Year: 2015

My Expectations of Republicans Have Once Again Been Proven Too High

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It appears that Republicans need to get their hate on

A group of Republican lawmakers are reiterating their call for the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery to remove a bust of Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and 25 House members sent a letter to the museum’s director Kim Sajet Friday calling the display of the bust “an affront both to basic human decency and the very meaning of justice.”

The letter pointed to Sanger’s support of eugenics, but also blasted her for founding Planned Parenthood, which has been in the crosshairs of congressional Republicans and nearly prompted them to shutdown the federal government rather the reauthorize its funding.

It appears that I cannot set my expectations low enough to meet the reality that is the Republican Party.

Great. Now We Are Just Throwing Them Weapons Willy Nilly

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We are now randomly dropping weapons to fighters in Syria:

After scrapping its vetting program to aid Syrian rebels against the Islamic State, the US military has airdropped tons of ammunition to a new band of fighters while softening its opposition to using its materiel to attack the Syrian leader, Bashar al-Assad.

A spokesman for the US military taskforce said on Tuesday that discussion of lifted restrictions on targeting was a “moot point” since the 50 tons of ammunition airdropped to the Syrian Arab Coalition was not in an area where regime forces fight or Russian pilots overfly.

While the US military previously vetted each Syrian militant receiving US sponsorship, now the program vets only the leadership of rebel groups, raising the prospect that US weaponry could migrate to the broader Syrian civil war. This was the main rationale once used by Barack Obama to limit the US commitment in Syria, before indefinitely “pausing” the effort to build a Syrian anti-Isis force.

The White House announced on Friday that it was pausing the yearlong initiative to build the force that would pledge not to turn its US-provided weapons and training against Assad.

………

Legislators have said the restriction helped account for the paltry numbers of Syrian fighters the $500m program fielded. But Colonel Steve Warren, the spokesman, argued Tuesday it was “too soon” to call the program a failure, contending that the vast majority of the $300m the US spent out of its $500m purse went to weaponry it is sending to its new and mostly unvetted Syrian allies.

“They’re not anywhere near regime forces, they are specifically near Isil, which is who we are interested in fighting,” Warren told reporters on Tuesday.

The Russians are supporting Assad, and in an exercise in dick swinging, we are airdropping weapons, because we have some sort of narcissistic need to lead, even when there is no benefit.

This is insane.

Yes

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Is Money Corrupting Research?

This has been another episode of simple answers to simple questions.

The background:

THE integrity of research and expert opinions in Washington came into question last week, prompting the resignation of Robert Litan, an economist, from his position as a nonresident fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Senator Elizabeth Warren raised the issue of a conflict of interest in Mr. Litan’s testimony before a Senate committee examining a proposed Labor Department rule designed to protect consumers in their dealing with retirement-plan brokers.

The testimony was based on a paper Mr. Litan had prepared for the Capital Group, a mutual fund company. Mr. Litan disclosed that the Capital Group, which has a stake in the debate, had funded his paper, but he did not disclose that it had also commissioned it. Mr. Litan concluded that the regulatory rule, while well intentioned, would be too costly. He resigned because he testified as a Brookings fellow, violating a recent Brookings rule change that would have prohibited that.

Senator Warren was herself criticized by economists and pundits, on the left and right. Hal Singer, a fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute and a co-author of the research she criticized, said, “This is McCarthyism of the left.”

But at stake is the integrity of the research process and the trust the nation puts in experts, who advise governments and testify in Congress. Our opinions shape government policy and judicial decisions. Even when we are paid to testify as expert witnesses, integrity is expected from us. After all, our payment is not contingent on the kind of opinion we provide.

In fact, this was Mr. Litan’s defense. The Capital Group hired him to write a paper on the topic, but it did not dictate the conclusions. (Mr. Litan did get feedback from the Capital Group on his paper’s initial outline, as he told Senator Warren in response to follow-up questions after his testimony, and “some editorial comments.”)

