Saturday - April 16, 2011
test. what state requires by law the teaching of fag history?
Oh good grief.
Can anyone say ... Reading, Writing, Rithmahtik? Jeesh.
Maybe we won’t be going back to Calif. after all.
What a load of rubbish.
And take a look at the list of all the ‘special’ groups that must now be recognized. It isn’t enough to recognize individual achievement and honor those who contribute. No. Now we have to recognize and pay homage to the group they come from.
Fair enuff but I don’t see Jews on that list and heaven knows that group has contributed out of all proportion to it’s numbers. Who do I sue?
Didn’t I tell BMEWS I wasn’t certain Ca. would be where I wanted to be with Gov. Moonbeam in office.
The worst part? We still could end up there. My head hurts and reading this hasn’t done anything for the stomach either.
California set to teach gay history and rights in schoolsCalifornia is set to become the first US state to require the teaching of gay history and rights.
By Alex Spillius, Washington
Children would take lessons on issues affecting gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people, with schools granted discretion about what age to start the lessons.
The law was passed by the state’s senate and is likely to pass the assembly easily, which is also controlled by the Democrats, before being signed by Governor Jerry Brown.
The legislation, sponsored by Democrat Mark Leno of San Francisco, passed on a 23-14 party line vote.
“We are second-class citizens and children are listening,” he said. “When they see their teachers don’t step up to the plate when their classmate is being harassed literally to death, they are listening and they get the message that there is something wrong with those people.”
Republican state Senator Doug La Malfa opposed the bill saying: “I’m deeply troubled kids would have to contemplate at a very, very early age, when many of us are teaching abstinence ... what is sexuality.”California law already requires schools to cover the contributions to the state and nation of:
Women
African Americans
Mexican Americans
Entrepreneurs
Asian Americans
European Americans
American Indians AND
LABOR ACTIVISTS!
AND
A new bill will also add:
The Disabled, to the list.
How many states will follow this crap I wonder. And here we thought the Brit govt. was loopy. I guess my home state now becomes UK Pacific.
What q queer fuckin world we inhabit.
Posted by peiper
on 04/16/2011 at 10:48 AM
Filed Under: • Education • Gay Gay Gay! •
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Permalink • Friday - April 15, 2011
LAAR She Blows! Part Two
Alright, I took a few hours off to eat and hang out and watch tonight’s episode of Fringe. Ok, so where was I? Ah yes ...
It looks like the Navy and the Air Force both want some kind of smallish airplane that can handle the small scale low level situations that seem to be a big part of modern “asymmetrical” warfare. I think that’s defined as a fight between a well trained, fully equipped modern force and a D level pick up squad of rag tag Turd World losers, with a specific ROE that applies only to the bigger force so that they are never actually allowed to win.
Such a small plane needs to be fairly low maintenance, and it needs to be able to engage the enemy out past the range of heavy machine guns or smaller 20-40mm anti-aircraft fire. That’s about the best we’re going to face from drug cartels, tin hat dictators from the poorer nations, and Al Qeda in general. Anything bigger and it will be an actual war between actual nations, and we’ve got plenty of big stuff for those. But just in case the scrub army should get it’s hands on some second hand missiles, let’s write the specs to include a few million dollars worth of threat detection computers, anti-missile systems, chaff dispensers and so forth. Seriously, I’m only being a little sarcastic. The specs I could find read less like an airplane and more like a toy box:
The aircraft will carry ordnance and external stores on four underwing pylons. Typical air-to-ground ordnance will include an aerial cannon, two 500 lb class guided-munitions and a variety lighter weapons, such as 2.75” (guided or unguided) rockets, rail-launched guided missiles (such as the Hellfire II), unguided free-fall munitions, flares etc. It will be capable operating on five - hour missions, flying distances of 900 nautical miles without refueling, up to a ceiling of 30,000 ft. The aircraft will operate from austere, forward operating bases, semi-prepared surfaces including dirt, grass, gravel, surfaces. Ground support operations are not rquired ro service the aircraft, - other than available field fuel stores available for re-fueling operations.
...
Configured as tandem cockpit with duplicated controls and modern digital avionics, LAAR will be designed for day or night operation. The front cockpit will also be fitted with a HUD supporting air-to-ground functionality, displaying the continuously computed impact point (CCIP), continuously computed release point (CCRP), strafe, and manual weapon aiming computation/release.The ISR systems on board will comprise a modern, stabilized multi-sensor electro-optical payload with geo-locating accuracy, integrating a day channel, night (thermal) channel, and multiple laser emitters, such as rangefinder, designator, target marker and spot-tracker. LAAR will be equipped with communications systems, integrating voice-and-data links, enabling simultaneous operation of three separate channels, in addition to multiple datalinks supporting transfer messaging, images and full motion -video supporting Remote Operations Video Enhanced Receiver (ROVER), operated by ground units and the ground forward air control / joint terminal attack control (FAC/JTAC) systems. LAAR will operate fully integrated with traditional Command and Control (C2) concepts and organizations, networked with current theater air tasking order (ATO) and airspace control order (ACO) dissemination networks.
Yeah. You can get a serious case of acronymia reading these things. So they want a little plane that has all the big plane gizmos inside, with a multi-channel real-time data link and one of those rotating ball spy camera thingies like on the UAVs. Or, as the guy from Beechcraft put it 7 months ago:
The AT-6 is a structurally enhanced Beechcraft T-6A/B airframe with a more powerful Pratt & Whitney PT6A-68D engine, and a Lockheed Martin A-10C Mission System that is integrated with the T-6B primary flight avionics system. It also has the same sensor suite as the MC-12W with a laser designator/range finder. ”When our airplane wakes up in the morning, it believes it’s an A-10. We call this simple integration,”
“Simple integration”. What an excellent misnomer. But if it works, go for it.
Anyway, to make a very short story even longer, it looks like two airplanes are under consideration. One, the above mentioned Beechcraft, currently called the AT-6B, made in Kansas I think, and the other one, the Brazilian Embraer Super Tucano EMB-314. They look amazingly alike.
