Michael Totten says the Russians started it

Michael Totten is a free lance journalist who has spent much time in Iraq, out in the field with the troops. His dispatches on the Internet were/are the best reporting to come out of Iraq. He takes good photographs too. Any how Michael is in Tbilisi the other day getting a briefing from an American doing media relations work for the Georgian government. Sitting in on the meeting is Tom Goltz, old Caucausian hand, author of "Georgian Diary" and "Azerbaijan Diary", fluent in Russian, Georgian and various other dialects. Both men, Totten and Goltz, are highly creditable, experienced men of good judgment, and they are on the scene, not commenting from a cozy TV studio in New York.
They say the Ossetian "militia" , untrained and closer to bandits than a military, started the war by attacking and shelling existing Georgian positions. When the Georgians moved up re enforcements, the Russians called it an attack and rolled in the tanks.
There is a lot of different stories about who started it flying around. I'll believe Totten and Goltz 'cause I have read their stuff in the past and found it good, neither of them is a taker of sides, and they are present on the scene.

Back to college

Youngest son starts his sophomore year at Brooklyn Polytechnic. All his stuff fit inside the Caddy, didn't have to borrow a pickup truck like last time. It's 700 miles, round trip from here. Did it all in one day. Had son drive the way down, I drove all the way back. Caddy is still running well, A/C is powerful, 26 mpg, with a load.
New York roads are even worse than New Hampshire's. Giant axle breaking pothholes, continuous construction areas, miserable signage. Good thing it was Sunday, no rush hour traffic.
NYPD has plenty of budget. Cops on foot patrol everywhere. To protect the precinct station next to Polytech from drive by shootings, they have the street blocked off at both ends with police cruisers, with cops sitting behind the wheel. On Sunday.

Drilling vs "comprehensive energy bill"

The Republicans want to pass a law allowing off shore drilling. Nancy Pelosi calls for a "comprehensive energy bill". I think Nancy wants a "We let you do a little drilling but we get some big subsidies for worthy causes" bill. A compromise where some democratic programs that lack the votes to pass, get pushed thru in return for allowing America to increase the supply of fuel and bring the price down. Doesn't sound very public spirited or non partisan to this blogger.

The Arctic Ocean is NOT melting out. See photos

At least not this year. The Register has satellite photos from this month and this month last year posted. This is interesting 'cause the scariest global warming evidence I ever saw was a pair of similar photo's showing a north pole meltdown in progress. The Register photo's contradict those older pix.

Patent trolls are everywhere

In the vast big buck world of HO model railroading, a patent troll has surfaced. The troll, Real Rail Effects, sent letters to makers of Digital Command Control (DCC) equipment demanding royalties based upon a US patent. The troll used to be in the DCC business but hasn't advertised any product for sale since 1997. Under threat, the other DCC makers rallied behind the banner of the National Model Railroad Association (NMRA) and challenged the troll's patent.
The NMRA pointed out that the system in question had been described in the open literature (Model Railroader magazine, a slick paper hobby magazine with wide national and international circulation) in 1992, two years before the patent was issued.
It's hard to understand the troll's thought process. The model railroad business is small, and the hobbyists are mostly retirement age. There isn't enough money in the business overall to make the trolling pay off. It's not like the Blackberry business which had to pay a troll off with $600 million last year.
It's also hard to understand how the Patent Office granted the patent in the first place. The prior art was plain to see, and the subject matter, an electronic encoding system, was obvious to anyone (like myself) skilled in the art. This patent was the equivalent of patenting the QWERTY keyboard layout.
The US patent system no longer advances the useful arts, it's placing obstacles in the path of advancement. Patents no longer protect inventors, instead the patent system allows parasites to steal money from those who have actually advanced the state of the art.
The model railroad business is tiny and unimportant, the real industries like Blackberry are under constant attack. We would advance the state of the art by abolishing the US patent system. While we are at it, we could repeal the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, and restrict copyright to 17 years.

Aviation Week praises Georgian air defenses

The Russians admit to loosing three jet fighters and a Backfire bomber to Georgian SAM's. The Georgians are claiming fourteen kills. Look at the zero losses suffered by the Israeli air force bombing the Syrian nuclear reactor last fall, and the Georgians look like dead shots. Or, the Russian electronic countermeasures (ECM) isn't as good as Israeli made.

Tanker tinkering

They are about to release the latest Request for Proposal (RFP in Pentagon-speak) for the USAF tanker. This is the bungled Boeing/Airbus competition that they are doing over again. According to Aviation Week, the new RFP will favor the larger Airbus offering. There will be a scoring system giving extra points for more range, cargo capacity, fuel offload capacity and more passenger seats. Translation, for out of touch Boeing suits in need of hearing aids, the Air Force wants a bigger aircraft. If Boeing wants the job, it needs to rebid a tanker based on the bigger Boeing 777 , rather than the smaller, older, going out of production, 767. Or even the brand new, not yet in production, all plastic 787 Dreamliner.
Of course, the Air Force should have decided how big a tanker they want to buy in the first place and put that in the original RFP. That might have prevented the disaster of the previous bid, where the losing Boeing protested and GAO subsequently upheld Boeing.
Aviation week opined that switching from the 767 to the 777 would be too hard for Boeing to do in the time allotted. I don't believe that. The bid paperwork (all 50,000 pages of it) is on a computer. Someone tells the computer to go thru and change 767 to 777. The actual engineering is simple, omit the seats, add some tanks. Bolt a boom on the tail. Keep everything else the same as the civilian version so you can use the same parts, flight simulator, flight trainings and so on.
If Boeing thinks this is too much trouble, Airbus gets the job. That's not the end of the world. Airbus uses American made engines, and engines are half the price of the finished aircraft.