Yet it is disingenuous for anybody (especially an economist) to believe that reputational incentives do not matter. Had the conclusions not pleased the Capital Group, it would probably have found a more compliant expert. And the reputation of not being “cooperative” would have haunted Mr. Litan’s career as a consultant.

And Mr. Litan’s defense that people should judge the content of his work and not its funding is also invalid. This is O.K. for a peer-reviewed journal, but not for Congress. Lawmakers hold expert hearings because they lack the expertise to evaluate certain technical subjects. They rely on the integrity of the process.

The assumption is that researchers will value their reputation of integrity more than their fee for any individual job. At some level this assumption is correct. Underlying this conclusion is not only an economic calculation (the compensation for lying once can hardly offset the revenues lost because of the reputational damage) but also a professional one: For most of us, academic prestige is more important than any amount of money.

As Alan Greenspan once noted, “Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholder’s equity—myself especially—are in a state of shocked disbelief.”

Or as Upton Sinclair stated more succinctly, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”

As I say, “Do you want some cheese with that whine?”

BTW, if you are not aware, the Progressive Policy Institute, the home of Hal Singer, who was co-author, and hence co-employee of The Capital Group, isn’t in the least progressive. It’s a vestige of the now shuttered Democratic Leadership Council, which spent its existence worshiping at the alter of Ronald Reagan, so they spend most of their time attacking progressives.

BTW, Charlie Pierce notes quite accurately that the problem here is note “McCarthyism”, but rather that the think tank scene in DC is a particularly egregious form of pay-to play. (the PPP is even more heinous in this regard than Brookings)

I Can Understand How a Nobel Prize for Corruption Might Appear to Contradict the Organization’s Goals

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OK, it’s isn’t technically a Nobel for Corruption, it’s the Nobel Prize for Economics, and I agree with Bo Rothstein, who has concluded that the “Nobel Prize for Economics” is completely at odds with the vision of Alfred Nobel:

Bo Rothstein, an important member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, has today in Sweden’s most widely read newspaper called for an immediate declaration of a moratorium on the awarding of Sveriges Riksbank Prize for Economics in the name of Nobel and the Nobel Foundation.

 Rothstein’s article argues that today with increasing success, economics as commonly taught in universities and endorsed by most winners of the economics prize promotes corruption in societies around the world. Therefore he concludes that the Nobel Foundation’s awarding the economics prize is “in direct conflict with what Alfred Nobel decreed in his will.”

 “I will,” writes Rothstein, “therefore now take the initiative in this matter.”

It’s actually more than that.

There is evidence that the study economics are actually results in corrupt behavior, and that this applies to politicians who have left academe as well.

It’s not surprising: Whatever you think of the study of law, it clearly buys into a system of morality which is presented as being independent of personal benefit.

Modern “Free Market Mousketeer” economics, by contrast sees personal interest as the alpha and omega of morality. Their world view is mirrored by the William Edward Hickman quote, “What is good for me is right.”

It may not be fair to say this, but it behooves us to note that Mr. Hickman, who was described by Ayn Rand as having, “The best and strongest expression of a real man’s psychology I have heard,,” was a psychopath who kidnapped and dismembered a 12 year old girl.

The cult of the market, and shareholder value, is by definition sociopathic, and as such, it is a corrupting field as study.

Of course, my view does not apply to all economists, just generally to what one would call Neoclassical Economics*

Basically, they favor gross oversimplification of the human condition so as to allow for the creation elegant economic models made, and these simplifications give us a worldview that is both inaccurate and amoral.

At most universities, Econ 101, even as it notes that the models are over-simplified, provides no alternative means beyond neoclassical models.

It’s a petri dish for corruption.

*Krugman uses the term “Freshwater Economics” because the schools that most lionize the idea of the rational and fully informed actor in the market place come from schools located inland, particularly in Chicago.

Can Someone Primary this Ninny?

