Nominee: Most Stupidest Terrorists? Not.

Blazing car driven into Glasgow airport terminal - Times Online

One would think of much more effective terror acts than to drive a burning car into the terminal...I suppose it's pretty easy to accomplish--taking only a license and enough money for fuel. In terms of outright destruction, it's pretty piss poor, let's just say.

But are they dumb? The act grabs headlines, causes governments to put out warnings and, in general, remind us that we are still at war. So, no, they aren't stupid.

Maybe just a wee bit lazy.

News roundup

This weekend have a business simulation, so Friday night and Saturday all day will be very long and stressful. Have been getting ready for it but not much else going on so on to the news:

Food issues: Will the increase in oil and the push for bio-fuels mean a permanent increase in the cost of food?

President GW Bush has made a lot of mistakes, well we all make them, but he can't even get credit when things go right because people seem reluctant to acknowledge the good things.

Russia is trying to expand its borders again, this time northward.

Senator Lugar has suffered another episode of foot in mouth disease and reminds us again why we are fortunate his presidential ambitions flopped back in 92.

Venezuela appears to be killing the goose that lays the golden egg (the private sector to the economy). It will be interesting to see how much damage will be done and how long it will take the people of Venezuela to repair the damage.

US Colleges and Universities don't like being graded. Gee imagine that. They like grading their students but don't like it when others try to grade them so parents can be better informed on where their children should attend.

While the US is having problems in Iraq, the bad guys are also having problems.

Have a good weekend, don 't know if I can post tomorrow, maybe the boss will write or we can convince two others to join and write.

Lawyers be banished

My wife (a medical doctor) has been in negotiations for over a year to purchase part of a practice from the estate of a fellow doctor. The probate court has been a nightmare for the family and trying to get them to approve the sale of the practice has been difficult. Basically, with medical practices, all that can be sold is the patient files and the good will from the prior doctor. The buyer hopes the current patients will continue to come to the new doctor. But if the sale is delayed, and the new doctor can't start seeing the new patients right away, they will go elsewhere. If your kid is sick, your not going to wait to see the doctor because the court hasn't approved the sale of the practice, if they can't see you someone else will. A thriving practice can become worthless in weeks or at the most months.

In my wife's case, she started seeing the patients as an independent contractor of the estate so the patient base was kept. But the court would still not sign off on the agreement. Well, the estate and my wife said we would go ahead with the sale and present it to the court as a done deal. The value for the practice has already been agreed upon as fair by the court and we wanted to just get the thing over with.

The estate had its attorney and I used my sister who is an attorney, but getting the agreement drafted was another pain. My sister would make a change and then the estate attorney would make a change etc. etc. etc. So last night the administrator for the estate and my wife and I got together and finalized the deal. We both went through the latest agreement, made a few changes and signed it, without the lawyers being present. Of course if the whole thing blows up, we may rue the day, but there should be enough protections in the agreement to keep all parties safe. Of course we have now paid for a practice that the court has not agreed to, although at this point we think it is a formality, but there is still a risk the court could invalidate the sale and the fun of getting the money returned.

Bottom line, if you plan on dying some day, have a will and estate plan setup to save your family much grief.

That's about it for today, thanks for coming.

News, News and more News

Busy weekend, long team meeting but the paper due today is written and being printed today. This weekend is our business simulation, which means lots of pressure on Friday and Saturday but then it is over.

There is lots of stories in the news so on to it:

The Judge who sued the dry cleaners for losing a pair of his pants for $67 million lost and has to pay court costs. I hope the dry cleaner owners are able to sue the judge for making a frivolous case and causing them harm and win big. Hat tip Lucianne.

Pete Hegseth has some sharp comments to the anti-war crowd. Good for him to call them out on what they say and what it means. Our words and actions have meaning, even if we didn't intend the meaning attached to them. Hat tip Lucianne.

Its very quiet out there at the human rights organizations isn't it. A BBC reporter being held hostage by Hamas is videotaped wearing an explosive vest and yet no one is denouncing Hamas for violating the reporters human rights. After all, Hamas is the LEGAL GOVERNMENT of the Palestinian Authority per the democratic election held earlier. Why no protests? Is it because the US and/or Israel can't be blamed for this? A double standard? Hat tip Lucianne.

