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