Words of the Weasel Pt 9 Nuanced

After the Obama-McCain show at the Saddleback church last night, the CNN after action commentators repeatedly describe Obama's talk as "nuanced", or "highly nuanced". Doesn't sound that bad does it? Actually, I thought Obama was vague and evasive. McCain on the other hand came right to the point. The audience, gave Obama some polite applause, but the gave McCain a whole lot more. When asked if he believed in the existence of evil and what would he do about it, Obama spoke at length, without getting to the point, McCain's first words were "Defeat it".
So, "nuanced" is a democrat's word for vague and evasive.

Lakes of oil, on Titan

Aviation Week has an image of a 150 mile long lake of liquid hydrocarbons on Titan. It even has a beach. They figure it is oil because it's so smooth and dark that it has to be liquid, and the only thing that stays liquid at Titanian surface temperatures is stuff like ethane. Water would be frozen solid and hence not show up as dark and smooth as this lake does.
Too bad it's on Titan. We could use it here.

Space Shuttle Tank workforce layoffs coming

Aviation Week reports that Lockheed Martin will begin reducing the 2445 man workforce on the Space Shuttle external tank project. That's the big round tank that goes inbetween the two solid rocket boosters. It's just a tank, no engines, avionics, or auxiliary equipment.
2445 men to make a handful of tanks a year? Used to be a whole fighter wing, 90 aircraft, flying 100 combat missions a day, only had 900 men on the ground. That's crew crews, armament men, mechanics and electronics techs. Them tanks must be hand made, and accompanied by a mass of paper work as big as the tank to have 2445 guys charging tank work on their time cards. Can you spell featherbedding?

Tractor Supply, a small box store, opened in Littleton

A small box store going for the guy business. Eclectic mix of hand tools, automobile parts, garden stuff, pet feed, some clothing of the work boot, cowboy hat and blue jean sort. Brand new store building, across the parking lot from Wal Mart. All merchandise marked "China". The marketing dept was live wire enough to mail me a "grand opening" flyer with a $10 discount card.
So I visited them. Walked clean around the store looking at stuff. Despite the discount card, got out again with out buying anything. Didn't need car parts, the hand tools were nicely chromed and polished but I couldn't help wondering if the underlying steel was any good. Didn't have anywhere to stash a 50 pound sack of cat food, and cowboy hats aren't my style. I wish them luck, but they need someone else's money, rather than mine.

Save the world for $10 billion

The Wall St Journal had Newt Gengrich and Jerry Brown each explain how they would improve to condition of the world if they had $10 billion to spend. As one might imagine there was a divergence is approach.
Jerry plumped for improving efficiency of appliances and cars and such, conserving energy. He would blow his money on efficiency programs. Hmm. Are not the current prices of fuel and electricity incentive enough to sell the most efficient possible devices and hand the expense? Look at the Prius sales compared to SUV sales this year. Prius is efficient and expensive and selling well. They are giving away SUV's and pickup trucks cause nobody wants to pay for filling 'em up. Far as I can see, Jerry's plan won't anything that the free market isn't already doing. I'm sure he could spend the $10 billion. What ex politician ever had trouble spending money? But it won't make any difference.
Newt on the other hand, favored offering prizes for technology we need. Like a malaria vaccine, a cheap sea water desalinization process, cheap travel to low earth orbit. I was a little disappointed in Newt when he proposed a prize for a hydrogen car engine and a nuclear fuel rod recycle plan. Ordinary car engines can run on hydrogen, and nuclear fuel rods can be recycled for a profit, they are rich in valuable uranium and plutonium. The only reason we don't recycle them now is fear that the plutonium might get diverted into terrorist nukes. I used to think Newt was well informed. Not so sure about that now.

Forty days and forty nights until the sewers back up

We are working on forty. By my count we are up to twenty back to back rainy days. We now get "Emergency Flood Warnings" with an attention getting urk urk urk noise on the FM radio. We have grass assaulting the house 'cause it's too wet to mow. It's so chilly we light the fireplace, in August. Must be more global warming...