Michael Yon has another dispatch from Iraq. He is one person who should be read as he spends time with the troops and tells the good, bad and ugly on what is going on Iraq.

Have a good day and will see you tomorrow.

TGIF

Yes, thank goodness its Friday. It's been a long week and will be a longer weekend.

Had class last night, the students are becoming less motivated then before and their respect for the Prof has declined. I think the Prof senses this and understands we are not hanging on his every word. He spent more time on topic last night, but still only covered one point out of 3 and that took almost 4 hours, instead of going off into philosophical naval gazing so guess its getting better. No class next week, prof is out of town and the week after that will have two negotiation simulations. It will be interesting to see who has prepared and who is just winging it. It should be easy to tell.

This weekend have to finish reading one book, finish one paper and make a decision for our next quarter.

Finally, talked with several folks from the other Strategy class, the class we were told to get into if at all possible. Boy am I glad I'm not in that class. The Prof does not allow computers in class (afraid the students will surf or IM each other instead of hanging on her every word) and they are only doing the simulation on the SIM weekend. My class has already done 8 quarters of the SIM. Its hard to have a good SIM if you never have time to think or reflect on your decisions, otherwise its just a game, like 670B was. That was a weekend SIM using the same software, the difference between 670B and Strategy is an international component and Strat is supposed to be more realistic.

Spouse is at a conference Thur - Sun, has to leave at 6am to get there and doesn't get home till after 7pm. She took my car today, a Prius so she can use the HOV lanes and save time on her commute.

On to the news.

The coming global cooling. By 2020 we won't care about warming but cooling per the folks that study the sun and it is the cause of weather change on earth.

Giuliani will cut the spending in Washington? We can only hope that and some major surgery to the tax code.

What to do about Gaza and the Palestinian Authority. Seal the border is a good start, but I would not allow any aid through, if we accept that people are responsible for their actions, the people elected Hamas so they should be the ones to remove them and no food until then, they can always grow their own, if they hadn't spent so much time shooting up the greenhouses or building bombs etc. Oh and Israel should say publicly, for every rocket fired from Gaza into Israel, 20 155mm shells will be fired back, the shells being fragmentation shells and will be fired randomly over Gaza because every person in Gaza is their brother's keeper. No, I'm not too sympathetic to the folks in Gaza, they made a dog's breakfast out of a fair opportunity and should now suffer the consequences of their actions.

And finally Bloomberg doesn't like democracy because it is a very inefficient form of government because every group is fighting all the time and we don't automatically do what the leaders say to do without much debate and discussion.

Have a good weekend and thanks for stopping by.

C17 Pictures - Amazing

Received this in an email from my dad. I can't authenticate it but it "feels" correct.


For you aviators, you will enjoy this. For the non-aviators...you will be amazed.

C-17 Just wait until you get to picture number 5

#1


#2


#3


#4


#5


#6


#7

The four builders are shown in the image above. Colin Straus, the owner, is at the nose of the aircraft.

This 1/9th scale radio-controlled C-17 model was built in the United Kingdom . It was built as the centerpiece of a 15 program television series produced in the U.K. for the Home and Leisure satellite TV channel.

Built with the aid of three friends, it took one year to build and is powered with 4 Jetcat P-120 turbines with a total thrust of 108 lbs. The model weighs over 250 lbs fueled, and carries 12.5 liters (3.3 US gallons) of 95% kerosene and 5% turbine oil fuel. Other details include 5 Futaba PCM receivers, 16 battery packs (93 cells), 20 Futaba servos, on board air compressor, electro/pneumatic retracts, etc. Wingspan is 20 feet 8 inches, and the top of the if n is 74 inches (6 feet 2 inches) above the ground. Takeoff weight is 264 lbs.

The rear cargo doors open and they drop an r/c jeep on a pallet, as well as 2 free-fall r/c parachutists.

The model also has smoke systems both of the inboard turbines, and uses a 2.4 GHz data link to provide real-time data to a laptop computer on the ground while in flight. This data includes airspeed, turbine RPM, EGT, fuel consumption, etc. Built mainly from balsa and ply, with many glass and carbon fiber moldings to reduce weight. It is covered in fiberglass and epoxy resin. Complete with retractable landing gear and pneumatically operated flaps.

