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Question of the day: Stimulus? I'll show you a stimulus

Question of the day: If we have already decided to spend 825 billion in a forlorn hope to restart the economy, why not consider 825 billion of across the board tax cuts?

That sounds pretty stimulating to me.

It seems to me that its not the spending that's at issue, but who is doing it. How does letting congress spend my money work better than me spending my own? We just blew through 350 billion in government spending and not a damn thing happened. Let's try something new this time with the second half of the TARP funding.

I think I can stimulate my own economy pretty well all by myself thank you...

Posted @ January 27, 2009 10:41 AM | Current Affairs | Comments (0) | TrackBack (1)

Little things lost

I discovered something today that I wished I hadn't. I found out that a friend who I worked with for years had died in 2005. Well people die, that's what we do, so that's not all that unusual. What is unusual is that he died on the same day as my father died. Whats doubly unusual is what he died from.

2005 was the year my father died. Two months after he died, I developed a severe cough that simply would not go away. After a week of non-stop coughing, I began to cough up blood which got my attention, so off I went to my favorite medical facility for a round of specialized industrial care and medicine.

The cause of the blood in my sputum was easy enough to diagnose because with all my coughing I had ruptured my esophagus. A laser solved the immediate problem but left the question open as to the initial cause of the tear. A series of x-rays and a lot of time in the doctors office, a biopsy here and there and four weeks later I was given a clean bill of health. It was not the "big C". It was determined to be nothing more than a severe infection that lead to bigger things, but for a short time in the weeks directly after my fathers death, I was also dealing with the possibility of my annoying cough being something much worse.

The "much worse" was throat cancer which as it turns out, I did not have. Yet as it turns out, my friend and mentor, did, and died of it on the same day as my father. I knew nothing of his condition. We talked on the phone at the end of the year prior, he said nothing about his condition. Perhaps he didn't know at that time, but if he did, he didn't pass it on to me. Frankly it wasn't his style to do something like that. Where I was a "Kirk", he was a "Picard". He was gracious, classy and polite person. As engineers, we made a good team but we would have made an awful cop 'buddy" movie.

When we worked together in the 80's and 90's and his retirement plan back then was that at the end of his career he would cash in his 401k and buy a rock shop in the Oregon desert. It was never going to happen, but it used to make us laugh at the right time in meetings that had gone horribly bad. It always seemed like a great idea to me.

We had a shared background, we had grown up in roughly the same place in Sacramento, but 20 years apart. Here were two Sacramento valley kids working in a company of seriously deep Bay Area bit heads, so we stuck together. A couple of country hayseeds there amongst the cosmopolitan eggheads. We spoke each others language, the language with verbage based on a suspiciously raised eyebrow in a code review or a sigh that sounds like an air leak when someone in management says something patently stupid during a company meeting.

I hadn't heard from him in awhile, which wasn't all that unusual as the fraternity of our shared past life lives out there on a long orbit. We all come around from time to time, but not as often as we would like. All this time I assumed he had finally gone on to buy the rock shop out there in the Harney Desert. I hadn't heard from him in awhile, so I looked him up today and discovered in the process that he was no longer with us. There are times when a Google search can be like the 'angel of death' and this is one of them.

Now it seems my friend will never retire to the Harney desert and I should stop waiting for a call for lunch that will never come. And I now find myself four years late in grief to the man who once taught me the meaning of the word "crisp".

Posted @ January 26, 2009 09:51 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (0) | TrackBack (1)

I was raised by wolves

My pal Ray and I were talking just the other day. He had called to say that the CEO of his company had sent an email that was praising the election of Barack Obama. Then he related a tale of how in the middle of a bit of dentistry, the dental assistant had offered a bit of anti-Bush diatribe.

In the middle of having dentistry - let's pop in a little jab at President Bush. Sure, what could be wrong with that.

I've seen this phenomenon as well. I find that there are some people who just naturally assume that "everyone hates Bush" and therefore no knock is too low, no time is the wrong time for politics.