Bloatware

Finally upgraded the home computer inkjet printer. The ten year old HP 600, with the erratic paper feed, got retired to the town transfer station (aka dump) and replaced by a one year old HP 4260, kindness of youngest son who won't be needing it at college.
XP's plug&play detected the new printer but lacked a driver for it. Since all good drivers are on the net, I was able to down load the right one from the HP website. 35 Megabytes of printer driver. Oink. The old 600 driver came on a pair of 3.5" floppy discs, total capacity 2 megabytes. So, software to do the same task, has grown 17.5X fatter over ten years. Are all the competant programmers retired or what?
Also noticed the new drivers didn't use plug & play (aka plug & pray). HP was very firm about loading the driver BEFORE hooking up the printer, which totally defeats the plug and play logic in XP. Plug and play was supposed make driver loading dead easy for the user. XP polls the hardware to see what was out there at each boot time, and only if it can't find a driver does it go thru the "New hardware detected; Please insert diskette" routine. Good idea, but MS never got the bugs out of it I guess. I did a plug&play driver back in Win 98 days, and the intense pain required to get it to work is still fresh in my memory. Looks like the pain is still there, causing the HP guys to bypass plug&play. One of the reasons for XP's sluggish boot up is all the time spent polling all the hardware, every time it boots.

I survived Service Pack 3

Microsoft Update (trusty little piece of nagware) has been nagging me to download service pack 3 (for XP) for a couple of weeks now. I held off, not wanting to be the first one to debug it. After two weeks, with no bad news about SP3 on the net, I decided to go with it. My computer survived the upgrade, and in fact appears to run a bit faster.

Russia invades Georgia. And the US does what?

The Georgia invasion did make the two Sunday pundit shows, after discussions of banking reforms and the John Edwards scandal. Give the pundits that much. But no pundit really grasped what's going on here. The Russian army is invading a European country that is a US ally. If the US does nothing, (diplomacy is nothing) then the entire world learns that what the Russians want, the Russians get, and resistance is futile. If the US sends troops to defend Georgia, like we did for Kuwait, then we risk getting into a shooting war with the Russians. Both alternatives are horrible.
It's clearly up to the US. The Europeans are already scared of the Russians, except for the British they lack an effective military, and they are divided politically. They aren't going to tell the Russians to pull out or else. Maybe, with strong US leadership, a few of them would help us out a little, but that's about all. The disasters in ex-Yugoslavia (the Balkans) since Tito's death demonstrate what happens when it's up to the Europeans. Namely nothing.
For America, we are between a rock and a hard place. Nobody wants to get into a scrap with the Russians, at any time. For the fifty years of the Cold War we managed to avoid putting American troops within shooting distance of the Red Army, lest an outbreak of firing escalate into the Last Nuclear War. That's still a good policy. You don't crack open the door to Hell just to see if the fires still burn down there.
On the other hand, the Russians are taking South Ossetia today, and next step is all of Georgia. If we rushed a US division into the Georgian capitol (Tbilisi) tomorrow, the Russians might settle for promises of protection for the Russians living in South Ossetia, as opposed to conquering all of Georgia. Might.
The Russians want all of Georgia to gain control of the BTC pipeline, the only way to get central Asian oil out to the West. Look for crude oil to jump back up to $150 a barrel as soon as the BTC pipeline is closed to the West.
If we let the Russians conquer Georgia, it will give them the green light to take over all the over places that used to be part of the old Soviet Union, Ukraine, Belarus, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania,Poland, Hungary,Czechoslovakia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and all the rest of the 'stans. The Russians mean to reverse the enormous loss of territory that occurred at the breakup of the old Soviet Union back in 1989. If we don't oppose them, it will happen. After re acquiring their empire, what next will they try? They would be in a position to restart the Cold War.
McCain has called for resistance. Obama favors "diplomacy". I don't like either alternative, but I'm inclined to reluctantly back up McCain.

China puts on one hellova show

Watched the opening of the Olympics on NBC last night. Enormous show, thousands of dancers and drummers and such, all dressed in gorgeous costumes, filling the field of the "Birds Nest" stadium. A smoothness and precision to the dancing that must have taken months of practice to get so smooth. Fireworks, heavy continuous bursts of fire, like the grand finale of a 4th of July over here, but going on and on. Loved it. It's clear the Chinese spared no effort and no expense to put on the show, and they impressed this couch potato.
It took a couple of hours for all the contestants to enter the field and stroll around it. The Americans, all 600 odd of them, were looking very preppy in blue blazers, white ducks, and white golf caps. Not as good as the Western shirts and cowboy hats of years ago. Plenty of athletes in fancy native costumes. Some stick-in-the-muds in dark business suits and ties. The South Koreans send a huge contingent, young, all dressed in white, smiling and laughing and singing. The North Koreans were older, fewer, dressed in dark business suits and none of them looked very happy to be there. The Iraqi's got a big hand when they appeared.
NBC camera men were bad. Constant zooming, panning and scanning, too quick jumping from camera to camera, and failure to get closeups of the hordes of beautiful young men and women, wearing fantatically good costumes. The voice over commentators spouted the usual drivel, and failed to name the performers, or tell us anything about them, probably 'cause they didn't know much. I hope the Chinese got to watch better coverage on Chinese TV.

What did China do to the NewsHour?

Dunno. But the Newshour with Jim Lehrer has been bashing the Chinese every night. Stories about Beijing smog, lack of greenness, suppression of dissidents, freedom for Tibet, earthquake crushed schools, hit the show every night this week. Not that a little China bashing is bad mind you, there are plenty of things not to like in China. But after the tender concern the liberal media used shower upon Soviet Russia, Castro's Cuba, the North Vietnamese, and other wretched regimes, you'd think they'd cut the Chinese a little slack.
I have a bit of sympathy for the Chinese. They are so proud of pulling their country up from third world toilet status into the big leagues, becoming an important world power. They are trying so hard to pull off the greatest publicity stunt/national celebration/Olympic games. And here we have the Americans raining on their parade, every night.

