a few other watch sites.
Well the trackers picked up on that, and for days and days moving flashing blinking ads for sport watches from overstock.com popped up all over my Firefox screens. I finally got tired of them and told Firefox to zap all my cookies.
That worked, I'm back to less offensive static ads, no moving blinking or flashing.
Well the trackers picked up on that, and for days and days moving flashing blinking ads for sport watches from overstock.com popped up all over my Firefox screens. I finally got tired of them and told Firefox to zap all my cookies.
That worked, I'm back to less offensive static ads, no moving blinking or flashing.
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Un extravagant bomber
USAF is wishing for a new bomber. They built a humungous fleet of B-52's back in the 50's. About 200 of them are still flying, 60 years later. According to Popular Mechanics, the Air Force plans yet more upgrades to keep 'em flying until 2040. The B-52 will be the first aircraft of any type to remain in service for 90 years. Clearly a successful design. It's big, has a long range, and a long loiter time and a big payload. It's dead meat against enemy fighters, but we have a lot of enemies that don't have fighters.
Subsequent bomber designs haven't been as successful. There was the supersonic B-58. It was quick, but short ranged, and a small payload. They have all been scrapped. There was the B-70, of which only a couple of prototypes were built. I don't remember the details, but it failed to get funded. Then there was the supersonic B-1. B-1 had better range and payload than the B-58, but it still could not match the B-52, and it was expensive and not many were built. And finally, the invisible-to-radar B-2. If the radar can't see you, the fighters can't find you. B-2 has reasonable range and payload, but cost $2 billion apiece. We only built 20 of them.
So what do we do for an encore? USAF chief of staff Norton Schwartz wants a plane for intelligence gathering, electronic warfare, linking to offboard sensors. No mention of delivering bombs and missiles on the target. Retired Gen. John Corley wants a lot of them. "How creditable is a force if you only have a handful of assets? " Good point.
Rebecca Grant, a Washington think tank thinker, must read a lot of science fiction, she wants laser weapons. She also wants supersonic. Supersonic sucks fuel like a sewer pipe, shortening range to the point of unusability. Plus, a big bomber is never going to outrun the fighters.
No discussion of what missions a new bomber needs to fly. The chances of carrying nukes into anywhere is low. We don't nuke people anymore. The B-52's are useful for carpet bombing places like Khe Sangh and backing up ground troops with smart bombs laid on key spots, like bridges. The B-2's were responsive enough to pour an avalanche of iron bombs into a Baghdad restaurant just a few minutes after a spy reported that the Saddam Hussein family was having dinner there. What should a new bomber do?
I don't think USAF will get the funding until we have a good answer to that question.
Subsequent bomber designs haven't been as successful. There was the supersonic B-58. It was quick, but short ranged, and a small payload. They have all been scrapped. There was the B-70, of which only a couple of prototypes were built. I don't remember the details, but it failed to get funded. Then there was the supersonic B-1. B-1 had better range and payload than the B-58, but it still could not match the B-52, and it was expensive and not many were built. And finally, the invisible-to-radar B-2. If the radar can't see you, the fighters can't find you. B-2 has reasonable range and payload, but cost $2 billion apiece. We only built 20 of them.
So what do we do for an encore? USAF chief of staff Norton Schwartz wants a plane for intelligence gathering, electronic warfare, linking to offboard sensors. No mention of delivering bombs and missiles on the target. Retired Gen. John Corley wants a lot of them. "How creditable is a force if you only have a handful of assets? " Good point.
Rebecca Grant, a Washington think tank thinker, must read a lot of science fiction, she wants laser weapons. She also wants supersonic. Supersonic sucks fuel like a sewer pipe, shortening range to the point of unusability. Plus, a big bomber is never going to outrun the fighters.
No discussion of what missions a new bomber needs to fly. The chances of carrying nukes into anywhere is low. We don't nuke people anymore. The B-52's are useful for carpet bombing places like Khe Sangh and backing up ground troops with smart bombs laid on key spots, like bridges. The B-2's were responsive enough to pour an avalanche of iron bombs into a Baghdad restaurant just a few minutes after a spy reported that the Saddam Hussein family was having dinner there. What should a new bomber do?
I don't think USAF will get the funding until we have a good answer to that question.
