Category Archives: Science/Engineering

Ready to freeze in the dark?

Posted on August 17, 2014 | 4 comments

“The U.S. is already facing the loss of 60 gigawatts of power over the next three years, the result of older coal plants’ being forced to shut down because they cannot comply with the EPA’s Mercury and Air Toxics Standards enacted in 2012. At the time, the EPA claimed that only four gigawatts of capacity would be lost.

“Those of us familiar with the industry knew better, and the agency now does not contest that 60 gigawatts of coal-generated electricity will be lost. Ninety percent of the plants slated to close due to the MATS rule were needed to provide power during the polar vortex and other periods of severe weather last winter. Is the EPA willing to gamble that we won’t have another harsh winter in the next five years?”

Sure they’ll gamble, they don’t care about us peasants. WeatherBell Analytics, which has an awful good record, is forecasting this winter to be colder longer than last. Not that the federal Democrats give a rat’s. They got theirs, sucker.

Via WSJ.

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Posted in Obamalot, Science/Engineering, The Economy, Weather

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Why space will be Chinese

Posted on August 16, 2014 | Comments Off on Why space will be Chinese

The first lunar base, the first Martian colony, first mining of the asteroids… And not just because many scifi writers already are predicting it. But because the American political class will keep American companies grounded.

“Here’s the deal: SpaceX, as you may know, is making good on its promise to make access to space cheaper and more reliable. Their Falcon 9 rocket is putting payloads into orbit for less money than the big government contractors charge.

“As one might expect, [politicians] who have such contractors in their own districts and states are unhappy with this. And apparently some are willing to smear SpaceX as retribution.”

The Greens? Not yet. These are Republicans—the supposed champions of market capitalism. So, about that supposedly coming SpaceX spaceport near Brownsville in South Texas? It may never launch anything but red tape.

Via Instapundit.

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Posted in Blogosphere, Obamalot, Science/Engineering, Space, Texana

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Israel’s King Kong army

Posted on August 11, 2014 | 3 comments

Inevitably, in Israel, the army is not immune from criticism, though it usually only comes when the fighting is over. This was written back during the first 72-hour cease fire:

“It’s a King Kong of an army — big and cumbersome; every move unintentionally knocks down a house, bridge or UN school in Gaza” according to an analysis in Haaretz, and it continues….

“Instead of managing the war wisely, with commando units operating behind enemy lines, ruses, ambushes and traps as in the old days, the IDF now unloads one-ton bombs on buildings in an effort to hit the command headquarters below. But the commanders in the tunnels survive without a scratch. And of course the building collapses, burying civilians.

“It’s also hard to understand how the army went into Gaza with antique armored personnel carriers when IDF warehouses have excellent newer models, and why it takes two weeks to figure out that it doesn’t make sense to put staging areas within range of mortar shells, costing many lives in the process…

“This happens because the top brass employs all its skills and strategies to lobby for a budget. It’s constantly demanding more money and is always short of funds, even if by every measure it has a huge budget — bigger than that of all the surrounding Arab countries.”

Unfortunately the rest of the piece is behind a firewall, but the conclusion is that the IDF needs more commandoes, stealth, and finesse instead of these King Kong tactics.  If they ever expect to whip Hamas, that is, without laying waste to Gaza in the process.

Ynet columnist Michael Bar-Zohar agrees, saying, the IDF has lost its creativity.

Via Haaretz & Ynet News.

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Posted in Israel, Science/Engineering, The War, Troops

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Our taxes at work: From Qatar to Hamas

Posted on August 3, 2014 | Comments Off on Our taxes at work: From Qatar to Hamas

Wonder why the IDF is concentrating on hitting Hamas command and control centers, most of which are located under schools, hospitals and mosques?

Qatar, the oil-rich sheikdom to whom the White House recently gave $11-$14 billion in American arms, has provided Hamas with sophisticated computer-controlled equipment. Sensors embedded in the attack tunnels to remotely monitor incursions and set off booby-traps. And remote-firing systems for their rockets. All done from those command and control centers tucked into a Palestinian kindergarten or UN medical clinic.