So did Dr. Ivins really send the anthrax letters?

The FBI thinks the late Dr. Ivins is the anthrax killer. They seem to base their suspicions on a genetic match between anthrax in the deadly letters and anthrax in a jar in Dr. Ivins laboratory. Ivins, was a civilian scientist working for the Army on anthrax and anthrax vaccines, so having a jar of anthrax in the lab is to be expected. But I thought anthrax was anthrax, just like the common cold is the common cold. Does each germ bear a unique genetic fingerprint that makes each one different? Or in actual fact, does every anthrax sample in the world match up genetically? Does anyone really know?
Given the FBI's terrible track record (the Richard Jewell case, the Waco case, the Wen Ho Lee case, the total failure to forestall 9/11) and the ambiguity of the genetic evidence, I remain skeptical.

On the need for a USAF requirements writing office

Long article in Aviation Week bemoaning various recent Air Force project disasters such as the tanker mess, a troubled recon satellite program, a follow on UAV program, and pontificating upon a fix. The author blames bad specification writing, in particular bad requirements specification writing as the cause, and calls for a special corps of requirement spec writers as the fix.
Do I believe that a bunch of well trained paper pushers can solve all the problems of military procurement? No. However better requirements would certainly help.
Back in ancient history, the F105 and F106 fighters from the Viet Nam era, maintainance of which was my duty in those days, we had a pair of hot fighters loaded with fancy gadgets that never worked or were never used. The F106 flew with the Tactical Situation Display inop, the retractable beacon lights fully extended, and the doppler mode of the radar inop. The F105 never put bomb one into it's fancy internal bomb bay, the doppler navigator and the UHF radio were so flaky the planes flew in groups of four, hoping that ONE doppler and ONE UHF would be working upon return.
These "issues" (down right failures actually) started at the requirements spec level. Nice to have, but troublesome and non essential requirements, burdened the aircraft with gear that took up space and weight but didn't work. The space and weight would have been better dedicated to carrying more fuel and armament. Had the requirements spec been trimmed of excess fat before going into production, considerable taxpayer expense would have been saved.
So the issue of proper requirements is a real one. If we speced it right, a lot of time, money and aggravation would be saved. When we spec it wrong, or fail to spec it at all, trouble insues.
The best requirements spec writers are experienced operators. Want a good requirements spec for an aircraft or a tank or even a jeep? Get the users together and let them write the spec. You might need a secretary from the bureaucracy to clean up the language, but the users know what's essential and what's a frill. Specially trained requirements spec writers won't.

Outrageous Patent granted to IBM

Slashdot reports that IBM was granted a US patent for cash register software that remembers "paper or plastic" for each customer, relieving the clerk of the onerous task of asking. This trivial and obvious idea is worthy of patent protection? Can you say "patent troll"? Can you say "welfare for patent lawyers"? Can you say "Patent examiner with the IQ of an Ipswich clam"?

Do you believe in the market or in CAFE?

With fanfare and political posturing the Congress jacked up the mandatory fuel economy from 25 mpg to 35 mpg just this year. Despite wailing and gnashing of teeth from the auto industry, it is perfectly possible to build 35 mpg cars today. In fact, you can buy an Aveo, a Yaris, or a Prius today and obtain 35 mpg or better. In a 35 mpg only world, you are limited to tiny econoboxes or pricey hybrids.
Automobile technology has been pretty well worked out since Henry Ford's time, and there is only so much you can do with it. After 100 years, the technological avenues are worked out and well known. The only way to get 35 mpg is build a very small light car (Aveo & Yaris), or install dual propulsion machinery, gasoline engine and battery electric, (Prius) which doubles the cost. Or do like the Europeans, soften the emissions requirements to permit diesel cars. The diesel Rabbit did 40 mpg back in the 1970's.
Of course, if you want a bigger vehicle to bring the kids along, bring sheet goods home from the lumberyard, or furniture back from the auction, you are out of luck.
Market demand causes the car makers to build everything from tiny econoboxes to Hummers, giving citizens the right to buy what they want. 35 mpg CAFE standards pretty much outlaw anything bigger than econoboxes. Me, I'd rather live in a country that allowed citizens to spend their money the way they like.

Where does all the oil go?

I totaled up my personal oil consumption, furnace oil and gasoline. Last winter the furnace used 616 gallons, and the car took 370. Call it a thousand gallons for the year in round numbers. Call it three gallons a day, again round numbers. For a ball park estimate make the average family size three, divide the population of the country by three and get 100 million families, using three gallons a day,or 300 million gallons a day. Divide by 55 to make it barrels and get 5.4 million barrels a day for consumer use. Actual US crude oil consumption is far higher than that, 20 million barrels a day.
That makes 14.6 million barrels a day going into industry. I wonder where it all goes and how much is necessary. Can we find ways to economize in industry?
For instance, A TV ad this morning claims 60 billion pounds of plastic bottles are made each year. Convert that to barrels per day assuming 7.5 pounds per gallon. I get 400,000 barrels per day. That's 2% of daily oil consumption going into plastic bottles. Suppose we went back to real glass bottles, the kind you return, wash and refill?
Where does the 14.6 million barrels per day industrial use really go? Can it be reduced?

