Ground pounders always get the suck. It’s a law of nature. So naturally the Air Force is aiming to scrap the A-10 Warthog—the best ground-support aircraft since the dive-bombing P-47 Thunderbolt—so they can keep their high-altitude F-35 toy in the budget. Too many fingers in the F-35 pie, no doubt, to allow it to fade into the sunset. Nope. Screw the infantry. Flyboys rule.
Posted in Science/Engineering, Troops, War Without End
The climate-change, wind turbine boys will do absolutely anything to promote their ridiculous, inefficient, high-maintenance product. Comes the latest laugher:
“Offshore wind turbines could weaken hurricanes, reduce storm surge.”
Ten thousand of them, to be exact. Not in the Gulf, please. We don’t need thousands of giant turbine blades flying this far inland after a Cat 5 rips into the windmills.
Via Instapundit.
UPDATE: Now that fracking has slain the peak-oil dragon, windmills are facing decreasing government subsidies across the USA and Europe so the prospect of ten thousand “to weaken hurricanes, reduce storm surge” is nil.
A tragedy in Tennessee Monday reminds me how close I came to being crippled or killed back in 2006 when I took on gravity and my 3,000 pound Jeep. Guess who won.
I interposed myself between the Jeep and a Suburban it was slowly rolling towards to save myself (and my insurance record) some extra expense. I was pushing really hard on the Jeep but it wasn’t stopping. Either I thought I was Superman or I was conditioned by the ordinary illusion of effortlessly handling a heavy machine in everyday use. Physics wasn’t impressed.
Instead of being crippled with a crushed leg, I was saved by a passerby who opened the driver’s door, reached in and set the parking brake. I was doubly fortunate in having forgotten to lock the door. That part of my stupidity worked out really well.
I only hobbled around for a few weeks. I still wonder what I was thinking to even try it, and I thank G-d for my good fortune. This poor woman died in her vain attempt to stop her rolling Toyota.
Via Instapundit.
Posted in Blogosphere, Obituaries, Obsessions, Science/Engineering
Tagged gravity is the law, illusion versus physics, Instapundit
Seventeen “years with no global warming and recent very cold winters is a troubling trend, which if it continues will result in serious problems for humanity. This will be especially true if the current obsession with global warming continues, leaving the public unprepared for cold weather events.
“Of particular concern are the warnings from solar scientists that over the next three decades, we are headed toward significant global cooling as the sun weakens into a grand minimum.”
So, instead of relying on our hapless bureaucrats and corrupt political leadership—who want to close coal-fired power plants to stop the global warming that’s already stopped on its own—it’s time for “the public” to get its own act together: plan on colder winters and adjust accordingly.
Via PJMedia.
His cancer-stricken build didn’t fit The Fat Guy image of his longtime blog. As you can see, he wasn’t fat from side to side or front to back.
He’s the third friend I’ve lost to cancer in recent years and another is dying at the moment. Scott was a self-employed wrangler of digital bovines and my good IT guy, who was dubbed an Internet Angel by one of those deceased friends whose blog Scott also kept in good repair.
Not long ago, Scott helped me rescue the Scribbler from Yahoo and move it here to WordPress. I’ll miss him.
He was an inveterate Texas Rangers fan, even when they didn’t deserve it. So I hope he’s settling in to a box seat behind home plate at the baseball diamond in the sky where it’s always spring and the first pitch of a new season is in the windup and about to be thrown.
UPDATE: Another memorial, with a pix from SC’s happier times. And one more, a fine one with some appropriate bluegrass, from Andy at MyOldRV.
MORE: Andy’s bluegrass fits him, but it was high-energy blues that suited him, here.
Scott Chaffin, my incomparable IT guy who has sheparded me through many a software update with a minimum of irritation at my ignorance, has been struggling with late stage lung cancer for more than two years.
His last post on his The Fat Guy blog early Wednesday was part of his commitment to keep a public diary of the effort. It came shortly after another series of radiation treatments at M.D. Anderson in Houston:
“Beaten, damn near broken. They assure me that it will get better. Don’t expect much out of me for a few days, though.”
Scott seems to be hospitalized near family in Northeast Texas, according to Tom Galli, a lung cancer survivor who’s been advising him on treatments for a while now. Tom says in a comment on Scott’s blog that he is in ICU on a ventilator after a failed operation to remove an obstruction on his esophagus.
Prayers for Scott’s recovery would be good. Or at least an easy passage onward.
UPDATE: “Scott passed at midnight. He was sleeping comfortably and with his family,” according to blog friend Otis. A memorial service is planned for Sunday, the 16th.
The Texas Rangers have lost their most loyal fan. And we have lost a friend.
Posted in Blogosphere, Science/Engineering, Texana
Tagged late-stage lung cancer, Scott Chaffin, The Fat Guy, Tom Galli
On March 12, the Battleship Texas will be a hundred years from her commissioning date in 1914. The state parks department is planning a musical tribute to her three days later from noon to 10 p.m. at her mooring off the Houston Ship Channel near the San Jacinto Battleground.
One month later, the Texas will begin at least $17.5 million in repairs, mainly to her corroded hull, which has sprung so many leaks that the last of the old Dreadnoughts can’t be moved to dry dock as she was back in 1988, the last time extensive hull repairs were made.
That was the last time I ventured through her cramped corridors, onto her bridge and down ladders to her old radar room amidships, the whole smelling of age and the brackish water that surrounds her. The foundation that runs the ancient weapon as a tourist attraction hopes to raise a lot more money for more extensive repairs, but the awful Democrat economy isn’t the best time for it.
Posted in Blogosphere, Guns, Science/Engineering, Texana, The Economy
THE TEXAS SCRIBBLER 