Been a trying week. Have a Friday LinkSwarm, on me…
LinkSwarm for January 22, 2016
January 22nd, 2016Finding the Stall Speed on an SR-71
January 21st, 2016Q: What happens when you discover the stall speed on an SR-71 while doing a low pass?
Waco Shootout Update: The View From the Cossacks
January 20th, 2016The Dallas Observer has two interesting pieces up on the Waco biker shootout:
First, a profile of the Cossacks, which paints them as a tough but mostly mostly law-abiding group. Much of the piece covers Jake “Rattle Can” Rhyne, a Cossack who worked a day-job as an iron-worker and helped coach his children’s sports teams.
That was until May 17, 2015, when a gunfight took his life, along with those of eight other men. The details are sketchy, and Waco police haven’t done much to answer the lingering questions, but a melee involving an “outlaw” club, the notorious Bandidos, left Jake dying in the parking lot of the Waco Twin Peaks, bleeding from bullet wounds to his neck and torso.
Witnesses say he convulsed and bled for up to 45 minutes, receiving no medical help from police who swarmed all around him. Ambulances were parked nearby, but Rhyne spent his final moments with a young Cossack who desperately tried to staunch the bleeding with a bandanna. Jake Wilson, the “brother” who was with him, calls his death “a very big injustice.”
Second, an interview with Wilson, one of the surviving Cossacks, who claims Waco police made no attempt to tend to the wounded, or even allow them to be tended to.
John Wilson: … I ask him if several of us couldn’t pick up Jake along with some other ones that were wounded and carry them to the ambulances, and he basically told me that if I didn’t want to get shot, I wouldn’t.
[So the police] made no attempt during that time to give first aid or any kind of aid to Jake.
No. Absolutely not. Every one of those cop cars had some kind of first aid kit in ‘em. And not a single one at any time walked over, brought us a first aid kit, offered to tie a tourniquet on anybody, patch a hole, anything. Our guys were sitting there with nothing but bandannas in their hands trying to stuff bullet holes.
Could you tell from your vantage point looking at Jake [Rhyne] if there was a lot of blood loss?
Yes.
So it’s possible — I’m not a doctor, of course, and neither are you — that he bled out.
Well, I have to assume that those guys that were alive 30 minutes after the fact that died without medical care, you know, we can only make assumptions, but their odds of survival would have been better if they’d had medical care. Would they have died anyway? Maybe. As you say, I’m not a doctor. But they certainly deserved the opportunity to try to live. And to try to recover from it. And the opportunity was sitting right there in an ambulance 50 yards away that they weren’t allowed access to.
This accords with previous reports of police not offering medical aid to the wounded.
I’ve often defended police over unrealistic expectations that they always make the exact right call in split-second life-or-death situations. But there was nothing split-second in a Waco aftermath that saw people bleeding to death (some from police bullets) tens of minutes after the scene was secure. That smells less like incompetence and more like (at a minimum) manslaughter.
I’ll reiterate something I’ve said before: One need not take every statement of motorcycle gang members facing possible capital murder charges at face value to believe that something went badly wrong with the police response in the Waco shootout.
Sanders Up 60% to 33% Over Clinton in NH
January 19th, 2016Bernie Sanders was already up over Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire, but not by this much:
Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has opened up his widest lead yet over rival Hillary Clinton in the crucial state of New Hampshire, according to a new poll released Tuesday.
The new WMUR/CNN poll out this afternoon shows the Vermont lawmaker with a whopping 27-point lead over the former Secretary of State — 60-33 percent. That’s a climb of 10 percentage points for Sanders since mid-December and a drop of 7 points for Clinton. It marks Sanders’ highest support and widest lead in any poll in any state so far.
The usual poll caveats and the fact that Sanders hails from neighboring Vermont applies. But that sort of result would have looked positively loony six months ago. Now? It’s just another data point in Hillary’s catastrophic collapse.
Hillary can surviving losing to Sanders in New Hampshire, but I’m not sure she can survive getting walloped by that much…
Texas vs. California Update for January 19, 2016
January 19th, 2016Been a while since I did a Texas vs. California update, due to Reasons, so here’s one:
While all the numbers are constantly in flux, in 2014-15, the California Public Employees’ Retirement System saw its status fall from 76.3 percent funded to 73.3 percent, likely due to the fact that investment returns fell far below expectations. The long-neglected California State Teachers’ Retirement System, as of June 30, 2014, was 69 percent funded. Combined, the systems report unfunded pension promises of more than $160 billion.
The current budget shows steep and consistent increases in state funding to the two systems. Whereas CalPERS is set to receive $4.3 billion in state contributions in the 2015-16 fiscal year, which ends June 30, it could receive $4.8 billion the following year. CalSTRS is to receive $1.9 billion this year and about $2.47 billion next year.
