Monday - October 17, 2011

No Alternate Energy Needed, Part 2

"We’re running out of fossil energy! We need to invest massive amounts of tax money in green energy right now!!!”

Gaffney, Cline & Associates (GCA) said Turkmenistan’s South Iolotan natural gas field is the world’s second-largest, with an estimated 21.2 trillion cu m (tcm) of gas reserves. Supergiant Iolotan field was discovered in the country’s Amu Daria basin in late-2006 (OGJ Online, Nov. 22, 2006).

In a recent presentation, Jim Gillett, GCA business development manager, said South Iolotan’s latest reserves estimate make it second only to giant South Pars gas field, shared by Iran and Qatar.

“Turkmenistan’s gas reserves are more than enough for any potential demand over the foreseeable future, whether it be from China, Russia, Iran, or Europe,” Gillett said.

However, Gillet said estimates of the central Asian nation’s reserves could increase even more, noting that in addition to South Iolotan, the country’s Yashlar field has substantial gas, too.

“The current estimated data for both South Iolotan and Yashlar may well increase still further as additional data are acquired,” Gillett said. Yashlar, a separate field, could contain 1.45-5 tcm, he said.

Under a previous estimate made by GCA, South Iolotan field was believed to hold as much as 14 tcm of gas.

The world uses about 2.4 trillion cubic meters of natural gas per year; the Yashlar field could feed the world for a whole year all by itself. So call it 9 years from the first field, 10 years altogether. That’s natural gas from just one country, from just two gas producing regions. Not to mention that existing wells the world over already supply just a bit more gas than currently gets used. Or any of the new fields that get discovered all the time, like the one in CA I wrote about the other day. Or the ones way up north that we’re only just starting to look for, now that some of the ice and snow has gone away so that we can look.

Natural gas burns pretty clean, leaving behind just CO2 and steam. And plans have already been figured out how to pull massive amounts of CO2 out of the air and pump it back into those old gas wells that have run dry. So there.

h/t to EagleSpeak

Posted by Drew458     on 10/17/2011 at 10:29 AM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •  
• Comments (3) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

   Monday - October 10, 2011

Curiosity Killed The Drew

then went to here:

with a side trip here:

and wound up here:

It was a really nice early fall day yesterday so we took a drive out into the local hinterlands and had a bit of a ramble. We went out along the Musconetcong River for about a dozen miles, up over into Port Murray on the outskirts of Hackettstown then back up and over the mountains into High Bridge and Lebanon Township. It’s a pretty drive through the woods and fields; this part of the state is lightly populated, what I call exoburban, but that gives way to farmlands and forests within half a mile of the main roads. This area is rich in history, from colonial iron mines and forges to places where Washington’s army set up artillery batteries to stave off the British during the Revolution to many places that were once significant points in the early years of the Industrial Revolution, right on up to various modernities. Each era has left its mark on the land, although many of those landmarks are now almost lost to sight and memory. This makes a scenic drive around here a bit of a learning experience, even if a large part of that learning is done online after we get home. And it’s all connected somehow ... which is why the internet is a dangerous thing. Learning about what was and what is, and tracking down those connections can suck up your life. Hours go by; the curiosity slaked by finding one thing out is just refreshed again by seeing something else a bit related, and wanting to know more about that. And on and on it goes.

The Musconetcong River is one of those famous trout streams that the fly fishermen so love. It flows across a good part of the state from east to west, eventually joining the Delaware River at Phillipsburg on the PA border. Today it’s hard to envision such a thing, but once upon a time it was one of the major thoroughfares across the state; sections of it were part of the Morris Canal works that was built in the early 19th century.

The first picture of the little green bridge is a bit of local color. It is the earliest example of an eye-rod Warren truss adjustable tension pony bridge in NJ. It was built here in New Hampton by Francis Lowthorp in 1869 out of cast iron. This one spans the Musconetcong River in the nearby town of New Hampton. There are two other Lowthorp iron bridges here in Hunterdon County, both only a year younger and both still in use, including the rather famous one we have here in Clinton by our equally famous Red Mill.

