Ships and Planes

Both of my readers will agree that I take myself too seriously at times, OK, well most of the time.

So, here is a chance to have some fun. I went with my family to Cancun and Cozumel in July of this year. I saw some impressive ships and planes. Here are some photos of the biggest/coolest.
 

The ship was moored in Cozumel, where we saw it on a snorkeling trip.

This plane was parked at the Denver airport, where I saw it on the way home.

 I day-dream sometimes about being the captain of these fine vessels. Maybe in another life. Then again, who knows, it would be a ton of fun just to ride in the jump seat or on the bridge for a flight or two or a trip or two!

Deplorable Denier from Flyover Country (aka Red State)

I'm a deplorable denier from a red state. By mutual exclusion, that means that I am not a leftist twit who aims to force all humanity into their conception of reality.

Denier is such a convenient term with which to label one's enemies.

Let's take it apart. What is a denier allegedly denying? In this context, I am accused of denying that humans are causing catastrophic climate change. Let's break it down into 4 questions:

1. Is climate change actually occurring?
2. Is it catastrophic?
3. Is it caused by humans?
4. If it is caused by humans and it is catastrophic, is there anything humans can do to stop or mitigate it and at what cost?

Number one: It is very difficult to detect climate change, because the weather is changing all the time. Where I live in Northern Utah, the annual low to high temperature range is commonly well over 100 degrees F. The daily temp change can be 30 degrees or more.

The question becomes; how does one measure a small change in something that is always changing a lot?

Satellites provide the best earth-wide coverage and temperature measurements and have shown no global warming for 18 years, at a time when fossil fuel burning has added CO2 to the atmosphere.

Number two: If there has been no global warming for 18 years, how can it be catastrophic? The answer is simple, it isn't catastrophic.

Number three: The answers to one and two were negative, three has to be negative also. But, let's address the question of CO2, caused by fossil fuel burning. CO2 has been added to the atmosphere by human activity, but not all of the increase in the Keeling curve is due to human activity.

Also, note that all life, plant, animal, and HUMAN is carbon based. That carbon comes from CO2 in the atmosphere. That CO2 is increasing means that life is increasing. To curtail CO2 is to curtail life itself.

That brings us to number four: It is hard to detect climate change. It hasn't been happening for the last 18 years, during which humans have burned a lot of fossil fuels and it isn't certainly isn't catastrophic. So, why do we need to do anything about something we are not sure is happening, let alone catastrophic?

Again the answer is simple, we don't need to do anything. But, let's look at the estimated cost to fix the non-problem, that isn't catastrophic, that we are not causing.

One of the proposed mechanisms is a carbon tax. What would that mean to you and me that don't own G650s? (BTW, these babys burn lots of fuel to cruise at just under the speed of sound!)

(I'm just poking fun at the global elite and looking for a good excuse to put a picture of a cool airplane in my post.)

 The Sanders-Boxer carbon tax was estimated to cost $1.2 trillion dollars over a decade to reduce CO2 in 2025 by 20% over 2005 levels. That really is a lot of money - a crushing amount!

I perceive that the global warming global elite aim to do me harm with their tax schemes. Why would I sign on for that?

 

Great Ideas from Texas Part Deux

My friend has a theory that everyone is stupid. I call it the Bailey Theorem.

I find myself part of the theorem.

If having a state legislature meet every other year or only every five years, imagine what blessings would flow to mankind, all seven billion of us, if the US Congress only met every other year, or never?

This didn't occur to me when I was thinking about the state legislatures, because I'm stupid. But, I thought of it now.

All you have to imagine is law, custom, tradition, what was historically accepted in all of history, before the French Revolution.

Law was known by everyone, because it was small. It was accepted by everyone, because it was traditional and customary and it wasn't changing with every session of Congress or the legislature. Laws couldn't be passed that would make something legal today, but not legal tomorrow, or visa versa.