This C-17 Globe Master III is one of the largest jet models in the world today!

Graduation Day

Tonight my oldest niece graduates from High School. Where does the time go? When I met her back in December 1996, she was only 8 1/2 (my niece is the daughter of my wife's sister). She was a beautiful little girl and now has turned into a beautiful young woman. Yikes, I feel old. Will have another High School graduation to go to next year for my second oldest niece and an 8th grade graduation for my 3rd oldest niece. They are growing up too fast, not to mention they are either my height or taller, which is real depressing.

A few stories:

The US Mint made another mistake in making the new dollar coins. Although the coins have been out for a little while now, I haven't seen one yet. Another failed launch in that they are not being circulated and dollar bills being restricted so we never get to see them. They don't have to ban the paper dollar, just cut back production by 5 to 10% and replace them with the new coins to get them into circulation. Hat tip Hugh Hewitt.

More problems with low flush toilets, this time from Australia and people are not happy with the problems. Hat tip Lucianne.

Have a good day and thanks for stopping by.

Airplanes, simulations and stuff

Stayed at home yesterday, throat was inflamed. Its still tender today but manageable. Did make it to class last night, basically, as long as I can stand 2 out of 3 tries, I will make class. Our simulation went well for Year 4 Quarters 3 & 4. We are just at the point we can start making serious money and taking on the competition. The only bad news is out stock price has increased so buying back shares has become much more expensive.

Airplanes in the news:

Russia is selling MIGs to Iran and Syria so they will be able to defend their airspace. Its a good deal all around. Russia gets paid for the aircraft, pilot training and maintenance, Iran and Syria get some shiny new toys to gloat over and the US and Israel have their target drones for the next two years. Its a win, win, win situation. Ok, the Iranian and Syrian pilots may not think so. Remember the last time Syria and Israel tangled in the air it was Israel 82 kills to Syria 0 kills. Hat tip Lucianne.

Airbus has announced sales of its aircraft totaling $45 billion at the Paris Air Show. That is 10 times what Boeing announced. Airbus is having a good week, which they need after the last year with all the problems they have had with the 380 and the 350. It is still to be seen if Airbus can get the 380 program back on track and if its design for the 350 will work as advertised. Hat tip Lucianne.

I generally do not have too many nice things to say about University Presidents in the US, they seem to mostly be about keeping the faculty happy, even when the faculty needs to be reprimanded (think the professors at Duke who slandered the lacrosse players and never bothered to apologize) and raise money. Even Larry Summers got fired for stating the obvious, men and women are different and one aspect of that difference is that people tend to gravitate towards different areas of study. Its not that woman CAN'T make it in the hard sciences, but that on the whole, many prefer not to. Anyway I fear the rest of this post may be lost because any visitor may stop reading and Harvard isn't what I'm writing about.
Columbia University has said publicly, that if the UK university faculty decide to boycott Israel universities, to boycott Columbia as well. Good for him. Hat tip Lucianne.

Have a good day and thanks for stopping by.

I thought weekends were for fun

Well, it shows what I (don't) know. Tonight have to meet with my class team for 3 hours, Sunday meeting with them from 9 to 11am and Saturday will be my time to write. Sigh. 7 weeks to go and then freedom. Saturday I also HAVE to get to the gym or my doctor will be very upset with me (ok more then usual). So it will be a busy weekend.

On to the news:

The OTC diet pill Alli has been approved by the FDA. Before then it was only sold by prescription and it will block about 25% of the fat eaten being absorbed by the body. Of course the side effects can be embarrassing. As the displays warn, wear dark color pants and bring a change of clothes with you to the office.

What should be done at ground zero in New York City? Alica Colon thinks the twin towers should be rebuilt. While I emotionally agree with this, I'm not sure it will make economic sense. I don't know if I would want to work up high in a high target building. Hat tip Lucianne.

The civil war in Gaza continues. However, you don't hear much about it in the press nor about the civilian casualties. After all, any civilians killed in Iraq (especially if killed by US forces) or Lebanon (especially if killed by Israel) make front page news. Are the Palestinian civilians not worth the same coverage even if Israel is not to blame? Hat tip Lucianne.

