This ain't new. USAF had VIP kits for the C-141's at Dover AFB back in 1968. I saw them. There were two. A VIP kit was the size of a large travel trailer/small house trailer and fit inside a C-141 jet transport. Inside the VIP kit were cushy chairs, soft carpets, good china and silver ware, a galley, a bar, every thing to make a long flight comfortable. Even back then the VIP kits were "controversial", and kept pretty quiet. I can remember a base commander getting uncomfortable when I told him the auditors had been poking around the VIP kits.
Far as this taxpayer and veteran is concerned, VIP kits are a waste of taxpayer's money. VIP's ought to travel commercial, in coach, just like us citizens.
Friday, July 18, 2008
The north country need some real radio stations
Up here, north of Franconia notch, is a radio wasteland. The FM stations have innoucous and short playlists of goldie oldies. The tunes repeat after a few hours. Not bad tunes, but after hearing it six times we are ready for something else. Nobody plays anything that isn't at least 25 years old. We can't get Rush at all. No NH rabblerousers akin to Boston's Howie Carr. For that matter we can't get Howie either. No local news, no Concord news, hardly any local ads.
There is plenty of spectrum on AM and FM for new stations up here if anyone wanted to try it. Think about hearing local weather (not the Boston weather) , a summary of legislation going thru the mill in Concord, North country news. Skiing stories. Maybe some up to date tunes, especially from real bands as opposed to the boy bands/girl bands. There are a lot of drivers on the road up here, surely enough listeners to attract some paying advertisers.
There is plenty of spectrum on AM and FM for new stations up here if anyone wanted to try it. Think about hearing local weather (not the Boston weather) , a summary of legislation going thru the mill in Concord, North country news. Skiing stories. Maybe some up to date tunes, especially from real bands as opposed to the boy bands/girl bands. There are a lot of drivers on the road up here, surely enough listeners to attract some paying advertisers.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Wesley Clark bad mouths John McCain
General Wesley Clark (US Army Ret.) was trashing John McCain's wartime service as "just another fighter pilot". And stating that his service in high command was far more relevant to the task of President than McCain's.
I served too. I was on the flight line, a junior avionics officer, supervising my men every morning. I saw the pilots man their planes, strap in and take off every morning. Same pilots, day after day.
Flying combat into North Viet Nam was incredibly dangerous. My wing lost a plane a day, for the first 90 days I was on base. As each pilot strapped in and lowered the canopy he knew that someone wasn't going the make it back that day. And it might well be him. The pilots of those lost aircraft either died in their aircraft from the impact of SAM's and ground fire, or died during ejection, or were taken captive by the North Vietnamese. Captivity was brutal, and long lasting. A very few, very lucky, fliers were plucked from the jungle by rescue helicopters before the North Vietnamese got to them.
Knowing the odds of death or captivity were high, the air crew kept on flying. So, call McCain what you like, but remember that he was brave. Brave to fly the missions in the first place, and brave under enemy captivity.
I served too. I was on the flight line, a junior avionics officer, supervising my men every morning. I saw the pilots man their planes, strap in and take off every morning. Same pilots, day after day.
Flying combat into North Viet Nam was incredibly dangerous. My wing lost a plane a day, for the first 90 days I was on base. As each pilot strapped in and lowered the canopy he knew that someone wasn't going the make it back that day. And it might well be him. The pilots of those lost aircraft either died in their aircraft from the impact of SAM's and ground fire, or died during ejection, or were taken captive by the North Vietnamese. Captivity was brutal, and long lasting. A very few, very lucky, fliers were plucked from the jungle by rescue helicopters before the North Vietnamese got to them.
Knowing the odds of death or captivity were high, the air crew kept on flying. So, call McCain what you like, but remember that he was brave. Brave to fly the missions in the first place, and brave under enemy captivity.
We can drill our way out of oil shortages
Announcement of American projects to explore for oil in the continental shelf, Alaska, Colorado oil shale, just about anywhere, will drop the price of crude, and do so in a matter of days. Even if the project won't come on line years. The outrageous crude oil prices are caused by fear, fear that oil will be unobtainable without a contract. Users have to get crude oil, or go out of business. So they pay six kinds of prices for it. Everyone can see demand going up and up, and production struggling to stay level, let alone grow.
