Month: September 2007

Rice Denied Audience with Pope

No Comments

In August, the Pope denied US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice an audience, citing that “Benedict XVI is on holiday”.

This is clearly not the case. Rather, this is a fallout of disagreements over the war in Iraq, and her previous dealings with representatives of the Pontiff:

No one will say so officially but the refusal may also have been prompted by Ms Rice’s stance in 2003, when she was Mr Bush’s national security adviser. On the eve of the Iraqi conflict, it was Ms Rice who said bluntly that she did not understand the Vatican’s anti-war stance. She treated John Paul II’s envoy, Cardinal Pio Laghi, with a coolness that bordered on disrespect when he was sent to Washington on 2 March 2003 on a desperate mission to avert military intervention. Clearly, the incident has not been forgotten.

It should come as no surprise to any person with half a brain, which apparently does not include Ms. Rice, that when you treat people with disrespect, they are disinclined to help you in the future.

Hybrid PDE-turbine engine

No Comments

GE is bench testing the concept, which basically involves using a pulse detonation engine (PDE) in place of the high pressure turbine.

Basically, a PDE is a pulse jet, like that of the V-1 “Buzz Bomb”, but instead of igniting the fuel normally, where the flame front front progresses at subsonic speeds, it detonates the fuel (the flame front moves at supersonic speeds).

What I’ve read mostly is its potential to replace high speed turbojets, but this shows that it could be applied to civil high bypass engines by replacing the HP compressor and turbine.

Chinese Commuter Jet Boasts Novel Aerodynamic Feature

No Comments

The Chinese commuter airliner, the ARJ21 is using tight integration between the engine and wing to boost aerodynamic performance.

The plane has a DC-9 configuration (see picture below), and they are hoping to get a 1% increase in l/d ratios by integrating the engines airflow and with the wings.

Essentially, this means that the inlet air to the engines will boost the energy of the airflow over the wing.

It’s an interesting concept, but given the fact that if this aircraft achieves even modest success, there will be stretched variants, where the engines will be further from the wing, one wonders if this technique can still work as the gap between engine and wing grows.

Harry Reid: Defeat Of Webb Bill Proves GOP Cares More About Bush Than Troops

No Comments

I like the way that the Majority leader of the Senate puts that:

“In blocking this bipartisan bill, Republicans have once again demonstrated that they are more committed to protecting the President than protecting our troops. They have shown they will allow President Bush’s flawed war strategy to continue to strain our military rather than allow the availability of troops to dictate our operations. And they believe it is in our national security interest to push our brave troops and their families beyond their breaking point.

“Democrats disagree. We care deeply about rebuilding our badly overextended military and ensuring our troops have the time to properly train, prepare for and recover from battle. And Democrats remain committed to repaying in some small measure the sacrifices our brave troops are making every day.”

Schadenfreude: Scaife’s Divorce Edition

No Comments

It’s nice to see the rat-bastard who spent somewhere on the order of a hundred million dollars chasing Clinton’s penis getting his:

Scaife’s Wife Gets Giant Settlement After Messy Divorce — Claims Newspaper is ‘Hobby’

PITTSBURGH The estranged wife of billionaire and newspaper owner Richard Mellon Scaife, the Pittsburgh banking heir turned media mogul, was awarded $725,000 a month in temporary support during their acrimonious divorce, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported Sunday.

Scaife, 75, and his second wife, Margaret Ritchie Battle Scaife, are battling on several fronts, from how to assess and divide his wealth to custody of a yellow Labrador retriever named Beauregard, the newspaper said.

Piece of advice, dude: there isn’t a dog out there worth 725 grand a month. LET HER HAVE IT.

The funny part is this dispute about assets:

A judge may also have to decide whether the $20 million to $30 million a year she claims he spends to support the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review constitutes a business loss, as he contends, or spending on a hobby, as she sees it. Scaife owns the newspaper – a rival to the Post-Gazette – along with the Tribune-Review of Greensburg and several smaller dailies and weeklies.

…..

Records filed in the case suggest Scaife has spent $140 million to $244 million, depending on whom you believe, to subsidize the Tribune-Review since its inception in 1992. Scaife’s other papers are generally profitable, the divorce papers state.

….

Margaret Scaife’s alimony could grow higher depending on how Judge Alan Hertzberg views his income. He has asked for briefs due Thursday before making a final decision on the temporary award, which was set on a preliminary basis by a hearing officer last year.

Calling the Tribune-Review a hobby may be reasonable, depending on the legal fine points, but I would never call it a newspaper.

UC Irvine Reverses Stupid Move and Rehires Chemerinsky as Dean of Law School

No Comments

University of California, Irvine, is starting a law school, and they got a bit of a feather in their cap when they got Erwin Chemerinsky as their first dean.

He is a highly respected legal scholar and lawyer, and he was tapped as dean, but the offer was rescinded by the Chancellor, Michael Drake about a week ago.

Since then, this has gotten a lot of publicity and a lot of outrages even from the right wing side of the legal community, and now the decision has been reversed.