Finally, a jet engine was tested that was able to reach 10 times the speed of sound. When they can put that on an airplane, then trips to Asia will be fun and not pure yuck instead. Hat tip Lucianne.

Have a fun weekend and enjoy it, you could be doing homework like me.

Health is

Spouse has been feeling under the weather the last two days, got her to bed early or rather tried too. This morning found a white spot on the back of my tonsil so now I have something. Can't afford to get sick now, too much to do. Spent last night doing homework and will do so again tonight. 7 more weeks and counting.

The news:

This is just bloody amazing. If the story is accurate, and I'm willing to wait for further developments, heads need to roll. A women to be bleeding from her mouth and in significant pain and then die IN AN EMERGENCY ROOM because the medical folks ignored her sounds criminal. If the facts support this, the staff ignored and did not treat a woman in medical need, they should at least lose their licenses. For the 911 operators to ignore calls for help from the woman's husband and others who called, they should be fired. For LA County to allow King-Harbor to remain open under current management should mean a lot of management needs to be terminated and if the folks working there are not willing to do their jobs, shut the place down. As I said before, I want to wait for more information but if the facts in the story are correct, a number of people are guilty of involuntary manslaughter. Through their actions or inaction's a woman died who did not need to. Hat tip Lucianne.

In the US, if your job requires you to do things that violate your religion, change jobs or change religion, don't expect your employer or the public to conform to your views. The saga of the Muslim taxi drivers in Minneapolis not wanting to carry any passengers who have purchased alcohol continues. Hat tip Lucianne.

Illegal immigration. When you do thing illegally and the law catches up, please don't expect much sympathy from the public. Michelle Malkin also has an interesting column on the subject.

Does Israel have the military capacity to stop Iran's nuclear ambition? I don't know but Daniel Pipes writes they might. It would be a Hail Mary type operation and if it failed, Israel will have sacrificed a large part of its Air Force. Hat tip Lucianne.

Get the government out of the education business? Impossible some say. Jonah Goldberg says why not.

Have a good day and if you need to go to a hospital, DO NOT go to King-Harbor, take the extra time to go to any other hospital, your chance of survival will increase.

What a night

In my Strategy class, we had the opportunity in our business simulation to buy or rather negotiate an exclusive marketing agreement for our product (toy boats) with a major media company (the mouse). Which ever company won the contract would see the effectiveness of its advertising increase at a minimum of 12%. We didn't expect to win it and put in what we thought would be the minimum bid. We also structured it to make fixed payments over time and inflation in the game is running at 11% PER QUARTER. You can do the math, any fixed contract price signed now will cost much less in the future because we will be paying for it with inflated dollars. It came down to two teams and the professor said if we would prepay 3 quarters, pay for quarters 1, 2 & 3 in quarter 1 we would win the contract. Of course we said YES. So we have been able to take a variable cost, advertising and make it a partially fixed cost which will save $$$ in the future. Two other teams were extremely unhappy which is a good thing, to make your competition unhappy.

On to the news:

The double standard of torture continues. For the US, torture is when we make bad guys feel bad about themselves. For the insurgents, its not bad when they mutilate our soldiers before and after killing them. Hat tip Lucianne.

At the moment, illegal immigrants are counted in the census which is used to determine the number of seats each State has in the House of Representatives. The State of Michigan says that is not fair, only citizens should be counted. This is a repeat of when the country was founded and the North did not want to count slaves for representation purposes and the South did (of course the situation was just the opposite for tax purposes). Hat tip Lucianne.

Does capital punishment save lives? IBD says it does. Hat tip Lucianne.

What happens when government opposes the wish of the people? Government will back down or will find itself replaced by recall or election. I just wish the government would learn the lesson and it would stay learned. Hat tip Lucianne.

Have a good day and will see you tomorrow.

Monday

Was off on Friday but instead of taking the day to lay around, was in the library doing research for one of my papers this term. Got a fair amount done but of course still have more to do. Sunday spent 3 hours with my class team for Strategy. We got most of our work done but now have to meet this coming Friday for 3 hours and another 2 hours on Sunday morning. We can't meet in the afternoon because its fathers day and two of the guys on the team, being fathers, are busy with family obligations. 7 more weeks till freedom.