In comparison, CalPERS and CalSTRS received $3.1 billion and $1.26 billion, respectively, in 2011-2012.
While it is perfectly reasonable for costs to rise over time, the rate that costs have risen for the two giant pension funds is mainly a consequence of California trying to play catch-up for years of inadequate forecasting and planning, aggravated by investment losses. But because the pension systems are run for public employees – CalPERS’ board is full of former public employee union leaders – the necessary changes and adjustments have been made far too late to avoid calamity.
(Hat tip: Pension Tsunami.)
California has given us three new truths about government.
One, the higher that taxes rise, the worse state services become.
Two, the worse a natural disaster hits, the more the state contributes to its havoc.
And three, the more existential the problem, the more the state ignores it.
California somehow has managed to have the fourth-highest gas taxes in the nation, yet its roads are rated 44th among the 50 states. Nearly 70 percent of California roads are considered to be in poor or mediocre condition by the state senate. In response, the state legislature naturally wants to raise gas taxes, with one proposal calling for an increase of 12 cents per gallon, which would give California the highest gas taxes in the nation.
In California, costs to run a business are higher than in other states and nations largely due to the states tax and regulatory policies and the business climate shows little chance of improving. It is understandable that from 2008 through 2015, at least 1,687 California disinvestment events occurred, a count that reflects only those that became public knowledge. Experts in site selection generally agree that at least five events fail to become public knowledge for every one that does. Thus it is reasonable to conclude that a minimum of 10,000 California disinvestment events have occurred during that period….For about 40 years California has been viewed as a state in which it is difficult to do business. Gov. Jerry Brown’s Administration’s less than candid approach regarding the business climate has misled the Legislature, the news media and the public about the flight of capital, facilities and jobs to other states and nations.
The study also shows that Texas had the most new facilities opening up in the nation in 2014, with 689. California, despite being the most populous state, tied for 12th with 170.
Scenes from the Hillary Implosion
January 18th, 2016The way things are unfolding, it’s almost like the fates themselves have stepped in to stop Hillary from grabbing the Democratic Presidential nomination.
Hillary’s national lead is slipping faster than it did in 2016.
The plan to hide Hillary from the prying eyes of voters seems to be backfiring. “The irony is that it would be in her interests rather than those of [Bernie] Sanders to have the debates at times when more people would tune in. She has performed better than he has in debates, which has allowed her to make up for his far greater appeal on the stump.”
Well, that is until last night’s debate: “Bernie mopped the floor with Hillary.” (Hat tip: Instapundit.) Ditto the Washington Post, which tabbed Sanders as the winner and Clinton as the loser. “She did nothing in the debate to slow the momentum that Sanders is building in Iowa and New Hampshire.”
It also doesn’t help that the most Googled question ruing the debate was “Will Hillary Clinton get prosecuted?”
On on top of all this, out comes 13 Hours, Michael Bay’s movie about Benghazi. “This movie is a massive, gaping wound in Hillary’s campaign.”
Instead of Iowa being the first step in Hillary’s coronation, it looks increasingly likely her campaign’s derailment will start there in earnest. Just like in 2008…
Air Force Finally Gives Up On Trying To Kill The A-10
January 16th, 2016Remember last year’s story about how the Air Force was trying to kill the A-10 Warthog, with one now-cashiered general saying airmen talking to congress about saving the venerable plane was “treason?”
Well it appears that the Air Force has finally given up on attempts to kill America’s most effective tank-killing aircraft:
The U.S. Air Force is reportedly scrapping what has become an annual attempt to retire the A-10 Thunderbolts from the fiscal 2017 budget request being drawn up.
Maj. Melissa J. Milner, an Air Force spokeswoman on budget matters, said Wednesday she could not comment on the Defense One report that the Cold War-era attack aircraft had been spared indefinitely, but boosters of the plane affectionately known to ground troops as the “Warthog” hailed the move to keep them in the inventory.
“It appears the administration is finally coming to its senses and recognizing the importance of A-10s to our troops’ lives and national security,” said Rep. Martha McSally, a Republican from Arizona and a retired Air Force colonel who flew the A-10.
“With A-10s deployed in the Middle East to fight ISIS, in Europe to deter Russian aggression, and along the Korean peninsula, administration officials can no longer deny how invaluable these planes are to our arsenal and military capabilities,” said McSally, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, referring to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, also known as ISIL.
For the past three years, the Air Force has sought to begin mothballing the A-10s in favor of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter to take over the close air support mission. Each year, the House and Senate have blocked the cuts.
In a statement, Sen. John McCain, a Republican from Arizona and the chairman of the defense panel, said, “I welcome reports that the Air Force has decided to keep the A-10 aircraft flying through Fiscal Year 2017, ensuring our troops have the vital close-air support they need for missions around the world.”