Perhaps a mile further down Musconetcong River Road we came upon these huge and brooding stone pylons by the very edge of the street. Looking like something out of Ozymandius they shoot up out of the ground and stand 5-8 stories tall, and march down the mountainside and out across a farmer’s fields. They are the pylons for a large bridge that crossed the river at elevation. The bridge is long gone. There is no town on the top of the mountain. There is no neighborhood up there. There are no roads there, only forest. And there is nothing at the other end. So why a bridge? It turns out that this was the Changewater Trestle, a railroad bridge put up in 1859 for a railroad that ceased to exist long ago. The bridge and the tracks survived until 1959 when both were dismantled. The pylons were cut down only enough to no longer be a danger, and their bases were just left in place.

I spent a bunch of time looking at railroad history in our area. Once upon a time there were tracks everywhere. The sleepy little towns were busy with factories, the farms had to shuttle their crops to the cities (New Jersey really was the market Garden State), and of course all that coal had to be brought in from Pennsylvania. I’ve written before about Upon the Road of Anthracite, the world of coal that opened up so much of this area long ago. What struck me was the serendipity of the whole thing; half a mile south of this bridge is an old iron works, where the ore dug out of the ground in nearby High Bridge was smelted. That railroad probably carried those rough smeltings 10 miles further south to the sleepy little town of Lambertville, where the castings from the bridge were forged. So it was a very local harmonious endeavor, but it still amazes me that the pristine and spotless little towns in our area were once centers of heavy industry, little Mt. Doom zones of smoke and fire, heat and noise, danger and newly created wealth. How times change.

A tangential trip on my choo-choo research ( I guess that would be a siding in railroad terms? ) gave me the picture of the Pullman car. That’s the Union Gap diner in 1974 (note the Ford Pinto) just after it had taken delivery of the observation car from the Blue Comet, once a passenger train of the Central New Jersey Railroad, back from the days when trains had names. The diner has since been renovated and modernized, yet the train car still sticks out the side of the building. What comes around goes around: The diner is half a mile from my home, and right on the edge of Rt 78, one of NJ’s 3 east-west highways. Rt 78 follows old Rt 22. I don’t know if it once had train tracks or a canal on it, but the area is called Union Gap for a reason: this is where there was a gap in the mountains to the west, and an easy path to get to the interior of the young nation from New York City. Stage coach lines once ran up and down the road when it was just a dirt track; one of our state’s finest restaurants a couple miles west of here was a stopping point. It was the main road from New Brunswick NJ to Easton PA. Before those days George Washington could have run his battered army down that trail when Cornwallis was chasing him, even stopping off down the street here at Bonnell’s Tavern for a cold one (the building still exists but hasn’t poured a draft in 100 years) but he didn’t. He went straight across the state from New York City to Philadelphia. How about that? George Washington, inventor of the Jersey Turnpike.

Looking at railroads and bridge trusses lead me to that last picture somehow. That’s an aircraft carrier in the foreground, the HMS Argus, one of England’s earliest attempts at floating runways. It didn’t work too well. That ship started life as the Italian ocean liner Conte Rosso, but it got co-opted (laws of angary) when WWI came about. The amazing pile of girders in the background is the Firth of Forth bridge, a multiple cantilever arch truss creation up in Scotland between Edinburgh and Firth. This was the first all steel bridge ever built, and it pretty much defines Drew-spec. The bridge was tremendously overbuilt on purpose, because an earlier bridge on the Firth of Tay had collapsed in the wind and had caused the worst train disaster in history at that point. So the bridge was built about 20 times stronger than it really needed to be, to regain public confidence. 120 years later and the bridge is still so strong that it barely even wiggles even in the strongest storms. It is a huge thing, the pinnacle of Victorian engineering, stretching nearly as far as San Francisco’s Golden Gate bridge (ok, 600 feet less, but still 8276 feet) built 60 years later, with foundation plinths 70 feet across that sink 90 feet or more down below the bay to bedrock, circular main beams 12 feet in diameter, and the tops of the arches 350 feet above the water. Built in less than 7 years, it can still carry two full size modern freight trains on its double tracks. While this steel giant was being built, the fwench got busy and built the Eiffel Tower. Out of wrought iron.

Posted by Drew458     on 10/10/2011 at 09:13 AM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •  
• Comments (2) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

   Sunday - October 09, 2011

Sunday eye-candy

Peiper, or Drew, normally do this. Peiper, don’t know why you’ve been absent, I assume that Mrs. peiper is ailing. Or maybe you are ailing? Regardless, both of you are in my prayers.

