This blog posts about aviation, automobiles, electronics, programming, politics and such other subjects as catch my interest. The blog is based in northern New Hampshire, USA
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Scary, weapons grade uranium for sale
Even scarier thought. The Russians still have a lot of nukes. These are sitting in ammunition magazines scattered about Russia. Each magazine has a crew of technicians, bomb loaders, guards, and whoever. These guys are under the command of some Russian officer, a colonel at a guess. How many of those colonels are worried about layoffs, retirement savings, college educations for their children? Would one or two of them accept a million Euro's to let a couple a nukes out? A real Red Army nuke that has been tested and is highly likely to go bang? As opposed to a terrorist home made job that might well fizzle? The North Koreans demonstrated a fizzle not too long ago.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Why is Windows so Paneful?
And yet, Windows is the only game in town for those of us in the software business. Nearly every PC runs Windows, so your product has to run under Windows if you expect to sell it. For every Linux or Apple machine, there are a hundred Windows machines. No one will buy a product that doesn't run under Windows. Windows is a fact of life and we are stuck with it until some company offers something better. I'm not holding my breath. IBM tried with OS2 years ago and ancient Windows 3.1 totally destroyed them. The Linux folk have yet to convince ordinary customers to give up Word and Excel for Star Office.
What makes Windows so bad?
It's too damn big. Windows is humungous. It's so big no one understands it any more. The number of bugs is proportional to the number of lines of code, and the number of lines of code in Windows is millions, billions, who knows really. But it's the biggest program in captivity. Which makes it the buggiest. The only way to reduce the bugs and speed it up is to make it smaller.
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
CAFE or no CAFE?
Question: Since $3 gas happened, does not Detroit have all the incentive anyone needs to produce good gas mileage cars? Certainly sales of the big SUVs and pickups has nosedived, causing GM, Ford, and Chrysler to loose staggering amounts of money, while Toyota and Honda sales and profits are up?
Nother question: How real are CAFE standards actually? The Chrysler PT cruiser, which looks a lot like a car to me, is actually classed as a light truck. Chrysler did this to raise the average gas mileage on their light trucks. Each PT cruiser sold allowed the sale of a couple of Hemi powered Dodge Ram pickup trucks.
Last Question: If US citizens are willing to buy big vehicles for hauling flocks of kids, plywood from the lumber yard, furniture back from the yard sale, and trash to the dump, why not let them. It's a free country. Should we not be able to spend our hard earned dollars the way we like, as opposed to the way someone else thinks we ought to?
Light Duty Trucks or Light Trucks
I can understand the ad writers making this goof, but how do it get by all the suits at GM?
Or are the GM suits as clueless as the admen?
Monday, November 26, 2007
Eliminate the sub prime middle man
Mortgages are creations of the law. We could pass a law saying that no one can sell a mortgage. The mortgage is a deal between a specific borrower and a specific lender and the deal is not an article of commerce that can be traded, sold, or given away. The legal rights to enforce the deal (foreclosure on the house) are only enjoyed by the original issuer, second hand mortgages loose their right of foreclosure.
The idea is to kill off the juggling of mortgages from one hand to another. You issue it, you own it forever. Issuer's will be much more careful who they loan to, and on what terms, if they have to live with the deal for 30 years. When the issuers can sell the loan, they don't care how sound it is, it just has to be sound enough to last long enough to sell it off. This accounts for the teaser mortgages, low payments for a couple of years, much higher ones later. The borrower probably won't default until his payments go up, by which time the issuer is home safe and some gullible investors get hurt. And the borrowers, and the entire economy too.
The issuers will cry and wail at this proposal. They will say they need to sell the mortgages to get the money to do more mortgages. Let me say this to them. Raise money the old fashioned way, pay decent interest on deposits. Sell certificates of deposit that pay 1% less than the going mortgage rate. With mortgages around 7% the CD's could pay 6%, and have FDIC protection too.
Sunday, November 25, 2007
How slick is this? (From Commentary)
Chinese Olympic spokesman: "Thanks to a range of measures, two thirds of the days in Beijing now have good air quality"
Outside the glass walled conference room smog was so thick that nearby buildings were visible only in outline.