Jay Nordlinger writes a great piece in NR on the subject today.

As I said, this sort of thing has happened to me as well. This might surprise some of you, but I don't talk politics in public, I certainly don't talk about it at work. I never have, and I never will. I often find myself having to respond to it, and when it occurs, I usually say something like "well I was raised by wolves so you'll excuse me if I abide by the rule that says you dont talk about sex, religion or politics at work. You should respect my diversity in this matter. The real reason I don't talk about those things is something called "common courtesy" which as of late is in short supply. You should never talk about those three things for no other reason that it is simply rude. Talking about any one of those things in a public venue can potentially become an incendiary subject.

So obviously that means I'm depressed and upset about President Obama. Oh, sorry thrillseekers, I'm not. The funniest thing about this election to me is how the left envisaged that we on the right would become as moonbat crazy against President Obama as they did against Bush. It didn't happen and in my opinion, it wont happen. There will be things we like and dislike about President Obama, but I don't think we will hate him. Our negative reaction to Obama wont define who we are.

I'll come back to this later, but to illustrate my point let me relate this story. I was at the office after the inaugural when one of my liberal collegues came by to tell me how happy they were with the election and in a slip of the tongue he said "Im so proud to be an American". He was expecting anger from me but I just said "feels good doesn't it? That sudden pulse of patriotism. Welcome to the side of the angels my friend!"

He stopped dead cold. He was genuinely feeling good and he was feeling genuinely patriotic and these were entirely new feelings for him. I told him it was ok, it was a good thing to love your country but that idea just seemed to make him woozy. For the first time since I've known him, he was forced to recognize something that he had not believed possible.

That he and I, were actually on the same side. That thought doesn't bother me at all, but it bothers the hell out of some people.

Posted @ January 26, 2009 08:01 AM | Current Affairs | Comments (0) | TrackBack (232)

Presidential Theme Music

This weeks entry is from a young man from Los Angeles California, Mr. Randy Newman
and were expecting big things from this young man...

Posted @ January 23, 2009 08:23 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (1)

What's the difference between Bush and Obama

- Bush believes in the messiah, Obama wants you to believe that he is the messiah...

Posted @ January 23, 2009 12:24 AM | Current Affairs | Comments (0) | TrackBack (38)

Explain to me how this works

Let's say I am a "cop on the beat". I go from call to call, and on occasion I as a police officer am called upon to apprehend and detain someone in the course of daily duties.

When that happens, I take the accused back to the holding cell, where they are processed into the legal system. They might post bond, they might sit overnight but eventually they see a judge, who with the help of their attorney and the District Attorneys office, will determine where the accused will go from here.

So let's say that some well meaning citizenry has complained that the holding cells are incompatible with human rights. In a craven attempt to curry favor with the voting public, the City Council so decrees that the holding cells should be closed and in a blaze of camera flash - it is done!

Ok. Fine. I'm just a cop. I do my job. I get up and go to work the same way I did before this happened, right?

The problem is, what "job" do I do? Should I arrest anyone? If I do, where do I take them? What happens when they go there? You need a place to hold people as they are processed. If you close it, what do you do to the rest of the system? You take away the jail, you take away the process and without the process, there is no "system".

So now the President has "so decreed" that Guantanamo and all the "secret CIA" jails are to be closed, "In the interest of Human Rights".

I think its fine to want to close Guantanamo, but the question is, what do you do with those folks who get captured in the effort of fighting terrorism? If you don't have anywhere to take them, where do they go? If you are not going to capture them and you don't have any facilities for processing them, what do with them?

Here's the 10 billion dollar question:

"If you're a soldier in the field and you have to choose to capture a combatant (for which there are no longer any facilities or systems to hold or process prisoners, and the very act of capturing prisoners which may very well put you personally at risk of legal entanglements) or kill the combatant, which will end the issue outright. So what do you "choose" to do?"

Yeah... Me too.