My ‘eye candy’ is a bit risqué. So, posted below the fold for either nudity, or sexual suggestiveness. Or both.

Nice lingerie!

Armed and dangerous.

I’ll take ‘Bust’ for $100 Alex.

Nice parrot. What? You didn’t notice the parrot?

GET ME OUT OF HERE ...

Posted by Christopher     on 10/09/2011 at 12:18 PM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •  
• Comments (1) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

   Monday - September 26, 2011

Fails the sniff test

Lots and lots of coverage around the blogosphere of NYPD Chief Ray Kelly’s statement on 60 Minutes that his cops could “take down” an airliner if necessary ...

NEW YORK — The chief of the New York Police Department says city police could take down a plane if needed.

Commissioner Ray Kelly tells CBS’ “60 Minutes” that after the Sept. 11 attacks, he decided the city couldn’t rely on the federal government alone. He set about creating the NYPD’s own counter-terrorism unit. He says the department is prepared for multiple scenarios and could even take down a plane.

Tonight’s edition of 60 Minutes featured a segment on one of the world’s most sophisticated anti-terrorism units--the New York City Police Department. Over the past decade, NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly (and the city) have spent $3 billion on measures designed to prevent or mitigate future attacks.
...
Pelley: Are you satisfied that you’ve dealt with threats from aircraft, even light planes, model planes, that kind of thing?

Kelly: Well, it’s something that’s on our radar screen. I mean in an extreme situation, you would have some means to take down a plane.

Pelley: Do you mean to say that the NYPD has the means to take down an aircraft?

Kelly: Yes, I prefer not to get into the details but obviously this would be in a very extreme situation.

Pelley: You have the equipment and the training.

Kelly: Yes.

Speculation on this statement has run the gamut from it’s pure BS to they have either Avenger missile launchers (packs of Stingers mounted on Humvees) or else MANPADS (shoulder launched Stingers). Another blog says all of that is nonsense, because what they have is Barrett .50 rifles, and will shoot down the airliners from helicopters.

I say phooey to the whole thing. [Insert my standard rant about the over-militarization of the police here]

• Shooting a bullet at a jetliner, even if it’s a big bullet, is not going to do it. Even if it’s a really “long range” kind of gun, we’re still talking no more than two miles at the very most. 10,000 feet; an altitude that’s miles lower than such aircraft normally fly at. And the speed difference between even a really slow jet and a really fast helicopter is enormous. being on the order of at least 200mph. Which is about 300 feet per second, a good deal longer than the plane itself. That means leading your target by more than it’s own length, which makes a precise hit a very iffy thing. Too much deflection, too easy to take evasive action, too small a chance of making the precise hit necessary.
  
  


• Stinger missiles, whether MANPAD launched or fired from a mobile battery or even from a helicopter, are just too short range to save your bacon properly. Drag out your 30-60-90 drawing triangle, or resurrect your trig knowledge from that long ago math class and recall the 3-4-5 right triangle. The best and latest Stinger missile has a range of just 5 miles. 5 miles is the hypotenuse when the target is 3 miles away and 4 miles (20,000 feet) up, or when it’s 4 miles away and 3 miles up (almost 16,000 feet).
  
  Now, while it may be true - may be - that the 5 or 6 pounds worth of explosive would be enough to force a big jet to crash (after all, look what just one hand grenade can do to a DC-3. A grenade weighs about a pound) the problem is that the crashing airliner is still there, up in the sky, crashing. Right at you. Even if the missile blows the plane into 6 big chunks, those chunks are still moving forward at 500mph from an altitude of several miles. In other words, the plane may not hit it’s intended target, but it’s gonna make a helluva mess for someone on the ground, somewhere nearby. The only safe solution is to blow it out of the sky a long, long way away.

So the practical answer must be that the air defense tool involved is a bigger missile. Something on the order of a AIM-120 or greater, either in the air version (AMRAAM) or the ground version (SLAMRAAM). Perhaps go even larger, with the leftover old Hawk missiles gathering dust in warehouses, or some Patriot batteries. Not only do these kinds of missiles have much greater range (30 - 50 miles or more) they pack much more bang, having about the same explosive and fragmentation power as a 120mm to 155mm artillery shell ... which is plenty (50 - 80lbs). So the pieces will be much smaller, and they’ll fall much further away. Somewhere out past the end of Long Island, or 20 miles off the New Jersey shore would be just about right.

