And Then There Were None; Great War Edition

The last living veteran of the Great War has died.

A woman thought to be the world's last known surviving service member of World War I has died aged 110.

Florence Green, from King's Lynn, Norfolk, served as a mess steward at RAF bases in Marham and Narborough.

She died in her sleep on Saturday night at Briar House care home, King's Lynn. Mrs Green had been due to celebrate her 111th birthday on 19 February.

And so that war becomes the sole province of the historians, it no longer belongs to the participants.

The destruction wreaked by the Great War took over seventy years to settle out and arguably has not finished reverberating. A war that began when one empire (Austro-Hungarian) sought to punish a smaller nation (Serbia) with a brief war led to the destruction of four empires (German, Ottoman, Imperial Russian and Austro-Hungarian). It led to the eventual creation of the state of Israel. The carnage and cost of the war effectively ended France as a global military power and led to the creation of the Soviet Union. It led to the end in Europe of nations that were effective monarchies, the ones that remain are essentially ceremonial figureheads and tourist attractions. And, due not in any small part to the vindictiveness of the French, it led to the most industrialized genocide yet known.

Now there is nobody left to say "I was there."

Whether due to the number of still-living veterans or the existence of far superior and far more voluminous motion-picture footage, the Second World War is the one that people talk more about. But it can be argued that the two wars were really one extended conflict with a 21 year cease-fire inbetween the two periods of conflict. I disagree with that, only to the extent that it treats both wars as being inevitable. I hold that war is only inevitable to the extent that hubris and folly supplant wisdom.

The creation of the European Union and of the Euro currency were all aftereffects of the First and Second World Wars. The idea was to bind the states of Europe close enough economically so that it was in no one nation's interest to settle their differences with their neighbors by the rifle.

So far, the jury is still out on that.

They Don't Like Him. They Really Don't Like Him,

Willard M. Romney, that is:

Rick Santorum had a breakthrough night Tuesday, winning GOP presidential contests in Missouri, Minnesota and Colorado, all of which is expected to breathe life into his struggling campaign and slow Mitt Romney’s march to the Republican presidential nomination.

Romney has a shitloat of money, both his own and the cash that his predatory capitalist buddies have been dumping into Mitt's super-pac. Team Mittens is going around the nation, telling Republicans that he alone has the money to bury the others in advertising buys and that since he's going to win anyway, everyone should shut up, be a bunch of good little Germans, and fall into line behind Mitt the Inevitable.

Except that the GOP's conservative base apparently despises Romney and they made their displeasure known last night.

Mr. Romney has had deep problems so far with the Republican base, going 1-for-4 in caucus states where turnout is dominated by highly conservative voters. Mr. Romney is 0-for-3 so far in the Midwest, a region that is often decisive in the general election. He had tepid support among major blocks of Republican voters like evangelicals and Tea Party supporters, those voters making under $50,000 per year, and those in rural areas.

As others have pointed out, Romney won Minnesota in 2008 and last night, even with T-Paw's endorsement, he came in a distant third.

A long nominating contest isn't, of itself, bad. It can energize the members of a party. The protracted battle between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama didn't hurt him. Of course, things were different four years ago. McCain committed a serious unforced error when he listened to his groin and chose the Wasilla Whackaloon as his running mate. The near-collapse of the banking sector hurt McCain, as he flailed around in response. And the level of animosity between the center-right and left-wing Democrats in 2008 was far lower than the animosity that I see inside the GOP. There is really a war going on between what I would call the party of Hoover and the party of the Confederacy.

Santorum would be beaten like a gong in the general election. I don't think that point is arguable.

The problem for Romney is a modern one. Historically, candidates have sought to pander to the party faithful and then, once the nomination has been secured, move to the center of the spectrum to work on the independents and the moderates in the opposing party. A candidate could say some truly obnoxious things in Dubuque in January and all that they'd face is maybe some ad quoting him in September, where some deep-voiced announcer read the quote.

But those days are gone, thanks to digital hard drives. Every word that a presidential candidate speaks before a camera ends up on a hard drive for the other party. Everything that Romney says in order to over the right-wing voters who, for good reasons, don't trust him will be thrown back in Romney's face this fall. Every hard word he has for immigrants, minorities, the poor, workers, and women will be used against him. Stephen Colbert's attack ad will, by comparison, look like a love tap.

The Obama campaign and its allies might not even have to work that hard. The polls seem to be indicating that the more people across the country learn of Romney, the less they like him. As somebody once put it, Romney looks the the robotic guy who fired your father without feeling a qualm. Romney comes across as the kind of decent-looking guy who, if you had a drink with him, would roofie your drink, steal your wallet, rape you, slit your throat, ransack your home, torch the place and then leave with a spring in his step and a song in his heart.

And you can bet that you'll see ads alluding to that this fall, that is, if Gingrich doesn't run them before then.

One Congressman Who Could Drown Walking in the Rain

John Fleming (R, LA):

Rep. John Fleming has deleted his Facebook post linking to an article in The Onion about a fictional Planned Parenthood “Abortionplex.”