Why CAN'T we drill our way out of the oil shortage?

The democrats and Obama keep saying it. "We can't drill our way out of it". Why not? Estimates of the size of oil reserves in US territory start around 20 billion barrels and go up to 83 billion. There is every reason to believe that more will be found as we drill. The country only uses 20 million barrels a day. That's enough oil to fill ALL our usage for 3 to 11 years, going from today's figures. When drilling finds more reserves, which it always does, then we get even more time.
Granted, 3 to 11 years isn't for ever, but it's a long time, long enough to do a lot of things.
Up here we can't run the furnace on alternative energy and we can't drive to work on it either.

The rebels had it right (on some things)

Been reading Shelby Foote's Civil War book[s]. Right after secession, the Confederate government wrote a Constitution for the Confederacy. As one might expect, it borrowed heavily from the US Constitution but there were some worthwhile improvements.
Each bill brought before the Confederate Congress must address only one subject, announced in the title of the bill. That should eliminate those scummy "riders" attached to important bills. And, the Confederate President had the line item veto, he could cross out porky items in appropriation bills without vetoing the entire thing.
Things never change much. These issues from 1860 still resonate in 2008.

Whither GM, and whose fault is it anyway?

Megan McArdle offers this gloomy forecast for GM's future. She thinks they will be bankrupt inside of ten years. She may well be right. Skimming thru the raft of comments, and finger pointing following her post, I find a couple a things missing.
Most important cause of GM's trouble is simple; lousy cars. They have small sedans, but who wants 'em?. Styling varies between drab and ugly. Gas mileage no better than my 99 Caddy DeVille. Mostly painted grey. Reputation for breaking down often, followed by GM's reputation for gouging on repair part prices. Same car sold under multiple names which dilutes the effectiveness of advertising and blurs the brand names together. Cars sold under new made up silly sounding names that nobody has ever heard of. Awful dealer service. Lousy resale value. Everyone would rather buy a Toyota Corolla or a Honda Accord than anything in GM's lineup.
This is management failure, the union doesn't control this. GM needs a real car guy like old Lee Iacocca. He is the guy that invented the Mustang, the K cars, and the minivan. Revolutionary cars, that no committee would ever have approved, but Iacocca pushed them thru and they all sold like gangbusters. The few car guys at GM are doing Corvettes and Camaro's, nice enough cars, but niche markets. There aren't enough guys with Corvette/Camaro money to keep a behemoth like GM running. So, number one GM problem, crummy cars. Fix that and a lot of things get better.
Number two problem is expensive labor. UAW workers get twice as much pay and fringe benefits and Toyota and Honda workers. That's Toyota and Honda workers in the US. This is a legacy of wimpy management in the past. Back then, GM management caved to the UAW by promising rich retirements, rather than a pay hike. The retirement benefits wouldn't come due on their watch, whereas a pay hike takes money now. Back then, gutsy management would have taken a strike to hold wages down, in fact, wimpy management kicked the can down the road. That's history now. We are down the road now, and that can is right there, big as ever. GM cannot pay the rich retirement and health care deals promised in the past, one way or another the company will welsh on it's commitments. Bankruptcy is one way to skip out on your debts.

A400M, new Euro transport, twice as big as C130

Cover of the new Aviation Week shows the A400M rolled out on the ramp. It looks like a C130 only with bristly looking 8 bladed propellers. It's a join Euro project finally coming into production. Hasn't made it's first flight yet, but that's scheduled shortly. About time too.
The A400 project started 26 years ago and still has a ways to go. Lockheed was originally a member of the consortium, got tired of all the delay and dropped out to do it's own C-130J project.
Interesting thing about the A400M is the size. It's roughly twice the aircraft that a C130 is, twice the engine power, twice the payload, longer and wider. Now the 50 year old C-130 is one damn big airplane, even today. You gotta wonder about the market for one twice as big. They have commitments for 200 aircraft from the various European airforces. Whereas, Lockheed has already delivered some 180 C-130Js by now. No interest from USAF, who has plenty of C17 jets, and plenty of C130's. That won't help the A400m sales effort, lot of countries think USAF service is a good house keeping seal of approval, if the Americans fly it, it must be OK.
The A400m reminds me of the big old C133, a troubled aircraft. It looked like a C-130 but was twice as big, with 10,000 hp turboprop engines swinging humongous 18 foot three bladed propellers. The 133 was such a maintenance nightmare that USAF retired them all thirty years ago. I'm sure Lockheed is secretly hoping the same fate overtakes the A400M.

Where is Obama coming from?