The funny thing is that this whole "close Guantanamo" thing was done in the interest of protecting human rights, but in reality, something else might just have occurred. You know, the older I get, the more I'm convinced that the "law of unintended consequences" is as absolute as the law of gravity.

Update: I'm gently reminded of this scene from "A Bridge Too Far" for somewhat related reasons:

Posted @ January 22, 2009 09:48 AM | Current Affairs | Comments (0) | TrackBack (31)

The Geithner Defense

"You know Senator, maybe if you folks in the legislature didn't make a tax system that is so byzantine and obscure that it defies any reasonable persons ability to comprehend much less comply with, maybe if you did that, then MAYBE I might have figured out that I had a problem with my taxes. It's not like I'm stupid, its not like I didn't have tax lawyers, its not that I didn't TRY to pay my taxes, its that none of my lawyers, my CPA's nor the IRS could come to terms on the final amount. The problem Senator with my taxes and yours sir, is that no two tax lawyers or CPA's can ever make a good guess to what the damn tax laws are at any given time! "

Well. That's what I would have said anyway...

Posted @ January 21, 2009 07:50 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

God Bless America

I've said it before and I'll say it again, is this a great country or what?

Congratulations President Obama and God Bless the United States of America.

Posted @ January 20, 2009 09:11 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (3)

observations

I can't really tell what it is that I'm watching with this Inaugural.

I should be seeing people, American people, who are genuine in their expression of joy that the smooth and Democratic transition of power has occurred and the Republic remains intact. We have, democratically, decided to move on to bigger and hopefully better things. I want to be fair and optimistic, but I don't believe that is what I am seeing here. What I'm seeing here is something else, something that has my worried. I see this Inaugural as the very living evidence, the very essence of the "something good" that lives deep in the America soul that I have always believed in, but I just cant shake this feeling that a good many others out there who are looking at this Inaugural as the end of the America they have always hated and the beginning of "something else".

What worries me is that the "something else" is decidedly undemocratic. What I am worried about is the worship of men over the respect for the Constitution.

There seems to be a lot of talk about the "greatness of the man" and not about the nature of the office that he now holds.

Men( and any woman will tell you this ) are just men. Some are good, some are bad, but they all have their flaws. Let us not forget that he is a man, and only a man and that any man who holds the office will someday leave it. Let us pray he does not begin to actually believe the good things that people say about him. Let us hope that he also does not believe the bad things that people will say. Let us deeply wish that he doesn't care one way or the other, because in the end he was elected to lead, not to be loved and adored or dare I say - worshiped.

The new President is a man,just a man, and there is a real majesty to that fact. The majesty is that a man of no real consequence can be the President if the people so decree. Come what may, we will decide in four years whether to renew his contract to serve us and in eight years he will voluntarily leave the office to his predecessor. This is what the Constitution holds. That is the core of the Oath taken for the office. That is the essential majesty of the office; that so much power,once achieved is to be given up in an orderly fashion. For like the life of a man, it is designed to be temporary, lest it be mistaken by others for a mask of holiness. Being President doesn't make you a better man than the rest of us, it simply reveals to everyone what you already were back when you were just a man. Some men find this humbling, others shrink from the image it brings, others accept the burden and do the best they can, comforted in the fact that it is only temporary and relief will surely come to them in the end.

Let us all be wary of the day when any man is elevated above the office, not for how the process of deification can elevate the man into being something he is not, but how it lowers the rest of us into being something less than men.

Posted @ January 19, 2009 04:02 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (0) | TrackBack (4)

Flight 1549 and the A320 flight simulator

From the BBC via Charles Martin:

I spent a big part of the weekend studying the A320 Pilot Manual and running simulations on a PC based flight simulator. I found the exercise to be a fantastic learning exercise for the novice pilot, such as myself. I am in no way cockpit qualified for any aircraft of this complexity, but the flight simulator and the checklists in the pilot manual helped to make clear the sort of decisions that the flight crew were faced with when their aircraft became a glider over the bronx.