In a Facebook status on Friday, the Louisiana Republican alerted his followers to The Onion’s May 18, 2011 article, “Planned Parenthood Opens $8 Billion Abortionplex” and wrote “More on Planned Parenthood, abortion by the wholesale.” Fleming’s spokesman Doug Sachtleben confirmed to POLITICO the post has since been removed from the congressman’s Facebook page and said the office had no further comment.The

"Literally Unbelievable" blog broke the story. This was the Onion article that Fleming fell for. According to the Wikipedia article on Fleming, he is a physician and a businessman.

Rumor has it, though, that in medical circles, Fleming isn't exactly known for being the sharpest scalpel on the tray. Which only makes sense.

Same Shit, Different War

From Armed Forces Journal:

I spent last year in Afghanistan, visiting and talking with U.S. troops and their Afghan partners. My duties with the Army’s Rapid Equipping Force took me into every significant area where our soldiers engage the enemy. Over the course of 12 months, I covered more than 9,000 miles and talked, traveled and patrolled with troops in Kandahar, Kunar, Ghazni, Khost, Paktika, Kunduz, Balkh, Nangarhar and other provinces.

What I saw bore no resemblance to rosy official statements by U.S. military leaders about conditions on the ground.

Entering this deployment, I was sincerely hoping to learn that the claims were true: that conditions in Afghanistan were improving, that the local government and military were progressing toward self-sufficiency. I did not need to witness dramatic improvements to be reassured, but merely hoped to see evidence of positive trends, to see companies or battalions produce even minimal but sustainable progress.

Instead, I witnessed the absence of success on virtually every level.

You should read the entire article. It's not long.

How do we protect ourselves from the careerists, the "professionals" who know that they will advance by going along with whatever insanity that the leadership demands? How do we reward the men and women who would dare tell the generals that their vaunted strategy is a failure? One of the big lessons after Vietnam was how much it was apparent that the senior officer corps had been drinking the Kool-aid of the "light at the end of the tunnel". There were books by other officers excoriating the officer corps for not telling truth to power. Dereliction of Duty is on the recommended reading list for senior army officers.

And yet, here we are, once again, being lied to by the senior military officers. Even more reprehensible, they may be lying to themselves, as well. For they know that standing up and saying "fucking a, this war is going to hell" won't get them an additional star or a better assignment. While Luftwaffe General Wolfram von Richthofen once observed that Hitler treated the German General Staff as "highly-paid NCOs", it seems to me that there is something in the Army's culture (if not all of the services) whereby the senior officers transform themselves into such.

How can this ever be changed?

(H/T)

Remember When Mitt Romney Was Pro-Choice?

It was only ten years ago, when Mitt Romney was running for governor of Massachusetts. He supported the use of the "morning-after pill", he supported government subsidized abortions, he supported comprehensive sex education in schools and the agreed with the Rowe v. Wade decision.

Don't believe me? See for yourself.

But two years later, things changed. Mittens set his sights on a better job. He immediately tacked to the right, discarding everything that he said he believed in[1] He pretty much began phoning it in as governor to plot his run for the presidency and he began flip-flopping faster than a loose screen door in a windstorm.

Rick Santorum may both misogynistic and a homophobic and Ron Paul may be a racist old conspiracy whackaloon, but this is incontestable: Both of those guys believe in something. They have a core to their political identities. Romney, on the other hand, has no core, no center. Politically, Romney is like a dense fog, in that it looks like there is something there, but all that is really there is mist and vapor.

The only thing that Romney believes in is that he should be in charge. What he would do, other than figure out some why to enable his predatory capitalist buddies to further loot the country, is anyone's guess. His best argument is the unspoken one of "I came in second last time around, so now, by GOP tradition, it's my turn."

I am not voting for whoever wins the GOP nomination. So maybe that colors my view of ol' Willard. But I fail to see how any Republican could ever think of voting for Flip-Flop Mitt. He has a proven track record of being a man who will say anything whatsoever and do anything it takes in order to win the next election. When Romney gives a political speech, you can bet the farm that every word coming out of his mouth is pandering bullshit. And you can also be assured that when it becomes convenient for him, Romney will disavow everything that he just told you he believed.

Going into a political fight with Mitt Romney at your side is like marching into battle allied with the Italian army. The rank and file of the GOP are utter fools if they put their trust in Romney.

(H/T)
________________
[1] Other than praying to God and Bain Capital, that is.

Those Republicans Can Complain About Anything, Can't They?

Chrysler ran an ad about coming back during the halftime of the Super Bowl, saying that it was "halftime in America" as well.



Of course, Karl Rove and the rest of the Right Wing Outrage Machine took that to be political. Probably because they were pushing back in 2008 and 2009 to take Chrysler (and GM) into Chapter 7 and dismember both companies,[1] throwing millions of more people out of work.[2]

That didn't happen because two American presidents[3] stood up to the Randistas and called "bullshit" on a cabal of fools who were willing to destroy a major chunk of this country's industrial base, just because their ideology[4] told them to.