US reporter, waving toward the windows: "Is this a good air day?"
Chinese spokesman: "It takes an expert to determine that."
Crime, Drugs,Welfare, things ARE getting better
Teenage drug use: Down 23% since the 1990's
Ecstasy, speed& LSD: Down 50%
Welfare cases: Down 60% since 1994
Abortion: Down 19% since 1990
SAT scores: Up 8 points since 1989
Teenage births: Down 35% since 1991
There is a good deal more, but the writer is convinced that things are rebounding after a dreadful low in the 80's and 90's. Still not as good as things might have been back in the good old days, but measurably better than ten years ago. This is good news for a change.
Just in time for Christmas too.
Too bad this webby thing doesn't understand tabs or columns...
Saturday, November 24, 2007
Patents on Tax Shelters
About time. While they are at it how about outlawing "business methods" patents, and patents on software? And requiring a working model before granting a patent. And outlawing patents on genes. And outlawing patents on obvious ideas and prior art?
Selling Jaguar and Land Rover to the Indians?
Ford acquired Jaguar for $2.5 billion in 1989 and Land Rover for $2.75 billion in 2000. I wonder what Ford was thinking when they bought the British brands in the first place. I understand that after paying $2.5 billion for Jag, the proceeded to pour in a lot more money to improve the product. Jag has always had a sexy product, but a product with a well earned reputation for unreliability. I owned one once. For the last 40 years the unreliability rep has been so strong as to overwhelm the good styling, handling, and interior trim level. Eighteen years of Ford improvements hasn't been able to turn that around. You have to wonder if the time and money put into Jaguar would have been better spent on Lincoln, Thunderbird, Cougar and Mustang.
Friday, November 23, 2007
New Hampshire primary is wide open
If my family is representative of the whole state, then anyone could win the Republican primary. We only have 46 more days to make up our minds.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
The right to bear arms
The newsies have hyped this as the case of the century. I wonder. In actual fact American citizens believe they have a right to keep a gun in the house, and in the car and in the cash drawer and other handy places. I doubt they will give up this quaint colonial custom anytime soon, no matter what the court rules.
So the Supreme Court can rule two ways on this one. They can rule that the 2nd Amendment means what it says. This will please the vast majority of ordinary citizens and outrage the chattering classes. Or they can invent a penumbra or something, rule that the 2nd amendment is "inoperative" , turn the vast majority of citizens into lawbreakers, and make the chattering classes happy.
If the court has two brain cells firing, they will rule that the 2nd amendment means what it says. But they are nine lawyers, and lawyers are dumb as rocks, so it's anyone's guess what the ruling will be.
There oughta be a law, (Pt 2)
There oughta be a law (Pt 1)
Monday, November 19, 2007
Tomorrow Never Dies
Then for the big chase scene, we have James driving the thing by remote control from the back seat using a trackball on his cell phone. Yuck, Gross. You gonna drive a car, lets do it right, from the drivers seat, using the wheel. For extra points use a decent 5 speed manual transmission and a clutch. Skip the slush box.
You gotta strike back
Plus, us veterans usually stick together. It was surprising to hear old shipmates (boatmates?) trashing a member of the outfit 35 years later. Seemed to me, and many others, that young Lt Kerry must have been a real pain-in-the-tail officer to attract so much venom after such a long time. I served as officer in Viet Nam, and 40 years later I have good warm feelings about all the guys in my old outfit. I cannot imagine any one who served with me, dissing me, either behind my back, or in public. Just won't happen. The fact that it happened to Kerry makes you wonder what sort of leadership qualities he really had.
Same thing happened to Mike Dukakis back in '88. The Bush campaign ran the "Willie Horton" ad against him. Showed an ugly and vicious looking convict walking round and round a revolving door while the voice over explained that this ugly bastard committed some awful crime while out of slam on furlough. Dukakis never replied. There were a lot of things he could have said, many of them convincing. But he didn't strike back, and us voters were left with the impression t he the Duke was soft on crime.
When they diss you, you gotta speak up. Silence gives assent.
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Why doesn't any one write science fiction anymore?