On TV Obama stated that it will take 10 years minimum and maybe 20 years to bring in a new oil well. This is completely false. Drill rigs make the hole deeper by tens to hundreds of feet a day. That gets down a thousand feet in ten to 100 days. Ten thousand feet (really deep) takes a hundred to a thousand days. Allow 6 months to drill the average well and another six months to put in the pipeline or tanks and loading facilities to get the oil out to the refinery. Say a year. You probably don't commit to constructing the pipeline/loading equipment until the well actually comes in. Spending all that money and then have the well turn into a dry hole doesn't make a lot of sense. But still, a well will come into production in a year or two.
Obama ought to know this. If he doesn't, he is ignorant and been listening to the wrong folk. That's a down check as far as this voter is concerned. A president ought to know a few things. Or, he knows the truth but is saying ten to twenty years because he thinks it will get him elected. That's a down check for two reasons. First 'cause saying things you know are not true is a character flaw. Second, he must figure there are more rabid greenie voters than there are plain folk who just want gasoline to drive to work and fuel oil to heat the house. If he really thinks the greenies have more votes than ordinary people, then he is out of touch with the voters. Either way it's down check.

Plus, just announcing the start of drilling will bring the price of crude down even if the well won't come in for a while.

Finger Lap joints. Without a table saw

The one weakness of the radial arm saw it that it won't do fingerlap joints. On a table saw it's straight forward, install the dado head and cut the fingers holding the work vertical against the miter gauge. It's impossible on a radial arm saw, which is what graces my shop.
So, can you do them with a router? Yes. First you need a router table, something all true router fans have or make sooner or later. Mine has a 3/4" plywood top and the router cutter pokes up thru the top. With a fence to guide the work it's a poor man's shaper. The work is 5/16" thick, a straight 3/8" cutter sticking up 3/8" makes nice 3/8" by 3/8" fingers.
For the fingerlap joints we take the top off the router table and put a 3/4" dado across the top to accept a miter gauge. Used the miter off the band saw. Needed a couple of passes and a shim before the miter gauge slide freely. Then we put a finger in the miter gauge to space the fingers and go for it. Works. Good fit. Knock off for happy hour feeling very organized and wood crafty.

Fix the fuel shortage, Drill, Its the American way

We have an oil shortage, every one agrees on that. The traditional American answer to this sort of problem is to fix it. We consume 20 million barrels per day. Reserves in Alaska and off shore are estimated in the billions of barrels. Enough to fuel our vehicles and heat our houses for generations. So why not do the obvious thing and drill for oil?
The tradition of America is to press on, and fix the problem. We have been doing this since the Revolution. Got a problem with British men '0 war blockading New York? Invent an submarine with 18th century technology and go out to sink them. Got a rebel ironclad out sinking the Union fleet? Get plans for an even more advanced ironclad from the greatest naval architect of the age and rush a vessel into action in 90 days from keel laying to combat on the Chesapeake. Want to keep California in the Union? Lay a steam railroad clear across the continent. And then dig a canal across Panama. Want to stop German subs from sinking allied ships? Lay a minefield clean across the North Sea from Scotland to Norway. Got implacable Nazi and Facist enemies? Invent a superweapon so advanced that it wasn't even in science fiction. Need to convince the world that democratic capitalism is the way to fly? Build a moon rocket and send men to the moon.
In America, when we have a problem, we fix it. We have a very simple problem now, not enough oil. So lets get cracking and fix it. We need to drill off shore, drill in Alaska, develop oil shale and get on with it.
All the "alternate energy" in the world won't fuel my car or heat my house.

Winning Iraq is bad for McCain?

I heard a couple a Sunday pundits say this. General Petraeus is thinking about (not committed to yet, but thinking about) sending more troops home 'cause things are getting better in Iraq. McCain didn't, (and isn't going to) look this gift horse in the teeth. Everyone wants the war over and the troops home as soon as possible.
The pundits take on this? "Now that McCain is talking about bringing troops home there is no difference between him and Obama." They didn't mention the little matter of who was right on the surge, which even the NY Times now admits, won the war. McCain pushed for the surge while Obama spoke against it.
Take your pick for commander in chief.

Consumer spending keeps the economy going?

They say it every day, consumer spending, consumer confidence, retail sales and economic stimulus checks are the backbone of the economy. If consumers stop consuming the great depression comes out of the closet and eats us all. Scary.
Particularly as you can get most necessities of life, save food, at yard sales and thrift stores for pennies on the dollar. If everyone started doing this, (or just postponing the purchase of new stuff) we could see a big drop in consumer spending. Me, I have acquired a band saw, a VCR, a stereo receiver, a chandelier, wall sconces, tableware, clothes, a Minolta 35mm camera, lots of books and videos, lumber, skis, and hand tools in just the last two years. Satisfying that urge to buy stuff for very little money.
Can the economy withstand the shock if everyone did it?

Dawn over Marblehead

The New York Times finally admits things are getting better in Iraq.

The world according to Sam "Eyebrows" Donaldson

"The mortgage crisis isn't caused by Fanny and Freddie, it's all those low life salesmen pushing unaffordable mortgages on poor people who don't know any better" said Sam on the ABC Sunday pundit show.
This is the long time TV newsie, bane of Republican presidents, talking. Talking through his hat. Only because Fanny and Freddie and some brain dead brokerage houses buy toxic waste mortgages do the low life salesmen bother to sell them.
When a borrower defaults on his mortgage the lender takes a big loss. Repossessing the house doesn't help the lender. They won't be able to sell it either. Borrowers with more than two brain cells firing will attempt to sell the house before giving it to the bank. The banks only foreclose on the houses that won't sell. But, if the lender has sold the mortgage to Fanny or Freddie or a brokerage house, he doesn't care, he doesn't own it anymore. The low life salesmen only exist because there are bigger suckers (Fanny, Freddie and the brokerages) out there. Turn them off and mortgage lending (and house prices) will return to reality.
When Sam blames lowlife salesmen instead of the real villains, it shows how ignorant the newsies are.