What Clint Eastwood had to say was this:

"There is no spin in that ad. On this I am certain. l am certainly not politically affiliated with Mr. Obama. It was meant to be a message about just about job growth and the spirit of America. I think all politicians will agree with it. I thought the spirit was OK."

Except the professional Republicans don't want to see job growth. They want to see the country continue to slide down into a depression. At a time when thousands upon thousands of jobs were still being lost, the Republican (and minority) leader of the Senate, Mitch McConnell, pronounced that his party's number one objective was to make this president a one-term president.

Not "put Americans back to work". Not "Turn the economy around". Not "improve the educational system for America's youth". McConnell's sole objective for the last four years has been to destroy this president, to make it impossible to do anything that would help this country pull out of the Great Recession.

Once you realize that, then the Wingnut outrage over the Chrysler ad makes complete sense.
____________________________
[1] No doubt that Bain and Mitt the Cylon would have figured out how to make an obscene profit on that catastrophe.
[2] When you factor in all of the suppliers and sub-contractors that would have had to shut down, as a result.
[3] One of them being Rove's boss.
[4] As well as their pathological hatred of the idea that anyone doing a blue-collar job could be a member of the middle class.

Do You Need to Recall an Elected Politician Who Is in Jail?

I ask because Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (R-Koch Bros.), along with his team of criminal defense lawyers, has "volunteered" to meet with the county prosecutor.

Going in with two lawyers can be taken as kind of a tacit admission that Walker knows that he has a large target pinned to his chest.

Feline Speed-Bag

(My only quibble is that music from "Rocky" might have been more appropriate.)

The Russo-Chinese Message to Despotic Regimes World-Wide

Is this: "Slaughter your people all that you wish. We'll make sure that the United Nations will do nothing to stop you."

Anyone who did not think that the Syrian regime would not use area weapons on its people had to be delusional. They're doing it now. They have done it before.

It is not surprising that Russia and China would back the Syrians by vetoing the UN resolution. Beyond the geopolitical reasons, such as the Russian naval base at Tartus in Syria, there are what one might call "restive populations" in both countries. Both Russia and China have shown little hesitation to use a heavy hand against their own citizens. The best way that they can preserve their own right to slaughter their own people is to ensure that other despotic nations are free to massacre their own citizens whenever it suits them to do so.

The One and True God Worshipped By Mitt Romney

Any questions?

Women for Santorum

We all know that Santorum's campaign is as dead as the last presidential campaign by George Wallace. So this is kind of like kicking a comatose man in the nuts. But it is still funny.



(H/T)

Bangity

We went to the range again this week.

She likes the snub-nosed revolver the best. However, with a Ruger Blackhawk (.357, .38s loaded, 6" barrel), she hit the center of the target 6 times out of six shots. She found the Blackhawk to be heavy, which is no surprise. The cylinder of a .357 Blackhawk is roughly the same diameter as the one in a .45 Cimmaron, so there is a lot more steel there. She shot a PPK/s and hit the center with that. After about 45 minutes of the two of us shooting, her accuracy degraded all to hell, for she was tired.

Federal 225-grain semi-wadcutter hollowpoints definitely had a sharper bark and more recoil out of a 4.75" Cimmaron than the Cowboy loads. .38+P SWCs were supposedly what the FBI used before they switched to automatics in the `80s and they sure look a lot bigger in .45.

You'd not think that nine-hundredths of an inch would be that significant.  The Federal SWCs are no doubt a good defense and hunting load, but I imagine that getting shot with a lead flat-nosed 250-grain .45 bullet that's moving a little bit slower than the SWCs is not something that one lightly shrugs off.

To change the subject, a phone-banker from the NRA called me a few mornings ago to plead with me to send money to help defeat President Obama. I told her no and asked her to not call back. Personally, I think that the NRA is smoking crack if they truly believe that Flip-Flop Mitt will be any kind of a defender of the 2nd Amendment. Like Rudy Giuliani, ol' Willard M. Romney only became a so-called friend of gun rights when he wanted to step out on the national political stage.

Romney is not to be trusted. Which is why his dog ran away from him.

Birthers Lose Yet Again

You probably read some of the crap about President Obama being subpoenaed by Oily Taitz for a court hearing in Georgia and the President's lawyer's refusal to play Taitz's game.

Well guess what: The birthers lost again.

Now the Komen Fiasco All Makes Sense

Former Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer's filthy fingers were all over the hiring of failed Republican gubernatorial candidate Karen Handel.

Note that a main point of the discussion with Fleischer about hiring a new VP of Fail for the Komenies was how to defund Planned Parenthood.

Nothing like hiring an apologist for torture as an adviser on women's health issues.

(H/T)

The Best Part of the Stupor Bowl

The advertising.

Some of the car companies have released theirs. (Tip: Watch them to the end of the clips.)

VW:



Audi:



And the one that has the most people talking about it: Honda's Ferris Bueller ad:



Matthew Broderick hasn't aged too badly (unless he's layered in Shatner-level makeup).

Caturday; Warm Napping Edition

The cats found warm places to take their morning post-breakfast naps. Jake and Gracie were on the heated cat beds.