Demand for science fiction is still there, strong enough to keep the old masters in print, but little new writing is making it to the bookstore shelves (or to Amazon). The big box book stores have only four categories for fiction; Science fiction/Fantasy, mysteries, romances, and "everything else". Judging from the shelve space allocations, the Science Fiction/Fantasy category is selling as well as any of the others, but the new books are all fantasy, no science fiction. The fantasy writers work hard, but few-to-none of them compete well with Tolkien.
One difficulty for a science fiction writer is the advance of science and technology. After 1968 no one could write another "first trip to the moon story". The first interstellar faster-than-light travel stories were published before Einstein published special relativity, which rules out faster-than-light travel. Although faster-than-light drives persist in movies and TV, they faded out of science fiction stories by the 1980's. In short, science and technology advances have over run or ruled out of action many fruitful subjects for good stories.
Perhaps we need to broaden the definition of science fiction. For instance Tom Clancy's numerous thrillers are really science fiction set only a few years into the future, instead of the more traditional decades.
Saturday, November 17, 2007
US House outlaws "Predatory Lending"
The bad effect of this financial wheeling and dealing is the willingness of banks to grant mortgages to shaky borrowers, backed by inflated property evaluations. Once the issuing bank could sell the mortgage, they stopped caring whether the mortgage would default in the future, and lending standards were lowered, a lot. The new house bill proposes to penalize lenders for granting mortgages that the borrowers won't be able to pay.
Mortgage lenders used to be fairly tight in the granting of a mortgage, because should the borrower default, the lender gets hurt. When the borrower defaults (misses enough mortgage payments) the lender seizes the house. Unfortunately for the lender, the repossessed house rarely sells for enough to make the lender whole again. In many cases the house doesn't sell for years. The lenders all know this, it's been true since Shylock's time, and so they used to make sure the mortgage was less than the price of the house, so the borrower had to put a significant sum into the house. This weeded out a lot of destitute buyers. They also checked for inflated house prices and insisted that the borrowers income be 4 to 5 times the mortgage payments. Best to avoid doing a shaky ("sub-prime") mortgage than risk the losses from a default.
Now that the issuers no longer care should the mortgage default (no skin off their nose) Congress proposes to outlaw the granting of mortgages that the borrower might have trouble repaying. Boy what a lawyer's delight. Prosecutors and defense lawyers can have a field day (and collect handsome fees) arguing about the soundness of this or that mortgage deal.
Better would be to outlaw the sale of mortgages. Make sure the man granting the mortgage has a real stake in the soundness of the mortgage, i.e. his bank gets hurt when the mortgage defaults. Presto, end of problem, the banks go back the the lending standards they used before the "mortgage backed security" was invented.
Friday, November 16, 2007
Follow on to the Russian Anti Missile Radar
Wow. A multi million ruble system doesn't have the on site computing power to compute trajectories, launch points and impact points? In the year it was built (1985) or today? Russian anti ballistic missile defense relies upon the phone lines from Azerbaijan to Moscow staying up under nuclear attack? Is a system that vulnerable to enemy action even worth building?
Could it be that the Russians were incapable of providing the necessary on-site computer power back in 1985? Did the Russians only have one main frame computer in Moscow to serve the entire anti ballistic missile system?
By way of comparison, the US had a mobile anti artillery radar project in 1975 (ten years earlier) that detected and tracked artillery shells in flight, and computed launch and impact points all using a smallish 16 bit mini computer (AN/UYK-20). ICBM re entry vehicles move the same way as artillery shells; the trajectory computations are exactly the same for both objects. I programmed this beastie and the software could aim the phased array radars and do trajectory computation at the same time. The whole computer was the physical size of three modern desktops and was in the IBM PC class (4.77 Mhz 8088, 128K bytes ram) for computing power.
In short, an small mobile American system from 1975 could compute trajectories, and a larger stationary Russian system from 1985 could not.
Send 'em back for remedial marketing
Just one problem. The catalog seldom mentions the maker's name. In the model train business there are some good makers ( e.g. Kato, Atlas, Broadway Limited). And there are some not so good maker's names (e.g. Tyco, Bachmann). Products from the good makers cost two or three times as much as product from the not so good makers.