“Still, they’re cousins,
Identical cousins and you’ll find,
They laugh alike, they walk alike,
At times they even talk alike—
You can lose your mind,
When cousins —are two of a kind. “
Here’s where the real differences lie: the Beechcraft was built as a trainer. To make the grade as an LAAR craft, it has to have major upgrades, starting with a bigger engine with nearly 50% more power, a significantly strengthened airframe to handle that power, hardpoints designed and installed, wing redesign, and all sorts of room found for wing guns and all that fancy electronics gear. It even needs bigger tires. The Super Tucano was designed from the ground up to be a military aircraft for rough airstrips. It already has the stronger engine and body, the ISR ball turret laser target designator, hardpoints, etc. It has some of the fancy electronics, but not our latest kit.
What the Super Tucano does not have is our latest and greatest ejection seats. These things are called Zero/Zero seats, which means they can blast you out of a busted airplane far enough for your parachute to deploy safely even if the airplane itself is at zero altitude going zero speed. And our latest version can be adjusted to fit every body type from a 103lb petite woman to a fairly large 245lb man. Can such seats be retrofit? I bet they can.
What the AT-6B doesn’t have is much of any actual existence. Hawker Beechcraft sells the basic trainer to everyone, and it’s a fine little plane. Meanwhile Brazil is busy selling their little plane all around the world as a combat aircraft, garnering a great reputation in small scale military engagements and drug interdictions. Hawker Beechcraft is redesigning their trainer in steps. Step 1 is to stick in the same engine that the Super Tucano uses ...
In additon to the bigger engine, the aircraft will get the mission system from the upgraded A-10C, with satcom, datalinks, full-motion-video downlink, missile warning, countermeasures, armor and fuel-tank protection. A high-definition color EO/IR sensor with laser designator will be carried on a hardpoint under the fuselage and six underwing stations will carry gun and rocket pods, 250lb or 500lb precision-guided bombs, Hellfire missiles and guided rockets.
The aircraft is being developed in steps. An avionics prototype, AT-1, is flying now with the CMC Electronics digital cockpit avionics and displays. This will be modified towards year-end to integrate and test tle Lockheed Martin mission system. Work has started on a second prototype, AT-2, that will have the big engine and other changes.
The Embraer folks at AFA were quick to point out that the EMB-314 doesn’t need any changes, other than specific equipment, to meet the LAAR requirement. The Super Tucano was designed from the outset as a light-attack/armed-reconnaissance/advanced trainer and has the big engine, ISR ball and even .50-cal guns in the wing.
So it looks like a game of catch-up is going on ... while we’re busy fighting 3 or 4 wars and have a screaming need for some kind of interdiction warplane to fly along our own borders.
The upgrade path isn’t completely smooth either. As you can see in the pic at the top here or inpictures of the AT-6B at airliners.net (who’s pictures I didn’t use because they’re very possessive about such things) they stuck the ISR ball on directly underneath the wings. Probably right on the center of gravity, which makes sense, until you actually fly the plane. Try tracking something when you have to turn and bank; the wing immediately gets in the way, blocking the view/signal. That’s well written up in a long flight review, here.
Do I have faith that the final AT-6B will be a fine little airplane that more than meets the design and mission criteria? Without a doubt. One of the real questions is just how badly we need such an aircraft, and in what numbers. When you draw up the multi-circle Venn diagram with all our different UAVs, our helicopters, our jet fighters, spy planes, V-22 Ospreys, and everything else we have that flies in the mix, how big is the hole that is left unfilled, and how much blood is leaking out that hole? In other words, do we really need this thing, and if we do, do we really need it right the heck now and in big numbers?
And this is where politics creeps in. “Save American Jobs!!” scream the congresscritters in DC. “Don’t outsource our weapons systems!” And they may have a point, even though a deal of this size would be exactly what Obama would have talked about when he was just down in Brazil the other week, talking with their newly elected President, who just happens to be a Marxist and a former jungle revolutionary. And lest you think our legislators are being more hypocritical than usual (we sell our military stuff the world over, but can’t buy any foreign stuff? What part of Free Trade or NAFTA/CAFTA/SAFTA is that?), the Brazilian airplane comes with an odd rider in the contract called a “Golden Share”.
The Golden Share allows the Brazilian government to maintain direct control and veto rights over the “creation and/or alteration of military programs, whether or not involving the Federative Republic of Brazil” as well as the “interruption of the supply of maintenance and replacement parts for military aircraft.”
The Brazilian government’s direct control over Embraer would put the production of the light attack and reconnaissance aircraft at the mercy and whim of Brazil’s political leaders who too often do not see eye to eye with the United States on foreign policy issues. In fact, they have been noticeably absent from the War on Terror over the last decade.
Brazil doesn’t like the no-fly thing over Libya either. I think we ran up against a similar situation during Gulf War I or II, when the Scandinavian company who made our hand grenades didn’t like our involvement there and stopped selling them to us. Or maybe it was rifle ammunition. I can’t recall. Anyway, our troops went through a shortage until we resourced.
So what’s my final opinion? Either one of these little goofy looking airplanes is probably more than enough to fight mini-wars with against rag tag armies and drug lords. Both can fly at 300mph or a touch faster, both can go more than 1000 miles on a tank of fuel. Both can attack targets from 2 miles up in the sky, an altitude where little planes are nearly invisible from the ground. Neither one of these airplanes is going to hold up for shit once actual large bullets and flack start impacting. There is a reason the Thunderbolts both old and new were so overbuilt: they could take a pounding and keep on fighting. Both of these airplanes look mighty fragile to me, especially their scrawny little wings. The cost of all the electronics goodies both use is mighty prohibitive, but that’s what happens when you demand warfare with the precision of eye surgery. Ten million dollars a plane for starters, to drop half million dollar ordnance on angry peasants who won’t earn $5000 in their entire lives and are shooting back with $200 weapons. But they can save fuel and maintenance costs!!!! Yes, but at what expense? Another billion or three? Or ten? In a way they remind me of the VW pickup truck that somebody left in the comments on the automotive post I did yesterday - sure looks great, costs a fortune, and may not really fill any existing market niche. So let’s use a little common sense for once. If we really, really need this kind of plane, and our guys are dying for the lack of it, let’s order up a bunch from Brazil right now and another bunch to use as spare parts. That way we can tell them to FO if they get uppity. And if we don’t absolutely positively have to have these, but it would be nice, then let’s stick with Hawker Beechcraft’s development, put in an iron clad order for 250 of them, and then cut funding for at least two other flight systems. I don’t care if that’s UAVs, super fighters, stealth frisbees or what. There’s only so much money to be spent on toys, and the toy box looks pretty damn full from here.