So the big question for some of you is "Was I able to land the A320 on the Hudson"? Well, it took 10 attempts for me to just finish the engine out checklists before I hit the ground, so I think I will be hanging on to my day job for awhile. After I was more familiar with the procedures I was able to complete the checklists and still have altitude enough to safely land, which I defined as being at slightly below stall speed on the Hudson itself. I started the exercise by departing LGA and at 3,000 ft, pulled power to simulate the strike. At that point I began to run through the "Engine out and relight" checklists. With practice and effort, I eventually settled out at about 1,600 ft. on the other side of the Bronx.

Its my opinion based on my little tests that there was no way they could have made it back to land at LGA and I think that had the strike occurred at any lower altitude, even as little as 500 feet that there's really no way they could have made the water landing as it occurred, they would have ended up in some part of the Bronx or in the water off LGA, but certainly not the Hudson.

Where I deviated from the professional results that came from Flight 1549 is that I kept choosing to land north of the GW Bridge, rather than south towards Manhattan. By going north instead of south I was able to "land" without too much trouble, but in reality this choice would have resulted in half the passengers dying of exposure before their rescue. My raw inexperience and gut instincts told me that it was a bad idea to fly towards the congested city where their training, experience and professionalism told the crew that landing on the Hudson was only half the job, the second job was getting rescued after the ditching. The presence of the Ferrys on the river, which I looked at as a hazard, turned out to be exactly what the doctor ordered and made that choice far superior to all other options.

The lesson is now learned, and stored for future use...

Posted @ January 19, 2009 10:59 AM | Aviation | Comments (0) | TrackBack (20)

Question of the day: Stimulus Package

So, out of the 850 BILLION DOLLARS that the Democrats propose spending - is there just perhaps possibly maybe any money being spent of better body armor or better Humvee armor? Any Battlefield Laser Area Defense systems to keep those pesky mortars out of the base?

Imagine the kind of Armed Services we could have with just a portion of that cash....

Posted @ January 18, 2009 04:29 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (0) | TrackBack (4)

US Airways 1549 - Mythbusters

Myth #1: One of the engines broke off in mid-air.

Response:

From the UK SUN

In this picture you can see both engine nacelles are still on the aircraft just moments before the impact with the river. There are a couple of ways you can tell that this is the case. First, a picture just like this one. Second, if an engine had 'departed the aircraft' prior to the water landing, the aircraft would have suffered from "asymmetrical drag". There would have been one big engine with its natural drag producing features on one side of the aircraft, but nothing but a hole on the other side. The aircraft would have wanted to turn against that drag and the pilot would have had to counteract that tendency with the application of rudder and aileron. That would have worked but at a cost and the cost would have been airspeed and descent angle. Any pictures that you had of the aircraft would have shown it in an uncoordinated fashion. This aircraft is decidedly coordinated and in a perfect 'pitch angle'. As you can see in that photo, the aircraft is nose up and if you photoshopped it out of the fact that its about to land on the water, it would look no different than how aircraft normally look as they are about to touch down on a runway - except of course that there is no landing gear down in this case. This is because during ditching, landing gear in their down and deployed position is a distinctly bad idea.

The challenge for the pilot is to get the aircraft down as close to the stall speed as possible and keep the engine nacelles from digging into the water. If he had the gear down and could not retract it before landing, they would tend to dig into the surface of the water and could cause the aircraft to tumble as it hit the surface. If he ends up going too fast, the fuselage would break up on impact, and then you have 150 people survive the crash only to drown 100 yards from shore.

Here is a very nice graphical presentation of the event from the NY Times.

From MSNBC, Via Charles Martin - a nice video of the impact.

Now, since I spent part of last night reading the A320 pilot manual and thanks to the NY Times I now know the approximate altitude of the event, I'm going to fire up Microsoft Flight Simulator and see what it must have looked like from the cockpit - so I'll be back later.