And all of this leads back to the question of the day, just what the EFF kind of police departments have we built in this country? Hardware of this magnitude has NEVER been in civilian hands before. Nor has launch authority. If Commissioner Kelly isn’t lying out his sphincter, and he does have such equipment AND the authority to deploy it ... then we have a cop with warlord like powers. If so, someone has made a huge mistake.

Hey, don’t get me wrong. I’m all for air defenses around our cities. It makes sense. Heck, they used to be there; once upon a time (up to 1972) nearly two dozen anti-aircraft missile bases surrounded New York City, including one within the confines of the city proper, not 2 miles from the Bronx Zoo. Armed with nukes!  But these were all under the control of the Army, not the mayor of the city or his top cop. Has the chain of command been thrown out the window and flushed down the toilet? It would seem it must have been. I can see no other possible way that Kelly’s statement can possibly be true. What’s next for the NYPD, their own nuclear submarines? Private air craft carries? A battalion or two of tanks? His own little air force of AT-6s armed with air to air missiles? Too damn much power IMO. We have an excellent military. Defending the nation against our enemies is their job. Let them do it, and keep the plod out of it.

Besides, as I’ve said, the place to make an interception is long before the bits and pieces left afterwards can crash down on your head. That means that the threat has to be determined and validated, and the interception decision made, long before it gets near Commissioner Kelly and his blue crewed AA batteries. Which means that the local Air Force bases will have plenty of time to sortie every jet fighter they have on nearly suicidal intercept missions. So if it REALLY comes down to it, by the time the cops are shooting at jet airliners, it’s already too damn late. Might as well stand on the roof and throw rocks or shoot off bottle rockets. In other words, giving the NYPD anti-aircraft weaponry and launch authority is yet another waste of millions of dollars, and another “let no crisis go to waste” usurpation of power.

Posted by Drew458     on 09/26/2011 at 03:30 PM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •  
• Comments (4) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

   Sunday - September 25, 2011

racist reporting

WASHINGTON (AP) — In a fiery summons to an important voting bloc, President Barack Obama told blacks on Saturday to quit crying and complaining and “put on your marching shoes” to follow him into battle for jobs and opportunity.

And though he didn’t say it directly, for a second term, too.

Obama’s speech to the annual awards dinner of the Congressional Black Caucus was his answer to increasingly vocal griping from black leaders that he’s been giving away too much in talks with Republicans—and not doing enough to fight black unemployment, which is nearly double the national average at 16.7 percent.

“It gets folks discouraged. I know. I listen to some of y’all,” Obama told an audience of some 3,000 in a darkened Washington convention center.

Uh huh. Very funny. Yup, put 3,000 black people in a convention center and it will be considerably darkened, yes it will. Raaaaaacist!!!

He acknowledged blacks have suffered mightily because of the recession, and are frustrated that the downturn is taking so long to reverse. “So many people are still hurting. So many people are barely hanging on,” he said, then added: “And so many people in this city are fighting us every step of the way.”

But Obama said blacks know all too well from the civil rights struggle that the fight for what is right is never easy.

“Take off your bedroom slippers. Put on your marching shoes,” he said, his voice rising as applause and cheers mounted. “Shake it off. Stop complainin’. Stop grumblin’. Stop cryin’. We are going to press on. We have work to do.”

Bedroom slippers? Bedroom slippers? Is that a reference to that old comfortable shoes routine? Yes’m, yes it be. Horry Clap, raaaaaaacist metaphors straight from the President! That must have been his white half talking.

Obama said the package of payroll tax cuts, business tax breaks and infrastructure spending will benefit 100,000 black-owned businesses and 20 million African-American workers. Republicans have indicated they’re open to some of the tax measures—but oppose his means of paying for it: hiking taxes on top income-earners and big business.

Oh pure genius, that is. Pay for the jobs bill by taxing the very businesses that are going to be doing the hiring. That’ll work leave a mark.