Once the world sees the Americans committing to a large scale oil project, it will come to believe that more oil is out there, and oil will be available. America has a rep for pulling technological rabbits out of hats that is unmatched. America is the land that invented telegraph, telephone, oil wells, electric light bulbs, aircraft, nuclear energy, moon landings, polio vaccines, integrated circuits, microprocessors and more. An Exxon-Mobil announcement of an oil project that will come on line in 2009 and produce a couple of million barrels a day would have instant credibility. In part because the Americans are experts in this kind of thing and in part because American companies must be honest, 'cause the SEC will crucify them for flim flamming investors if they are dishonest.
Just one good oil strike will go far to convince the world's nervous oil consumers that more oil will be available in the future.
And, despite T. Boone Pickens TV ads, we can drill out way out of the shortage. US consumption is 20 million barrels per day. The undrilled resources are estimated in the billions of barrels. Twenty billion barrels is three years of supply. Two hundred billion barrels is thirty years of supply.
Once the world sees the Americans committing to a large scale oil project, it will come to believe that more oil is out there, and oil will be available. America has a rep for pulling technological rabbits out of hats that is unmatched. America is the land that invented telegraph, telephone, oil wells, electric light bulbs, aircraft, nuclear energy, moon landings, polio vaccines, integrated circuits, microprocessors and more. An Exxon-Mobil announcement of an oil project that will come on line in 2009 and produce a couple of million barrels a day would have instant credibility. In part because the Americans are experts in this kind of thing and in part because American companies must be honest, 'cause the SEC will crucify them for flim flamming investors if they are dishonest.
Just one good oil strike will go far to convince the world's nervous oil consumers that more oil will be available in the future.
And, despite T. Boone Pickens TV ads, we can drill out way out of the shortage. US consumption is 20 million barrels per day. The undrilled resources are estimated in the billions of barrels. Twenty billion barrels is three years of supply. Two hundred billion barrels is thirty years of supply.
Kilowatts are not Kilowatt-hours.
Heard two pieces about alternate energy this morning. Both of them described the size of the device as so many kilowatts. In both cases they should have said kilowatt hours. Most reporters are too dumb to read their own electric bills.
Kilowatts measures the rate of using electricity. A 100 watt (0.1 KW) light bulb uses electricity faster than a 60 watt (0.06 KW) light bulb. But you pay for electricity by the kilowatt hour. An ordinary two slice toaster draws a kilowatt. but it has the toast nice and brown in a minute so it doesn't draw all that much electricity overall. You'd have to toast 60 batches of toast in order to consume a kilowatt hour.
If you are thinking of buying a solar electric rig, you want to know both numbers. Kilowatt hours per day tells you how much money you save using your solar power as opposed to buying juice from the electric company. Kilowatts tells you the heaviest load the rig can power. For example if your air conditioner needs 3 kilowatts to work, it would be nice if your solar electric rig could produce 3 KW to power the AC.
The kilowatt-hour rating of a rig can be estimated from the kilowatt rating. The sun stays up 12 hours (on average) so each day it will produce 12 times the kilowatt rating. So a 1 kilowatt solar collector will furnish 12 kilowatt-hours in the course of a day. Up here the electric company will furnish 12 kilowatt-hours for $2.40. If the solar electric rig costs $7000 (as quoted in the NPR piece) it will take 8 years for the electricity produced to pay for the rig.
Kilowatts measures the rate of using electricity. A 100 watt (0.1 KW) light bulb uses electricity faster than a 60 watt (0.06 KW) light bulb. But you pay for electricity by the kilowatt hour. An ordinary two slice toaster draws a kilowatt. but it has the toast nice and brown in a minute so it doesn't draw all that much electricity overall. You'd have to toast 60 batches of toast in order to consume a kilowatt hour.