Done. Hope you’re happy John.
Below the fold are enough links to keep you reading for many hours, but there is one link there you should follow. Have fun!
Posted by Drew458
on 04/15/2011 at 09:30 PM
Filed Under: • Military • planes, trains, tanks, ships, machines, automobiles •
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Permalink • This is only a test…
When I consider the amount of stuff my buddy in Afghanistan sends me, my mind boggles at what he’s NOT sending: the military intelligence stuff. But then I must consider how much pure crap he wades through every day from all of his sources. Some things pique his interest and I get a copy.
Like this one. Quote:
If all of the eight desserts listed below were sitting in front of you, which would you choose (sorry, you can only pick one)! Trust me....this is very accurate. Pick your dessert, and then look to see what psychiatrists think about you. REMEMBER - No Cheating. Make your choice before you check the meaning. Here are your choices:
· Angel Food Cake
· Brownies
· Lemon Meringue Pie
· Vanilla Cake With Chocolate Icing
· Strawberry Short Cake
· Chocolate Cake With Chocolate Icing
· Ice Cream
· Carrot Cake
No, you can’t change your mind once you scroll down, so think carefully about what your choice will be.
I’m still wondering why I should trust him on the accuracy of this test. I’d pick any of them except the carrot cake.
Posted by Christopher
on 04/15/2011 at 09:00 PM
Filed Under: • weird stuff •
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Permalink • LAAR She Blows! Part One
used to force a winner in an aircraft competition
that reinvents the wheel for at least the 3rd time
because the definition keeps changing
That has to be the longest post title I’ve ever used. I’m going to try and keep this post as concise as possible, but that won’t be easy. RightWingNews asked me to stick my oar in the water about the flap over the choice of aircraft for the LAAR mission profile. Should the US choose the US built Hawker-Beechcraft AT-6B, or the Brazilian built Embraer Super Tucano? Both are decent little airplanes with similar performance specs, and both would cost the taxpayers ridiculous amounts of money when put into service, primarily because of all the bells, whistles, digital gee-gaws and other wonderland gimgcrackery the Air Force demands get added on to aid the flight crew with their onerous mission of flying somewhere slowly, shooting 3 raggies on a camel, and then flying slowly home. So before I get into details and politics, let’s step back a second and figure out what this “necessary” mission is, and why it demands a whole new airplane.
LAAR stands for Light Attack and Armed Reconnaissance. It’s fly-guy speak for a catch all mission category that sort of includes flying somewhere, looking around, blowing a few things up, providing a moderate amount of support (ie bullets and small rockets or missiles) to ground troops, may include ground rescue of a small number of troops, and usually includes the ability to take off and land on less than perfect runways. And that’s where the problem is. Because the definition keeps changing, the requirements for a suitable aircraft keep changing. These days the definition includes low levels of maintenance by stupid people, which is my rendition of the USAF’s more diplomatic way of saying we want to also sell these planes to other nations who may not have the best ground crews.
Once upon a time, before and during WWII, when the military wanted to fly somewhere and see what was up they had a couple of airplanes just for that. If it was a short flight over land, the Army had their version of a Piper Cub, a little bitty plane borrowed from the civilian aviation world. It could take off and land on a postage stamp, it flew along slow enough that if it was a car it wouldn’t get a speeding ticket on the highways in NJ, and it could carry a pilot and his camera a good distance out and back. If it was a long flight over water, the Navy had their PBY Catalina. It wasn’t fast either, but it could go a very long way and if it ran out of gas you could land it in the ocean. The PBY was big enough to have a few guys onboard, and could carry a machine gun or two to defend itself or provide very limited ground support. Come to think of it, a new PBY with a couple of little missiles hung on the wings would be a superb airplane for dealing with Somali pirates.
Neither of these airplanes was suited for any kind of actual combat. When getting shot at crept into the mission definition, reconnaissance was done by fighters and bombers that had a gun or two removed and cameras put in. It worked, and at a fairly low cost.
After that war, and during and after the Korean war, the mission changed again. Now it placed more emphasis on ground support and eventually added small rescue ability to the mix. While the US Marines had seen quite a lot of success in WWII using their Corsairs, Thunderbolts, and whatever else they could get off the runway with guns attached to help out their brothers in the mud, the All New Air Force wanted something better and more specifically suited to the task.
During the 50s and early 60s they had a plethora of choices. Even given their developing allergy to gasoline which demanded everything that flew ran on jet fuel, the aircraft available for LAAR work was so wide that the missions themselves could be broken down further and re-categorized. They had those little bug eye Bell 47 helicopters, the ones you saw in every M*A*S*H episode at the slow, low, and close end, everything left over from WWII in the middle, and all their jet fighters and bombers at the fast, high, and speedy end. And the job got done.
Vietnam saw both divergence and specialization in the LAAR role. When the mission was too far away for helicopters, or required more time over target than they could provide, but either required more speed or less firepower and/or rescue capacity and/or runway length than suited the DC-3 gunship, they still could choose between the Rockwell OV-10 Bronco and the Douglas A-1 Skyraider.
The Bronco was a strange looking little airplane with a very short nose, a very large glass canopy, twin turboprop engines mounted on very thin booms, and a high horizontal elevator mounted between them. It couldn’t go 300mph, but it could go 1400 miles, and with 4 machine guns and 7 hardpoints for attaching bombs and missiles it could provide quite a lot of ground support. And turboprops run on jet fuel, so the Air Force was happy.