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Dem debate 1: During Game 4 of NLDS Debate 2: College football Saturday Debate 3: Saturday Debate 4: NFL playoff Sunday

— Brett LoGiurato (@BrettLoGiurato) October 12, 2015

I am referring, of course, to Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

Whether it is her refusal to support challenges to right wing Republicans to placate the Cuban Community, preventing a DNC vote on the Iran Deal, her structuring the debates in a way to ensure that they would be as meaningless as possible so as to help Hillary Clinton.

Now, it turns out that she is retaliating against people in the DNC who have the temerity to suggest that this is a bad idea:

Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, a vice chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, said she was disinvited from the first Democratic presidential primary debate in Nevada after she appeared on television and called for more face-offs.

Ms. Gabbard confirmed on Sunday that her chief of staff received a message last Tuesday from the chief of staff to Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the chairwoman of the national committee, about her attendance at the debate. A day earlier, Ms. Gabbard had appeared on MSNBC and said there should be an increase beyond the current six sanctioned debates.

A person close to the committee who asked for anonymity to discuss internal discussions insisted, however, that Ms. Gabbard had not been disinvited. Instead, the person said, an aide to Ms. Wasserman Schultz expressed a desire to keep the focus on the candidates as the debate approached, rather than on a “distraction” that could divide the party, and suggested that if Ms. Gabbard could not do that, she should reconsider going.

Ms. Gabbard insisted otherwise.

“When I first came to Washington, one of the things that I was disappointed about was there’s a lot of immaturity and petty gamesmanship that goes on, and it kind of reminds me of how high school teenagers act,” Ms. Gabbard said in a telephone interview on Sunday night. She said she would watch the debate in her district in Hawaii, which elected her to her second term last year.

“It’s very dangerous when we have people in positions of leadership who use their power to try to quiet those who disagree with them,” she added. “When I signed up to be vice chair of the D.N.C., no one told me I would be relinquishing my freedom of speech and checking it at the door.”

………

People who disagree with Mr. O’Malley have pointed out that he infrequently debated his challenger for governor in Maryland. And they note the number of sanctioned debates is the same as in the 2008 race for the Democratic presidential nomination.

But there were more than a dozen unsanctioned debates and forums back then. This time, the candidates could be excluded from the sanctioned debates if they take part in ones that are not approved by the national committee.

(emphasis mine)

Obama got more than 60% of the vote in her district in 2008 and 2012.

This is a about as safe as a Congressional district for Democrats as you can find.

It’s ridiculous that she is a sitting member of Congress, much less head of the DNC.

She is the very definition of the term “worthless party apparachik”>

I Did Not Think that You Could Use Roller Bearings for This

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There are a number of reasons why roller bearings (ball bearings, cylindrical roller bearings, spherical roller bearings, tapered roller bearings, etc.) find use.

They provide a low drag solution, and, particularly for low speed applications, like turret rings, they tend to be the favored solution.

For higher speed applications, things like crankshaft bearings and bearings though, they are not used, because they tend to shake themselves to pieces.

Instead, fluid bearings are used, where the bearing moves with respect to the journal supported on a thin film of a fluid, typically some sort of oil or air. (Think air-hockey puck)

There is more drag in the system, but it functions at much higher speeds.

This is why you do not see roller bearings in jet enginse, at least that was why until now: (paid subscription required)

A recent development in Germany by FAG Aerospace and MTU Aero Engines could affect turbofan engine operations in three key areas: oil consumption, fuel economy and power generation.

The companies designed a main-shaft ball bearing that exceeds, reportedly for the first time, an operational speed parameter of 4 million mm/min. (160,000 in./min.)—66% greater than the 2.4 million mm/min. generated by most conventional bearings during takeoff.

At maximum speed, the bearing reportedly consumes the same amount of oil and generates identical temperatures as conventional bearings. At normal speed up to 50% less oil—6 liters/min. (1.6 gal./min.)—is needed for cooling, temperature is 25C (77F) lower and power loss drops as much as 25%.

Peter Glockner, head of product design at FAG Aerospace, attributes the reduction in oil consumption to, among other features, outer-ring cooling technology and an “integrated squeeze-film damper” that mitigates vibration load. The benefits of lower oil consumption and reduced vibration include power-loss savings, which “increase[s] the mechanical efficiency of the engine” and thus lowers fuel consumption, he adds.