Went house looking on Saturday, I know something is wrong with me when I see a 1544 square foot house that was built in 1954 being sold for $639,000 and thinking its a good deal. Actually the original price was $699,000 so they have lowered the price by $60,000 so it might be a good deal but that is still so much money.

A couple of stories I found interesting.

Will Cuba be able to move past the Bay of Pigs and see what their leader has done to them? Hat tip Lucianne.

A case where one can only wish both sides would lose. Suing a friend over football tickets. Hat tip Lucianne.

As much as I like roller coasters, I would not want to have been on this one, yikes. Glad no one was hurt. Hat tip Lucianne.

Coal to Oil. Germany did it in World War 2 and since they weren't worried about cost it was effective. The US has tried it in 1948, 1960s and the late 1970s. In each case, the cost of turning coal into oil was much more expensive then the cost of oil on the open market. Now politicians are starting to promote the technology again as a way for the US to end its dependence on foreign oil. We have the technology. Germany had the technology over 60 years ago. Its just that I can't see the people in the US willing to pay $7 to $10 a GALLON for gasoline which is what it would cost, unless we use lots of taxpayer money to subsidise our gasoline purchases.

The immigration bill. Not everyone who opposes it is a racist or a bad person.

Have a good day, busy one for me with class tonight as well. See you tomorrow.

What's important, news or life?

I usually start out talking about life, school, work etc and then go to the news. But shouldn't the news be first, after all, the stuff in the news is more likely to be important to you then what is happening in my life. But then I think with all the online news sources out there, you have probably gotten all the news you want so the stories I highlight you've already read or are just not interested. But since the blog will be here for a while, putting in these news stories here is a way to be able to come back to them at a later date.

Last night saw my niece in her middle school's production of Guys and Dolls. The production was very good and I was even more impressed when the teacher at the end made a few comments:
7 weeks ago the class had received an award in a competition and THEN started working on this musical. 6th, 7th and 8th graders putting a good production on in 7 weeks is amazing.
Next the teacher told us (for those of us who didn't already know) that the class was a CHOIR and not a DRAMA class. Ok, so Guys and Dolls is a musical, there is still acting and and dancing and set changes, which is different from traditional choir performances.
Bottom line I was very impressed. And yes, as is typical of these types of classes, it was made up of 90% girls so the girls played a lot of guys parts.

Lots of news today so will try to keep this part short and with links.

The NY Sun talks about a PBS documentary on the 1967 six day war, worth reading.

Palestinians are fed up with gunman. If true, then peace will have a chance.

Conservative professors face discrimination when applying for tenure, who would have thought.

Paris Hilton (I know this has been a Paris Hilton free zone until now and beg your indulgence) has been released from jail to home detention for "medical reasons". What a role model she is, be rich and you can do anything you want.

Turks are looking at a possible war with Iraq over the Kurdish area, this isn't good.

Finally, Lawmakers are looking to dock members who miss votes. Its nice that they sometimes remember they work for us and we expect them to be at work. If they can't be there they shouldn't get paid unless they take medical leave. Campaigning for a new job isn't a valid excuse in my book because they are reneging on the people who hired them in the last election.

Finally, euthanasia is becoming politically correct to mention again. There are too many humans so we need to "cull" the herd just like we do to kangaroos (this article was written in Australia). Once people start looking at which people groups are increasing the most (hint, it isn't folks of European decent) I hope these advocate are shamed to silence.

That's it and will see you tomorrow.

Boy that didn't last long

Hmm, maybe the weather is not sticking to the calendar or our modern calendar. June gloom which has been around for two weeks or more and I finally wrote about it yesterday has departed and sunny July has arrived instead. This morning it was bright , clear and warm (remember or note that this is written in So Cal, city of Los Angeles, SMOG central so for it to be clear is a GOOD thing.)

On to the news:

What happens when a government is successful in suppressing bad news? Its censors don't what to censor and the truth will leak out. I hope the clerk who made the mistake doesn't end up as an involuntary guest of the state. Hat tip Lucianne.