The Skyraider was an odd duck, but a very sturdy one. It was designed at the end of WWII as a torpedo bomber, and was the largest single engine military airplane ever built. Picture a P-47 in your mind, then basically double the dimensions. The “Sandy” had enough built in cannons, hardpoints and carrying capacity to make it a more formidable plane than a B-17. And it could fly faster and a bit further than the OV-10. Plus it’s rugged design could eat bullets for breakfast and keep right on flying. In an emergency you could cram several GIs inside the fuselage and get the hell out of Dodge. This plane was a real winner, and 3,000 of them were built in all sorts of variations. It could even carry nukes. But it ran on gasoline, so I guess it had to go.
At some point during that conflict, somebody in a blue uniform got the idea that smaller and faster would be better, and maybe even cheaper. So they took the T-37 “tweet”, a tiny jet used to train pilots, and sent it off to war. Add in some bigger engines, some combat avionics, a few extra hardpoints, etc., and the A-37 was born. Maybe it couldn’t take off and land in a muddy cow pasture like the Skyraider, and maybe it only had half the range of the Bronco. But it could zoom across the sky at more than 500 miles, and it could strap on twice the weight of bang bang goodies than the Bronco could.
All three of these airplanes were relatively inexpensive.
And then the LAAR mission changed again. And again. And again. Now the mission is several missions. Let’s take a quick look.
When the “L” in LAAR became an “H”, for Heavy, for that job we got the A-10 Thunderbolt, aka the Warthog. This thing is a flying battleship, an armor plated machine gun cannon with an airplane built around it, designed to go toe to toe with a platoon of tanks and win. And it does. But it’s very expensive, and like all military jets it has significant maintenance costs.
When the LA went away and just reconnaissance was needed we have some pretty amazing satellites in orbit. We used to have the ultra fast SR-71 Blackbird for when a fast spy plane was required. We’re still flying the U-2 spy plane, 56 years after it first rolled out. We have a whole plethora of UAVs, from the little bitty ones the size of hawks up to the rather large Reaper. The Reaper can fly really high (12 miles up), really far, and can take the fight to the enemy by carrying more than a dozen Hellfire missiles or a couple of medium bombs. It isn’t very fast though.
So why do we need a manned LAAR airplane at all? Damned if I know, but I think the answer uses the words “situational awareness”. That means that an actual pilot or two in the airplane can see a whole lot more than any UAVs camera can, and see it faster and understand it faster than the kid flying the UAV back in Odgen Utah can wiggle his joystick.
So we need a manned one. Fine. What’s wrong with any of the last 3 or 4 planes, the last of which only retired a couple years ago? Nothing. In my opinion the job would be amply filled by bringing back the P-47. But now politics enters the picture, along with dreams of foreign sales, and the new generation of “mission requirements” that the Air Force has fapped up. And that leads me to my next post, which is what I was actually asked to write about. This whole post is just for setting the stage. Groundwork. Making the point that the Air Force - even before it actually existed - has been doing the Light Attack thing quite well, and has been and continues to do the “And Reconnaissance” thing exceptionally well. They made the decision to do the last part without pilots a few years ago, but now they want to have their cake and eat it too. And want us taxpayers to spend tens or hundreds of millions so they can claim they’re saving money by using a few gallons less jet fuel.
Oh, I’d like to add that I’ve heard that the Army has a recon gizmo of their own. It’s literally a one shot deal: they have some kind of TV camera on a parachute that can be fired from a grenade launcher that gives them a Right Now view of what’s going on behind the next hill. This is probably because the Marines were doing the same job with a box kite, a length of string, and an iPhone programmed to send pictures every half second to Facebook. No, I jest. It was two lengths of string.
Posted by Drew458
on 04/15/2011 at 01:54 PM
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Permalink • Who will save America from drowning in debt?
I have never been good at economics. In fact, I am pig ignorant on the subject beyond the idea that one must not spend more then one makes.
In the past, I even failed that score. But I found I understood some of this because my wife (who is very,very good at maths and economics and working out stock options) explained it to me. btw ... do not please misunderstand that last remark about options. She does understand em. We just no longer play em having discovered after the dot com boom that really, we weren’t meant to dabble in that. But she understands the process better then I do. So then,
read the following and things do not look well.
It’s interesting to me anyway, to see how someone outside our country (USA) reads things on this subject.
Drew in fact had a post on the subject of economics on Wednesday. I thought I should post this anyway.
Who will save America from drowning in debt?
Both political parties have failed to come up with any credible plan to solve this crisis, writes Jeremy Warner.If you want to scare yourself with statistics, go to http://www.usdebtclock.org. This brilliantly conceived internet graphic engenders much the same feeling you get when watching the extortion of the meter in a London taxi; at some stage, you know you are going to have to get out and walk.
Amongst much else, what it shows is the real-time accumulation of US public debt. When I last looked, this was approaching $14.228 trillion, or around 100 per cent of GDP. Higher and higher, the big number goes. America is bankrupting itself as surely as Wilkins Micawber. So extreme is the country’s addiction to debt that if nothing is done, it will surely force the wholesale retreat from the New World’s century-old dominance of international economic and geopolitical affairs. Worse, the medicine required to correct the problem threatens to be so strong that it may force that same retreat in any case.
According to analysis this week by the IMF, US public debt will still be rising five years from now, even assuming decent economic growth and taking account of known proposals for deficit reduction. By then, it will have reached 112 per cent of GDP. By the end of the decade, the annual interest bill alone will have reached $1 trillion, or more than a quarter of all current US federal spending.
America is rushing headlong towards the precipice, but its broken political system seems incapable of achieving the bipartisan consensus necessary to get a grip on the problem. Republican proposals for correcting the debt mountain appear as unacceptably extreme as the President’s are woolly and deficient. Barack Obama’s attempt this week to break the deadlock, with poorly defined plans to cut $4 trillion from the deficit over 12 years, was condemned by Paul Ryan, chairman of the House budget committee, as “hopelessly inadequate to address our fiscal crisis”.
By the same token, Ryan’s draconian proposals for reducing state spending to a bare minimum of defence, health care and welfare programmes was dismissed even by members of his own party as completely over the top. “There is nothing serious or courageous about this plan,” David Stockman, Ronald Reagan’s former budget director has said.