What would previous generations think of 5 robed justices (a majority of SCOTUS) rewriting 4,000 years of law just because they think they can socially engineer 350 million people? The Bailey principle applies to them, too. They just think they are smarter; they really aren't.

Great Ideas Come from Texas

Maybe there is a reason that Texas is the land of opportunity. They have great ideas.

One of them is that the state legislature meets only on odd numbered years! Think of that! On even numbered years you can sleep peacefully knowing that the cretins can't dispossess you!

That is such a great idea that I think Utah should adopt it, but with the modification that the legislature should only meet on years that end in zero or five! Sweet relish! Four years of peaceful sleep and joy knowing that the laws won't be changed or new ones invented to torment you or tax you to death!

Fidel, Rot in Heck

Fidel finally bit the dust last week. 

So, the US now has an opportunity to take the lead in integrating the country into the rest of the world.

We can do this without reciprocation on their part. Congress and the Donald can remove all restrictions on travel and investment by Americans to Cuba. Why should Cuba be any different than the rest of the countries in Latin America? Five decades of embargo accomplished virtually nothing to change Fidel.

But, the future can be changed by what we do. Let's trade, talk, visit, etc. When ties are established, I am confident that the dire situation of the Cubans will change for the better, the government will then follow. It will become obvious to all that central planning did not and does not work.

(We, Americans will learn that lesson also, when the feddle gummint defaults on all its promises. Central planning doesn't work - that means that Janet Yellen and the rest of the FED crowd cannot plan the economy better than 7 billion people making economic choices minute by minute. But that is a subject for another day.)

Plane Spotter

Sometimes, I just like to hang out at the airport and see what's happening. Luckily, my airport doesn't have commercial service and thus, no Keystones Kops of the TSA variety. 

Here are some aircraft I saw the other day.

Time-sert

I stripped out the threads of the stud/bolt that attaches the intake manifold to the cylinder head of my Aerovee engine in my Sonex.  I wasn't happy at the time, but I found an inexpensive way to fix it with time-sert.

Here are some pictures of the process. It worked out really well!

Installing the insert after drilling, counter-boring, and tapping the new threads

 I used aluminum tape to cover the intake ports to keep the swarf out of the engine.

 

 Another view

 Installing the intake manifold (red part) and torquing the socket head cap screw that attaches it

An Open Letter to the Pope

Your Holiness,

The Vatican

Rome, Italy

I hope that you’ll forgive the informal nature of this letter. I am not a Catholic, but I am a Christian and because of that most important faith we share as brothers, I wish to suggest a couple of things that will benefit that faith worldwide.

The most important message of all time and space is the divine mission of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, His birth, life, mission, atonement, resurrection and continuing work.  I am sure that we both agree on that.

Here are my suggestions:

First, cleanse the church completely and thoroughly of abusers and molesters. Cooperate with civil authorities. Excommunicate them. As Jesus said it were better that a millstone were hanged about their neck and they were drowned in the depths of the sea. Then, develop strict policies to deal with abusers. Follow them every time.

Next, require that priests be married as husband and wife and have families (that means children) Priests who are husbands and fathers will know how to minister better to the believers.

1 Timothy 3:1 This is a true saying, If a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work.

 2 A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach;

 3 Not given to wine, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre; but patient, not a brawler, not covetous;

 4 One that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity;

 5 (For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?)

Require tithing of your members and encourage donations. Begin again to build up your church.

Rebuild parochial schools and build new ones. Catholic schools were always superior to public schools, plus they taught the most important message of Jesus Christ.

Don’t dilute the message of Christ with climate change. Christ Rules in the heavens and the earth is his footstool. He created the earth that it be inhabited by his children. He foresaw all of this. The message of His divine mission and Sonship transcend climate change.

These changes will prompt growth in your church, to the glory of God and his Son and will benefit your Church and the entire world. Each soul of infinite worth that comes to know his or her Savior will rejoice with the believers.