George was more old-school in his selection of were to take a warm nap.

The Susan G. Komen Foundation: "All Engines Back Full! Now, Mr. Scott!"

Like this wasn't predictable:

In what appears to be a reversal of Susan G. Komen For the Cure's funding cuts to Planned Parenthood, the founder and CEO of the nation's largest breast-cancer advocacy agency said Friday that the group would amend the criteria that sparked a firestorm.

"We will continue to fund existing grants, including those of Planned Parenthood, and preserve their eligibility to apply for future grants," Nancy G. Brinker, the agency's ambassador, said in a statement.

Color me: "Unimpressed." I doubt if there is a person out there who will be convinced that this was nothing other than a massive cave by the Komenies. They first kowtowed to the Christian Taliban on stem-cell research and on Planned Parenthood. Now they have again folded before a more powerful backlash.

The Komenies knew exactly what they were doing when they did it. So now they have the worst of both worlds. They have now pissed all over the shoes of the Christian Taliban, which will regard this reversal as a betrayal. And those who reacted with fury and who have supported Planned Parenthood will not be so forgetful as the news cycle will be.

In the culture wars, the Komenies have turned out to be as reliable an ally as the Italians were during the Second World War.

Or, if you like, they are channeling Capt. Renault:



But I think it is more than that. This is just a tactical retreat. The Komenies will try again. Next time around, they'll just cut a grant here, a grant there. So in a few years, the Komenies will not be giving a dime to Planned Parenthood. And I will bet that the Komenies are privately relaying that exact strategy to the Christian Taliban. Remember, what the Komenies told Planned Parenthood was this: "Don't bother applying for any more grants, because we're going to reject them". All they did was now tell Planned Parenthood that they could continue to apply. Big fucking whoop.

The more I think on this, the more I believe that this so-called reversal is designed to appease the Komenies' corporate sponsors. Corporations do not want to receive bad publicity or blowback from donating to charities. All of the companies carrying Komenie-pink merchandise probably got an earful over the last two days.

Worse for the Komanies: They are no longer above the fray. They are no longer critically untouchable. They've muddied their own reputation and that kind of mud isn't washable. People will be taking shots at Brinker's half-million dollar salary. They will be paying attention to how (in)efficiently the Komen Foundation is, how much they spend on administrative expenses and where that money goes (other than Brinker's ginormous salary).

In essence, they have exchanged a bulletproof vest for a large target.

The Komenies are weasels. They cannot be trusted. I hope PP blows the whistle on them whenever the Komenies decline to renew a grant.

Defund Komen!

Komen: The Race for the Right-Wing Breast Cancer Cure

Overnight I received four emails as well as BadTux's comment to an earlier post: The Komenies have also cut all support for breast cancer research which uses embryonic stem cells. In 2010, the Komen Foundation gave a skosh under ten million dollars to support stem-cell breast cancer research.

The Komen/Christian Taliban Foundation for Doing Nothing But Raising Money terminated all of those grants as of last November. They tried to keep it quiet and largely succeeded, that is, until the defunding of Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood did not go quietly and now people are starting to kick over all of the Komenies' rocks.

As far as Planned Parenthood goes, Mayor Mike has stepped up and pledged to donate $250,000 in matching funds to PP. He will match ever grant of "new money", which I take to mean that if a person who has not previously donated to PP does so, he'll match your donation. I've blasted Bloomberg numerous times in this blog for his megalomania, his nanny-state inclinations and his revocation of two voter-approved term limits propositions so that he could buy a third term of mayor. But he can do good once in awhile and he has this time.

So if you've never donated to Planned Parenthood before, do so and let Bloomberg double your donation.

Choosing a New Cat

A blog entry by Ursula K. Le Guin.

I have to go, I think I got something in my eyes.

Say That You're Traveling......

And say that you didn't feel like bringing your laptop along. So you go into an Internet cafe, where you check your e-mail on AOL or Comcast. And you bring a cheap headset with you so you can use voice-over-IP to talk to your family and friends. And maybe you don't really like people watching you write semi-porn e-mails to your lover.

Well, guess what, sports fans: The FBI is going to want to know about you.

Because, as every police agency from the FBI to the Gestapo have always said: "If you are not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to fear from us spying on you."

LightSquared-- Sleaze Personified

The CEO of LightSquared, a billionaire named Philip Falcone, hired a lobbyist to help him rip off the American taxpayers. The lobbyist is the husband of an FCC staffer.

Digging into what lightSquared is trying to do is like mining in a cesspond: The one thing you're sure to find is shit, shit and more shit.

The FCC needs to do its job, which has nothing to do with making it easier for a fiscally amoral billionaire to make a few billion more.

The Susan G. Komen Race to Find A Spine; a Followup

This is my original post, in case you need to be brought up to speed. Those spineless guano-faucets came up with their new policy after they hired a failed acolyte of Caribou Barbie as a vice president.

TBogg has a great suggestion to make a donation to Planned Parenthood. What you should do is click the tab that says "honorary giving". That allows you to specify who should receive notification of a honorary gift being given in their name.

