Been off the air for three days,

Sorry about that.  Hughesnet stopped connecting to the internet Friday night.  I thought they might be back or my computer might recover.  Saturday it snowed hard all day and I though the snow might be blocking the satellite signal.  Sunday, nobody is at work on Sunday.  I called the Hughesnet number Monday.  It took an hour to get them to schedule a service man.  Best the telephone people could do was get a service man out on Thursday.  But, mid afternoon a serviceman called to see if he could come today.  I said yes, come as soon as possible, and I will have coffee.  The serviceman showed up, reseated a few connectors and bingo, internet was back.  Anyhow that is why no posts on Saturday or Sunday.  

  Since Friday all the TV talks about is Ukraine and the terrible Russian bombardments.  Wall St journal didn't come today.  So I really don't have anything new to post about. 

Ukraine war according to Aviation Week.

 Aviation Week has been a very reliable source over the years.  I think things really happened the way they say it did.

Putin planned on a lightening swift war.  He planned to missile the Ukraine’s air defenses, missile launchers, radars, airfields. He wanted to take Ukraine’s cities, like Kharkiv in the first two days. He planned on eliminating Ukrainian president Zelenskyy by forces sweeping into Kyiv, also in the first two days.  

   Instead Ukraine put up a stout defense under the inspirational leadership of President Zelenskyy. After a week of fighting no major city had fallen to the Russians.

   The Russian armed forces were not as formidable as they had been cracked up to be. For instance the Russians launched 450 cruise and ballistic missiles during the first week.  In 2003 the US launched 504 such missiles on the first night of hostilities with Iraq.  The Russians tried to capture Antonov Airport, only 19 miles from Kyiv.  Ukraine’s Stinger missiles destroyed two Russian jet fighters, two Kamov helicopter gun ships.  Two dozen Russian MI-8 helicopters landed an attack force, with much larger forces poised to fly in on IL74 transports as soon as the airport was secure.  Ukrainian forces counter attacked the heli born force.  The original Russian force was over whelmed and driven off the airport into the woods.  The Russians counter attacked with 300 helicopters and fighting continued for days.  When the fighting ended the runway was too damaged to allow the IL74’s to land. 

   That 40 mile long Russian road convoy had many vehicles run out of gas.  The old trick of removing all the street signs worked and got the Russians lost, circling around until they ran out of gas.  At which point the Russian troops abandoned their vehicles. 

We cannot give Ukraine to Putin.

Putin’s attack on Ukraine is the first such aggression since Hitler started WWII.  That was 70 years ago.  Since the end of WWII, the US has forbidden aggressive countries from attacking other countries.  We have even fought wars, Korea and Viet Nam, to prevent attackers from taking over their victims.  If we let Putin take over Ukraine, it tells the world that it is now possible to take over other countries, the Americans won’t stop you.  This is not good. 

   At this point, stopping Putin runs a real risk of war with Russia.  Putin has threatened to use nukes.  We could tell Putin that if he uses nukes we will retaliate.  Show him our list of targets, in order of value.  Tell Putin if he nukes something in Ukraine, or anywhere else, we will nuke something of his, of somewhat greater value than what ever he nuked.  Biden probably cannot do this; every one knows that Biden lacks the courage to go to the brink.  Trump could pull it off. 

    When 2024 gets here, every voter should ask him/her self “Does this presidential candidate have the courage needed to risk war to protect victim democracies from aggressors?”

Vacuum Bombs and Cluster bombs.

 These are not new.  We had them in Viet Nam.  Nor are they outlawed far as I know.  Some talk on TV indicated that the TV person had no idea what these two weapons are. 

   The cluster bomb, or cluster bomb unit (CBU), is an air dropped anti personnel munition.  It is a big sheet metal container, perhaps five feet long and weighing maybe 750 pounds.  The container is filled with grenades, small explosive charges, each with its own detonator.  When dropped, an explosive charge blows open the sheet metal container and all the grenades are freed.  Each grenade arms itself after it turns over a hundred times or so.  One cluster bomb will cover a much larger area than a plain old iron bomb.  Against infantry, a cluster bomb can be very deadly. 

  The “vacuum bomb” is what we used to call a fuel air bomb.  It is just a big tank of flammable gas, natural gas, propane, whatever.  When it hits the ground, a big valve opens and all the flammable gas is released.  After a few seconds, to give the gas time to mix with air, a detonator ignites the cloud of fuel air mixture.  Pound for pound, flammable gas provides far more energy than TNT, so the explosion of a fuel air bomb is intense. 

Strange Putin Photos.

I have seen two such photos on the Internet so far.  They start in an enormous room, with a huge table, 40 or 50 feet, running down the middle of the room.  They show Putin sitting at the head of this huge table.  At the way far end we see a handful of flunkies of one sort or another.  And 30-40 feet of table between Putin and the flunkies is unoccupied.  Is Putin off on an ego trip or what?

 

Cogeneration.

 To make electricity steam boilers produce hot high pressure steam.  The steam goes into steam turbines which turn the alternators that actually make the electricity.  The steam, cooler and lower pressure comes out of the turbine.  This waste steam is too cool and too low pressure to feed into a turbine, but it is plenty hot enough for space heating.  Locate your building close to an electric power station and you can heat it with waste steam from the turbines.  The electric company will be glad to sell it to you at a good price. 

   For cogeneration to be really effective, the electric power station has to be located downtown where there are plenty of buildings needing heat.  This works, electric power stations run quietly, are not very big, and make fine neighbors.  I used to own a triple decker in Cambridge right off Western Ave.  There was a nice power station right on Western Ave. 

   For fossil fuel plants cogeneration works fine.  Nuclear plants not so much.  The greenies hate nuclear power and put out all kinds of anti nuclear propaganda and run off demonstrations at nuclear plants under construction.  So we can skip nuclear plants for cogeneration. 

   But we ought to insist, thru our public utility commissions, that new fossil fuel electric power stations be located downtown so that cogeneration is possible.  It will save a good deal of fuel over the years.

Damn the Greenies, full speed ahead.

    The TV said Biden was negotiating with the Europeans about cutting off Russian oil and gas sales to Europe and America.  What Biden-the-Woke should do is stop American buying Russian oil and gas.  Let the Europeans figure out if they want to subsidize Russia or not.  We don’t have to, we have solid petroleum reserves on American soil and we should use them rather than pay money to Putin.  Who will use the money to invade Ukraine. 

   The American greenies are dead set again this.  They think we can run our society without drilling for oil and gas.  They are wrong.  To provide central heat to our homes in the dead of winter, and gasoline to drive to work, takes fossil fuels.  I cannot run my car on solar or wind.  Nor can I make it thru a real winter up here on solar electricity that goes away when the sun goes down.  I need electricity to make my oil burner work.  When the juice goes off, the oil burner shuts down, and my pipes freeze in a few hours. 

   We were producing enough oil and gas to supply the entire country when Trump left office.  Given a bit more than a year, Biden has reduced American production to the point that we don’t have a surplus to ship to our European allies, and we don’t have enough to even run America.  We could easily jack up production to where it was when Trump left office last year.  Biden doesn’t want to do this because of all the nasty things the American greenies would say.  There aren’t that many greenies in the country, Biden could bring oil and gas production back and the majority of the voters would cheer.  The majority of voters far out number the greenies.