So, reading the fine print underneath the nicely photographed products and mostly no maker's name. If one was to order this product what would be delivered? Kato or Atlas? Or Tyco. It does make a difference to us customers.
Where did these guys learn the fine art of selling?
First snow of the season
The voice mail thingie had it right, power came back just exactly two hours after I called. Not bad at all. By this time we have six inches down on the porch, the town plow has plowed the road, and Ken King has plowed the driveways. Ken, bless his soul, took a hellova bite out of my hand planted, hand weeded, hand watered and cherished grass. He thinks he is creating more room to plow the rest of the winter's snow. I think he is committing herbicide upon my grass.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Iran may get the bomb by 2009
Backing this up, Amadinejad boasted that he has 3000 uranium enrichment centrifuges running. That's not a pilot program, that's a production setup.
Russian Anti Missile radar runs on vacuum tubes. (Av Week)
Putin recently allowed a team of Americans into the Azerbaijan site to assess it's suitability. The Americans were not impressed. The 1985 radar runs on vacuum tubes. This is a big step backwards. In 1973 I designed sections of the American ABM radar and it was all solid state, not a tube to be seen. To learn that the Russians were still using vacuum tubes 12 years later indicates that Russian cold war technology was neolithic.
The basic problem with vacuum tubes is they burn out, rapidly, like light bulbs, for the same reasons (hot filament eventually fails). Tube reliability was so bad that 1960's USAF aircraft required replacement of the UHF voice radio after merely four missions. The solid state radios in later aircraft would last forever. Going to solid state, from vacuum tubes changed a flaky unreliable device into something that lasted the life of the plane. A UHF voice radio is pretty simple compared to a radar. The real reason the Azerbaijan radar used tubes has gotta be that the Russians couldn't make decent transistors as late as 1985. The article didn't say what the mean time between fail (MTBF), and mean time to repair (MTTR) is on that radar, but it's gotta be horrible.
The Russians made the excuse that vacuum tubes could better withstand the electro-magnetic pulse (EMP) from the detonation of nuclear weapons. Right. When the EMP is strong enough to damage transistors, the blast has already leveled the place.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Anti IED laser armed Hummer pictures.
I posted about a story here in Aviation Week concerning the same laser vehicle last month. The Popular Mechanics story had good pictures, which the Aviation Week story lacked. Looks like it's real. A first step toward a science fiction laser death ray.
Words of the Weasel Part 5
ISSUE:
Often used by computer people as a neutral sounding replacement for “bug”. Issue is favored because it holds out the hope that the “issue” can be negotiated away, rather than requiring the programmers to get off their duffs and fix the problem. Also used as a replacement for “problem” and “malfunction”
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Who reads a 1000 page act of Congress?
The overly wordy acts occur for a number of reasons, all of them bad. For openers, its hard to get agreement on anything these days, so rather than negotiate, the committee (probably the committee staffers) just puts in everyone's pet language and sends the bill to the floor.
Then everyone on the job is a lawyer. Lawyers get sent to special four year schools that teach how to use a lot of broken English and some Latin mumbo jumbo to make the paperwork unreadable by anyone. Once the paperwork is 1000 pages long and unreadable, they can slip all sorts of goodies (pork) into the nooks and crannies of the law and it will slide right thru Congress.
We ought place a word limit upon acts of Congress. For instance, require that no act of Congress contain more words than the Constitution itself contains. The Constitution has enough words to keep the US of A going over for better than 200 years, that ought to be enough for anything else.
No WSJ, No inspiration for posts
Drought is over, USPS just delivered both the Monday and the Tuesday Journal, Aviation Week and Eweek. That oughta keep me going.
Saturday, November 10, 2007
First over ride of a Bush veto to save the pork
Fiscal Responsibility Proves Costly (WSJ)
"Democrats took control of Congress this year with a pledge to me more fiscally responsible than their Republican counterparts. Trying to fulfill that promise, however, has cause strains among lawmakers, forced cutbacks on big policy goals and snagged major legislation,
The root of the problem is what is known as pay as you go or paygo, a budget rule revived by the new majority that says Congress must offset new costs with tax increases or spending cuts. The rule's purpose is the prevent new entitlement spending from increasing the budget deficit.
