If You Doubted The Country Was Under Attack...

LightSquared.


I've commented on many different subjects in this space over the last few years, and many of those times were merely subjective rants.

The threat to national security and our economy presented by LightSquared is a different breed of cat entirely. The first time I saw a demonstration of GPS was probably 1986 or 7. At that demonstration multiple receivers were set up over both known and unknown points and then allowed to observe the GPS constellation for several hours over two days. This was because there were very few satellites up at that time, and solutions required at least four satellites in view.

It wasn't only the observations that took a long time. The tech rep running the demonstration had the first 286 PC I had ever seen, and it took him hours to reduce the raw data to positional information.

The GPS spectrum is a national security asset. It is as critical to our "just in time" national logistic system as is the internet. Real time, accurate ground navigation makes many businesses not only profitable, but possible.

LightSquared's technology is no different than any other cellular service. By being given access to the same frequency spectrum that GPS lives on LightsSquared avoids the costs paid for bandwidth any other broadband outfit has to pay.

But by being Friends of Democrats they are angling to enter the arena on the backs of the U.S. taxpayer. They (LightSquared) know full well their technology has been proven to disrupt GPS service (go back and read the article) but they don't care.

Solyndra wasn't about solar power. The GM/Chrysler bailout wasn't about jobs, and neither was the stimulus.

A coup. Not an administration.

Back to the Future

When I was a newly minted Marine running around Camp Pendleton in 1980 I noticed you couldn't march ten feet in a straight line without tripping over a Chrysler Dodge vehicle. GSA cars, M880 pick up trucks, Ram Chargers in grim OD paint jobs...

But there were also dozens, scores, hundreds of D50 pick up trucks, and later K cars and Rampages. The Feds bailed out Chrysler in '79. 60K automotive jobs went away, never to come back, but Chrysler did return to profitability in the mid eighties and ran that way until the Great Recession.

The news that Chrysler "paid back" their bailout seven years early was no shocka to anybody working for the feds.

Now I find that the public (cost to you and me, whether we ever sit in a Volt or not) cost for each Chevy Volt works out to about $250,000 each, what with subsidies and current Federal purchases.

That's pretty spendy for a coal fired golf cart that sometimes bursts into flames three days after a fender bender.

I keep hearing "What cannot go on forever, won't" but I'm really beginning to wonder what that bubble is going to sound like when it pops.

Merry Christmas.

Feel Good Post of the Day!

Beginning of my comment on Jeff Goldstein's post on Attorney General Holder's latest appearance before Congress:

"Even at this late stage of collapse most Americans just sort of assume that when an especially egregious and blatant crime is committed that there will in fact be rough men with badges, guns, and who are possessed of a strong sense of duty who will stand up and bring the perpetrators to justice."

Septermber 22, 2011

Richard Fernandez:

The market is writing down the value of the world economy. Right across the board. It is making a judgement on what they think the future is worth. By recent numbers, not much. Not just because policymakers have gotten it wrong about the “root cause” of terrorism, or the Euro; but also about “Too Big To Fail”, population policy, multiculturalism, a crippling environmentalism and Global Warming, to name a few. The financial, national security and educational systems of the world are in utter collapse because they are stuffed with lies, which even when they are shown to be obviously false suck up trillions of dollars in their pursuit . And nothing will turn the global elites from continuing their ruinous path until they have spent the last nickle and dime they can lay their hands on.

got food?

(via American Digest)

Required Reading : Jerry Pournelle

An essay that drips great steaming piles of common sense.

Do not despair.

Here's the link. (Via American Digest)

Who...

... will the Democrats primary against Obama?

Monday

Seems there won't be any budget deal coming out of the meetings that have been held between the administration and Congress.

The media covering the story still at this late date presume that their guy - the President - seeks a solution. They are willfully mistaken, and terribly, sadly so.

Obama is a Marxist. Not the banner waving, leader- of- the- pack kind of romantic figure we see in the manufactured histories of people like Che or Fidel. More the fellow traveler type, that annoying git from the dorm or faculty lounge, with extra points awarded for race. He would like to have been one of the revolutionary types, but frankly that would have meant hard work. His most striking qualities, being both intellectually lazy and morally directionless, combined with his affirmative action status to make him a prime candidate for a bunch of folks who were indeed revolutionaries. What glory is there in being leader of a nation one despises and of people to stupid to see the con?

Being the instrument of disaster is what Barak Obama has settled for. Don't laugh; not everybody gets to be good at something, finally.

The toughest part of his day is when he doesn't laugh into the camera.

Writing in Commentary magazine, John Podhoretz proposes that the President is seeking to panic the markets.

(via Instapundit)

Not a panic. A collapse. A coup, not an administration.

Independence Day 2011

Proud to be an American. Looking forward to better days.

There is a seven pound pork roast out in the kitchen quietly converting into some serious pulled pork for tomorrow's neighborhood barbeque.

Tomorrow we'll be burning powder at Cherry Hill Park. Kids who know their American history even a little bit will light the cannon.

The goddesses and Mom and I all went to see Transformers III this afternoon. More than worth the ticket price. No spoilers!