To some extent, this polarisation of views mirrors the austerity versus jobs debate we’ve been having in the UK, only it’s much more serious. In the US, the politics seems to prevent anything at all being done about the deficit, despite universal acceptance that it has to be dealt with.
Even the IMF, well known for pulling its punches when it comes to its largest shareholder, has been stung into issuing a rebuke by the urgency of the situation. There’s no credible strategy for stabilising public debt, the organisation said this week. Despite the fact that the US economy is judged to be growing fast enough to reduce borrowing, it is the only advanced nation other than Japan still increasing its underlying fiscal deficit this year.
But the problem goes far beyond the immediate difficulty of weaning the economy off the fiscal stimulus that helped America through the financial crisis. Underlying the immediate costs of the downturn, the US is stuck with an entitlements system which the growing demands of the ageing baby boom generation have made essentially unaffordable – or in any case, not without steep rises in taxation, an outcome that would be at odds with American traditions of rugged individualism, a small state, and low taxes.
In a report, the Congressional Budget Office summed up the problem: “Spending on social security and the government’s mandatory health care programs… will increase from roughly 10 per cent of GDP today to 15 per cent 20 years from now. If revenues and federal spending apart from those programs remain near their past levels relative to GDP, the spending on social security and healthcare will lead to rapidly growing budget deficits and mounting federal debt”.
America is deep in the mire, and seemingly lacks the leadership or political tools to dig itself out. Optimists point to the fact that the US has been here before. On several occasions in the past, they say, public debt has reached current levels relative to output, only eventually to be brought back under control. America can do it again.Yet today’s borrowing is quite different from the type that has fed the debt mountains of the past. When the country was still young and filled with hope, it borrowed repeatedly and liberally from Europe to finance its railroads and other forms of infrastructure investment. The gamble paid off big time. But today, the debt is to fund private and government consumption. It’s just money down the drain.
The IMF has calculated that to bring public debt back onto a sustainable footing will require a fiscal adjustment over the next 10 years in terms of spending cuts and tax rises equivalent to a jaw-dropping 17.5 per cent of GDP. That dwarfs even the scale of the challenge faced by the UK, and America’s bipolar political system may make it impossible for agreement on such a consolidation to be reached.
Eventually, there will be an outright fiscal calamity in the US, and from that a leader will emerge with the wherewithal to lead the country back from the brink. Looking around the Washington scene today, though, it’s hard to see where that person will come from. Modern democracies seem to have become too compromised to produce saviours.
Posted by peiper
on 04/15/2011 at 12:19 PM
Filed Under: • Economics •
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Permalink • Steve-O
Posted by Drew458
on 04/15/2011 at 12:06 PM
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Permalink • sailor discovers his own bermuda triangle off coast of devon,england
This has NOT been my best day. Yesterday wasn’t anything to brag about either.
Not posting a lot but a couple of things caught my notice and I want to share same.
Have spent two hours earlier with MSFT (Free) support because one of the Tuesday patches (17 in all) which I get on Wed., didn’t install.
Add to that I may have an infection, feel like hell and the sawbones have me on three (4?) pills and as Drew says ...
HORY CLAP! Is that right Drew?
Hey, I’m side tracking myself but you have to hear this. Ok, see it since you’re reading. This really is one time I wish I’d connected audio stuff cos it’s easier talking it then writing it.
I’ve had an annoying cough for a very long time. Doc. constantly worried I’ll become addicted to cough med. So I told him that if he couldn’t cure me of that curse, then the least he could do was give me the only medication that helped me cope with the problem.
Well, more then a month ago (perhaps 2 but who’s counting) I had a couple of tests. One of em was a lung test that took a bit over two hours. Nothing to see there but a mild case of Emphysema which I am assured won’t get worse unless I were to start smoking again. And it wasn’t the cause of the cough btw.
So then, the next test a couple weeks later was a swallow test where you drink a very small amount of this white chalky stuff that’s mixed with a small amount of lemon juice. Wasn’t really bad at all. Took awhile for results and they’re now pretty sure they found the cause and so have me on a bunch of pills.
Apparently my stomach produces more then the normal amount of acid which I do not even feel. (no surprise is it? one would only have to read my ranting in bmews to figure I produce enuff acid for an army) Most ppl will feel what they call heartburn. But there’s a number of folks I am told, who feel nothing but other side effects, but no burning sensation. And that acid backs up and wants to enter the lungs, and that’s where the coughing begins. So, I’m on some medication for two months to see how it works. If coughing continues then they go look inside.
Then there’s another issue and I can’t get to a doctor til next week unless the latest cause of pain clears up over the wkend.
Anyway ... it took almost two months before I got an appointment with a “consultant” doctor a few days ago who gave me some results and put me on these other news meds mentioned above. I don’t know exactly how to explain this so it makes any sense, in fact. It won’t.
The doc (who btw wasn’t hard to look at and I get to see her again in two months) told me when I inquired as to how come I received a notice that I was being booked for a test that I’d had a month ago .... said as follows.
Reports are made and the notes etc. are then emailed to .... INDIA. There, they are typed up and sent back to us here BUT, the language is a barrier and too often they have to translate back into acceptable lingrich (at this end) to be understood. HUH? Why? It’s a cost saving thing. And it can take up to four weeks for a letter to come back printed.etc. Like the notice I got. Which said I was being booked for a barium swallow test. It originated on Feb. 18, typed on March 11th, and I got it on March 17. See? Easy. She said for example, she dictated a report on a patient who was falling asleep and she described it thus.
He can fall asleep at the drop of a hat. It came back a month later as, “He falls asleep and drops his cat.”
Meanwhile, it’s damn difficult sitting in one place for too long and bending or leaning to my right is the cause of some acute pain.
And speaking of which .... now the following is a real pain in a manner of speaking.
Sailor rescued twice on same day in same spot: ‘It’s like Bermuda Triangle’
A hapless sailor who was rescued twice on the same day from exactly the same spot just outside the River Dart has spoken of his ‘Bermuda Triangle’ troubles.