Sincerely,

B. W. Rex

A fellow brother in Christ

#Calexit

#Calexit

Let's start with the following assumptions that should be axiomatic:

Big government = big corruption

Small government = small or smaller corruption

When I said I was willing to donate to the #Calexit project, I wasn’t kidding.

A decent consideration for the opinions of others demands that I share my thoughts on this subject.  I have friends and family that live in California, and I meant no disrespect to them.

Here’s how a see it. I buy things from nearly every country in the world. What difference does it make if California becomes one of those countries?

Just because I buy things from other countries, that doesn’t require me to adopt the politics and world view of that country.  However, being politically aligned with California now means exactly that. Their laws are enforced in my state. Let’s be honest, some in California have views that are diametrically opposed to those I have.  Let’s be grownups about it and each go our own way, politically. By all means, we will still be good neighbors, visit Disneyland, the beach, etc. And you folks should come to visit the natural wonders in Utah. Commercial relations!! Yes! Free Trade, Yes! Peace, Yes!

Here’s what I see as the benefits of Calexit. And BTW, the same benefits apply to any region or state, or whatever area secedes.

1.      The Federal government becomes smaller

a.       Small government = smaller corruption = more freedom

2.      Both parties become somewhat more aligned with the interests of their respective citizens, aka, the people

3.      Other states and regions can follow the example of California (ie. Peaceful secession)

4.      The process continues, until maybe 3000 counties are independent states with the corresponding freedom accruing to all!

5.      Power is decentralized and local politics is empowered

6.      The rest of the world, threatened with the overlordship of the US federal government, military and nuclear war, breathe a sigh of relief.

What if there were 3,000 states where there used to be 50?

Scribblings on Trump

Today is the day after The Donald was elected President of the United States. I voted for him. I am from a flyover state. (If only the meddling class would fly over with their meddling, also.)

I don't care for Hillary. I didn't vote for her. I thought she would win. She didn't. (Wasn't 8 years of her husband enough?)

I don't think that Trump is a savior of anything. I think he won because the "deplorables" are tired of the meddling class. I really don't want Trump to do anything, except to continue to irritate the media and the elite. (Elites, please do move to Canada. I might send a postcard.) Their apoplexy over Trump winning has been revealing.

If the moguls of Silicon Valley and the amoral Hollywood types wish to secede (#Calexit), please let me know where I can send my donation to assist their efforts.

I believe in peaceful relations with all. I think they will make good neighbors and I might want to visit Disneyland and the beach with my grandkids, in the future.

You see, there is just no reason for my community to be bound politically with California. We have opposing world views. Opposing means not compatible. So let's just stop pretending that the social engineering (cheer led by Hollyweird) coming out of Washington is not an existential threat to me and my family.

I want the United States of my grandparents with no FED, IRS, FBI, CIA, DOD, DOE, DOEd, NSA, USDA, DOJ, DHS, DEA, NRO, EPA, and all the rest. Does that make me a hater, that I want the limited government allegedly bequeathed to us by the founding fathers? No!

Cafe Racer

This blog is serious and fun.  I have been quite serious lately, but now it is time for some fun.

My son and I have been working on a cafe racer he is building from a Honda CM450E.

Here are some photos of the project during some of the rebuild.

 

My only regret is that we didn't take enough pictures along the way.

 

Gun Control and Minimum Wage

Is it just me or is there someone else who thinks that the Obama's (or Hillary's or Pelosi's or Sander's - [yes, they are all democrats] but my comment applies to any party) blathering about gun control and minimum wage is just hypocrisy.

POTUS commands a nuclear arsenal and exports billions of dollars worth of weapons every year that have overthrown countries and destabilized wide swaths of the earth, not to mention untold deaths and millions of refugees. Yet, his highness lectures the American public about gun violence?! Obama, how about you disarm first?

Some of us are against all violence, whether committed by individuals OR governments.