There was a debate last night between the GOP candidates. Personally I didn't see it because these things bore me to tears. Its more like an extended news conference then a real debate. Bring back the Lincoln-Douglas style debate where the audience gets to shout out the questions and the participants try to verbally destroy or ridicule each other and then I'll watch.
NRO's take is here
Dean Barnet's view (on the Hugh Hewitt blog) is here.
I'm not enough of a political junkie to know who I like yet because I haven't been paying too much attention to the candidates.

Remember the "Where's the beef" commercials Wendys had back in the 1980s? Well an Arizona group is doing a version of it with "Where's the fence". Its asking the Arizona Senators, McCain and Kyl where the fence that has already been authorized by Congress is. Hat tip Lucianne.

Finally, Michelle Malkin has an article on the state of rearing children in the US and compares it to some of the things done in the Middle East.

Have a good day and will see you tomorrow.

June Gloom has arrived

Well, actually it arrived over a week ago, but since we are now in June we have June Gloom instead of overcast days in May. In So Cal, every June, its usually cloudy in the morning and hazy to sunny in the afternoon. We also normally have bright and warm days in May but it was overcast for much of the month.

Class yesterday was interesting. For our Year 3 Qt 3 simulation, we had a nasty surprise. We expected to make about 1.70 per unit sold, but due to an error in our spreadsheet model our profit was less then 0.70 per unit. Our pricing was also aggressive so our total sales units went down. We had been slow at raising our prices so we tried to catch up to the competition and we overshot our mark. At least we still made money and it turned out to be a good thing because it depressed our stock price making it cheaper to buy back. We also ran Year 4 Qt 4, had only about 45 minutes to make our decisions and we nailed it. Our pricing was right where we wanted it to be and we went from the lowest net income to the highest net income. I understand that anyone else reading the above will likely wonder what am I talking about. Short answer is my Monday class is playing a business simulation and we make our decisions for a quarter. We make our decisions or choices for price, production number, advertising, R/D etc. It all goes into a computer and it spits out the results. We then have to make our next decision based on our last quarters results. There are 6 people on a team and 5 teams in class and the teams are in competition with each other. So in the off chance anyone from class reads this, can't give specifics because I don't want to give anything away.

So on to the news.

Is a fence between the US and Mexico too expensive? Hat tip Lucianne.

The politics of immigration, how did each side assume their roles. Hat tip Lucianne.

Another reminder of the fact there is evil in the world and we have to fight it to prevent is spread or to insure it doesn't return. Hat tip Lucianne.

Another politician says we must sacrifice for the environment. Haven't any of them heard of leading by example instead of staying safely in the rear telling us what to do?

An Iraq update.

Have a good day and will hope to see you tomorrow.

End of another week

Had class last night. The professor asked us what we thought of the movie we saw last week. My opinion of the movie was not good but didn't want to put it too bluntly because there were people who thought it was interesting. I said I had a hard time seeing how it added value to our class, business negotiation and how we as students were paying about $80 an hour each to sit there and watch it. A number of other students said they had similar opinions to me, some privately some in class so glad to see I'm not alone. The professor said it was interesting to see the class reaction to the movie. At the other campus, the students were much more positive and animated about the movie and what they learned. We were much more subdued. In prior semesters, students tended to either love or hate the movie as well.

I guess one indication of how people felt about the movie was there were a at least 6 people missing from class last night. I don't know if they dropped or were out of town. We've already lost another 3 or 4 people from the first week so we are down to less then 20 students. If the people missing last night did drop, our class has lost over 1/3 of the students in 5 weeks. I don't think its because the class has been too hard, but because of a lack of perceived value. If I could, I would think about dropping the class, but I can't get into another class this semester and that would delay my graduation so I'm stuck here.

Having said that, last night's class was MUCH better, we were learning about negotiations, the theory and practice of it. If the rest of the semester is like last night, the class will be good.

Ok, enough about my class, on to the news and what is going on.

Jonah Goldberg has a good article on Fred Thompson and asks if Thompson is the Republicans version of Wesley Clark. Meaning will Thompson's polling number be highest the day before he declares his candidacy for President and fall once people start paying attention to the man rather then the press release.

Scientists are trying to marry animals and computers again. This time its putting a micro chip into a moth so the moth can become a surveillance platform. Times Online has the story, the comments are worth reading too. Hat tip Lucanne.

Have a good weekend and see you Monday.