The 50-year-old mechanical engineer (pictured) had to call out the lifeboat twice in less than six hours after the engine on his 26-foot Bayliner motor cruiser failed him.
Each time he was left drifting just a few hundreds yards from the treacherous
Mewstone rock in the mouth of the Dart.
Stuart Cleaver, who comes from Birmingham and has only owned the boat called Plan B for 18 months, has now vowed to steer clear of Dartmouth after he described it has his ‘Bermuda Triangle’.
He said: ‘‘I was very fed up at the time. We have had little problems with the boat but this was a complete mechanical breakdown.
‘‘I don’t know what will happen to it now. We still haven’t managed to get it back to Torquay.
‘‘That patch of water is just like the Bermuda triangle for me. The boat just does not like it.”
The Dart inshore lifeboat first rescued Clive and his 37-year-old partner Susan Earl at 1.30pm and towed the boat back into Dartmouth.
A 6.20pm they were called out again after the couple had managed to get to exactly the same spot before their engine cut out again.
The lifeboat crew also recognised the Plan B as the same boat they had taken in tow back in February when it had been on its way to Galmpton on the River Dart and had suffered engine failure… again just outside the River Dart.
Clive, who keeps Plan B moored at Torquay, admitted: “This is the only boat I own, and the first one I have bought — to be honest I think it’s going to be enough for me.
‘‘At least I’m saving on fuel costs as I am getting towed everywhere. Unfortunately it seems mostly to be back where I’ve just come from.”
Amateur sailor Stuart bought the boat 18 months ago for £20,000 as a hobby with Susan, but has been plagued with problems, including Tuesday’s rescue.
He added: ‘‘It’s like driving a car. I’m not going to give up just because of a breakdown.
‘‘Thankfully, Susan is quite a bubbly person so she just laughed it off the second time we got rescued — I’m sure she will come out with me again.”
Posted by peiper
on 04/15/2011 at 11:08 AM
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Permalink • It’s a Gift
Yaakov Kirschen, the author of the the Dry Bones cartoons I paste up here once in a while, has made a digital reprint of a short book he wrote 18 years ago and is giving to the world on this Friday, ahead of next Tuesday.
It’s a comic book, which means you can go through the 192 pages in about half an hour.
It’s a lovely little book that tells a very old story. You’ll laugh, and you’ll cry more than once.
and to the generation to which we now attempt to sing.
Well done Yaakov.
Click the big picture to read it as an online flip book.
Click the little picture to read it as a .pdf file.
And now I even understand why he named his cartoon and his blog what he did.
Schuldig will be back in a new Dry Bones cartoon on April 21st. In the meantime, Kirschen tells the back story to how he came to write this little gem, a graphic novel that some have called a prophecy.
Posted by Drew458
on 04/15/2011 at 10:32 AM
Filed Under: • History • Israel •
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Permalink • Thursday - April 14, 2011
Curry For Everyone Else
You may have noticed that my recipes tend to be a bit on the intense side. I like it rich, and I usually like it hot. Not everyone else likes that for some odd reason.
Tonight I tried Barbara’s Amazing Chicken Curry at the link here. If you have the standard set of curry spices on hand it’s very simple and easy to make. Hers is actually the hot version of the dish, which was originally made as baby curry. Yes, curry for babies. Hafta start ‘em young you know.
Since it was impossible for me to find green finger chilis, the Indian Pusa Jwala pepper, I substituted. The last time I made that Vindaloo I substituted jalapenos and serranos for the green chilis called for, and got in trouble. So this time when she called for 4 of them I added 1 small seeded jalapeno and half a tiny can of the diced green sweet chilis you find in the grocery store next to the taco shells. But I did use a slightly generous 1/8 tsp of Cayenne when that was called for. Call it 3/16ths. So it isn’t complete baby curry, but it very mild in my opinion.
Her recipe specifies a black cardamom pod. If you don’t have black cardamom just add some more green cardamom. You’ll loose the dusky dark edge to the flavor but no one will know unless you tell them. There are about 6 seeds in a cardamom pod, so her 5 green pods add up to about 30 seeds, which is a little less than a teaspoonful.
Her recipe also uses a stick of cassia. Cassia is better known as Chinese cinnamon, and is the softer sweeter variety of that aromatic bark we love so well. Cassia and cinnamon are very closely related, and there are varieties of each that run the gamut from sweet to sharp. Use 1/8 tsp of plain old cinnamon if you don’t have any cassia sticks lying around. If all you have is one the stronger varieties of cassia or cinnamon, use even less.
I used 4 chicken thighs and stewed the bones with the sauce once I had most of the meat off. I also thinned the sauce down with a cup of water and let it simmer until that evaporated off, and fished out the cassia stick after about 20 minutes. The curry came out great and the meat left on the bones was ready to fall right off. To my taste buds it’s pleasantly bland with a nice cardamom flavor. The Mrs says it’s spicy enough, thank you. With a cup of white rice, her recipe makes a nice serving for 3 people.
Tip: make sure your can of coconut milk says “first pressing” on the label and is not the low fat nonsense. If it doesn’t, you probably won’t have much of any coconut fat at the top of the can, so you’ll be forced to brown your onions in a few tablespoons of oil or butter or ghee. And you’ll lose quite a bit of flavor in your curry. Find the good brand, and buy it.
Posted by Drew458
on 04/14/2011 at 07:07 PM
Filed Under: • Fine-Dining •
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Permalink • It’s a brown out!
Above: actress Daveigh Chase
Below: actress Melinda Clarke
Fans of The OC will recognize Melinda Clarke, who played Jamie Cooper on that show for years. Folks who live under a rock, like me, will recognize her as the hypnotically beguiling Lady Heather from a few episodes of CSI. There’s something about her face that says Russian to me, but she’s 100% American.
Daveigh Chase was in the film Donnie Darko and currently appears in the TV series Big Love. Which I have never seen, even though it features one of my favorite brunette actresses, Jeanne Tripplehorne.
Posted by Drew458
on 04/14/2011 at 12:57 PM
Filed Under: • Eye-Candy •
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Permalink • Well, they did invent the banjo after all
dada deeda deeda deeda dee ...