Next, we hear of the constant inability of folks earning minimum wage to be able to raise a family. (I don't doubt this.) Thus, the meddling class concludes, someone should pay those workers more money. The "they" are business owners who should pay more under threat of violence from government. No mention of the hideously regressive social security taxes already paid by the business owners and minimum wage employees, who will never receive a dime from the already bankrupt SS administration.

So, when the politicians cry crocodile tears for the working underclass, just remember that they want someone else to pay for their charity while collecting billions from those same underclass employees to keep their best voters happy (seniors).

Washing the Superball

"Washing the Superball" is a phrase that means you are chasing a red herring (or a wild goose), but it has specific application to scientific or engineering endeavors. In other words, someone is pursuing a cause for a particular phenomenon, but are completely wrong about it. Be patient and I will give you a full rexplanation.

I just coined the phrase and here I record it for posterity.

This is the genesis of the term: When I was 8 years old, I had a florescent bouncy ball - a superball - as we called them. If you threw it at the ground as hard as you could, it seemed like it would rebound 100 feet in the air. And it glowed in the dark.

I shared an upstairs room with my brother, while my two sisters shared the other room at the end of the hall. In the middle of the hall there was a bathroom.  When the superball stopped glowing at night, we would take it to the bathroom and wash it. Viola! it would glow again. But as anyone but a child knows, it wasn't the washing that made it glow again, it was the light in the bathroom.

Thus, "washing the superball" means to do something that you think is causing a specific result, but you really are completely wrong about the reason.

An Honest Environmentalist

If you study the leanings of greenies, you will soon come to discover that they are fundamentally anti-human.  However, most of them are tools and can't see to the end of the road they are on. That is, they can't see the the logical consequences of the values they espouse.

 Except for this guy: (He is still a tool, but at least an honest one.)

His name is Travis N. Rieder and teaches at the Berman Institute of Bioethics at Johns Hopkins. (such a mouthful - Berman, bioethics...)

from wattsupwiththat.com

Climate philosopher Travis Rieder has been touring the country, trying to persuade university students not to have kids – and promoting ideas for restricting childbirth, including tax penalties against people who decide to have a child.

This guy has taken the Malthusian, "green" values to the end of the road. They only thing left is for him to advocate for euthanasia. (I'm not holding my breath. We may yet see that from this tool.)

Greens value everything above human life; owls, polar bears, snail darters, weeds, bony-tailed chubs, coral reefs, mosquitoes, etc. This guy is just directly stumping for the ultimate goal of greenies, fewer people on earth.

So, in that respect, he is honest (and a tool.) I can add him to my list: Nehor, Korihor, Al Gore, Travis Rieder, ... (I know, it doesn't rhyme anymore.)

Americans have become so PC that we can't judge between diametrically opposed philosophies and call them what they are. The values that Mr. Rieder advocates are anti-human and anti-Christ.

Worshiping the earth is mutually exclusive to worshiping Christ and his command to multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it.

Choose you this day whom ye will serve...

Random Thoughts Bouncing Around in My Head

What did Sandra Day O’Conner say to herself when she heard that Darth Vader Ginsberg was going to be on the Supremes? “Always the first, but no longer the worst!” Ditto for Sotomayor and Kagan.

Can any living Hollywood actor play the role of a dedicated and conscientious believer in the literal resurrection of Jesus Christ, the son of God? I haven’t seen the remake of Ben Hur, so I will let you know if anyone can equal Charlton Heston

The Beatles’ song, Yesterday, is able to induce clinical depression in less than 30 seconds. Have any pharmaceutical companies considered using it in their trials of anti-depressants? If a patient can listen to more than 1 minute of the song and still be smiling, then they would know that the anti-depressant was actually working.

SCOTUS – Supreme Court of the United States, Aren’t they a piece of work? In Roe v. Wade they said that a woman can abort her fetus in the name of privacy, but apparently all 7 billion of us on this planet have no right of privacy when it comes to the hyper vapid NSA. Does that cause cognitive dissonance in you?