Sleep well, America. Better days are coming.

Twenty-Nine Reasons to Be Angry And/Or Scared

Twenty-Nine Reasons to Be Angry And/Or Scared

I have been sober eleven years today.

Thanks to God, Valeri, the Goddesses, and the fellowship.

I want to be clear of mind and have peace in my heart for the coming trials.

(via American Digest)

Egad a Month...

Still here, still working, still putting my best foot forward.

We went cannon shooting two weekends ago. Powder is now $20.00 dollars a pound which makes hitting the mark even more sweet than it was before.

It's been the first day of spring here about forty times now. With all the rain and the 200% snow pack we won't have to listen to media reports of the coming drought disaster this year.

Have a fine one.

Do Something Nice

That's it. Just try to be a bright spot in somebody's life, if only for a moment.

That's all.

Good luck.

It's a Gibbon Moment

**

"The exit strategy will be executed this week in the sense that we will be pulling back from our much more active efforts to shape the environment."

Ya know, I never really understood what “horrifying” meant.

Not over a period of years at least.

The Won Everyone Was Waiting For has reduced the gravity of state sanctioned killing by uniformed armed forces to an activity best administrated by a “political committee” to be named by the remaining members of the international debating society that shamed him into doing SOMETHING …

This isn’t amateur hour. This is our country in free fall.

Japan

I have not posted on Japan because I simply do not have words.

We are giving through the Red Cross.

I pray for them in the mornings, just before I ask for the grace of another day.

Please help, if you are able.

Goodbye Old Friend

I don't know what the predicted service life is for one of these, but I got twenty two years out of mine.

Sunday mornings I usually putter around in the reloading room. I tossed about forty pieces of Mosin brass into the tumbler and fired it up and it struck me that I've been using this same piece of equipment since we lived in an apartment in Clairemont, above Mission Beach in San Diego. In a few hours the brass was shiny, so swapped out the cases for some pulled .303 bullets to get rid of the tar sealant the Pakistanis used and clicked the "on" button. It just sat there and hummed.

Goodbye old friend.

A Glimpse Into The Man Cave

Ten years ago I ran up a deer load for .280 Remington for a friend. He called me up recently and asked if I could put together one for elk, and also do some middle of the road .30-'06 loads for his step son. He provides all the components, I get to practice the craft.

In January I managed to crank out about fifty rounds of .280 Remington 140 grain Sierras for varmints but was only able to get to the elk loads today.

I guess he got a deal on the nickel cases but they are turning out to be a bear to use. They come "sized" according to the literature but after I weighed out fifty charges and tried to seat the bullets on to the loaded cases I found that the case mouths were all too tight. The seating process shaved off nasty amounts of the gilding jackets (Nosler 160 grain AccuBonds over 51.7 grains of IMR 4350) of the first two projectiles, even with their boat tail configuration.


I poured the powder charges back into the cannister and returned it (the powder cannister) to the sub basement, then set up to size all the cases in my Herter's double ram press. This meant I had to remove the decapping pin from the sizing die, which took all of five minutes. I shot the cases with spray lube, gave them a minute to dry, and proceeded to get about half of them sized before I had a stuck case. I destroyed the neck expander/ decapping pin holder in getting the case out of the die.

I think I'll suggest he not buy nickel cases. Brass is our friend. I'd be done now, had I been working with brass cases. Now I've got to time getting off work early enough to hit my reloading supplier to pick up another pin.

But I got fifty rounds of .30-'06 done before any of this kerfluffle. I got to spend time in The Cave.

It's been a good weekend. I hope yours was, too. And there is still Spaghetti Night to come!

No new Mosins recently. I let a Ministry of Defense marked 1939 Tula get away Saturday. That's okay, too, since I can't shoot more than two of the ones I own at one time, anyway. I joke, I joke... here's one of my favorites from downstairs, just for fun:

Come on SPRING!

That is all.

Shucks

I liked being an Aries.

Times change.

Yes.

*

This Year To Come

Some things I'll be doing or looking for in the coming year:

1. Be True.

2. Nail down my grasp of AutoCADD, at least enough that I am able to effectively resource CADD data to my surveying software.

3. I'd like to see a Fair/Flat Tax act introduced, preferably by spring. I know it won't pass until after 2012 but getting every franchised citizen a skin in the game is the first most important step toward possibly saving the Republic.

4. I know there won't be any rescinding of Obamacare. The most we can hope for is complete defunding of its provisions. While the socialization of the health care system is a crisis for myriad reasons, remember that the primary goal behind Obamacare is that it is designed to expensively and emotionally distract and entangle the House and Senate from addressing the more lethal threats launched by this administration - exponential growth of regulatory agencies and regulations, specifically EPA, FCC, FDA, and FTC, and the transformation of Justice into a political hit squad.

Destroying the world's premiere health care infrastructure is just a step toward controlling the people, not a goal.

It's an attack. Not an administration.

5. Glass bed one of my Mosins. Just because I can.

6. Find a silver coin with my metal detector.

7. Read three good books I haven't read before.

8. Take a straight week off during the summer and see something of the world with the One True Love.


I hope you have a wonderful New Year. Just be ready.