Speculation Regulation?

The details and language of the proposed bill are obscure, so we don't really know what will happen if they do pass it. But, will it work? Or will the speculators, day traders, and buyers merely move to a friendlier overseas market? London or Dubai or Tokyo or wherever. The United States isn't the only commodities market in the world.
Remember Sarbanes-Oxley? It tightened up corporate governance and finance and added a terrible load of paperwork. Since Sarbox, new public offerings of stock and merger/acquisition activity left Wall St and settled down in London.
Can you say "shoot yourself in the foot"?

After a $5 trillion bailout, do we need Fanny&Freddie any more?

The rationale for Fanny and Freddie is they can borrow money more cheaply than banks can. The downside to Fanny and Freddie is when they blow it, we taxpayers take one helluva hit. We could go back to financing houses the old fashioned way, with bank depositors money. Of course for that to work, banks would have to pay decent interest on savings deposits, which they don't do anymore.
Nowadays, to get decent interest, investors have to go thru Wall St whiz kids, who take their money and buy weird bonds that put money into banks to make mortgages with. And sometimes the weird bonds don't pay off. In olden times investors simply deposited their money in a reliable bank. We could go back to that. It would put a lot of Wall St whiz kids out of work, but they could get real jobs in sales, manufacturing and new product design. Finance isn't a real job, it's parasitic.
For 6% mortgages the banks could pay depositors 5% interest. For the depositors it's good money, as good as they get on "mortgage backed securities", and with FDIC protection to boot. Unlike subprime mortgage backed securities.
So, why not rein in Fanny & Freddie? Prohibit them from buying anything but real mortgages, no mortgage backed securities. Set a limit on their liabilities, about equal to their current ones. Demand they raise capital equal to 5% of outstanding liabilities before they can take on any more debt. Insist upon the borrowers putting up 5% of property value. Insist that the borrowers live on the property. Each borrower gets only ONE mortgage on ONE property. Don't do mortgages on McMansions. Lower the mortgage limit to $500,000, any house costing more is a luxury house and fat cat buyers will have to get a private bank mortgage. Appraise each property with in-house appraisers who have to personally sign the appraisal. Fire them when they inflate the value of any property. Never do a mortgage for more than the appraised value. Prohibit them from making campaign contributions (aka bribes) to elected officials. Limit salary and bonus to less than $1 million a year for senior management/every employee. Prohibit payment to consultants for anything.

The left cannot let it go

Woke up as usual to Vermont Public Radio, except, just for this day I set the radio to chime in at 0400 in the morning. At that early hour, VPR is channeling the BBC world service. And the BBC is running a story about the Rosenburg espionage case. Groovy. The Rosenburgs, Ethel and Julius, were sent the the gas chamber 50 years ago. The jury convicted them of passing the secrets of the atomic bomb to the Soviets. The judge felt that giving the deadliest weapon in history to our mortal enemies justified the death penalty. Fifty years ago the left conducted a furious defense of the Rosenburgs to little effect. But why is the leftist BBC bringing up the story again? Events of half a century ago are not news. There are plenty of current stories with a good leftist slant they could have run instead.

Driving to Brooklyn

College is finally over for the year. I drove to Brooklyn from Franconia to pick up son and his stuff. The stuff level was so high I borrowed a real 3/4 ton Chevy pickup to do the job. It's about 300 miles each way. Traffic was light until I hit Connecticut. Then it got real heavy, 10 mph creep&beep along shoreline Conn. Turnpike. Trucks galore, all crawling along with the rest of us. You'd think some of them would be going piggy back on the trains just to save diesel fuel.
New York State continues it's distinguished career of illiterate, missing, and worthless road signage. Not sign one for the Whitestone Bridge off I95. I got pushed over Throgs Neck bridge while looking for signs to Whitestone. Not the end of the world, but not a real confidence builder either. Arrived around noon after driving thru rain showers. Took three hours to schlep all the stuff down from the fifth floor and tie a tarp over the top. Trip back was long. Didn't get in til after midnight. It rained and a lot of wet got under the tarp. Truck used 44 gallons of gas for $180. Round trip on Amtrak is a lot less than that. Truck only gets 16.4 mpg even with a very tall gear and a V6. My Caddy DeVille does a lot better at 27 mpg. I guess the truck has more frontal area, a worse drag coefficient and more weight to push up hills. Today the yard is full of drying stuff.