And this is who you should name:

Karen Handel
Senior VP of Fail
c/o Susan G. Komen Foundation
P.O. Box 650309
Dallas, TX 75265-0309

The Komen Foundation could have chosen not to jump into this fight. But they have and they may have found that they have now drawn a big target on themselves. Planned Parenthood has probably scored over a half-million in donations since the news broke.

And a shitload of people won't give a dime to Komen for the foreseeable future. Tough shit, assholes. You chose to play politics. We will see what that gets you.

Update: The Komenites have partnered with an American war criminal who cannot travel outside of the county for fear of being arrested.

They have also been whining about how unfair it is for people to complain and not give them money because they chose to jump in on one side of a hot-button fight. Again, tough shit. If you pick a side in a war, you have no cause to complain when the folks on the other side commence shooting at you.

Shorter LightSquared: "Signals Don't Need to Be Received", or Alphabet Groups, Get to Work!

LightSquared wants the FCC to officially not care if LightSquared's proposed wireless network screws up tens of millions of GPS receivers. Because those receivers are "unlicensed". So once the satellites transmit the GPS signals, it doesn't matter if they are unusable, according to LightSquared.

This is pure insanity. By their logic, they would be permitted to interfere with the reception of broadcast radio because the receivers aren't licensed. It's bullshit. We, the American taxpayers, paid to orbit the GPS constellation. We pay to maintain and operate it. Part of the reason that nobody questions the cost of doing so is that GPS is a public good. A hell of a lot of cars come with GPS, so do most cell phones. Call 9-1-1- on a modern cell phone and GPS tells the operator where you are. When you drive by a farm and you see a modern tractor out there, sowing or applying fertilizer or whatnot, that tractor is using GPS. GPS allows farmers to precisely control where they plant, fertilize and so on. Freight companies have been able to greatly improve both efficiency and their ability to respond to urgent changes because they know where their trucks are at all times, by GPS.

But the greedheads at LightSquared want to fuck with that.

Two things are going on here. First, Carl Icahn, a noted financial bottom-feeder and corporate pirate has descended on LightSquared. Icahn's bloody fingerprints have been found on the carcass of more than one now-defunct airline, so the fact that Icahn is involved does not bode well. Second, Sprint has notified LightSpeed that if LightSpeed can't fix its problems with the FCC by mid-March, then Sprint is breaking the deal.

This is where AOPA, EAA, ATA (Air Transport Assoc., American Trucking Assoc.), AFB, AAA and all of the other industry associations whose members are heavy users of GPS had better get off the dime and get to work blocking this.

(H/T)

The Susan G. Komen Race to Find A Spine

Just fucking despicable:

The nation's leading breast-cancer charity, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, is halting its partnerships with Planned Parenthood affiliates — creating a bitter rift, linked to the abortion debate, between two iconic organizations that have assisted millions of women.

No doubt that the flag-waving fascists are creaming their jeans in jubilation.

The rationale is a bullshit one. The Komen Kowards hare now saying that they won't fund any group that is being investigated by Congress. So all that had to happen, and what did happen, is some knuckle-dragging congressman with a sub-sub committee announces his bit of vindictive subpoena-throwing and that's enough for the Komen Kowards.

To hell with them. They can go raise their money from the Christian Taliban and the Koch brothers.

Do Me a Favor, (XYZ) News, and Just Stow it.

Heard on the news tonight (Floria primary underway): "We'll bring you updates throughout the evening."

No, thanks. I'll either go watch some basic cable station that won't bother with updates or I'll just switch off the idjit box altogether. This is just one bullshit primary of many and I can wait until tomorrow to find out who the purported winner happens to be. As Dave Barry put it:

How can you protect yourself from a presidential primary? I’ll tell you. As soon as you know that a campaign is going to hit [your state], you should go to Home Depot and buy sheets of plywood three-quarters of an inch thick. You should take these home, cut them to size, and then, using a hammer and nails, fasten them firmly to every TV screen in your house. You should also fill your bathtub with water, add about a cup of bleach, and drop in all your radios.

Sage advice.

Where's What?

The Pig Goes Viral!

(H/T)

Mars and Moon Base Gingrich

Newt is taking some grief for his Moon base idea.

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BadTux asks: Why the hell not? Why not return to the Moon and then go to Mars? It can't be any more wasteful than the F-35 or the V-22 programs. We build bridges to nowhere so that people will have jobs building the bridges. In the overall scheme of things, going back to the Moon and to Mars is expensive, but not overly so.

But is it possible? I am not terribly sure that it is. A hell of a lot goes into flying a large spacecraft. For example, during the Apollo program, the first all-up test flight of the Saturn V-Apollo stack was in November of 1967. The first manned flight was the Apollo 8 translunar flight in December, 1968. The Air Force began the development of the Saturn V main engine in the mid-1950s. The Air Force was going to drop the engine, realizing that they just didn't have a need for an engine of that power, but NASA took it over. The first all-up test firing of the F-1 engine was in 1959.

