Hows that Multiculturalism and immigration working out there for ya?

Sweden Government police say “women should not go out after dark, never go out alone, or should use taxis”.

Seems that since all those Middle Eastern “children” (male) immigrants are kinda changing the society in Sweden….

And the police, of course, say Women have to change their ways rather than the immigrants. Because MultiCulturalism.

Were I living there, I’d start buying rope and looking for sturdy lampposts for some political attention…..And I’d be making a list of each government official, elected or not, who approved the invasion of my country. And, of course, investing in rope suppliers.

Forgive my ignorance, but…

Can’t the Phone Companies do something about the increasing use of spoofed phone numbers? Especially in “SWAT”ting cases like the one I wrote about 2 posts below this?

I mean, it is bad enough that they allow “Suzy from Credit Card Services” to spoof their telephone number…no one gets hurt, only annoyed. But “SWAT”ting and other crimes like this should lead to jail time. Murder charges if someone killed…There should be penalties for this behavior.

But people have been injured and killed by cops that thought they were arriving on the scene of a murder, or a hostage situation (which doesn’t excuse the injuries or shootings, IMO, but does lead to some leniency due to the situation). The telephone lines used, be they land lines or cell lines, have specific connections that should not be untrackable. The Phone Companies SHOULD be able to fix this.

Why don’t they?

Perhaps the NSA needs to step in and tell us who is responsible….

(I’d bet I could put together a lynch mob for the telemarketers though….if I cared to….)

Right to a speedy trial???

Or is the Justice Department simply hoping that we, as a country, will forget? That we aren’t watching?

Awan Brothers trial date, delayed twice, now simply GONE from calendar…..

Were I a suspicious person, and an untrusting soul, I’d have to wonder if, having had access to MANY senators sensetive emails due to their control of the Email servers….DO they have enough dirt on some of those Senators to be able to blackmail their way out of a trial????

We all know that that would never happen, right? All those DNC and RNC folks are as clean as the driven snow and all that…..right?

Luck

So the shower faucet in the master bathroom was dripping.

Not that big a deal, except that it was there when I moved in 20 years ago, and I haven’t ever had it apart…and it is a “no name” faucet. Not a name anywhere, not the faucet nor the escutcheon, nor the knob….nothing.

Now, I never had a reason to do anything with it, or the most interesting and thought provoking valving arrangement for the water supply in this area of the house….until now.

Oddly, the faucet came apart with a bit of gentle persuasion and a bit of heat and some more gentle tapping and a few other tricks that most of us who work on shit know. I actually didn’t twist the faucet off…which is what generally happens in these cases.

Which was a good thing, because the previous owner did a most interesting install of the faucet valve. To replace it was gonna require that I pull the tub surround off, as the faucet was installed from the tub side, not the backside….so just cutting a bit of drywall on the other side wouldn’t have gotten me there. (who uses carriage bolts and lag screws to install a faucet???)

Plus the tub is, apparently, non standard, at 54 inches long and 23 inches wide. Menards/Lowes/Home Depot don’t carry anything even close to that size.

But, for once, the locking ring moved and nothing twisted too badly, and lo and behold, not only was the faucet a chinese copy of a Delta faucet, Delta replacement parts fit!!!! Ball, cups, springs, o-rings are all close enough to actually work. It’s a GOOD copy of a Delta faucet. 

This saved me from having to find a replacement tub/surround from, I am told, a mobile home supplier (Where this size is apparently standard) but a whole bunch of wall work and such. (Plus the tile floor, which was put in after the tub was installed, so would have had to be pulled up and replaced).

Once in a while the Gods smile upon me.

I’m just not sure what to sacrifice to whom now.

Wow, CBS thinks they can rewrite history.

Watching the blurbs from this show, it is interesting to see the outright lies they state regarding the Waco standoff and the events leading up to it (and the members of the church and David Koresh himself).

One wonders why they feel the need to bring it up at all at this late date, much less the twisted version of facts and innuendo and half truths that they are peddling? I mean, we all know that the ATF version of the story was to cover the ass of the folks in charge of the operation….

Can you spot the outright lies, the half truths, the partial bits of the story, and the bits they fail to mention?