Thus far, it has complicated efforts to pay tax breaks for renewable energy, slowed progress on a farm bill, and become a sticking point with the Bush administration over an effort to expand children's health insurance. "
Costly? Sounds to me like paygo has saved us long suffering taxpayers from yet more fleecing. No kind of energy (renewable, nuclear, biological, fossil, or magical) needs any kind of tax break. The price of energy is so flipping high that it will draw investment dollars out to thin air. Farm bills are subsidies for farmers, taking my money and giving it away to farmers. Why should that happen? What makes farmers worthy enough to take my money? The "children" s health insurance will give my tax money away to adults, and children of families making more than I make.
Lets have more paygo. It's saving us taxpayers real money. The Republicans ought to make a campaign promise to retain paygo should they regain control of Congress next year.
Ford is losing less money than GM? (WSJ)
" As Detroit's two biggest auto makers brace for economic turbulence their respective turn around efforts are running in different gears.
The surprise: Ford Motor Co., not General Motors Corp, suddenly appears to be on a faster track to profits.
Ford, considered by many industry executives to be the sickeset of Detroit's big three, yesterday surprise investors by sharply narrowing its third quarter loss and forecasting it would break even for the year and generate positive cash flow."
Well, good news from Ford and all, but the comparison with GM is worthless. GM reported a $36 billion loss on some kind of tax credit scam, totally unrelated to the real business of assembling cars and selling them. That's a loss of $68 a share on shares that are only worth $35. This kind of accounting isn't real. It tells us nothing about what's really happening in the real world of styling new models, buying parts to produce today's models, negotiating better labor costs, advertising, and selling cars. It's an accountant's magic wand, reporting a fantastic paper loss. The accountants tilted the books by $36 billion with a wave of their pens, hiding any modest gain or loss in the core business. Yet the WSJ and the industry pundits really think Ford is doing better than the General, based upon this kind of phony financial reporting?
At least the Ford suits were responsible enough to spent Ford money on the core business, as opposed to the GM suits who used GM money to speculate in the sub prime housing market and rack up a $750 million loss (which is almost invisible compared to the $36 billion loss the accountants invented).
Government backing for McMansion mortgages (WSJ)
"Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke floated a new idea to fix the troubled market for mortgages to large for Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac to buy. All the companies to securitize jumbo size mortgages but have the Federal government guarantee them.
Fannie and Freddie currently can buy mortgages only up to $417,000 and Congress, so far, hasn't acted to lift that limit, despite distress in that market that has made jumbo mortgages at "somewhat tighter terms and higher prices" as Mr. Bernanke put it."
Wow. Fannie and Freddy were set up by act of Congress to make it easier for working stiffs to get home mortgages. For this reason Congress limited to size of mortgage eligible for US government subsidy to $417K to prevent fat cats buying McMansions taking advantage of subsidies for working stiffs. $417K will buy one hell of a house in any market you care to mention. Why should Uncle Sam use my tax dollars to make it easier to finance rich people's houses? Let the fat cats pay market rates for their houses, just like real people.
Presumably Mr. Bernanke was attempting to ease the pain for banks and brokerage houses who are getting burned in the sub prime crisis. I'm agin it. Let the speculators take some solid losses. That will teach 'em not to drive up the price of housing by speculation.
Friday, November 9, 2007
Can the cookiepushers destablize Iran?
But first one has to ask; Can the State Department ever do any good in a clandestine attempt to do any thing? The corporate culture at State can be expressed thusly: Make enough nice to the scumbag and he will come around to our way of thinking in the end. Supporting a liberal democratic Iranian party isn't making nice, it's attempting to subvert the mullah's power, and even a cookiepusher knows that. No way is State ever going to conduct such a program, it goes against their grain, and their diplomats lack the skill set to pull it off.
Plus, any Iranian who gives the American's the time of day is in deep doo-doo. Taking American money is high treason rewarded with the death penalty. Supporting an Iranian democratic party, hoping they will overthrow the mullahs, requires the utmost in secrecy, something that neither the leakprone State, or the even more leakprone CIA can pull off. Soon as the program got to first base, some argent leftist at State or CIA would leak the whole thing to the NY Times, and get everyone in the program killed.