The debate over the A-10s appears to have been shelved as commanders in the Iraq and Syria air war increasingly call upon the Thunderbolts flying out of Incirlik air base in Turkey and other bases in the Mideast for attack missions.
Score a point for the restoration of sanity over institutional antipathy.
LinkSwarm for January 15, 2016
January 15th, 2016We’ll start with a couple by Mark Steyn:
The annual State of the Union pageant is a hideous, dispiriting, ugly, monotonous, un-American, un-republican, anti-democratic, dreary, backward, monarchical, retch-inducing, depressing, shameful, crypto-imperial display of official self-aggrandizement and piteous toadying, a black Mass during which every unholy order of teacup totalitarian and cringing courtier gathers under the towering dome of a faux-Roman temple to listen to a speech with no content given by a man with no content, to rise and to be seated as is called for by the order of worship — it is a wonder they have not started genuflecting — with one wretched representative of their number squirreled away in some well-upholstered Washington hidey-hole in order to preserve the illusion that those gathered constitute a special class of humanity without whom we could not live.
Remember All That “Peak Oil” Bunk?
January 14th, 2016Remember those predictions of “peak oil” certain economists/ environmentalists were pushing last decade? The idea that oil production would soon peak, supplies would soon dwindle, and gas prices would rise into the stratosphere? (And, not so incidentally, this was the reason we had to hand out billions of dollars in green subsidies for renewable energy to companies that just happened to be connected to Democratic Party bigshots.)
Back in 2008, I remember a senior New York editor telling me that science fiction convention attendance would continue dwindling because “gas prices will never go down again.” Peak oil was treated as an ironclad inevitability second only to global warming.
Yeah. Not so much.
“They’ve been talking about a peak in the global production of oil for the last two decades now and it still hasn’t happened, and I think the reality is that they are going to remain wrong going forward.”
In fact, thanks to improved technology, fracking, shale oil, and declining demand, quite the opposite has occurred, as a worldwide glut has oil down near $30 a barrel.
Once again the market has proven much better at adaptation than erroneous neo-Malthusian thinking. Anyone telling you they know exactly how things will unfold should be treated with severe skepticism.
The future’s not ours to see…
Berniemania Overtaking Hillary?
January 13th, 2016Could the facade of inevitability that Hillary Clinton built up crack wide open?
First comes word that Clinton is almost even with Bernie Sanders nationwide, leading a mere 43% to 39%. (Hat tip: Push Junction.)
Add to that the fact that the most recent polls in Iowa show the race there tied after Hillary being up some 40 points a few points ago.
In New Hampshire, recent polls have Sanders up anywhere from 3 to 14 points.
And even though Clinton has raised more money, Sanders has done very well in fundraising, bringing in $33 million in the final quarter and $73 million for all of 2015. That’s not the fundraising total of someone running a token campaign. A huge number of Democrats (more than 2.3 million of them, a number which surpasses Obama’s 2011 reelection efforts) believe in Sanders enough to donate to his campaign.
Finally, Sanders just got endorsed by MoveOn.org. The irony here, of course, is that MoveOn was created entirely as a medium for attack proponents of Bill Clinton’s impeachment for lying under oath and obstruction of justice. Given their genesis as an extension of the Clintons, it’s a surprise that MoveOn has moved on from them.
Hillary’s campaign was always predicated on her supposed inevitability, her fundraising prowess, her supposed viability, and voter familiarity with her due to her extremely high profile. But with a myriad array of ongoing scandals dogging her (Benghazi, her email server, the Clinton Foundation “pay for play” donations, etc.), familiarity seems to have bred contempt among a large number of Democratic Party faithful.
And one additional scandal not her own, rape and sexual assault allegations against Bill Cosby, have brought renewed scrutiny to Bill Clinton’s serial sexual assault and rape allegations, bringing up Hillary’s complicity in smearing Bill’s accusers, as well as turning one of Hillary’s biggest potential assets (having the once-popular 42nd President campaign for her) into a potential liability.
Finally, 2016 is shaping up to be The Year of the Outsider, when voters on both sides of the political spectrum said “Enough!”, embracing the unscripted bluntness of Donald Trump over the poll-focused banalities so beloved by consultants and the chattering classes. Hillary proved less than overwhelmingly popular with Democratic Party voters in 2008, and there’s precious little reason to believe she’s gotten more popular since then. She’s not a bright fresh face, and she lacks both Obama’s personal magnetism and his unique appeal to both black voters and white liberal guilt.
If Democratic Party voters decide that Bernie Sanders is a viable candidate, then he’s a viable candidate for the nomination. It may simply come down to the fact that Democrats wish to cast their votes for a candidate without feeling they need to take a shower afterwards.