Chevy Camaro

Nice set of pictures here. Not a bad looking car. Wouldn't mind buying one just for the cool of the thing. I have to wonder about the horsepower claims on the V6. 300 horse from 217 cubic inches is 1.4 horsepower per cubic inch. That's a lot. Used to be hot rodders were doing well to obtain one horse per cubic inch and still have an engine smooth enough to drive in the street and pass inspection. I notice the V6 has double over head cams, 11.3:1 compression and the 300 horse is only obtained at 6400 RPM. The overhead cams are what lets the engine rev up that high. In the old days a push rod V6 wouldn't rev to 5000 RPM, the valves would float long before 5000 RPM was reached. Getting an 11.3:1 compression engine to run on regular gas is a trick for which Chevy is to be complimented.
Weight is 3750-3860 pounds for the various models. Wasn't clear about the weight of the V8. If the heaviest 3860 pound car has the V8, then Chevy has done a nice job keeping the weight down. It may be,since the V8 is optional at extra cost, the weight figures shown are for the 300 hp V6. That makes power to weight 12 pounds/horsepower with the V6, which is very hot indeed. My 99 Caddy Deville is about 18 pounds/hp and offers sparkling acceleration. The Camaro at 12 pounds/hp will be a hellova lot hotter. The V8 at 422 horse is overkill for anything but racing.
Gas mileage (26 mpg) is disappointing. The Deville gets 27 mpg highway. You would think a lighter car with a smaller engine would do better than a 10 year old Caddy. Not that anyone buying a hot rod like this really cares about a few mpg, but still.

AlGore on Meet the Press

Tom Brokaw interviewed Al at length this morning. Al is still beating the drum for "alternate energy". Mostly he made those innocous comments about "moving forward" and "thinking outside the box", stuff that contains no real information but sounds good. He now wants the entire economy converted over to solar electric and electric cars. Al said all we need is better electrical transmission lines to move the juice from producer to user. What Al didn't say is that you can only transmit electricity 500 miles before the line losses get so bad that it isn't worth it. Nor did he explain how to heat your house on alternate energy. Nor did explain where the batteries for electric cars are coming from. Current battery technology (lead acid) is only good enough for golf carts. The only difference between a golf car and an electric car is better batteries.
But Al is opposed to oil drilling because only running out of oil will drive Americans to the enlightenment of true greenness. Freezing to death in the dark is very enlightening.
Brokaw asked Al about his lavish energy hog of house, and Al said "I buy electricity from "green" producers and that makes it alright." He also claimed his house uses "geothermal" power which is a stretch, there are no volcanic hotspots in Tennessee. He probably means he has a heat pump working off a heat exchanger buried in the lawn. That's nothing new, I had one in a cheap garden apartment in Mississippi back in the 1960's.
Al again claimed that science is on his side, even though the American Physical Society declared that man made global warming is not scientifically accepted just last week. That means a small majority of physicists think man made global warming is balony, but a sizable minority still believes in it. If the majority were larger, they would have used stronger language to condemn man made global warming. Opinions of physicists counts, global warming is a heat transfer problem, which is squarely in the domain of physics.

Those that can't do, complain

Our energetic Democratic US reps, Hodes and Shea Porter, are complaining that the Low Income Heating Emergence Assistance Program (LIHEAP) bill pushed thru by Senator Judd Greg isn't big enough, according to the Union Leader. Greg's bill is $5 billion, the dems are whining because it isn't $9 billion. Jeeze, do something right, and they complain that it isn't better. Hodes and Shea Porter ought to be passing bills rather than complaining about those that do pass bills.
Of the $5 billion, some $50 million will come to NH. Divide $50 million by $2400 (my estimated oil bill for this winter) and that is enough to help 20,000 families. That's a start. Drop the restrictions on oil drilling and watch the price of heating oil come down. Then it will help even more families. Where are Hodes and Shea Porter on dropping oil drilling restrictions?

Tomatoes acquitted.

The Federal Drug Adminstration (FDA) finally admitted that the salmonella outbreak wasn't caused by tomatoes. I'm sure this brings great joy to the nation's tomato farmers. They were minded their own business, growing America's favorite veggie, when a few federal paper pushers caused them $100 million in losses. That's enough to bankrupt a lot of farmers.
FDA hasn't said just why they pointed the finger at tomatoes, but I can guess. They asked victims what they ate before contracting salmonella, and surprise, every one mentioned tomatoes. They are America's favorite veggie after all. I'm sure every one also reported drinking water too.
We ought to demand actual detection of a pathogen in real food before the government is allowed to declare crops to be infected and ruin farmers. Real food means food actually offered for sale, not weeds or plant cuttings or farm wastes. Actual detection means a real laboratory , running a standard test from a standard handbook, files a written lab report, on company letterhead, signed and dated by the person conducting the test.
As it is, the tomato farmers ought to sue the FDA. Go for damages, punitive damages, gross negligence.

USAF takes flak over luxury aircraft cabins

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Obama on Iraq

Watched Obama on TV today. He started out, lambasted the war, decried the expense, blamed just about everyone. I'm saying out loud to the TV, "Come on, tell me what you going to DO about it." Finally Obama got around to saying he would withdraw American troops. If you are into tea leaf reading, he did NOT restate the "one brigade a month" timetable, but I think that's nit picking. He did say clearly that he would pull the Army out.
Obama claims he is turning Iraq over to the Iraqi government. I think he's turning Iraq over to Al Quada.
Just to show he is tough, Obama promised to reenforce Afghanistan.