The idea of destabilizing Iran is a good one, by all accounts there are plenty of disgruntled Iranians who don't like their regime. Problem is, a lot of those disgruntled Iranians hate us as much as they hate the mullahs, which makes contacting them difficult. The job calls for some legendary secret agents, who can blend in, speak the language, avoid the Iranian police, locate and make contact with the local underground opposition, and finally, discriminate between the real revolutionaries and all the other Iranians who will be happy to take Yankee dollars but never do anything in return.
This job description calls for Superman or James Bond. Can we recruit agents good enough to pull it off? Where is Lawrence of Arabia when we need him?
Thursday, November 8, 2007
How is GM doing the books really?
What sort of accounting is this? GM is supposed to be a car maker, with a few sidelines like diesel locomotives. Accounting, profit and loss, ought to show money made or lost building cars. In the fine print, GM announced that it only lost $247 million on cars, still a bundle, but peanuts compared to $38.6 billion.
Why was a "tax credit" carried on GM's books as anything? Taxes are an expense, paid every year. You pay 'em and that's that. GM is supposed to do accounting to allow management and investors know what's happening in the car business. When GM's accountants pull an enormous "loss", that has nothing to do with making cars, out of thin air, how can we outside investors, stockholders, have any confidence that the other numbers in the report mean anything? Back when the accountants put the "tax credit" on the books, did that imaginary gain turn a losing year into a winning year?
What is really going on here?
How to loose a zillion dollars (From WSJ)
For years, Alan Greenspan and the minded argued that allowing Wall Street to slice and dice loans and sell pieces as securities was an innovation that dispersed risks widely and made the financial system and the economy more stable. There's a lot to that. But as the loans leave the books of those who make them and are sold off in part to different investors, no one can be sure who holds the risk. If everyone fears that the other guy has a portfolio of toxic waste, markets freeze and the rest of the economy can be hurt. That in large part explains the behavior of big banks in the US and Europe since early August.
At some point the risks that greater opacity and complexity pose to financial stability offset the benefits of widely dispersing risks. Because what is in the clear interest of each individual player may not be in the interest of the system as a whole, market players aren't likely to get this balance right without at least prodding from government.
"Disperse risks widely" means nobody really cares how risky the deal is, 'cause their money isn't at stake. How good is any particular mortgage? Only the loan officer granting the loan really knows. Nobody else has a clue. The whole idea of mortgage is the lender can seize the property and sell it if the borrower defaults on his payments. This doesn't work if the house isn't worth the face value of the mortgage. You don't want to issue $100K mortgage on a dog house or a two car garage.
So how much is a property really worth? The loan officer guy has to know the local real estate scene. He has to know the good locations from the less good, which takes local knowledge. For instance he has to know that Melrose is a better location than Malden, Wakefield, Stoneham and Saugus, or that Cambridge is better than Somerville. Then he has to decide if this couple can make the mortgage payments based on what they earn now, and the likelihood of of a layoff, a pregnancy, a divorce, a death, or disablement.
If the loan officer is loaning his own money, he will be quite prudent. If on the other hand he plans to sell the mortgage to Bear Stearns or Merrill Lynch as soon as he can, then he doesn't care so much. If the mortgage goes sour it's no skin off his nose (or money out of his pocket). If he gets paid closing costs, then he will be inclined to OK nearly anything, he wants those closing costs, and since risks have been "dispersed", why not approve just about any loan?
One other effect of reckless mortgage lending. It allows the price of houses to rise. House prices are limited by how willing the bank is to grant a mortgage. The house doesn't sell without a mortgage, so to a large extent the mortgage lenders hold down the price of houses by refusing to grant mortgages on overpriced dwellings. Remove this constraint and the price of housing climbs.