PS - Last time I heard there were less than 39 million black people in the USA. If half of them are either too young or too old to work, which is reasonable, that leaves a couple million less than 20. Any time race comes up, I’m always hearing how 1 in 4 or 1 in 5 black men are in jail ... given that males are about half the population ... that’s about 2 million. So the theoretical maximum black population available for work is perhaps 16 million. Given their supposed unemployment rate that’s double the rate the rest of us have, that makes 3.2 million black people out of work. Obama’s plan is said to benefit 20 million black workers, even though about 13 million of them already have jobs and there aren’t even 20 million of them available. Go figure. Obama’s jobs plan will be a direct benefit to far more than every single one of them. MORE THAN Every. Single. One. Including all of the executives, upper managers, business owners, and the millions who already work for the various levels of government. Maybe all those extra millions of black workers live in those extra 7 states Obama believes we have. Or maybe his plan, like his math, is a wee bit flawed??

And I’m just so darn impressed our post racial president needs to pander to his color buddies and crank up the patois, just like Hillary “Know what I’m saying?” Clinton. Because it’s not about race you know. Which is why the Congressional Black Caucus is going to disband itself, right? And the pollsters and the government are going to stop even keeping racial statistics? E Pluribus Unum, content of your character not the color of your skin and all that jazz, right?

Posted by Drew458     on 09/25/2011 at 08:36 AM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •  
• Comments (8) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

   Wednesday - September 21, 2011

hidden in plain sight

Red perfection.

Like some of the lesser known rules in chess, the Pratchett Rules of Art (used to rationalize your interest while gazing at Three Large Pink Women and One Piece of Gauze apply to pics of naked ladies as well:
1. If there are cherubs in the picture, it’s art
2. If there are Greek urns or amphorae in the picture, it’s art. Gods and religious symbols also make the cut.
3. Same thing goes for settings in an “Arcadian Garden” setting; add a bit of statuary and it’s art.

You don’t need to be one of the gray robed Auditors to no figure out the last one:
4. If you can’t see the details, it’s art.

Either way, I’ll put things under the fold for you cubicle bound surfers.

Posted by Drew458     on 09/21/2011 at 12:23 PM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •  
• Comments (0) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

   Tuesday - September 13, 2011

Left Fantasy May Become Reality

"What if schools were fully funded and the military had to have a bake sale to buy bombs?” Gak, you’ve heard that one before. Now in the disarmed, fully neutered, completely dickless land of warm beer and soggy fried fish, it may just become a reality. Having rid the Royal Navy of it’s last remaining aircraft carrier, the Green Plan is neither to sell it to the wonderful Chinese nor to break it up for scrap. No, the plan is to sink it off the coast and turn it into a reef, in the belief that this will somehow earn millions. Idiots.

HMS Ark Royal could be turned into artificial diving reef

Councillors back scheme to scuttle Royal Navy’s decommissioned flagship six miles off Devon to create reef

An ambitious scheme to scuttle the decommissioned aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal off Devon to create an artificial diving reef has won the backing of councillors.

Members of Torbay council’s harbour committee voted unanimously to support the proposal to sink the Royal Navy’s former flagship six miles off the English Riviera.

There are still many hurdles for the charity behind the scheme to overcome, not least buying the vessel, which was taken out of service as part of defence cuts.

But the harbour committee’s unanimous backing of a proposal to lease part of the seabed from the Crown Estate to create a final resting place for the Ark is seen as a major step forward by the many champions of the plan in Devon.

In Torbay the idea of buying the vessel and turning it into an artificial reef was hatched over drinks at a sailing club and quickly turned into a solid plan. A charity called Wreck the World has been formed and it has put in a bid of £3.5m for the Ark.

One of the charity’s founders, Michael Byfield, said: “It’s been a steep learning curve and there are still lots of obstacles but we feel we are getting somewhere.”

Wreck the World believes that divers would be attracted to Torbay from around the world if the scheme came to fruition, bringing in an estimated £10m a year to the local economy.

Byfield said he believed it would be best to scuttle the ship so that the top of it came to rest five to 10 metres below the surface, making it accessible to many more divers than if it was sunk deeper.

He would prefer to see the Ark settle upright on the seabed, allowing less confident divers to explore areas such as the bridge while more experienced ones could venture down to the deck and hull.

