RANDOM THOUGHTS #29
Steve Cole muses: Just thinking to himself.
1. I saw the movie IRON MAN the other night on Tivo. It was a fun romp. The "defense contractor selling to the enemy" as pure Hollywood nonsense. ("We Hollywood Elites hate the military-industrial complex and will make up any lie we can to make them look bad.") The idea that "Some of the weapons my company made were used by the enemy against us so I'm going to stop making weapons" was just stupid. Weapons get captured or stolen all of the time. It's not cool, but this is not a perfect world.
2. Steven Petrick asked me why, as a citizen and voter, he has no legal standing to ask for proof that Barak Obama was constitutionally qualified to be president (i.e., that he was born in Hawaii, not Kenya). I had no answer for him, but the courts have said that this is so.
3. I see on TV crime shows a lot of people on anti-psychotic drugs who quit taking them because they made them feel "dull" and committed violent crimes. I am just curious as to what percentage of people prescribed (or ordered to take these drugs) do this? Is this just a minor issue, or a big one?
4. Many years ago, back when I was still running FYEO (a military newsletter), I came up with an idea to make a thing that fit into a TOW missile launcher but had in it three 70mm air-to-ground rockets. (Making them fit required an expensive thin heat-resistant plate between the thinnest point of the three mini-tubes). My theory was to give these to Bradleys so they would have some high-explosive artillery. I found nobody in the military who was even vaguely interested. Nowadays, they might be more useful in the conditions we are fighting in (Iraq and Afghanistan) where enemy armor isn't on the battlefield and the TOW launchers on Bradley's are pretty useless. I also note that the Marines (and others) have developed guided versions of the venerable 70mm rockets (APKWS II) which would perhaps give the vehicle the high explosive firepower it always wanted. While we're on the subject, I wonder if you could not make a similar "spacer" that would load four 40mm grenades into a TOW launcher?
5. Did anybody notice that the only Republicans on the Bipartisan Debt Commission were the very few Republicans who had previously said they wanted to raise taxes? Most Republicans want to leave taxes alone and cut spending. How come none of them were appointed to the Commission? For that matter, why has the Commission report been forgotten?
6. I am not in the business of giving financial advice, but I would have to say that if you're buying those television-advertised sets of current coins (presidents, states) in un-circulated condition (perhaps with platinum or gold coatings, or painted pretty colors) thinking that these are an investment, you're doing it wrong. They have no collector value (unless you sell them to your dim-witted neighbor just before you move), and coin dealers (let alone precious metal dealers) won't buy them from you. (No, I have never bought any of them, but I know enough coin and metal dealers to know that these "coin sets" are a horrendously bad investment. If you want to pay for them so you can look at them, swell, but if you think that someday you're going to sell them for more than you paid for them, I'd suggest you call a local coin or metal dealer and ask them what they will pay for them.
7. Lots of thought, discussion, and movies have gone into the idea of a major hunk of rock detected on a collision course with Earth. Most of these scientific analysis programs solemnly report that using a nuclear weapon would be a bad idea, since it won't vaporize the rock, and that a bunch of small rocks could do more damage than one big one. Well, it depends. We don't need to vaporize the thing, just kick it off course. I'm also not sure that a few fragments (even those big enough to be city killers) are not better than an extinction-level impact.
I am going to stop here rather than going for ten thoughts since some of the ones I have written are kinda long.
1. I saw the movie IRON MAN the other night on Tivo. It was a fun romp. The "defense contractor selling to the enemy" as pure Hollywood nonsense. ("We Hollywood Elites hate the military-industrial complex and will make up any lie we can to make them look bad.") The idea that "Some of the weapons my company made were used by the enemy against us so I'm going to stop making weapons" was just stupid. Weapons get captured or stolen all of the time. It's not cool, but this is not a perfect world.
2. Steven Petrick asked me why, as a citizen and voter, he has no legal standing to ask for proof that Barak Obama was constitutionally qualified to be president (i.e., that he was born in Hawaii, not Kenya). I had no answer for him, but the courts have said that this is so.
3. I see on TV crime shows a lot of people on anti-psychotic drugs who quit taking them because they made them feel "dull" and committed violent crimes. I am just curious as to what percentage of people prescribed (or ordered to take these drugs) do this? Is this just a minor issue, or a big one?
4. Many years ago, back when I was still running FYEO (a military newsletter), I came up with an idea to make a thing that fit into a TOW missile launcher but had in it three 70mm air-to-ground rockets. (Making them fit required an expensive thin heat-resistant plate between the thinnest point of the three mini-tubes). My theory was to give these to Bradleys so they would have some high-explosive artillery. I found nobody in the military who was even vaguely interested. Nowadays, they might be more useful in the conditions we are fighting in (Iraq and Afghanistan) where enemy armor isn't on the battlefield and the TOW launchers on Bradley's are pretty useless. I also note that the Marines (and others) have developed guided versions of the venerable 70mm rockets (APKWS II) which would perhaps give the vehicle the high explosive firepower it always wanted. While we're on the subject, I wonder if you could not make a similar "spacer" that would load four 40mm grenades into a TOW launcher?
5. Did anybody notice that the only Republicans on the Bipartisan Debt Commission were the very few Republicans who had previously said they wanted to raise taxes? Most Republicans want to leave taxes alone and cut spending. How come none of them were appointed to the Commission? For that matter, why has the Commission report been forgotten?
6. I am not in the business of giving financial advice, but I would have to say that if you're buying those television-advertised sets of current coins (presidents, states) in un-circulated condition (perhaps with platinum or gold coatings, or painted pretty colors) thinking that these are an investment, you're doing it wrong. They have no collector value (unless you sell them to your dim-witted neighbor just before you move), and coin dealers (let alone precious metal dealers) won't buy them from you. (No, I have never bought any of them, but I know enough coin and metal dealers to know that these "coin sets" are a horrendously bad investment. If you want to pay for them so you can look at them, swell, but if you think that someday you're going to sell them for more than you paid for them, I'd suggest you call a local coin or metal dealer and ask them what they will pay for them.
7. Lots of thought, discussion, and movies have gone into the idea of a major hunk of rock detected on a collision course with Earth. Most of these scientific analysis programs solemnly report that using a nuclear weapon would be a bad idea, since it won't vaporize the rock, and that a bunch of small rocks could do more damage than one big one. Well, it depends. We don't need to vaporize the thing, just kick it off course. I'm also not sure that a few fragments (even those big enough to be city killers) are not better than an extinction-level impact.
I am going to stop here rather than going for ten thoughts since some of the ones I have written are kinda long.
posted by Federation Commander at 9:53 PM
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