The fuel savings are low: FAG Aerospace estimates the technology could save 200,000 tons of fuel annually for global turbofan fleets. In 2015, total fuel consumption for all aircraft is forecast to be up to 230 million metric tons.

Nevertheless, the technology appears to have clear engine-power advantages, and even minuscule savings add up for large operators, including the military.

Assumign that the price comes down, I would expect to see this in automotive turbocharger bearings, and (eventually) main engine bearings.

When I was in E-school, this was the sort of application for roller bearings that we were basically told, “Don’t even think about it”.

And now someone is trying to sell it.

I am impressed

Son of the PT6

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Click for slide show


The PT6 Bass Ackwards Air Flow


No connection between the gas generator and power turbine


Note the adjacent engines


The reverse flow prevents one engine failure from taking out another

In my pre-engineering school days, I always wondered why the Pratt & Whitney PT6 turboprop had its intake in the rear, and its exhaust in the front.

I also could not understand why this arrangement, which has the airflow reversing course was so popular. as it seemed to add a lot of complexity, as well as losses into the system.

After the my time in engineering school, I actually understood that this.

The reverse airflow scheme allowed for the use of a free turbine, where the meant that the power turbine is not attached to the compressor, etc.

It makes for a simpler layout. You don’t need any concentric shafts, and starting the engine requires much less “oomph”.

Well, it now looks like a very similar arrangement for advanced airliner configurations. (Yes, this is a few months old. I came across this while doing digital housecleaning)

Not bad for an engine design that is over 50 years old:

As designers of future airliners look increasingly beyond traditional tube-and-wing configurations to meet the high efficiency goals of the 2030s and beyond, new territory is being carved out in the critical area of airframe-engine integration.

 Unusual features ranging from recessed inlets to pylon-mounted upper-surface engines have become familiar sights in wind tunnels, but even seasoned researchers are surprised by a new engine architecture proposed by Pratt & Whitney. The concept not only physically separates the propulsor from the gas generator, but also mounts the core backward and at an angle. This novel arrangement is aimed at overcoming installation challenges in new configurations like the D8 double-bubble airliner concept under study by NASA and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

 Aimed at NASA’s N+3 performance goals for an airliner that could enter service around 2035, the D8 is designed to burn at least 60% less fuel than the current generation of narrowbody airliners. The secret behind this leap in performance is a configuration that clusters the engines together atop the wide tail of a flattened fuselage. Besides providing a clean high-aspect-ratio wing for low drag, this enables the engines to reenergize to slow-moving boundary layer flow over the fuselage, increasing efficiency.

 But such a configuration creates several issues. The engines lie so close to the upper surface of the fuselage their fans must be sufficiently robust to cope with flow distortion from ingesting the boundary layer. Fan size will also be large because the engines envisioned for the D8 will have a bypass ratio of at least 20:1, and be targeted at extremely low noise levels of -52 EPNdb below current Stage 4 limits. Scale tests conducted at NASA of a distortion-tolerant fan developed by United Technologies Research Center show the boundary-layer challenge has been met, but other key questions remain.

 Because engine cores are becoming more efficient and operating at higher pressure ratios, they are also shrinking and becoming disproportionately small compared to the propulsor section as bypass ratios increase. This leads to blade heights of 0.5 in. or less at the exit of the high-pressure compressor. At this small scale, tip clearances not only become harder to maintain, but there is little space within the core through which to run the driveshaft connecting the fan to the low-pressure turbine. Additionally, because the core is proportionately longer and thinner, designers face the issue of backbone bending which further affects clearance control.

 “So that’s when we had the breakthrough idea of turning the core backward,” says Pratt & Whitney Technology and Environment Vice President Alan Epstein. Air enters the engine through the fan as normal, but instead of continuing directly into the compressor, it is ducted around the side and back of the core to enter from the opposite direction. In an arrangement similar to Pratt & Whitney Canada’s PT6, in which air flows forward through the engine, hot gas will be discharged forward through a power (low-pressure) turbine connected to the fan via a gear system. The turbine, gearbox and fan will be connected via “a really short shaft, and because the core is not connected to the power side, you can take the core off easily for maintenance,” Epstein explains.