We sure know how to pick ’em when it comes to foreign aid, eh? That $47 million check Wormtongue recently gave Hamas was just icing on the Qatari cake. Sure, Qatar may been of some help in getting Hamas to the negotiating table, little as that was worth. But billions in arms as a reward? Arms that will only wind up in terrorist hands?

Do we have a genius in the White House? Or what? How about his co-genius in the House of Representatives?

Via Times of Israel, Allen B. West, and Arutz Sheva.

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Posted in Israel, Science/Engineering, The War, Troops

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Explosions photo from space is a sham

Posted on July 31, 2014 | 2 comments

German astronaut Alexander Gerst, with the European Space Agency, “who is in orbit around the earth, posted a tweet that read ‘My saddest photo yet. From the International Space Station we can actually see explosions and rockets flying over Gaza and Israel.'”

Gerst’s little bit of politics (he tweeted no similar photo of fighting in Syria, for instance) backfired when Utah Valley University professor Michael Harper tweeted a reply, with a link to a pre-war nighttime space photo whose details and contours match Gerst’s.

Harper said they showed “the lights mainly of Tel Aviv, and as far away as Beersheba in Israel’s south.”

“Speaking to The Times of Israel, Harper said that it wasn’t necessarily the politics of the thing that bothered him – but the inaccuracy and ignorance it highlighted.”

No kidding. Next time, NASA, how about sending up an astronaut who can interpret space photos correctly. That would seem to be a minimum requirement.

Via Times of Israel.

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Posted in Israel, Science/Engineering, Space, The War

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Israel’s Sky Rider

Posted on July 27, 2014 | 2 comments

The IDFs Sky Rider drones are small, about fifteen and a half pounds, and hand-launched. With quiet, electric motors. Operating in front of the ground forces, above them and in constant communications with them, they are indispensable in the Gaza fighting.

“Drones have transmitted back live footage of terrorists firing anti-tank missiles from windows of Gazan buildings, and have helped direct ground forces to an accurate counterstrike…We also provide them with alerts before threats materialize. A good proportion of tunnel shafts have been identified by the Sky Rider drone unit…”

The JP article (quoted above and available at the link below) doesn’t say, but one imagines Sky Rider also is a big help to Maglan, the IDF’s behind-the-lines special forces.

Via Jerusalem Post.

UPDATE:  More here, with video.

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Posted in Israel, Science/Engineering, The War, Troops

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Hamas needs destroying

Posted on July 26, 2014 | 6 comments

UPDATED BELOW

If Israel lets Hamas live to fight another day, or gives in to Lurch’s and Wormtongue’s insistence that they do (like the Worm succeeded in twisting Jerusalem’s arm to do back in 2012), the fire next time will be devastating.

Iran and Syria already have GPS-guided rockets which Hamas surely wants and keeps trying to get smuggled in by land or by sea. If they survive this confrontation, they will surely get them, perhaps even learn to make them as they already do some of their rockets now, and then they will: hit selected government and popular shopping targets in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv with pinpoint barrages of so many rockets Iron Dome can’t cope. Then go on, say, to wipe out a loaded airliner waiting for takeoff at Ben Gurion Airport.

Of course, the IDF could then pile on and destroy them. It should do so now. Waiting will only insure greater casualties on both sides. Israel lost so-called “world opinion” years ago. Really, the leftist news media, academia and other political radicals such as the Dictator’s Club called the United Nations. It’s not worth risking the future for public relations nonsense.

Hamas needs destroying: leader by leader, rocket by rocket, tunnel by tunnel.

Now. Nothing less will do.

Via Spengler.

UPDATE: Author and former Israel ambassador to U.S. Michael Oren says: “…to send an unequivocal message to terrorist organizations and their state sponsors everywhere, Israel must be permitted to crush Hamas in the Gaza Strip.”

Permitted? Who could stop them but themselves?

MORE:  Wormtongue and the UN move to save Hamas after Lurch’s attempt failed. Only question now seems to be will Bibi defy them long enough to finish destroying the attack tunnels?

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Posted in Blogosphere, Israel, Science/Engineering, The War, Troops

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