Naturally, measures will have to be taken to ensure it would not pose a risk to any other shipping. Detailed environmental surveys would be carried out to check that the wreck would enhance rather than harm marine life.

Dude, 5 to 10 meters down is going to make the thing a major navigation hazard. And if you make it easily accessible to novice divers, it’s going to become a lobster pot for people. A drowning magnet. This is not a fitting end for a great ship, but a tragic and ignomious one, and what makes it worse is that Ark Royal still could have had years of active duty in her. But why on earth would an island culture, once upon a time the greatest naval power in the world, want a navy for? Sink them all, and let the greenies come dive on the hulks for self-righteous fun. Geex, what happens when you get a swelled head when you’re 20 meters down? Does that cause instant oxygen narcosis? Gosh, I hope so.

Posted by Drew458     on 09/13/2011 at 12:33 PM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •  
• Comments (1) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

   Saturday - September 10, 2011

Eye Candy Redux

Peiper, you’re gonna have to learn about eye-candy.

Posted below the fold because, nudity

I really like her smile.

Peiper, you may remember i really like hats:

GET ME OUT OF HERE ...

Posted by Christopher     on 09/10/2011 at 11:28 AM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •  
• Comments (0) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

   Friday - September 09, 2011

Hope that fixes it

We have now had an entire 24 hours without rain, and the sun even put in an appearance for half the afternoon today. While the flood waters start to recede a bit in central PA and central NY (guess I should refer to Binghamton now as my “alma mudder") I seized the chance to try and fix my car trunk.

Not sure why, but the trunk lid has been leaking. Maybe strapping giant ladders to it under tension has pulled it out of alignment a bit? Could be. After this latest deluge, when I opened the lid, at least a gallon of water poured out from the various recesses in the lid itself. The brake lights were filled with water. Not to mention the small ponds under the spare tire and in the corners. Something had to be done.

So I took the trunk lid apart, took it right off the car, dried and cleaned everything, then had a go with the silicon bathtub caulk. Everything got caulked. Every nut, every bolt, every place where a bit of plastic nestled up against a bit of metal, every gasket, every place where there was an opening. The result is ugly, big blops of white stuff everywhere, but it should be watertight now. Later on when I put the lid back on, the lock didn’t line up with the hasp. Not much good waterproofing if the trunk won’t stay shut! I figured that one out - the hasp is adjustable. To do that I had to crawl into the trunk from the backseat to get at the bolts. It wasn’t hard, but the trunk wasn’t tightly closed afterwards. That’s when I realized I needed some downforce to do the job right. So I borrowed one of the neighbors, who is not even close to anorexic, and had her sit on the trunk lid while I went inside to do the hasp bolts. Squished it right down, tight against the inner lip gasket. Now the trunk shuts tight as a drum. After the caulk was dry I took a plastic scraper around the outside of the trunk and peeled away all the extra white caulk, then covered it over with some black RTV sealant. That makes the caulking much less obvious, so I don’t feel like I’m driving a redneck spazmobile.

I bet I bailed 3 gallons of water out of the trunk wells. Let’s see what happens the next time it rains ... which might be tomorrow? 

Posted by Drew458     on 09/09/2011 at 05:01 PM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •  
• Comments (0) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

   Thursday - September 08, 2011

my posts for the day ….

Looking for something else when I found this. Very much worth sharing.

Deep in the rainforests of the Indian state of Meghalaya lie some of the most extraordinary pieces of civil engineering in the world. Here, in the depths of the forest, bridges aren’t built - they’re grown. Ancient tree vines and roots stretch across rivers and streams, creating a solid latticework structure that appears too fantastical to be real. The Cherrapunji region is considered to be one of the wettest places on the planet and this is the reason behind the unusual bridges. With Cherrapunji receiving around 15 metres of rain per year, a normal wooden bridge would quickly rot. This is why, 500 years ago, locals began to guide roots and vines from the native Ficus Elastica rubber tree across rivers using hollow bamboo until they became rooted on the opposite side.

And now from the sublime to the ridiculous.