If you are thinking of buying a solar electric rig, you want to know both numbers. Kilowatt hours per day tells you how much money you save using your solar power as opposed to buying juice from the electric company. Kilowatts tells you the heaviest load the rig can power. For example if your air conditioner needs 3 kilowatts to work, it would be nice if your solar electric rig could produce 3 KW to power the AC.
The kilowatt-hour rating of a rig can be estimated from the kilowatt rating. The sun stays up 12 hours (on average) so each day it will produce 12 times the kilowatt rating. So a 1 kilowatt solar collector will furnish 12 kilowatt-hours in the course of a day. Up here the electric company will furnish 12 kilowatt-hours for $2.40. If the solar electric rig costs $7000 (as quoted in the NPR piece) it will take 8 years for the electricity produced to pay for the rig.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Naked short selling. Modern financial sin
Heard the phase "naked short selling" on the radio this morning. New one on me. Visions of middle aged stock brokers pole dancing on conference room tables passed thru my mind. The Vermont Public Radio story alleged that short selling was responsible for the fall of Fannie and Freddie. This sounded so juicy that I googled for it, and found definitions.
Apparently ordinary short selling (selling a stock you don't own, waiting for the price to fall, and buying it at the lower price to deliver to the previous buyer) is now "naked" short selling. It isn't illegal per se, at least not in the US, but the SEC frowns on the practice. They prefer "covered" short selling, where in the seller "borrows" the stock, sells it, and then buys it back later to repay the lender of the stock. Naked short selling for the purpose of effecting a stock's market price is forbidden. Another one of those highly effective laws. "No your honor, I never intended for my short sale of two million shares to lower the price of ..." More welfare for lawyers.
Even in this day and age of gigahertz computers, sellers have three business days to deliver the stock to the seller. That's three days to allow the stock price to fall and make the short sale profitable. If the SEC really wanted to make short selling go away, they could shorten up the delivery time to something reasonable like three hours after the market closes for the day. And prohibit paying over the money before delivery of the stock.
There is a small number of "failure to deliver" events in the ordinary course of business. You could clamp down on that with stiffer penalties. Taking money and not delivering stock is straight out fraud.
As for Fannie and Freddie, whose stock is in the tank. Both companies have lost a lot of money this year and everyone expects them to loose a lot more in the future. Stocks are only worth owning if they are expected to go up in price. If the company is loosing money, its stock isn't going up, everyone knows this. So stockholders sell while the stock is still worth something.
Apparently ordinary short selling (selling a stock you don't own, waiting for the price to fall, and buying it at the lower price to deliver to the previous buyer) is now "naked" short selling. It isn't illegal per se, at least not in the US, but the SEC frowns on the practice. They prefer "covered" short selling, where in the seller "borrows" the stock, sells it, and then buys it back later to repay the lender of the stock. Naked short selling for the purpose of effecting a stock's market price is forbidden. Another one of those highly effective laws. "No your honor, I never intended for my short sale of two million shares to lower the price of ..." More welfare for lawyers.
Even in this day and age of gigahertz computers, sellers have three business days to deliver the stock to the seller. That's three days to allow the stock price to fall and make the short sale profitable. If the SEC really wanted to make short selling go away, they could shorten up the delivery time to something reasonable like three hours after the market closes for the day. And prohibit paying over the money before delivery of the stock.
There is a small number of "failure to deliver" events in the ordinary course of business. You could clamp down on that with stiffer penalties. Taking money and not delivering stock is straight out fraud.
As for Fannie and Freddie, whose stock is in the tank. Both companies have lost a lot of money this year and everyone expects them to loose a lot more in the future. Stocks are only worth owning if they are expected to go up in price. If the company is loosing money, its stock isn't going up, everyone knows this. So stockholders sell while the stock is still worth something.
We don't have enough troops in Afghanistan
"because all the troops are in Iraq. Barack Obama said that on TV yesterday. Not true. If we don't have enough troops for Afghenistan, it means the Army isn't big enough. Or too many Army troops are paper pushers, button pushers and REMF's, and not enough are infantry. We only have 130K troops in Iraq. Compared to WWII, Korea, Vietnam, and Gulf War I, that's nothing. We need an Army /Marine Corps big enough to deploy 250K troops overseas.
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