Anyone from the Audubon society out there? Can you tell me what altitude Canadian Snow Geese tend to fly at? This incident occurred at 2,800 feet.

Posted @ January 17, 2009 10:00 AM | Aviation | Comments (0) | TrackBack (43)

Weekend Movie: Fate is the hunter (1964)

A commercial jet takes off on a late night flight in light fog. During the takeoff, an engine goes dead, then both engines go and the aircraft becomes a glider. The pilot tries to make it back to the airport, but instead has to opt for the beach, when an unseen pier ruins his plans, resulting in his death and all but one of the crew, a stewardess. Soon, rumors arrive on the scene that say that the pilot had a drinking problem. The press has a field day as they tear into the life of the pilot in an effort to discover the reason for the crash.

Pilot Error? Equipment malfunction? A badly designed aircraft? A negligent airline? The answer is not what you think.

Glenn Ford, Suzanne Pleshette long before she took up the habit of eating cigarettes and Marlon Brandos college roommate Wally Cox star in this interesting and timely movie about culture of pilots. Two things worth note, the content of this movie doesn't resemble the novel of the same name by Ernest K. Gann and try not to judge the aircraft in the film too harshly.

Posted @ January 16, 2009 06:49 PM | Aviation | Comments (0)

Last Nights Wyoming Earthquake

Magnitude 3.7 - Epicenter - Just outside of Alpine Wyoming.

How outside? Well, from the maps I'm reviewing this morning, its almost precisely under my sisters house just outside of Alpine. Way to go sis!

Here in "shaky-land", a 3.7 would hardly even count as an earthquake, but a 3.7 directly under your house would tend to get your attention.

Whats with the quakes up there in Idaho-Wyoming-Montana lately? Well I'm sure it has something to do with this:

That is the Yellowstone Volcanic Caldera, which is just a bit north of my sisters place in Alpine. The blue thing is an outline of Lake Yellowstone. The dots are earthquakes since December 26th. You cant see it here but there have been over 900 since that date.

Volcanoes are good at generating earthquakes. Yellowstone is a big volcano. One naturally follows the other and once again we have evidence that the universe we live in is not static but dynamic and changing right before our eyes.

Posted @ January 16, 2009 08:15 AM | Current Affairs | Comments (0) | TrackBack (5)

How lucky are the passengers on US AIR 1549?

This is how most aircraft end when they ditch. Of course, if US AIR 1549 had that much speed the would have made it back to the airport, but you get my drift. If you are flying today, thank your pilot.

Posted @ January 15, 2009 02:11 PM | Aviation | Comments (0) | TrackBack (6)

Honor. You should teach it here, sir.

Patrick McGoohan has passed away today. McGoohans character "Number 6" in the landmark TV show "The Prisoner" illustrated many of my own feelings about the nature of personal rebellion and its role in the operation of a civilization. There might have been one hundred Lucy knock offs over the years, but there has been only one "Prisoner".

My favorite quote from "The Prisoner", which seems rather timely right about now is this exchange with Leo McKern as "Number 2".

Number 2: What in fact has been created? An international community. A perfect blueprint for world order. When the sides facing each other suddenly realize that they're looking into a mirror, they'll see that this is the pattern for the future.
Number 6: The whole earth as... 'The Village'?
Number 2: That is my hope. What's yours?
Number 6: I'd like to be the first man on the moon!

Well obviously, that was before Neil and Buzz and Apollo 11, but the sentiment is one I fully understand.

Oh... and no, I didn't get the last episode either...

Posted @ January 14, 2009 04:42 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Its the Vodka-kindle!

1. Yes, I did in fact get a Kindle for Christmas.
2. Yes indeed, I do love it. It truly is worth the money.
3. Yes, I do have some things I would change but first let's talk about what I like:

- Fundamentally, its an Amazon device, and that means something deep and important and yet its often completely overlooked. What it means is that the catalog of written books that live on Amazon are now accessible via the Kindle. Not all books, but many, many books and the number is growing every day. Whats more - they are about a third of the cost of the hardcopy version.