 The concept also overcomes another challenge. The idea of nested engines, as in the D8, does not meet current FAA certification criteria under the “1 in 20” rule. This states that there should be only a 1 in 20 chance of debris from an uncontained engine failure causing a second engine to fail. However, because the core and propulsor are no longer mechanically linked, “the designers have come up with an extraordinarily clever arrangement in which the cores are angled relative to each other,” Epstein says.

 “We cant them at around 50 deg. and the exit from the core turns via a 50-deg. duct to go into the power turbine. So now they are more than 90 deg. off from each other. It’s simple geometry,” he says. “It enables you to have a large bypass ratio, and you are not turning much of the airflow if you are turning just the core flow, so pressure losses are low.”

I love it when advanced technology goes all retro.

Keeping Austin Weird

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The Texas Legislature, in its infinite wisdom, had decided to make restrictions on carrying firearms on college campuses illegal.

In response, UT-Austin students are staging a Cocks not Glocks protest:

Hundreds of students at the University of Texas at Austin will protest a new law that will allow more guns on campus not with signs or sit-ins, but by “strapping gigantic swinging dildos to our backpacks.”

Their mantra? #CocksNotGlocks

Jessica Jin, who set up the “Campus (DILDO) Carry” event on Facebook, invokes the argument that allowing more guns on campus will make students safe is a fallacy. She’s urging students to send campus leaders that message by strapping on the plastic phalluses.

‘You’re carrying a gun to class? Yeah well I’m carrying a HUGE DILDO,'” Jin says in the group’s description. “Just about as effective at protecting us from sociopathic shooters, but much safer for recreational play.”

More than 330 people had signed up to participate by Saturday morning. The “strap in” will occur on Aug. 24, 2016, the first day of next year’s fall semester.

The event was created the same day one student was killed and another wounded in a shooting at Texas Southern University, and just days after other deadly shootings on campuses in Oregon and Arizona.

Pro-campus carry advocates have said allowing concealed handguns on campus will enable people to defend themselves in the event of a live shooter, while those against it say it makes little difference and could even add to the chaos.

 It’s nice that some things never change in Austin, but this protest is not going to make a difference.

Interesting Point

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The Archdruid notes that the Russians have done more to stop ISIS in one week than the US, NATO, Turkey*, and the Gulf Monarchies have done in 2 years:

………

Last night, working on this post, I wrote: “The Russian airstrikes so far have concentrated on rebel forces around the edges of the territory the Syrian government still holds, with some longer-range strikes further back to take out command centers, munitions dumps, and the like. The placement of the strikes says to me that the next moves, probably within weeks, will be against the rebel enclave north of Homs and the insurgent forces in Idlib province. I expect ground assaults backed up by artillery, helicopter gunships, and close-in air support—vastly more firepower, in other words, that any side in the Syrian civil war has had at its disposal so far.” This morning’s news confirmed that guess, and added in another factor: Russian cruise missiles launched from the Caspian Sea fleet, most of a thousand miles from Syria. Once Idlib and the rest of western Syria is secured, I expect the Russians and their allies to march on Raqqa, the Islamic State’s notional capital—and I don’t expect them to waste any more time in doing so than they’ve wasted so far.

All this poses an immense embarrassment to the United States and its allies, which have loudly and repeatedly proclaimed the Islamic State the worst threat to world peace since the end of the Third Reich but somehow, despite a seemingly overwhelming preponderance of military force, haven’t been able to do much of anything about it. Though it’s hard to say for sure, given the fog of conflicting propaganda, it certainly looks as though the Russians have done considerably more damage to the Islamic State in a week than the US and its allies have accomplished in thirteen months of bombing. If that’s the case, some extremely awkward questions are going to be asked. Is the US military so badly led, so heavily burdened with overpriced weapons systems that don’t happen to work, or both, that it’s lost the ability to inflict serious harm on an opponent? Or—let’s murmur this one quietly—does the United States have some reason not to want to inflict serious harm on the Islamic State?

