Category Archives: Quality

Amy vs TSA

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Amy Alkon is taking on the TSA.  After her unreasonable search (or sexual assault) at the hands of the TSA and the TSA agent’s subsequent attempt to shake a cool half-million dollars out of Alkon, she’s is lawyering up.  Except that the lawyers refuse payment, and have leapt at the opportunity to do this stuff pro bono.

I have written that we should abolish the DHS, releasing its constituent agencies back into the wild, and amputating many duties from the TSA.  Amy’s experience  is not only a prime example of why: it is a valuable lesson in how:

TSA Searches: “Obedience Training For The American Public”

That’s how Zahir Ebrahim, of Project Humanbeingsfirst.com, rightly termed the TSA searches — in … Continue reading →

Dump Truck in Space to Impact God Knows Where

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Some comments on this:

The debris is expected to fall over a swath of Earth about 500 miles (804 kilometers) long, NASA officials said. [Video: Where Could UARS Satellite Debris Fall?]

There is a 1-in-3,200 chance of satellite debris hitting a person on the ground, odds that NASA says are extremely remote. Outside experts agree.

“Look at how much of Earth is covered with water,” Victoria Samson, the Washington Office Director of the Secure World Foundation, an organization dedicated to the peaceful use of outer space, told SPACE.com this week. “There’s a really good chance it’s going to go straight into the ocean.”

via Huge Defunct Satellite Falling to Earth Faster Than Expected, NASA Says | Falling NASA Satellite, Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite | Space Junk & … Continue reading →

Solyndra: Perpetual Motion Machine Wrapped in a Ponzi Scheme

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Now I know why the goofy name for this company.  Their one-trick pony is a cylindrical solar panel.   Solyndrical, plus a suitable Kumbayah web 2.0 ending, I get it.

The problem with these panels is the same problem with water injection to boost the expansion of an internal combustion engine.  Sounds dumb right?  Water kills fire.  Oh, but wait, if the heat of the fire is used to power the unbelievably explosive power of steam expansion, then you actually get MORE power from each ignition, right?  Amazing!  Oh, but… water kills fire.

Even if you can get the system to work consistently, the steam expansion would remove so much energy from the cylinder that a tremendous amount of fuel would be required just to keep the engine … Continue reading →

Thought Experiment: Grant-Milking Business Plan

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One of the ways that the Federal government could be defrauded is by applications for grants or loan guarantees in support of companies or projects which are designed to fail, but which extract large quantities of money from the government in the process.

What would such a business plan look like?  Features of such a business plan would probably include a mechanism for allowing those who would receive the greatest benefit to avoid personal (or corporate) liability in the event of a failure.  Other features might be a lack of meaningful oversight or accountability.  This sort of thing would be easier to pull off in an environment where there are indicators of regulatory agency capture.

It would be helpful to have a few examples to discuss.  At first … Continue reading →

Hey House: Ditch Obama's Jobs Speech

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[UPDATE: Mother Jones writer says no need to watch… see below]
House Republicans are deserting the Obama jobs speech scheduled for Thursday evening.  They simply won’t attend.   Speaker John Boehner, who stuffed the President on his blatant attempt to summon Congress to sit before him, has now decided that the flimsy $300 billion half-hearted jobs speech is not worth rebutting.  An increasing number of NBC affiliates won’t even show the speech itself, opting instead to stick with their regularly scheduled Saints-Packers pre-game show.  It’s a sham, and they know it.  Obama knows it, and he thinks that we are too dumb.  He wants to use the Congress as a political prop, and some in Congress aren’t having any of it.

[Update] Even this writer for Mother … Continue reading →

Soulja Boy Attempts Apology–Accepted, With Comment

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Perhaps you’ve heard of the furore surrounding comments by a rapper about the military.  I hadn’t, and I don’t care what most useless art-ticks think.  I was somewhat impressed, however, with the attempted apology from this guy “Soulja Boy”, in that it sounded mostly sincere.  Oh, he gets in his Bush-bashing and his mistaken notions about poverty or unemployment being caused by defense spending (I thought federal spending created — oh nevermind).  But for all his misjudgements and subsequent bad advice in rough rhyme, he does seem to genuinely regret at least part of this unhappy episode, and not just the catching some serious death stares from the military part.

At one point he rapped “f*** the troops” in a song or something (how the Hell would I … Continue reading →

The Insanity of Chaz Bono and Her Mother

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Chaz Bono is a mentally ill woman who has been mutilated by talented but twisted doctors. This process of “gender re-assignment” is a cultural phenomenon and a sign that we live in some very sick times. People become convinced of many things which are not true, but this does not obligate doctors to perform surgery in honor of such madness.

I wrote about this several years ago, in the case of a Florida city manager:

This is no simple personal elective surgery that Steve Stanton has chosen. It is not like removing an appendix before journeying to Antarctica, or having those tonsils out after a series of non-specific illnesses. Those are procedures which rational arguments can be mustered both for and against. The procedure … Continue reading →

Debasing the Language with PC BS

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[dc]H[/dc]ere’s an innocent enough quote, the source of which I will not reveal.  It’s from the training materials for a large company’s products.

A brainstorming session with another person is often useful in this phase, particularly if that person is capable of constantly providing alternative viewpoints during discussions. (In many countries, this person would be described as being good at playing the Devil’s advocate).  The analysis phase often benefits from two types of people, one of whom has excellent technical knowledge of the product, and another that constantly requires the first person to justify their thoughts and to think both logically and laterally.

This is just awful.  See how many layers of wrapping there are on the phrase “Devil’s advocate”?   Here’s the simplest correction; call this the … Continue reading →