- It has a feature called "Whispernet". Whispernet is an EVDO connection via the Sprint Phone Network. "Oh no! I dont want another bill for network access and I already have a cellphone! Hold on. No one said anything about a bill, there is no bill for "whispernet". Whispernet is all part of the system under Kindle. You dont do anything or sign up for anything to use whispernet. What it gives you is instant connectivity to Amazon and the internet from anywhere at anytime( so long as you are under a cell tower somewhere of course...). You want to read a book, you turn on the kindle, shop the kindle store at amazon, you find what you want and blam! - there it is, right on your Kindle. You can download samples of the books, leave bookmarks, use the internet to research information that you find in the text, leave notes for later, all the things you do when you read a normal book.

Imagine sitting in the passenger seat of a car on a long road trip and in the tedium of it all, it suddenly hits you that now's the time to read that book you always wanted, open your kindle, turn it on and it gets downloaded to your kindle. Its that simple.

It also has a new experimental web browser to let you read web based content, such as Vodkapundit(see above) or Glenn Reynolds' Instapundit and just about anything else that's out there as well.

- "So what" you say. You say that you can get PDFs of books right now on your laptop, and that is already internet enabled, so whats the big deal? Well, the big deal is that this is not a laptop. Its an electronic book. Its optimized for the purpose of reading books. Amazon just happens to sell a whole lotta books. Besides, if you're like me, if there's a keyboard in front of you, you're doing something besides reading, you're surfing, you're reading other things, but books and computers don't come together very well. Kindle gives you an environment that's built to be optimum for a book environment, with the added ability (in a pinch) to get internet access for that type of information.

- It also allows you to play MP3's as background music while you are reading. It has a slot for an SSD, so long term storage of the recorded media is not a problem.

As someone who reads on average 4 books a week, its a complete lifesaver. If you think about the logistics of storing 4 books a week for 50 work weeks a year, you get some idea of the uphill battle I face in my office.

So that's the good side, whats on my list of complaints?

- The Sony E-Reader is a competing design and its made of metal. I like Metal. I wish the Kindle was a brushed aluminum like the Sony E-reader. Kindle is made of plastic. Ergonomically I have an issue with the kindle that I have with virtually everything else on the planet earth, its built for right handed folks and not lefties like me. Oh, The Sony E-reader is nice, but the fact that its not tied directly to a book catalog like Amazon or Barnes and Noble is a key factor for me. I don't like the download-to-the-pc-reformat-and-upload-to-the-device method. If I need a PC to get to the book, I'll just read it on the PC in the first place and skip the E-reader.

- Color. I don't mind that its only a 'black and white' display, but Im of an age where Black and White media isn't a big deal. I'm not sure the kids will accept it until it has a color display. I also think a small email app or Instant Messaging facility would not be a bad thing to have on the Kindle as well. The browser is good, but it could be better.

- Bluetooth connectivity. I would prefer to connect to my laptop or other facilities like headphones without wires. Bluetooth is a perfect facility for that. USB is nice, and the Kindle has that, but I would rather have a Bluetooth connection.

Posted @ January 09, 2009 04:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (1)

Comments off - Twitter On

Comments are now off for all posts, but twitter is on at all times. Follow me on twitter...

Those of you who wish to communicate in long form can use the email system, the email account is my first name with varifrank.com.

Enjoy.

Posted @ January 09, 2009 08:50 AM | Current Affairs | Comments (0)

Quote of the day

"...Saying that you want to spend your way out of recession is like saying the best way to avoid a hangover is to not stop drinking..."

...Caught in passing

Posted @ January 08, 2009 08:32 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Humans are idiots - #412 in a series

#412: Owners of cloned dogs complain that the clone version doesn't behave exactly like the original.

Really. What a surprise...

Posted @ January 08, 2009 12:39 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Sandy McTyre to the rescue!