I suspect, though, that what’s actually behind the disparity is something far simpler, if no less damaging to the prestige of the United States. I commented in an earlier post here that the US has been waging its inept campaign against Islamic State as though it’s a video game—hey, we killed a commander, isn’t that worth an extra 500 points? Look at that from a different perspective and it becomes another example of the total disconnection of abstraction from reality.

The abstraction here is “fighting Islamic State.” You’ll notice that it’s not “defeating Islamic State”—in the realm of dysfunctional abstractions, such differences mean a great deal. Obama has decided that under his leadership, the US is going to fight Islamic State, and that’s what the Pentagon is doing. At intervals, accordingly, planes go flying over various portions of Syria and Iraq to make desultory bombing runs on places where some intelligence analyst in suburban Virginia thinks an Islamic State target might have been located at some point in the last month or so.

That’s “fighting Islamic State.” Nobody can point a finger at Obama and say that he’s not fighting Islamic State, since the Air Force is still obligingly making those bombing runs. It doesn’t matter that none of this has done anything to slow down the expansion of the Islamic State militia, or to stop its appalling human rights violations; that’s in the grubby realm of realities, into which fastidious minds in Washington DC are unwilling to stoop.

I think that the Druid is part right: The US is more interested in, “Fighting the Islamic State,” than it is in defeating the Islamic State.

I think that there is also this: The non-Russian players in this game are fighting a war against both sides, the Syrian Government and Isis, and cannot allow either side to win, so they cannot do anything meaningful while continuing their search for moderate rebels, who are as rare as hen’s teeth.

Russia, on the other hand has a non-contradictory and coherent goal, and so, they have actually made progress toward that goal.

*I know that Turkey is in NATO, but as one of the governments that explicitly funded and supported ISIS, and that it considers the Kurdish armies fighting ISIS to be a bigger threat than Salafist militants, its strategic position is completely different.

Ripper Patent Rulling In Oz

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The Australian Supreme Court just completely slapped down gene patents, which, with a bit of common sense, should be an end to that particular abomination in IP land:

Australia’s highest court has ruled unanimously that a version of a gene that is linked to an increased risk for breast cancer cannot be patented. The case was brought by 69-year-old pensioner from Queensland, Yvonne D’Arcy, who had taken the US company Myriad Genetics to court over its patent for mutations in the BRCA1 gene that increase the probability of breast and ovarian cancer developing, as The Sydney Morning Herald reports. Although she lost twice in the lower courts, the High Court of Australia allowed her appeal, ruling that a gene was not a “patentable invention.”

 The court based its reasoning (PDF) on the fact that, although an isolated gene such as BRCA1 was “a product of human action, it was the existence of the information stored in the relevant sequences that was an essential element of the invention as claimed.” Since the information stored in the DNA as a sequence of nucleotides was a product of nature, it did not require human action to bring it into existence, and therefore could not be patented.

 Although that seems a sensible ruling, the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry has been fighting against this self-evident logic for years. The view that genes could be patented suffered a major defeat in 2013, when the US Supreme Court struck down Myriad Genetics’ patents on the genes BRCA1 and the similar BRCA2. The industry was hoping that a win in Australia could keep alive the idea that genes could be owned by a company in the form of a patent monopoly. The victory by D’Arcy now makes it highly likely that other judges around the world will take the view that genes cannot be patented.
………

 Striking down gene patents in Australia, as in the US, clears the path for new entrants to the gene testing market, which is likely to drive down prices. It could also spur more biomedical innovation by allowing researchers freedom to investigate previously patented genes and develop new therapies, without fearing potential lawsuits.

 If the judgement is followed by courts in other jurisdictions, and the whole idea of gene patents is rejected, the number of people whose lives could be saved will be correspondingly greater.