In this surveillance video taken on Sept. 5, 2011 and released by the San Diego Police Dept, a suspect dressed like Gumby is seen telling a convenience store clerk he is being robbed, then fumbling inside the costume as if to pull a gun, dropping 27 cents and leaving. Police say the attempted robbery took place on Monday at a 7-Eleven in Rancho Penasquitos, California.
Picture: AP/San Diego Police Department

Posted by peiper     on 09/08/2011 at 07:37 AM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •  
• Comments (0) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

   Friday - September 02, 2011

Oldcatman

Tried to go to Oldcatman’s blog at http://oldcatman-xxx.blogspot.com/. I hadn’t visited in a few months.

Ain’t there anymore. Can’t find a new one.

Know if anything happened to him? The ‘old’ in Oldcatman is/was true.

Posted by Christopher     on 09/02/2011 at 09:30 PM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •  
• Comments (3) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

Where O Where

Help !

I built a new table top for a customer the other night. It supports a 50lb precision plastic parts cutting machine. The machine holds the bit of plastic inside it, and carves it to precise shape using computers and lasers and stuff. To cool the part off during machining, it gets water sprayed on it. Chips and dust and rinse water are vacuumed off and sent down a flexible drain pipe to a pump/filter/catch bucket affair. This means there are a couple of flex lines and a 4 3/4” diameter drain tube sticking out the bottom of the machine, and that means that the table had to have a big old hole in it for them to fit through.

The reason the customer needed a new table top was that the hoses and tubes underneath have not always been watertight, and over 26 years the 1” thick melamine coated chipboard table had rotted away. I suggested some quality exterior 3/4” plywood and some genuine Formica sheeting as a replacement, but he didn’t want to spend the bucks and we settled on the off the shelf 3/4” MDF sheets at HD that come pre-coated with melamine. So I built the table, put on some iron-on edging, and called it a day. I cut a 5 1/2” hole for the plumbing, and lined it with more of the iron-on edging. I fear that that will not be enough. So I thought about it, and I have a solution, but I don’t know quite how to implement it. And I think the hole should be just a bit bigger to give the flex lines a little more room.

I need a flange of some sorts, whether it’s hard plastic, rust proof metal, rubber, silicone, whatever. I’d like it to have a 6” -7” inner diameter. I’d like the cylinder part of the flange to be about an inch tall or just a tad less, so that it sticks all the way through the hole. It doesn’t matter what the thing is made out of; either contact adhesive or silicon caulk will glue it down and keep the edges sealed, pretty much forever.

And I want it to be cheap. $100 is out of the question. So is $25. Under $10 would be best, especially if I can find it locally. Some standard off the shelve thingy I can use. The cover from a stack-pack of CD-RW discs, only another 1” or so in diameter. A 2” piece of 7” PVC pipe? It can be ugly; no one will ever see it.

I thought that a trim ring from a 6” recessed light can might work; I can get one of those for $5. I thought that a flange for 6” PVC pipe would work ... and it would, but it costs waaay too much. Roof boots for vent pipes? Could work. I can get one for about $15. Rubber toilet flange for a 6” stack? Maybe. A really really big rubber grommet would do the job. Caplugs or a large plastic core plug. You know that plastic do-dads on your cubicle desk that give the PC wires a place to go through? Like that, only way bigger. A flange mount for 6” or 7” flexible vent pipe. It doesn’t have to be open on the end, as long as I can saw or drill it out, but I’d really prefer that it was. Heck, it doesn’t even have to be round; lozenge shaped is fine as long as the smallest opening dimension is 5 1/2” ... I thought of that first, and looked at brake light gaskets for trucks. Great idea, just what I want, but not big enough. Some kind of molded boot?

I’d rather not gin up something I have to build or extensively modify. I’d really prefer some kind of drop in thing I can screw and glue in place. All it has to be is cheap, waterproof, and big enough. No contact will ever be made with the thing, so it doesn’t even have to be strong.

Got an idea, maybe even a link? Thanks!

Posted by Drew458     on 09/02/2011 at 06:37 PM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •  
• Comments (3) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

Happy Labor Day Weekend

A dismal labor report Friday showed the economy added zero net workers in August, intensifying pressure on President Obama to unveil a major jobs initiative during his speech to Congress next week.

The Labor Department report, which showed the unemployment rate stuck at 9.1 percent, feeds into concerns that the economy could be at risk of another recession. It was the weakest jobs report since September 2010.