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
U of Del faculty unaware of student indoctrination program
American Assn of University Professors on Academic Freedom
"Freedom in the classroom" is ultimately connected to freedom of research and publication. Freedom of research and publication is grounded in the exercise of professional expertise. Investigators are held to professional standards so that the modern university can serve as "an intellectual experiment station, where new ideas may germinate and where their fruit, though still distasteful to the community as a whole, may be allowed to ripen until finally, perchance, it may become part of the accepted intellectual food of the nation or of the world."According to this, freedom of the classroom means freedom skip teaching of the well understood and generally accepted concepts of the subject in favor of experimental, fringe, and controversial concepts. All subjects have many ideas that are well understood, generally accepted and true. All subjects also have many new, experimental, and controversial ideas that are still subject to debate among experts, poorly understood, and needing more study before they are known to be true. The amount of generally accepted material that students ought to know, is so vast that it is irresponsible for professors to teach the experimental and controversial at the expense of teaching the well understood basics of the subject. It is perfectly OK for professors to research and publish new, way out, and controversial ideas, but it is NOT Ok in my view to consume valuable class time teaching them at the expense of teaching the basic generally accepted ideas.
Under this test, however, the Committee for a Better North Carolina could not possibly have known whether the assignment of Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed, which explores the economic difficulties facing low-wage workers in America, was an example of indoctrination or education. It is fundamental error to assume that the assignment of teaching materials constitutes their endorsement.
It is a fundamental error on the student's part NOT to assume that the professor assigned the book 'cause he believes it true, valuable, and relevant. And to avoid criticizing it within hearing of said professor.
Monday, November 5, 2007
Citigroup Announces $11 billion writeoff
I like the "turmoil in credit markets". Couldn't have been caused by Citigroup speculating in subprime mortgages, deals that involve lending long and borrowing short. No, it's something beyond Citigroups control, "turmoil in the credit markets", an act of God, like the weather, for which no blame can be attached.
Pakistani Politics
In the normal course of events, an elected Pakistani government will slip into corrupt practices that would make the worst of US politicians look like boy scouts. Things will deteriorate until finally, despairing of reform, the Pakistani Army will depose the civilian government and take matters into it's own hands. The Army is widely respected in Pakistan, so that military rule is seen as a good thing, a needed house cleaning. The incoming military regime will make some reforms, and for a while things will seem good. After the passage of some years, the new wears off and a new civilian government is set up, the Army goes back to the barracks and life goes on. Pakistan has gone thru this cycle repeatedly since the country was created in 1947.
Today could become just another turning point away from a military regime back toward a civilian one. If it were not for the growth of extreme Islamic parties in Pakistan, we could distance ourselves from the turmoil and come to terms with the new government whenever it establishes itself. Unfortunately, the true strength of the Islamic extremists is not well known. Saudi financed madrassas educate a huge percentage of Pakistani youth in the Wahabi sect of Islam, which is a bad sign.
Sunday, November 4, 2007
University of Delaware takes heat
Even after canceling the program, you have to wonder how many of the wonderful left thinking folks who set it up are still in the U of D administration, planning a comeback when the heat lets up.
We need some car company ro build a "micro hauler"?
We need a small car that somehow accommodates 4*8 sheets of plywood or sheetrock, or a yard sale bureau. Maybe a factory roof rack? Since the stylists declared war on rain gutters many years ago the only roof rack that fits is the ultra pricey Thule rack. I musta dropped $400 on Thule rack and adapter pads over the years. Just trading up from a 85 to a 99 minivan and I had to buy new adapter pads. Surely a factory roof rack (removable) wouldn't be that hard.
Or how about a hatchback with removable seats? Or a lift off roof? or both? Or something else.
What we need is a small 4 passenger sedan, about Corolla size, that lets you haul lumber or furniture occasionally. I'd be OK with leaving the hatchback or truck lid open and keeping the speed down on the way home, just so long as I could do it at all.
Friday, November 2, 2007
Is Detroit adjusting to $3 a gallon gasoline?
Looks like the same line of gas hogs they were selling before Katrina pushed up gasoline prices.
No wonder Daimler dumped Chrysler.
Dovetail joints by hand
Cut in from the end of the board with a small back saw. Was able to stay on the pencil marks without great difficulty. Then used a coping saw to cut out the bottoms. Cut all four tails and then went back and shaved them out with my sharpest chisel. In fact, sharpened the chisel before starting and a couple of times before the job was done. Was able to shave across the grain of the poplar wood without using a hammer on the chisel.