According to Chemerinsky, Drake had said he was pulling back the job offer because of pressure from conservatives over his outspoken liberal politics. The chancellor denied it.

In a conference call with reporters, the chancellor and new dean agreed that Chemerinsky would enjoy absolute academic freedom and would continue to write opinion articles on a wide range of issues, not just legal education as Drake suggested last week.

“Chancellor Drake reaffirmed in the strongest possible way the academic freedom that I would have, as all deans and faculty members do,” Chemerinsky said. He later noted that he was aware that his role as dean also would require him to build a broad base of support. Before he was ousted, the dean had sought conservatives for some slots on his board of advisors.

Drake declined to discuss his decision to drop Chemerinsky, and he was vague on the reasons behind his turnaround. “Circumstances change; knowledge comes in,” Drake said.

I’m fairly sure that when we get to the bottom of this, that we will discover that some of the Governator’s conservative appointments to the UC Regents had a hand in this.

More Haditha Massacre Coverup

No Comments

Once again, an a junior officer who knows enough to rat out more senior officers scates.

Capt. Lucas M. McConnell of Napa was granted immunity and ordered to cooperate with officials looking into the November 2005 killings, the Marines said in a press release.

….

Lt. Gen. James Mattis dismissed dereliction of duty charges against McConnell on Sept. 12. and determined that “administrative measures” were an appropriate punishment, the Marines said.

Seriously.

A sergeant gets jail, but a captain, who would be in a position to finger a colonel, who might in turn finger generals…nothing.

This is an excercise in ass covering.

Everyone Ride the SLUT

No Comments

“Yes, it’s an unfortunate acronym“, he said, laughing his ass off.

The Seattle Department of Transportation is constructing a streetcar line for South Lake Union.

While its official name is the “South Lake Union Streetcar”, it appears to have started out as the “South Lake Union Trolley”, which is what everyone calls it.

Great T-Shirts though:

Also, I like transit cars, though I prefer those with their own right of ways (i.e. no traffic lights)

The Fred Thompson Clown Show Continues

No Comments

This time, our good Freddie Dalton Thompson* is calling for oil drilling in the Everglades.

In response to a question about drilling there, he said, “Gosh, no one has told me there is any major reserves in the Everglades,” and “No one prefers to drill at all anywhere”.

Way to go Freddie. The clown show continues.

That being said, this is in the tradition of Ronald Reagan, who spent an awful lot of time claiming that trees cause pollution.

*Yes, his birth certificate says “Freddie”, not Fred or Fredrick”.

Jesse Jackson, Please STFU

No Comments

What is happening to the Jena Six in Louisiana is a racist bigoted miscarriage of justice. There Jesse Jackson and I agree.

The Democratic party should be doing more about this. There Jesse Jackson and I agree.

The presidential candidates should be doing more about this. There Jesse Jackson and I agree.

That being said, when Jesse Jackson critics Barack Obama for “acting like he’s white” , he’s jumped the shark.

I’m not in a position to discuss whether or not Senator Obama has a special obligation to address this issue, but I am saying that ALL the presidential candidates should address this, and come out against the bigoted, vindictive, and (conveniently) Republican political establishment in Jena, Louisiana.

This isn’t “acting white”. This is simply being timid, and it can be addressed to all the presidential candidates, and to the Democratic party establishment in Louisiana too.

Surprise, Blackwater Mercs Fired Indiscriminantly at Civilians

No Comments

No big surprise there, though this is this is the Iraqi Government* Report.

Turns out that without their mercenaries, the State Department is on lockdown in Iraq. They have suspended all land travel.

It also appears that rules of engagement given by State to Blackwater appear to be rather close to “shoot first and ask questions later.”

*Yes, I know that “Iraqi Government is an oxymoron”.

Salad is Bad for You

No Comments

Or at least it is when you combine it with “self regulation”, because Dole has recalled 5,058 bags of salad mix.

More bad E Coli. Of note, a lot of this is literally bulls^%$, or at least cow waste, and these strains of E Coli are not natural for cows. It’s when we feed them a corn laden diet that their digestive tract was never designed to handle, their waste becomes hyper acidic, and this pathogen loves these conditions.

What the Hell Were the Israeli Defense Forces Thinking???

No Comments

I came across this in Aviation Week’s “Washington Outlook” news sumary:

During last year’s fighting in Lebanon, the Syria listening post monitored private cell phone conversations from Israeli soldiers that gave Hezbollah enough information to locate and identify ground units even though Israeli military radios remained secure.

They let their soldiers go into battle wearing cell phones???? They let their soldiers use them?

What the hell were they thinking? Even if the phone is “off” you can turn it on remotely (it’s a method of bugging people).

They let their soldiers carry emitters that painted targets on their backs!!

Behind Schedule and Over Budget, Lockheed Attemps to Sell Reduced Testing for JSF.

No Comments

LM is claiming that they can save money by “streamline” testing by using lessons from the F-22.

This is bulls*&%.

What they are really saying is that they are behind schedule and over budget, and that they are going to attempt to field these aircraft without proper testing in order to save money and time.

It is a request for a bailout, with shortcomings being fixed under a later cost plus contract.