Monday, February 27, 2012
Words of the Weasel, part 28
"The Iranians aren't building the bomb". Yeah, Right. They are busy enriching uranium, and that is the hard part of building a nuke. It may be that they haven't fabricated a bomb yet, but they will, as soon as the enrichment program furnishes enough weapons grade (90% U-235) uranium.
The ever clueful NYT befuddles the issue here.
It's probably true that the Iranians haven't fabricated the sub critical masses for a gun-type fission bomb yet, but so what? The only reason to enrich uranium is to build a bomb. So long as they are enriching, they are building a bomb in my book. Just 'cause they haven't performed the very last step in the process doesn't mean they are not building a bomb.
The NYT offers some silly talk, "The Iranians want the capability but not a stockpile." That's how Saddam Hussein got the Americans to do a regime change on his ass. Thanks to CIA, we really thought Hussein had, or was close to having, nukes. And we took steps. Unless the Iranian mullahs are dumb as rocks, they will understand that the same thing might happen to them. Until you actually have a nuke, you are vulnerable to invasion. The mullahs watched the US Army chew up Saddam Hussein in a few weeks. They know we could do the same thing to them.
Only when the Iranians can threaten to nuke our invasion force, and/or nuke Israel, can they feel safe from an American imposed regime change. They don't dare sit around on a stockpile of weapons grade fissionables without making a fission bomb.
The ever clueful NYT befuddles the issue here.
It's probably true that the Iranians haven't fabricated the sub critical masses for a gun-type fission bomb yet, but so what? The only reason to enrich uranium is to build a bomb. So long as they are enriching, they are building a bomb in my book. Just 'cause they haven't performed the very last step in the process doesn't mean they are not building a bomb.
The NYT offers some silly talk, "The Iranians want the capability but not a stockpile." That's how Saddam Hussein got the Americans to do a regime change on his ass. Thanks to CIA, we really thought Hussein had, or was close to having, nukes. And we took steps. Unless the Iranian mullahs are dumb as rocks, they will understand that the same thing might happen to them. Until you actually have a nuke, you are vulnerable to invasion. The mullahs watched the US Army chew up Saddam Hussein in a few weeks. They know we could do the same thing to them.
Only when the Iranians can threaten to nuke our invasion force, and/or nuke Israel, can they feel safe from an American imposed regime change. They don't dare sit around on a stockpile of weapons grade fissionables without making a fission bomb.
What makes Manufacturing so special?
We have Rick Santorum out there plumping for extra special good tax breaks for "manufacturing". We already have a 9% tax break in the the federal corporate tax for "manufacturing" companies. Under that law, oil drilling counts as manufacturing. Obama was on the warpath about that a few months ago, calling it an unwarranted tax break for the oil industry.
There are a raft of crucial-to-the-economy businesses which are not manufacturing. To name a few, airlines, railroads, farms, mines, telecommunications, broadcasting,construction, electric power, and shipping.
Why should manufacturing get a tax break that these industries don't? Better is to treat all businesses alike.
Remember that free market is better at allocating money than central planners. Moscow central planning used to allocate the Soviet Union's economic resources, so much to heavy industry, so much to collective farms, so much to this and so much to that. How well did that work out for the Russians?
Free market means that if there isn't enough of something, the price rises. When the price rises people make more of it. When there is too much of something, the price falls, and people produce less of it. This system works. It's produced the largest and most advanced economy in the world, with the highest standard of living in the world.
Let's not mess it up.
Corporate taxes should be a level playing field, not special tax breaks for those with the best lobbyists.
There are a raft of crucial-to-the-economy businesses which are not manufacturing. To name a few, airlines, railroads, farms, mines, telecommunications, broadcasting,construction, electric power, and shipping.
Why should manufacturing get a tax break that these industries don't? Better is to treat all businesses alike.
Remember that free market is better at allocating money than central planners. Moscow central planning used to allocate the Soviet Union's economic resources, so much to heavy industry, so much to collective farms, so much to this and so much to that. How well did that work out for the Russians?
Free market means that if there isn't enough of something, the price rises. When the price rises people make more of it. When there is too much of something, the price falls, and people produce less of it. This system works. It's produced the largest and most advanced economy in the world, with the highest standard of living in the world.
Let's not mess it up.
Corporate taxes should be a level playing field, not special tax breaks for those with the best lobbyists.