Consanguinity ("con- (with/together) sanguine (blood) -ity (noun marker)") refers to the property of being from the same kinship as another person. In that respect, consanguinity is the quality of being descended from the same ancestor as another person.
The percentage of consanguinity between any two individuals decreases fourfold as the most recent common ancestor recedes one generation. Consanguinity means the amount of shared (identical) DNA, the genetic material. For example, first cousins have four times the consanguinity of second cousins. First cousins once removed have half the shared DNA as full first cousins. Half-fourth cousins sometimes cannot be detected at the DNA level.[5] Finally, double first cousins share twice the consanguinity as first cousins and are as related as half-siblings.
As a working definition, unions contracted between persons biologically related as second cousins or closer (F ≥ 0.0156) are categorized as consanguineous. This arbitrary limit has been chosen because the genetic influence in marriages between couples related to a lesser degree would usually be expected to differ only slightly from that observed in the general population. Globally, the most common form of consanguineous union contracted is between first cousins, in which the spouses share 1/8 of their genes inherited from a common ancestor, and so their progeny are homozygous (or more correctly autozygous) at 1/16 of all loci. Conventionally this is expressed as the coefficient of inbreeding (F) and for first cousin offspring, F = 0.0625. That is, the progeny are predicted to have inherited identical gene copies from each parent at 6.25% of all gene loci, over and above the baseline level of homozygosity in the general population. In some large human populations genetically closer marriages also are favoured, in particular uncle-niece and double first cousin unions where the level of homozygosity in the progeny is equivalent to 0.125.
Everywhere in the western world, people look at the savage violence that is a daily occurrence in the Muslim world and shake their heads in stunned disbelief. A pastor of a very small Christian flock in Florida burns a Koran. Weeks later at literally the global antipode, Muslim imams drive through neighborhoods in a vehicle with loudspeakers attached, calling the townsfolk to riot. The townsfolk respond, and before it is all over, at least 22 innocent people are dead at the hands of these townsfolk, with at least two of them beheaded. How is this possible? How can this be? How can human behavior and culture be so monstrously different? Is this difference attributable to nothing more than environmental nurture theory?
No. There is something else. There is a catalyst—absent in every other culture on earth—that has poisoned the cultural soil, thus yielding the fruit of bad harvest for nearly 1,400 years. That catalyst is inbreeding. As a direct result, the Muslim population is mentally developmentally disabled on a mass scale.
But there is one culture, one faux “religion,” that expressly condones and encourages consanguineous marriage and breeding. That system is Islam, and the document that explicitly ratifies incest is the Koran, specifically Sura 4 verse 23
...
First cousin marriage for just one generation is extremely risky in and of itself. This is why virtually every other culture on earth prohibits it, and treats it as a cultural taboo. When two people come together who carry so many similar genetic alleles, the chance of an undesirable recessive trait expressing itself in their offspring soars. Now, understanding that single-generational risk, understand that Muslims have been marrying their first cousins over and over again for 1,400 years. Sit in stillness for a moment with the full, terrifying gravity of this.
| Country | Inbreeding |
| Algeria | 34.0 % |
| Bahrain | 45.5 % |
| Northern Egypt | 32.8 % |
| Southern Egypt | 80.4% |
| Iraq | 60 % |
| Jordan | 63.7 % |
| Kuwait | 64.3 % |
| Libya | 48.4 % |
| Palestine | 66.3 % |
| Qatar | 54 % |
| Saudi Arabia | 66.7 % |
Selected countries, rates of maximum consanguinity
Information on the history of the banjo and it’s descent from the plucked lute of dynastic Egypt can be found here. “Modern” versions of the instrument that are still widely played across the Middle East, like the teharden pictured above, can be found here.
Posted by Drew458
on 04/14/2011 at 11:08 AM
Filed Under: • Africa • Middle-East • RoPMA •
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Permalink • Good Decisions From Detroit?
Crude oil tumbled more than 3% Tuesday after Goldman Sachs warned investors that crude is due for a “substantial pullback.”
Goldman analyst David Greely said global supplies remain “adequate” even though the rebellion in Libya shut down production there. Before fighting broke out in February, Libya exported about 1.5 million barrels per day, 2% of global demand — mostly to Europe.
Fear of tightening global supplies have helped push oil prices 33% higher since the middle of February.
Benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude for May delivery gave up more than $4 to $105.85 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, shedding nearly two weeks of price increases. At one point it dropped to $105.60.
Analyst and trader Stephen Schork pointed out that anyone who bought oil contracts last week paid between $107.58 and $112.94 per barrel. If oil continues to hold below that level, it could trigger a wider selloff.
And we all know that Goldman Sachs runs the entire financial world (or was it just the entire US government?), so therefore this will come to pass. Have Hope, things will Change!
Meanwhile in Detroit:
Chevrolet’s Camaro sporty car, already outselling chief rival Ford Mustang, gets some significant updates for 2012, including a power boost. In a conversation with Drive On, Chevy disclosed that it plans to announce today more horsepower and other improvements to the Camaro coupe and convertible, beginning with 2012 models on sale this summer:
The base engine, a 3.6-liter V-6 with gasoline direct injection, gets an 11-horsepower boost, to 323 horsepower, with no expected drop in fuel-economy ratings. That will put it way past arch-rival Mustang’s 305 horsepower.
Hey Chevy, can I have half of that? Get out the hacksaw and make me a 1.8 liter I3 with 161hp. Hella yeah! I doubt if it will run any rougher than the sewing machine you put under the hood of my SC2.
You’d think that there’d be a market for small pickups in the U.S., but automakers think not. Just as Ford is killing its Ranger pickup in the U.S. and refuses to bring a replacement from another market, General Motors is adamant about following suit.
It’s launching a car-based small pickup called Montana in Brazil and, next year, Argentina. It’s kind of cool-looking and begs for the cloying nickname “Hannah Montana.” Even though the current small Chevy truck, Colorado, is dead meat after its plant closes by late 2012, Chevy says it has absolutely no plans to bring “Hannah Montana” to the U.S.