Then I used the cut and trimmed tails to mark the pins on each matching piece. Since this is hand work, each piece comes out slightly different. I made a point of using the proper tail to mark each pin. A handscrew held the two boards together at right angles, so I could pencil the pins without anything slipping. Keep pencil needle sharp. I have a yard sale electric pencil sharpener in the shop for just this purpose.
Hallelujah, just rough cut, the joints were close to fitting together. I shaved down the bottoms of the tails and pins until the top of the joint went together flush. Only after getting the depth right did I trim the sides of the pins and tails. After maybe 10 minutes of shave, try fit, shave again each joint goes together with just a tap from a mallet.
Still got a number of things to do, but the tricky joints all fit and look quite good. A most satisfying afternoon in the shop. And accomplished all this goodness with just ordinary hand tools, no pricey gee whiz power tools.
Thursday, November 1, 2007
Blogosphere heat applied to University of Delaware
The policy received wide publicity in the blogosphere, and the heat has done some good. The university adminstration Backs off . Go blogosphere.
Newborn Screening yields 90% false postives (WSJ)
Each false positive screening result will trigger a frantic round of test and retest, treatment, doctor's visits, special diets, special this and that. A newborn child is the most precious thing parents possess and they will do anything to preserve its life. Cost is no object when a newborn's life and health are at stake. The fear, sorrow , and uncertainty put the parents thru a psychological hell.
Yet another advance in medical technology puts nine parents thru hell for each newborn actually aided. And we wonder why 14% of GNP goes into health care. A test with a 90% false positive rate is not the responsible practice of medicine.
Getting tight with lraqi local goverment
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Loose $8.4 Billion and be eligible for $160 mil severance Package.
Plastic Panic
I know little to nothing about organic chemistry, so I have no idea which side is right on this one. But I’m glad my ex-wife breast fed our three children and I will recommend my daughter do the same when the time comes. And I think I’ll start buying my whiskey in glass bottles. None of this
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
The price of Greenness.
Car Cost,new MPG (City&Hwy)
Toyota Corolla $14926 32
Toyota Prius $22110 46
Cadillac Deville $42790 25
Lexus GS450h $52065 24
Sorry that the columns don't line up, blogger has it's own ideas about justifying text.
Prius costs so much more than the Corolla that you won't recover the costs thru savings on gas anytime soon. The car will be sold before the owner breaks even. Caddy costs less and gets better gas mileage than the Lexus. Plus the Caddy Northstar engine has enough power to beat the Lexus off the stoplights.
The mark of an advanced economy
I tried to think how many other countries are good enough to export manufactured goods to the North American market. Japan, South Korea, China, Germany, England, Sweden and probably a few others that don't come readily to mind. But compared to the 192 nations that are UN members, it's a short list. Maybe we should rank nations as first world, second world, third world and so on by looking at who can export manufactured goods to who. First world would be limited to those nations that can export the the US. Third world would be the countries that don't manufature or don't export. Second world might be all the in-betweens.
Big new hanger at Groom Lake (aka Area 51)
Sunday, October 28, 2007
What kind of war are we fighting? And can we win it?
Title of the lead article in this month’s Commentary magazine. Fifteen notable foreign policy experts agree that we are fighting World War IV against Islamic extremists, and that it can be won, but it is going to be hard. The experts:
Fouad Ajami
John Bolton
Max Boot Council on Foreign Relations. Author
Reuel Marc Gerecht American Enterprise Institute, Author
Victor Davis Hanson Hoover Institute, Author
Daniel Henninger Deputy editor, Wall St. Journal
Martin Kramer Institute for Near East Policy
William Kristol Editor, Weekly Standard
Andrew C. McCarthy Foundation for the Defense of Democracies
David Pryce-Jones Author of “Betrayal: France, the Arabs, and the Jews
Claudia Rosett Foundation for the Defense of Democracies
Amir Taheri Former editor of Khayan, an Iranian newspaper
Ruth Wedgewood
James Q. Wilson
R. James Woolsey Former Director of Central Intelligence