I think the Governor is missing an opportunity here by issuing IOU's to state employees. I think its time he considers issuing our own currency( which is only a small step removed from IOU's). Here's an inspiration from our neighbors to the north:

That's "money" from the Canadian Tire company. Sure, it seems funny and yes it actually is an official gimmick, but in Canada, CT dollars are serious business. The Canadian version of Ebay actually accepts Canadian Tire Money as a form of valid payment.

That's 'Sandy McTyre' right there on the front. He's not the king of Canada, he's just a cartoon character like our Ronald McDonald or heck, just like our Governor here in California. Think about it, Arnold could issue "Cali-Bucks" to state employees which the state would redeem from stores and banks throughout the state. Businesses and banks would then cash in "Cali-Bucks" with the State of California on an agreed upon exchange rate.

Remember - its not really new currency because that would cause problems with the whole "federal and state" thing, its a "loyalty program".

Come to think of it, the way things currently stand I feel better about the full faith and credit of Canadian Tire Money than I do the US Dollar.

Posted @ January 08, 2009 08:42 AM | Current Affairs | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Better check that resume again...

Hmmm, lets see what we got on the stack here:

1. This fellah was a Detroit teacher.
2. A staff member at Michigan State University
3. A member of a task force on school violence
4. A deputy director of the Peace Corps in Kenya, according to a 2005 profile in Detroit's Metro Times newspaper.

Not bad. Oh there's little bit, according to the FBI, he's also the "Zombie Bandit"

snip...

"A convicted bank robber the FBI nicknamed the "Zombie Bandit" during a string of bank holdups in the Midwest in 1991 is the suspect in a robbery last week in Medford. Surveillance videos convinced investigators the man who robbed the Liberty Bank on Dec. 30 is 67-year-old Alan David Hurwitz, who served prison time for holdups at 18 banks across Michigan, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio.

"He is not the most likely bank robber, but we have seen people fall off the pedestal in the past and resort to crime," Medford police Lt. Tim Doney said.

The FBI nicknamed him the "Zombie Bandit" because of the vacant look on his face during the Midwest robberies.

Hurwitz was arrested in 1992 and sentenced to 12 years in federal prison.

Police describe him as a man who did a lot of good until a drug habit turned him to crime.

"He's done a lot of good in his life, but he has been a slave to crack cocaine," Medford police Deputy Chief Tim George said.

...end snip

Zombies. I hate those guys. They're just like Illinois Nazis, only without the fancy get-ups...

Posted @ January 07, 2009 03:53 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

2009 - where every news article looks like it came from the Onion

This just in...

Japan will find it difficult to achieve Kyoto goals

Its hard these days to hear anything over the din of crashing leftists fantasies as it tends to drown out all the ambient sound. I wonder if any of the signatories of the vaunted Kyoto treaty have managed to meet their commitments under that treaty.

Posted @ January 07, 2009 03:44 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Dreamliner One Rollout

Dreamliner One Line Move from Liz Matzelle on Vimeo.

Here's a fantastic set of photos of the first of the Dreamliners on rollout. 32megapixels and panoramic. Take close notice of the size of the nacelles and the wings.

Click Here.

Flightblogger is having a game of "Spot the differences" between the April photos and todays photos of the 787. See those "Stitch" marks around the fuselage? Those are the barrel fasteners that they are having so much trouble with. The 787 Composite fuselage is made up of a series of "barrels" that are attached with the aforementioned fasteners. To put it mildly, that hasnt worked out quite like they planned.

Posted @ January 07, 2009 09:35 AM | Aviation | Comments (0) | TrackBack (1)

The picture is getting clearer every day

Here's something interesting from CNN:

Commentary: U.S. needs a spy chief with experience

Well that's nice to know. Here we are 90 days after the election, and suddenly we see that for some jobs, "experience" really does matter more than "change".

I told you, this is going to be the funniest 4 years you have ever seen.

Posted @ January 07, 2009 08:27 AM | Current Affairs | Comments (0) | TrackBack (3)