We cannot build them that big anymore. The RS-25 engine of the space Shuttle is the largest flying engine that we can make in series production and it is less than a quarter of the power of the F-1. The RS-68, designed in the 1990s, is maybe half the output of a F-1, it is used on Delta-IV rockets and it has only flown a few times. In comparison, the workhorse of the American rocket program is the Atlas V which has a main engine, the RD-180, that is built by NPO Energomash in Russia (for the Atlas-Centaur, the Centaur upper state uses an American RL-10, which was originally developed in the 1950s).

NASA has resurrected the J-2 engine that was used on the second stage of the Saturn V. Some of the old engines were dragged out of of storage and museums and test-fired to support the development of the new J-2X.

Going to the Moon is, of course, more than just rocket engines. The Apollo capsule was under design in 1961; the first iteration, the Block 1, was so rushed that it killed three astronauts on the launch pad in 1967. Grumman was awarded the contract for the Lunar Excursion Module in 1962, though Grumman had been studying the concept on its own dime since the late 1950s. When President Kennedy proposed going to the moon by the end of 1969, most of the pieces were already in the planing pipeline and some of them had been tested.

Even if we get there, everything that is needed at the Moon base, for now, would have to be fired out of the Earth's deep gravity well to the Moon. A Falcon-9 costs $50 million or so to launch and it might be able to send 400 pounds of stuff to the Moon. A Delta IV heavy can get ten tons to escape velocity at $400 million and given that you'd need some sort of engine and such to slow the stuff down and land it, maybe you be able to land three or four tons of usable freight on the Moon. 8,000 lbs, that's something like $50,000 a pound in freight costs to the Moon. How much stuff would it take to build a habitable shelter on the Moon, given that there is no radiation protection and without radiation sheltering, a nice large solar flare, like the kind that we are seeing now, might cook everyone there?

So it will be expensive to construct, to maintain, to live there. Should we?

Here is one reason: If civilization survives for another five or ten centuries, the 20th Century will be known for three things: The invention of powered flight, the Moon landings and the development of atomic weapons. All of the rest will be the province of historians, in the way that the 15th Century is remembered for the first voyage of Christopher Columbus.

If the 21st Century is going to be remembered for anything, it will be either for a Moon colony or a Mars landing. It would be nice if our national government could get its shit together so that the first language spoken on Mars is English.

But don't bet the farm on it. Or even a bag of cat litter.

One Way to Identify a Bully

It is that they are the ones who whine the loudest when they are the ones who are being beaten into a powder. Bullies are really good at handing out damage, but they are awful at taking it.

Which is why I find Gingrich's whining about Romney's campaign ads and tactics to be rather interesting.

Gingrich is a past master at hamstringing and backshooting. He's been trying that against Romney, but Romney and his allies have the resources to take it to Gingrich, hammer and tong, and you can hear Gingrich whining about it on almost every news broadcast.

NRA... Really?

It is the time of the year when the National Rifle Association distributes ballots for choosing its new slate of directors. Almost everyone is deeply involved in gun issues, whether as a 2nd Amendment advocate or a manufacturer or a shooting instructor, or a hunter, or something like that.

Except one guy, whose connection to firearms issues seems rather tangential: Some clown named Mr. Grover G. Norquist of Washington, D.C. Other than being an unelected one-man no-tax goon squad, there is little indication that ol' Grover has ever held a firearm in his fat, pasty mitts.

Wassamatta, NRA, you couldn't talk either the Blubbering Fascist or Snowflake Snookie into being on the board?

Air Force Project Management: It's More Expensive to Fly Drones Than Manned Aircraft

The Air Force has managed to screw up the Global Hawk program so badly that it has become cheaper to keep flying U-2s than to fly Global Hawks.

One has to wonder what sort of platinum-plated nonsense the Air Force was doing in order to drive the cost of a drone over that of a manned aircraft doing the same mission.

Or, it could be that this is a serious bit of Air Force fuckery that did exactly what they wanted to: Keep seats in manned airplanes. For while the Air Force has been adamant about only using rated pilots to operate drones, even those clowns know that nobody is going to join the Air Force in order to basically play with a fancy flight simulator program.

I'm Shocked, Shocked, to Learn That Haley Barbour's Pardons Favored Those With Ties to Money and Power

Really, is anybody truly astonished at the idea that Haley Barbour tended to pardon people who had ties to GOP politicians or to those who gave lots of money to them?

Note that one of the people that Barbour pardoned for a felony DUI conviction is being prosecuted for another DUI in which he killed a teenager, something that had to have been known to Barbour when he let the clown skate from his earlier crime.

It retrospect, the really astonishing thing is that Bush didn't pardon Scooter Libby.

Caturday; Now I See Why Edition

All three cats were lying on the couch, with George and Gracie sharing the heated pad.

With two of those pads, it occurred to me to wonder why the other one wasn't in use. Upon closer inspection, the reason was obvious:

So off to the wash it goes. The heating element itself is wrapped in a towel, so it can still be used.

UPDATE:  Within two minutes of the pad being  washed, dried, the heating element reinstalled and the bed being put back in place:

Another Harbinger of Suck

Katherine Heigl. The studio did not screen "One for the Money" for the critics, which is a pretty solid indication that the movie likely is going to blow rotten chunks.