It has been patently* clear for decades that isolating genes is a process of discovery, and not invention, and hence they should not be covered by patents.

The biotech industry’s counter-argument has always been, “But we want our money!:

In a statement, Myriad also expresses its disappointment with the ruling. “The High Court’s decision comes at a critical time when we’re entering the golden era of personalized medicine,” it says, as GenomeWeb reports. “In order for personalized medicine to become a reality, strong patent protection is essential because it provides the research-based companies like Myriad with an incentive to continue to invest in R&D.”

(emphasis mine)

Basically, they are arguing that if we won’t allow them to patent their discoveries, they will take their marbles and go home.

There are two things wrong with this:

  • Patents are for inventions, not discoveries.
  • Allowing for rent seeking through patents makes it more likely that genetic products will will be released without adequate testing, because the potential profits are so huge.

And that is ignoring the fact that it is taxpayer funded research that have led to these discoveries.

*Pun not intended.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?!?!?! Again?

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I missed the other school shooting yesterday:

Texas Southern University was on lockdown much of the day Friday after a fatal shooting of a freshman at a campus apartment complex that also sent one person to the hospital. It was just the latest in a recent string of violent incidents at the campus, located just south of downtown Houston.

The TSU shooting, following a deadly shooting at Northern Arizona University early Friday morning, also came on the same day that President Obama was visiting Umpqua Community College where nine people were fatally shot in a classroom last week.

F%$# the NRA and its ilk.

It’s Back!!!

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Another school shooting:

A fight that broke out between two groups of students at Northern Arizona University’s Flagstaff campus left one person dead and three hospitalized after one of the students opened fire on the others.

The shooter has been identified as Steven Jones, an 18-year-old freshman at the school, who has been taken into custody by campus police, according to NAU police chief Greg Fowler.

Colin Brough has been identified by the school as the student who was killed in the incident, and Nicholas Prato, Kyle Zientek and Nicholas Piring were named as the individuals who were shot but are being treated at Flagstaff Medical Center.

Brough and the three young men who were injured were all members of the Delta Chi Fraternity, according fraternity rep Justin Sherman.

Well, Ben Carson said that he would meet with the families of “The Next One”, so get your running shoes on.

A Literal Shot Across Our Bow

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Russia just launched precision cruise missile strikes against Salafi rebels in Syria.

The missiles were launched from their flotilla in the Caspian Sea, probably because they could get permission from the countries in the flight path, Iran, Iraq, and (of course) Syria, which makes it rather different from the US/NATO airstrikes who have been conducted without Syria’s permission:

Russia added a new dimension to its military campaign in Syria with warships firing cruise missiles from the Caspian Sea, while President Vladimir Putin urged the U.S. and countries in the region to form a coalition against Islamic State and other militant groups.

 Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu reported that Russian bombers had hit 112 targets in Syria since the campaign began on Sept. 30 and that “the intensity of the strikes is increasing.” Naval vessels in the Caspian 1,500 kilometers (932 miles) away fired 26 missiles at 11 objects on Wednesday, destroying them all, Shoigu said.

 Russia should “continue to work with our foreign partners,” Putin told Shoigu in a meeting shown on Rossiya One state television. “Without the participation of Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United States of America, Iran, Iraq and neighboring states of course, this work is unlikely to be carried out successfully.”

 Russia is flexing its muscles in its first military campaign outside the former Soviet Union in three decades as it supports Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who is also backed by Shiite-dominated Iran in the fight against predominantly Sunni groups. While the bombing campaign has escalated tensions between Moscow and NATO members, Shoigu said Russia is ready to accept what he called U.S. proposals on coordinating strikes against Islamic State, a notion dismissed later on Wednesday by Defense Secretary Ashton Carter.

 ‘Precision’ Strikes

 A video released by the Defense Ministry in Moscow showed what it said was a Russian naval strike group launching missiles from the Caspian that streaked across the night sky, then traced a route across Iran and Iraq, hugging terrain from as low as 50 meters, before hitting targets in Syria within a range of accuracy of as little as three meters.

