Category Archives: Uncategorized

If you would like to talk about America’s fiscal postion, this should be required knowledge.  Not just reading–any fool can read.  Knowledge.

USA Inc.is a non-partisan report that looks at the U.S. federal government (and its financials) as if it were a business. Mary Meeker, partner at KPCB and former financial analyst at Morgan Stanley, created and compiled the report with the goal of informing the discussion about our financial situation and outlook. USA Inc. examines the country’s income statement and balance sheet, aiming to interpret the underlying data and facts, and illustrate patterns and trends in easy-to-understand ways. The report also analyzes the drivers of federal revenue and the history of expense growth, and discusses basic scenarios for how revenue and expense growth might change to help … Continue reading →

For those who might find me here first, I most definitely felt it, with no ill effects.  It was quite noticeable.  I am about 30 or 40 miles from the epicenter.  I was in a 3rd floor office building, and of course wea ll got up and walked to the window to see what was going on.  There was a low ominous rumbling, and the building shook rapidly in a strangely restrained way, for a long, long time.  Perhaps over a minute of constant shaking, which is an eternity when you’re waiting for the real quake to begin.

Everybody kind of figured it was an earthquake, but it really kept seeming like a large vehicle going by, uh, down the hallway.  A bit of disorientation, until we finally … Continue reading →

Been having a blast. Switched from Hugh and Levin to Levin and Rush. Spotty comms will improve shortly. Meanwhile…

Sorry, bit of a rant coming on, I fear.  I’m so mad at the GOP shenanigans that I can hardly see straight.

This “gang of six” deal is a butt-rocket.  I could go on copying and pasting pros and cons and cons and cons, but the two facts I care about are this:

• It’s a ONE TRILLION DOLLAR tax increase by any honest math
• The plan “drew immediate praise from President Barack Obama.” (Wall Street Journal)

That’s enough for me.  Okay, one more, from the same WSJ paragraph:  “The plan would reduce the deficit by $3.7 trillion over 10 years.”  Gee, can you spare it?  That’s just the amount the Obama has added to the deficit SO FAR!  By the end of this year it’ll be $5T … Continue reading →

17JUL:

While anything is possible, this “prognostic reasoning” from the Joint Typhoon Warning Center is alarming:

MODEL GUIDANCE IN THE EXTENDED TAUS HAS REMAINED VERY CONSISTENT OVER THE PAST 2 DAYS IN REGARDS TO THE TRACK AND TRACK SPEEDS. DUE TO THE LACK OF A STRONG MIDLATITUDE SHORTWAVE TROUGH AND WESTERLIES, THE RE-CURVE IS UNUSUAL IN THAT THE SYSTEM WILL TRACK AT RELATIVELY SLOW SPEEDS (10-14 KNOTS), MAINTAIN TYPHOON INTENSITY STRENGTH PAST TOKYO; AND LACK SIGNIFICANT BAROCLINIC INTERACTION UNTIL IT MOVES EAST OF TOKYO.

Translation: No standing rain line means this typhoon will not be “scooted off to the east” like most are. It will also not be weakened by the wind shear associated with said scooting. It will be weakened only by dry air and cooler water, … Continue reading →

Patterico has a series of posts tracking the impressively dishonest and wholly anti-Constitutional views being pimped by Time Magazine’s Managing Editor, Richard Stangel. Stengel was once CEO of “The National Constitution Center”, now runs their Peter Jenning Center for the Political Rectification of Obama’s Praetorian Media.
Patterico (in a guest post and letter campaign by Aaron Worthing) wrote to the Center with a list of specifics and detailed refutations, chapter and verse as it were. The summary of their weaselly non-answer seems to be “Buy the magazine! Click the link!”

To find out whether Stengel made those claims, read his article. To learn what the Constitution says about those issues, you can find an annotated Constitution by clicking here.

So there’s a lot of controversy.  What do you … Continue reading →

I have finally found out exactly what that bike was I saw 20 years ago.

Honda’s American CB900 would not be so long of wheelbase, nor mechanically quite so interesting, if those who designed it had not chosen to use a maximum of existing hardware. Specifically, they opted to work with only lightly altered CB900 nee CB750F engine/transmission cases and the GL1100-CX500 final-drive assembly. This approach, like making the CB900 out of the CB750F, was shaped by manufacturing economics. They had to couple a left-side transmission output stub to a right-side final drive, and the twain could not be made to meet without taking complicated measures.

What Honda’s engineers did to resolve their right-to-left dilemma was to cobble together some transfer gears, a jack-shaft and right-angle bevel drive … Continue reading →

I am shocked — SHOCKED to see Obama political appointees blaming their predecessors.

“We have a program. We have a budget. We have bipartisan support. We have a destination,” NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver said. “We are just putting finer points on the rocket design.”

But Garver and other administration officials are getting heat from some of the most famous astronauts on the planet, not to mention members of Congress and aerospace industry executives. Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon, and someone never known to be a rabble-rouser, recently co-wrote with fellow Apollo astronauts Jim Lovell and Gene Cernan an op-ed in USA Today declaring that the space policy of the Obama administration is in “substantial disarray.” The astronauts protested the decision to kill the … Continue reading →

Here’s a stunningly inept analysis of Japan’s problems, by somebody from a company that markets chinese crap to welfare moms.

Another problem is that Japanese business people and companies are lacking in individuality. Too many people think that everyone must be the same. That’s a basic fault.

Finally, Japanese companies seem to have their eyes in the rearview mirror. They have become introspective. I think we should get back to something more like we were at the end of the war when Japan rose to prominence from a situation in which it had nothing. (It was during this period that Fast Retailing got started, in 1949.)

I do not intend to fisk this article, but it gets thick real fast. He complains that Japan looks in the rearview, … Continue reading →