Apparently, from the early published reviews from the first showing, the movie is pretty awful.

Too bad. There are eighteen books in the Stephanie Plum series and it could have been a lucrative movie franchise. I know a fair number of people who are fans of the series and all of them were more or less appalled at the idea of casting Heigl in the role.

I was thinking of seeing it, but even an early showing is six bucks in these parts. I'll wait until the DVD hits the buck-a-night Redbox.

Update: as of Friday evening, Jan. 27th, it is 0 for 22 on the Rotten Tomatoes website. That is Gigli-level awful.

Google's Sexism

You can check what Google thinks of you, here.

If you're interested in airplanes, Google apparently seems to think that you are a man and that you're probably going to vote for Mittens.

Short-Sighted Governmental Stupidity; FAA Edition

The FAA wants to effectively scrap the VOR network. I wrote about it here.

Make no mistake about it, the FAA's excuse for wanting to shut down the VOR network, which is "the stations are beyond their economic service life", translates into "we haven't bothered to maintain it for the last fifteen years". The FAA's proposal to scrap the VOR network is beyond stupid, it is criminally short-sighted.

If you think that the FAA is displaying classic bureaucratic moronosity, then go here and post a comment against the proposed rule. Not a lot of people have done so, so you guys need to step up to the plate.

Flying the Old Way

When airplanes were made of wood and fabric and the pilots were made of tobacco juice and whiskey.



The range in the video is supposedly audible on 28.210 MHz and they'd like to do a full-up recreation at 529 kHz.

Or if you want to read about it: My writeup and Wickipedia's.

In Aviation, Being the First Is Often Not a Good Thing

Case in point, the McDonnell 220.

The MD-220 was one of the first business jets to be certified in the transport category. McDonnell designed it as a proposal for the Air Force, which wanted a small jet for navigation training and executive transportation. Lockheed won the contract with the JetStar.

The MD-220 never went into production. The reasons vary, depending on which source you read. The two theories seem to be that either McDonnell had too much work from the military to devote factory floor space to the MD-220 or an inability to land enough contracts to justify series production.

The prototype airplane still survives, long-term readers of Trade-a-Plane will remember seeing it offered for sale from time to time.

License to Kill Beavers, Issued by the Government of the United Nations, No Doubt

One idiot must have been channeling "Caddyshack", when he attempted to construct a bomb out of gunpowder in order to blow up a beaver dam.

Spafford, N.Y. -- A Spafford man who wanted to remove a beaver dam ended up with a severely injured hand and criminal charges from an improvised explosive device, Onondaga County Sheriff’s deputies said.

Justin Clark 22, of 353 Cold Brook Road, was charged Wednesday with third-degree criminal possession of a weapon, second-degree criminal possession of marijuana, first-degree reckless endangerment, all felonies; unlawfully growing cannabis, a misdemeanor; and unlawful possession of marijuana, a violation.

There's a serious Federal charge in there of building a destructive device if they feel like going after him.

And if this moron were a Muslim, it'd be all over Fox News.

Shorter Mitch Daniels: "We Are All Doomed."

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Daniels, who is currently on track to drag Indiana down to the level of Mississippi, hasn't been known in the past for being exceptionally accurate when it comes to economics. As Bush's budget director, he said that the Bush tax cuts would lead to budget surpluses, when they really led to staggering deficits. Daniels took his job when the Federal government was running budget surpluses of over $200 billion; he was a major player in running it in the other direction. He stated that the Iraq War would cost, at most, $60 billion and he fired the analyst who said that it would cost $300 billion. (The overall cost of the Iraq is on the order of $3 trillion.)

Jon Stewart the Stud

He is in impressive condition.

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(The interview itself)

Texans Say: "Thank the Lord for Oklahoma"

An Oklahoma legislator is introducing a bill to outlaw the use of human stem cells in food products.

So, in Oklahoma, if Soylent Green is made out of people, that would be OK, as long as it is not made out of fetuses.

Nice to know that those good Sooners have solved every other problem in their state, so that they can devote their time to this significant issue.

In Their Hearts, the Republicans Know That This is True:

(H/T)

They know it's true. To glom from BadTux, the race right now is between Sleazy dwarf and Creepy dwarf.[1] Frothy and Goldy are pretty much only serving a vote-sinks who are hurting Sleazy, as nobody who votes for them would have voted for Creepy.

I miss the entertainment value of both Crazy and Dopey. I wasn't sad to see Oily go, as he was probably the one who was most likely to win n November. But he wasn't nutty enough for the modern GOP.
__________________________
[1] I know that BadTux refers to Sleazy as "Grumpy". Here, Newt's Sleazy dwarf.

Badged-Up Bullies

This comes as no surprise to a lot of people in Connecticut, who have known for years that the East Haven police have had a program pf persecuting Hispanics: The East Haven, CT Police, where four officers have been arrested by the FBI for civil rights violations. The rot apparently reached all the way to the top, as the indictment mentioned an indicted co-conspirator, who apparently was the chief himself. It is possible that he may still be charged.