While these missile strikes might or might not make a big difference in the war in Syria, this is a significant milestone:  This is the first combat use cruise missiles by a non-US military as far as I can tell.

As such this constitutes a major development, particularly when one considers the fact a that there are about  ½ dozen export customers.

Also, there is a variant in which the missile is stowed in what appears to be a commercial shipping container, which makes detection that much more difficult.

Finally, while I understand why they launched this from the Caspian, I was completely unaware that Russia had a significant naval presence there.

It’s the the largest completely enclosed body of water in the world, and only ⅓ as salty as the oceans.

After some Googling, I determined that the Russians have a canal between the Don and the Volga,  which allows moderately sized ships to transit between the Black and Caspian seas.

It appears that the missiles were launched from ships in the 1000-2000 ton range, which is in the range of Corvettes or small Frigates.

The Bright Side of a Nuclear Meltdown

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Much like Chernobyl and the DMZ in Korea, it turns out that the Fukushima exclusion zone has become one f%$# of nature preserve:

A stunning new photo project offers unprecedented insight into the wild and desolate exclusion zone surrounding the Fukushima nuclear power plant – where tonnes of contaminated soil lie untouched and overgrown forest is engulfing hundreds of abandoned vehicles and homes.

The 12.5-mile exclusion zone around the nuclear plant now resembles post-apocalyptic scenes from The Walking Dead after it was instantly abandoned following the 2011 nuclear disaster.

People deserted the area after warnings of dangerous levels of radioactivity, leaving cars, classrooms and libraries to be swallowed by the overgrown wilderness in stark scenes reminiscent of those seen in the show, in which entire towns have been left in stasis after zombies overran the earth.

The photographer sees a stunning tableau of the forest swallowing the works of man.

I am more excited about the possibility for flora and fauna that have not been seen in Japan in centuries to return to this region.

Here’s a Thought: Just Don’t Break the Law

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It appears that the movers and shakers in law enforcement are feeling bad because officers misdeeds can end up being saved for posterity.

Here is a thought. How about just not being bullies and thugs, you whiny bitches:

Chiefs of some of the nation’s biggest police departments say officers in American cities have pulled back and have stopped policing as aggressively as they used to, fearing that they could be the next person in a uniform featured on a career-ending viral video.

 That was the unifying — and controversial — theory reached Wednesday at a private meeting of more than 100 of the nation’s top law enforcement officers and politicians.

 ………

 With homicide rates soaring inexplicably this year in dozens of U.S. cities, the group convened by new U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch concluded with a brief news conference promising a robust response to the reversal of decades of falling violent crime rates.

But for hours preceding that, mayors, police chiefs, U.S. attorneys and even FBI Director James Comey privately vented in a Washington ballroom that they don’t really understand the alarming spike in murders and applause filled the room when mayors said police officers’ sinking morale could be a factor.
………

 Could the root cause be drugs? Guns? Gangs? Perhaps a little of each, said Chuck Wexler, a former top officer in Boston and head of the Police Executive Research Forum.

 Wexler tried to sum up the day-long discussion for Lynch, who arrived near the end. But there was another problem, he told her, one that hits closer to home for the nation’s top cop.

 “Perhaps the most difficult to calibrate, but the most significant,” he said, “is this notion of a reduction in proactive policing.”

 Police chiefs and elected leaders from Baltimore, Chicago, New York and St. Louis were more blunt:

 “We have allowed our police department to get fetal and it is having a direct consequence,” Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel told Lynch. “They have pulled back from the ability to interdict … they don’t want to be a news story themselves, they don’t want their career ended early, and it’s having an impact.”

 There is no evidence of a broad retraction of police engagement with the public in major cities, and no participant in Wednesday’s summit presented a single example of lackluster policing that somehow contributed to a violent crime.

Our police forces have increasingly come to resemble an occupying military, and the training has inculcated police in a culture of impunity.

Anything that reverses these trends is a good things, whether it is YouTube or politicians who are willing to stand up to the police unions, I’ll take what I can get.