Again, WHY NOW?

Questions for the engineers:

Not the pilots, the engineers. Powerplant engineers, specifically. (I am not an aviation powerplant expert, so bear with me).

I was flying today. The air temp was a balmy -4 degrees F at the surface….Neg 10 at altitude. Farking cold for the preflight, especially when I spilled avgas all over my hand.

The flight instructor warmed me on taxi to “be careful and make sure my power adjustments, especially power reductions, were done slowly and smoothly so as to prevent “shock cooling” of the engine”. (ETA: Apparently “shock cooling” causes issues with the heads and cylinders…cracking and/or other structural issues)

Now, as I said, I am not an aviation powerplant engineer, nor any sort of powerplant engineer…..I have, however, an engineering degree, and I have lots of thermal management experience under my belt….further, I used to service all sorts of air cooled small engines when I was in college for rent money.

Therefore the theory of “Shock Cooling” an aviation engine simply by closing the throttle quickly sounds fishy to me. Shutting down an already overheated powerplant? Maybe. Immersing it in water (or filling the cowling with a firehose?) maybe…but probably not.  But a gas engine that is still running should not be able to be cooled fast enough to damage it simply by slowing down the engine. What happens to an engine in flight when the airplane flies through a rain shower? Mist? heavy rain? snow?  All these should lead to significant cooling of the engine in a very short time. Water conducts heat better, plus evaporation. Faster cooling. Yet I don’t hear of Lycomings or Continentals (or Rotaxes (Rotaxi?)) suddenly shedding cylinders or valves because of rain.

I would think shutting the engine off after use would do more damage (due to sudden changes in cooling vs heat) than closing the throttle suddenly.  Or unloading the prop with quick attitude changes (say climb to level to dive)….And, of course, the sudden dimensional changes in temp due to starting the engine at all……

Again:  not an aviation powerplant expert. But have more experience than most on thermal issues.

Does anyone with real knowledge have some input? Is there something to it, or izzit just some myth carried forward by folks who are pilots but not engineers?

Yep. He’s right

Damned Skippy.

Read THIS. Tell me where he’s wrong? Seriously,  if you think so, feel free to comment as to why. Be sure to be specific.

Now, you gotta understand that I have met and had a beer with “Mad Mike” a few times at blogmeets over the years (sadly not for a few years though). I like the guy, and if I could, I’d spend more time with him. If we didn’t live a few hours apart, we might (maybe) be friends…..Dude is a tiny bit nuts and a whole lot of good sense all rolled into a package that is, among other things, a great writer and a great commentor on life and people in general.

An oldie but a goodie. How to explain tax cuts with beer:

True meaning of socialism and why capitalism wins everytime its tried: (Or how it works that TheDonald’s Tax bill helps the Rich:)

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100… If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this…

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing. The fifth would pay $1. The sixth would pay $3. The seventh would pay $7.. The eighth would pay $12. The ninth would pay $18. The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59. So, that’s what they decided to do.. The ten
men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve ball. “Since you are all such good customers,” he said, “I’m going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20”.

Drinks for the ten men would now cost just $80. The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes. So the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men ? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his fair share? They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they ubtracted that from every body’s share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man’s bill by a higher percentage the poorer he was, to follow the principle of the tax system they had been using, and he proceeded to work out the amounts he suggested that each should now pay.

And so the fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% saving). The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% saving). The seventh now paid $5 instead of $7 (28% saving). The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% saving). The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% saving). The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% saving). Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free.

But, once outside the bar, the men began to compare their savings. “I only got a dollar out of the $20 saving,” declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man, “but he got $10!” “Yeah, that’s right,” exclaimed the fifth man. “I only saved a dollar too. It’s unfair that he got ten times more benefit than me!” “That’s true!” shouted the seventh man. “Why should he get $10 back, when I got only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks!” “Wait a minute,” yelled the first four men in unison, “we didn’t get anything at all. This new tax system exploits the poor!” The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up. The next night the tenth man didn’t show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had their beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn’t have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and government ministers, is how our tax system works. The people who already pay the highest taxes will naturally get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas, where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D Professor of Economics.

For those who understand, no explanation is needed For those who do not understand, no explanation is possible.