When the mayor of East Haven was asked what he might do to repair relations with the Hispanic community, he said that he "might have tacos" for dinner.

Did You Know That Rick Santorum Ran a White Slavery Ring?

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About-Face?

The Obama Administration has reportedly changed its mind on blocking the re-importation of M-1 rifles that had been sold to South Korea.

As I said before, if this really happens and if they are indeed priced at $220, they'll be a hell of a bargain, unless they are rusted pieces of shit.

But note that the Obama Administration is still blocking the re-importation of M-1 carbines, because they're evil assault rifles, I guess.

Remind Me to Avoid Flying on That Airline

Romney: It's Easy to be Unemployed on Twenty Million Smackers a Year!

Remember when ol' Willard said that he was "unemployed"? Well, it seems that unemployment isn't too harsh for Mittens, since his investments pay him over twenty million dollars a year.

That's four hundred thousand dollars a week. No wonder he thought that his speaking fees weren't "much money". In comparison, if you made thirty grand a year and you had a side job where you took in an extra six hundred dollars: That would be comparable to the scale of Romney's little side work.

Remember Romney's offer to bet ten grand with Baby Dubya? That'd be like most people offering to bet fifteen or twenty bucks.

And if you make thirty grand a year, you're not parking a few million in a Swiss bank account. Not like Willard the Wealthy.

I suspect that anyone who believes that Mitt the Ripper cares about middle class Americans, let alone the working poor, probably needs to have their head examined.

Frothy Speaketh: "Being Raped is a Gift."

Santorum has to be one of the most despicable people walking around in a suit these days.

How is this not a form of slavery?

But what the hell, if you follow Frothy's line of reasoning, then miscarriages should be investigated as homicides.

Your After Lunch Squeeeee!

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Supreme Surprise, or Why Nobody Pays Me For This Shit

I sure didn't see this coming:

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously Monday that police must get a search warrant before using GPS technology to track criminal suspects.

I would have thought it would have been another 5-4 or maybe 6-3 case, with the usual cliques arguing that the government is free to monitor whoever they want and so on.

Here is another wrinkle: The cops were monitoring that dude for four weeks, which the Supremes said was far too long without a warrant. They declined to address what shorter period of time would be OK.

So the court stuck to narrow grounds. Unlike in Citizens United, where the nuts in black took a narrow question and used it to subvert the entire political system.

LCS: "Teething Problems" or Piece of Shit?

The Navy's line on the littoral combat ships is that they have "teething problems". LCS-1 was so poorly built that the hull began cracking. LCS-2 had bad corrosion problems.

There is a fine line between teething problems and garbage. When they try to push the state of the art, it's pretty easy to slide into piece of shit. Sometimes what is tried is too much of a leap and, when the technology matures a little, it could have worked. For every P-51, they often build a XP-55. Or, if you like the Garand and the Pedersen.

The difference is often whether a program's problems are addressed directly or papered-over in the hopes of being able to fix the issues after the gizmo is in service. My suspicion is that papering-over is what is going on, as the fear may be if the Navy openly addresses the problems with the LCS program, it will go the way of the Zumwalt class DDGs. It still might.

Yeah, Like Nobody Saw That Coming; F-35 Edition

DoD Secretary Panetta took the F-35B off probation.

Right. The F-35B can't operate on amphibious landing ships without the heat of the airplane's engine softening the ships' decks. The F-35C may not even be capable of operating on aircraft carriers.

Frank Van Haste is right: The F-35 program is indeed too big to fail.

It's ancient history, now, but I have to wonder how big a turkey the XF-32 had to have been in order to lose out to the XF-35. (Other than the fact that the XF-32 looked ugly, that is.)

Cowboy Re-enactors

And not a person to spout the "guns = bad" line.

"When I Feel the Heat, I See the Light"; Campaign Edition

Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney said Sunday he will release his 2010 tax return and an estimate of his 2011 tax liability on Tuesday.

The comment, in an interview on "Fox News Sunday," was a big change in Romney's plans for handling an issue that dogged his campaign last week, and followed Saturday's loss to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich in the South Carolina primary.

And then we can get to the issue of why somebody who arguably sits on his ass and lets the money roll in pays a lower tax rate than someone who holds down a full-time job.

You've probably seen the link all over the place, but if you haven't read the Rolling Stone article on George Romney, you should. It's hard to escape the conclusion that while Mittens may be a hundred times richer than his dad ever was, Mittens is also a hundredth of the man.

George Romney bucked the then-prevalent racism of the Mormon Church. George Romney stood up for the rights of all people at a time when it was not only unpopular for a politician to do so, it was dangerous. he also stood up against the Vietnam War within a party which was very much pro-war. George also had a sense of it being unseemly to rake in too much cash.

Contrast that to his son, who is willing to say anything and do anything to win an election. Nobody really can be certain what Mitt believes in, because he can flip and flop within seconds on anything. But we do know one thing for certain: A third of a million bucks is chump change to Mittens.