Sunday, February 26, 2012
The mystique of winter driving
Just thought I'd share some simple things about getting around in New England winters. First of all, always back into your parking spot. Why? Well, if it snows over night, and/or you get plowed in, you have a better chance of ramming your car out if you are going forwards. Plus, if your car should fail to start on a cold morning, it's a lot easier to jump start it, if the hood is facing the curb, rather than the trunk.
Have a snow shovel in the trunk. Also jumper cables. One dark morning, I get off the red eye and find the car, which was parked on the roof of the Logan garage, was completely buried in snow drifts. With the snow shovel it was 10 minutes of brisk exercise, and I was in the car on the way home. Without that shovel, no telling how long it would have taken to get the Logan workers to dig me out.
If you have a garage, take the trouble to put the car into the garage. Just an unheated garage will be 20 degrees warmer than outside. When it's 20 below, the garage will be at zero, and your chances of the car starting are a whole bunch better at zero than at 20 below.
Leave plenty of space between you and the car ahead of you. That clown ahead of you can spin out and block both lanes at anytime. A little extra distance improves your chances of getting stopped before you smash into him.
Keep your speed up climbing a hill. The momentum will carry the car over an icy patch. Without the momentum, the icy patch wins, you are stuck, and so are all the cars behind you.
After a snowfall, take the kitchen broom out and sweep the snow off the car. The car will warm up in the sun, if the sun can play on the bare metal. The snow is a mirror, reflecting all the sunlight and keeping the car stone cold. Again, just a 10 or 20 degree warming vastly improves the chances of the car starting from cold. Additional bennie, you won't have to chip ice off the windshield.
In real cold weather, you only have one start's worth of juice in the battery. Don't waste it by starting the car any more than you need to. Try to schedule engine start from the warmest part of the day, say 2:30 in the afternoon, that improves the odds of the car starting. Once you get her running, keep her running til the battery is fully charged again. Say 45 minutes of running. Another consideration, when the engine is stone cold, combustion gases blow by the rings into a stone cold crankcase. Where they condense and mix into your engine oil. The condensate from combustion is not nice stuff, water, acids, ugly corrosives, this stuff does your engine no good at all. You want to run the engine until the temp gauge reads good and hot, the heat will evaporate the condensates and keep your oil clean.
Happy motoring, and come up skiing. We need the business.
Have a snow shovel in the trunk. Also jumper cables. One dark morning, I get off the red eye and find the car, which was parked on the roof of the Logan garage, was completely buried in snow drifts. With the snow shovel it was 10 minutes of brisk exercise, and I was in the car on the way home. Without that shovel, no telling how long it would have taken to get the Logan workers to dig me out.
If you have a garage, take the trouble to put the car into the garage. Just an unheated garage will be 20 degrees warmer than outside. When it's 20 below, the garage will be at zero, and your chances of the car starting are a whole bunch better at zero than at 20 below.
Leave plenty of space between you and the car ahead of you. That clown ahead of you can spin out and block both lanes at anytime. A little extra distance improves your chances of getting stopped before you smash into him.
Keep your speed up climbing a hill. The momentum will carry the car over an icy patch. Without the momentum, the icy patch wins, you are stuck, and so are all the cars behind you.
After a snowfall, take the kitchen broom out and sweep the snow off the car. The car will warm up in the sun, if the sun can play on the bare metal. The snow is a mirror, reflecting all the sunlight and keeping the car stone cold. Again, just a 10 or 20 degree warming vastly improves the chances of the car starting from cold. Additional bennie, you won't have to chip ice off the windshield.
In real cold weather, you only have one start's worth of juice in the battery. Don't waste it by starting the car any more than you need to. Try to schedule engine start from the warmest part of the day, say 2:30 in the afternoon, that improves the odds of the car starting. Once you get her running, keep her running til the battery is fully charged again. Say 45 minutes of running. Another consideration, when the engine is stone cold, combustion gases blow by the rings into a stone cold crankcase. Where they condense and mix into your engine oil. The condensate from combustion is not nice stuff, water, acids, ugly corrosives, this stuff does your engine no good at all. You want to run the engine until the temp gauge reads good and hot, the heat will evaporate the condensates and keep your oil clean.
Happy motoring, and come up skiing. We need the business.
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