Republican leaders swiftly cited the report as renewed evidence that the Obama administration must change course.

“Private-sector job growth continues to be undermined by the triple threat of higher taxes, more failed ‘stimulus’ spending, and excessive federal regulations,” House Speaker John Boehner said.

At least the MSM didn’t insult us yet again by saying that this was “unexpected” news. It couldn’t have been; we’ve all seen it coming for months. Next month will probably be worse.

Want to get America back to work? Cut regulations, cut business taxes, cut fuel taxes, throw out Obamacare and start figuring something else out instead, get government out of the private sector. Stop the deficit spending. Shrink government and government hand-outs across the boards. Turn America back into a producer nation, and make efforts to half the number of illegals and secure the borders. That’s the only path that works.

Noting that Obama will “finally unveil his latest jobs plan” next week, Cantor (Rhino-VA) said he believed there would be areas where Republicans and the White House could “work together to produce real results that will help job creators get people back to work.”

He said Obama’s suggestion earlier this week that states should get more control over infrastructure projects was one the GOP could agree with. Cantor also suggested the two sides could agree on changes to the unemployment system.

“The president says he wants to put job creation first and put politics aside,” Cantor said. “We agree. It is a two-way street, and if the president is willing to roll up his sleeves and join us in helping Americans back to work, we are ready to work together.”

Unemployment was at 7.8% when Obama took office. He campaigned that he was going to save the economy from the terrible Bush years when nearly everyone had a job. How’s The Won doing so far? Hmm, I think I heard that his latest poll numbers are down to 42%. I wonder where they would be if the MSM and their agitprop running dogs were on his back 24 hours a day since before he even took the oath, the same as they were for Bush? Congress doesn’t have a built in, nearly universal cheering squad with bulletproof faith like he does, and their current approval rating is an abhorrent 6%. Kind of hard to fully separate the two, since together they are the leadership end of the government.

Ratings for the current Congress remain at their worst, with the number of voters who think the lawmakers have passed any legislation to improve life in America now at a record low.

Posted by Drew458     on 09/02/2011 at 12:39 PM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •  
• Comments (2) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

   Friday - August 26, 2011

Thar She Blows

Getting ready for hurricane Irene here. Battening down the hatches, filling the gas tanks, buying food, getting cash from the bank, making sure laundry and dishes are done and garbage is out. Might fill up several buckets of water in case water supply dies. Making extra ice in case of power failure.

Fresh batteries in all 6 of my flashlights. If I have time I’ll go to the library and get some new books to read, just in case. I will park the outside car in a spot where no trees can fall on it.

Personally, I don’t think it’s going to be all that bad, but you never know. Best to be prepared, but let’s not get crazy.

Posted by Drew458     on 08/26/2011 at 02:20 PM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •  
• Comments (2) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

DISCLAIMER

THE SERVICES AND MATERIALS ON THIS WEBSITE ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" AND THE HOSTS OF THIS SITE EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS ANY AND ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF SATISFACTORY QUALITY, MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, WITH RESPECT TO THE SERVICE OR ANY MATERIALS.

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:

1. Keep a firm grasp of Right and Wrong
2. Stay involved with government on every level and don't let those bastards get away with a thing
3. Use every legal means to defend yourself in the event of real internal trouble, and, most importantly:
4. Keep talking to each other, whether here or elsewhere

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.

THE INFORMATION AND OTHER CONTENTS OF THIS WEBSITE ARE DESIGNED TO COMPLY WITH THE LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. THIS WEBSITE SHALL BE GOVERNED BY AND CONSTRUED IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND ALL PARTIES IRREVOCABLY SUBMIT TO THE JURISDICTION OF THE AMERICAN COURTS. IF ANYTHING ON THIS WEBSITE IS CONSTRUED AS BEING CONTRARY TO THE LAWS APPLICABLE IN ANY OTHER COUNTRY, THEN THIS WEBSITE IS NOT INTENDED TO BE ACCESSED BY PERSONS FROM THAT COUNTRY AND ANY PERSONS WHO ARE SUBJECT TO SUCH LAWS SHALL NOT BE ENTITLED TO USE OUR SERVICES UNLESS THEY CAN SATISFY US THAT SUCH USE WOULD BE LAWFUL.

Copyright © 2004-2008 Domain Owner