The Montana is nothing new. It’s built in Brazil and sold across the Turd World. In Mexico it’s called the Tornado; in South Africa it’s the Opel Utility. It has a little 1.8 L engine that gets 30+ mpg. It isn’t speedy, but it has a very large bed for it’s size, 66.5” X 55”, and it can carry 3/4 of a ton plus the passengers.
Mini pickups were common here once upon a time. They make a lot of sense if you don’t live in Truck Fantasy Land. They filled a niche left open by the demise of the great American station wagon that wouldn’t be closed by the minivan for several years. But those little trucks - the Chevy LUV, the VW Rabbit pickup, the Datsun B210 - were pretty raw inside and not “Ram Tough” outside. So they grew and got fancier, and the market for a cheap basic hauler evaporated. Personally, if Chevy brought back the S10 I’d buy one. The S10 was a mid-size truck in it’s day, but it was built as a truck, not as a car. Make it half a foot wider this time with an extended cab standard and an efficient yet torquey V6 and a 6 speed stick. My brother had 2 of the earlier versions of the S10, and drove those trucks into the ground after hundreds of thousands of miles. He had variable rate shocks on the last one and the truck rode like a Cadillac.
Posted by Drew458
on 04/14/2011 at 08:47 AM
Filed Under: • planes, trains, tanks, ships, machines, automobiles •
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Permalink • Froggies At The Wheel
While taxiing toward takeoff at 8:08 p.m. Monday night, Air France A380 Flight had a close shave with a Comair Bombardier CRJ700 at the JFK Airport, New York. Although the collision of the Air France flight and the regional jet belonging to Delta regional subsidiary Comair did not result in any injuries, the mishap did cause damage to the flights.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has released post-collision photos of the flight, while video footage of the collision have also emerged giving a better picture of what ensued Monday night at JFK.
Photos of the fender bender damage here.
Posted by Drew458
on 04/14/2011 at 08:34 AM
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Permalink • Not Too Surprising
Sea piracy worldwide hit a record high of 142 attacks in the first quarter this year as Somali pirates become more violent and aggressive, a global maritime watchdog said Thursday.
Nearly 70 percent or 97 of the attacks occurred off the coast of Somalia, up sharply from 35 in the same period last year, the International Maritime Bureau’s piracy reporting center in Kuala Lumpur said in a statement.
Attackers seized 18 vessels worldwide, including three big tankers, in the January-March period and captured 344 crew members, it said. Pirates also murdered seven crew members and injured 34 during the quarter.
“Figures for piracy and armed robbery at sea in the past three months are higher than we’ve ever recorded in the first quarter of any past year,” said the bureau’s director Pottengal Mukundan.
He said there was a “dramatic increase in the violence and techniques” used by Somali pirates to counter increased patrols by international navies, putting large tankers carrying oil and other flammable chemicals at highest risk to firearm attacks.
A further 45 vessels were boarded, and 45 more reported being fired upon.
...
In a recent show of force, the Indian navy captured 61 Somali pirates on a hijacked ship off India’s west coast.Elsewhere, nine incidents were reported off Malaysia, including the hijacking of a tug and barge off Tioman Island.
Five incidents were recorded for Nigeria and three attacks against vessels in Lagos.
I am not sure if “floating burglary” counts as piracy. In Indonesia and off the west coast of Africa, most of the reported criminal activity is of bandits who break into ships in port, but there have been hijackings in those areas too.
The numbers above are for the January to March period; since then there have been at least a dozen more attacks. When I look through the ICC reports one thing stands out: ships that can defend themselves even a little bit don’t get robbed or hijacked. Here’s one that did, and got away from a whole swarm of pirates:
A passenger ship underway noticed a group of about 20 skiffs near the port bow at a distance of 3nm. Five skiffs were seen to break out from this group and head towards the vessel. At a distance of around 600-700 meters the armed security team noticed around five to seven pirates armed with RPG and guns were seen in each skiff and instructed all crew members to stay inside the ship. As the skiffs approached closer the security team fired warning shots and the skiffs moved away. At the same time three more skiffs approached the vessel from the starboard side at a distance of 800 meters. The security team noticed arms on board these skiffs and fired warning shots when the skiffs closed to a distance of 600 – 300 meters. The pirates aborted the attempted attack and moved away. Master informed a warship in the vicinity and all ships in the area via VHF channel16.
And here’s one that didn’t:
About ten pirates armed with weapons boarded a general cargo ship underway. The ten crew members went into the citadel and requested for assistance. Pirates managed to get access into the citadel and took hostage the crew members and took command of the vessel.
The passenger ship was just outside the Straits of Hormuz, just beyond the Persian Gulf in the Gulf of Oman. This is just about the busiest shipping lane in the world; with all the world’s navies patrolling the area, you’d think it would be wall to wall coverage, armed to the teeth. Yet a whole squadron of pirates lay in wait like a gang of muggers in an alley, and once informed, the navies did not engage in a turkey shoot.
The bulk carrier was several hundred miles to the east, 30nm off of Ras al Masirah along the Omani coast east of Yemen.
Posted by Drew458
on 04/14/2011 at 07:46 AM
Filed Under: • Pirates, aarrgh! •
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a small explanation
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Not that very many people ever read this far down, but this blog was the creation of Allan Kelly and his friend Vilmar. Vilmar moved on to his own blog some time ago, and Allan ran this place alone until his sudden and unexpected death partway through 2006. We all miss him. A lot. Even though he is gone this site will always still be more than a little bit his. We who are left to carry on the BMEWS tradition owe him a great debt of gratitude, and we hope to be able to pay that back by following his last advice to us all:
It's been a long strange trip without you Skipper, but thanks for pointing us in the right direction and giving us a swift kick in the behind to get us going. Keep lookin' down on us, will ya? Thanks.
- Keep a firm grasp of Right and Wrong
- Stay involved with government on every level and don't let those bastards get away with a thing
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- Keep talking to each other, whether here or elsewhere
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Oh, and here's some kind of visitor flag counter thingy. Hey, all the cool blogs have one, so I should too. The Visitors Online thingy up at the top doesn't count anything, but it looks neat. It had better, since I paid actual money for it.
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