I have been so engaged in the move (truly the most harrowing one of my life) that I have barely been able to keep abreast of news developments, much less blog about them.

But that did not mean that I missed Barack Obama's fascinating assertion about tire inflation.

Via Ace, the exact quote:

"we could save all the oil that they're talking about getting off drilling if everybody was just inflating their tires."

As it happens, I care very much about inflation. Especially tire inflation. My 1964 Ranchero (which I have taken back from aggressive WASPS) has had a serious inflation problem, and I have had to repeatedly put air in the tires to prevent the recurrence of slow leaks:

But that compressor draws plenty of juice, and it seemed to me that if I kept filling my tires that way, the electricity required to pump the air into them might cut into whatever offset the country would get from having them properly inflated, and it might not make up for the oil the Republicans are talking about drilling.

So, based on the principle of THINK GLOBALLY, ACT LOCALLY, I finally decided to do something to really address the problem. My tires are old, and suffer from slow leaks which aren't readily fixed. And with all the talk about inflation, I figured that replacing the bad tires might do more to save the planet from Republican drilling than would my continued (ultimately Sisyphean) cycles of inflation, and reinflation.

So it was off to the Hub Tire Center for new tires.

In this video I explain in full:

As you can see, it is not cheap to buy tires. I don't mean to nit-pick, but I wonder whether anyone has worked out the economics of whether it would have been cheaper to just keep putting air into them.

I don't know how much oil drilling I offset today, but I think I can truthfully state that I have slowed the inflation rate.

UPDATE: My thanks to Glenn Reynolds for the link, and a warm welcome to all!

Sgt. Mom says the book is part of "...a trilogy, about the German settlements in the Texas Hill Country in the 19th century. Did you know that in Gillespie County became almost solidly German between one decade and the next, and that German was the common language up until the 1920's?".

Here is an excerpt.

A dazzle in his eyes and a roar of noise in his ears: Carl Becker swam up to consciousness and a rough hand shaking his shoulder... the uninjured one. Even at that, pain stabbed up unto his skull, harsh as the Mexican lancer's blade striking him down in a cavalry skirmish outside of Monterray... how many days ago?

"Rudi... is it the soldiers coming for us?" he mumbled in German, and the hand shook him again, commanding

"Speak English, you blockheaded Dutchman... Are you fit enough to walk out of here?"
Carl squinted against the light of a lantern held above his head, and focused against a blur on the face of the man holding it. Ford... Jack's adjutant.

"I feel like dogshit, Rip." He mumbled in reply, and coughed painfully. Rip Ford set down the lantern carefully, and checked the blood-caked bandages on Carl's left shoulder.

"There ain't no bubbling coming out of the deepest cut," he remarked, with professional assurance, and Carl remembered how was said around the campfire that Rip Ford had once trained as a doctor, long before coming to Texas. "So that bastard of a lancer missed your lung by a squeak, but I think you got the lung-fever or the ague sure enough, and a busted collar-bone to boot. You ain't gonna get any better in this-here cesspit. We got some of the boys heading home, now that their enlistments are up, and a courier going with them. There's a place in an empty supply wagon for you, if you can walk to it. You got a home, they can take you to?"

Use the following links to order To Truckee's Trail and pre-order the Adelsverein Trilogy. Especially have a look at the To Truckee's Trail link. Sgt. Mom is looking good.

Eric of Classical Values reviewed Truckee's Trail and liked it. Here is a bit of what Eric said:

It is a riveting read. Close calls with Indian war parties, political treachery, near starvation and freezing to death, and inevitable illnesses and deaths. It's truly amazing that they made it.

Cross Posted at Power and Control

John Kass in the Chicago Tribune comments on the latest Obama video by MoveOn.org. It is a hoot. Also target rich.

Obama hopium was so powerful, that that first rush of it, well, it sent a tingle up my leg. Or down my leg. Then up. So now, when I read newspaper stories about Obama's political history, like a recent gooey, puffy profile in the Washington Post and it didn't mention Obama as a willing member of Chicago's Daley machine, well, I didn't get angry.

Not anymore.

Why? Because I'm a hope-head.

Now, I don't get upset when foreign and national journalists fail to mention Tony Rezko, or the Daley boys, or how the Chicago machine plans to staff the Department of Justice, and the new Department of Homeland Casinos.

Cross Posted at Power and Control

You also might like a bumper sticker about the issue Congress Gives It To You Without Lubrication.

I just came across an interesting thread on some kind of strange Google blog that talks about the Democrat's anti-oil position. One commenter says this about oil drilling (edited slightly for typos and clarity)

The 10 year timeframe that everyone keeps repeating is not a very realistic one. It takes less than a year to construct and get a standard land based 20,000 foot drilling platform producing oil. Offshore jack up rigs can take two to three years and a semi up to 4. The ten year figure got started because that is the estimimate by some so called experts for drilling in ANWR and establishing the infrastructure needed to support it. Mostly due to the fact that the heavy equipment needed to excavate the site can only operate on the tundra during the winter months. Once they have found the right spots and oil starts flowing the permanent platforms and roads would then be constructed.

The no drilling folks have simply adopted the ten year number across the board regardless of where. And they have modified it from "it could take up to 10 years" to "It's just going to take 10 years". as it suits their agenda better.

The Discovery channel had a short series this spring entitled "Oil Strike". It followed several different Wildcatters in their quest for oil. In one episode there were a couple of crews that were each given 10 days to construct a well drill and strike oil. One of them did just that. They won a bet with one of the other crews as a result.

It is extremely unlikely that it will take another 10 years to start pumping oil from that well.

How long it would take is determined more by how many dry holes get drilled before finding oil than it is by the more simple logistics of transportation and delivery.

Then another commenter said that drilling for oil is a zero sum game. I hope he is right because if it is and we start drilling we will get the sums and the Saudis will get the zeros.

Cross Posted at Power and Control

I'm reading the comment section at Reason Magazine and as per usual losing in Iraq is at the top of their agenda. They have much good to say about the Democrats who want to end the Iraq War with an American defeat.

So I'm proposing a new motto to replace "Politics ends at the water's edge." I like:

Stupidity Begins At The Water's Edge

Not even the Libertarian's Saint Jefferson (he was actually a Democrat - see Jefferson Jackson Day Dinners done annually by the Democrats) was that lame (see pirates, Barbary). Did you know the war on the Barbary pirates was not declared? All Jefferson got from Congress was the authorization to build some ships and an AUMF which reads like the AUMF against Iraq almost word for word. Plus the war went on for over a decade and extended into Madison's term.

H/T Instapundit

Cross Posted at Power and Control

In the comments at Confederate Yankee I came across this bit:

Just like a liberal who accuses conservative of being "mindless zombies" isn't actually advocating cranial removal and mass reanimation of Republican corpses.

H/T Instapundit

Cross Posted at Power and Control

Green is not selling the way it used to. This is old news and it is the Onion. But it marks the start of a trend.

STATEN ISLAND, NY-An estimated 450,000 unsold copies of Time's special April 22 Earth Day issue were trucked Monday from the magazine's New Jersey distribution center to the Fresh Kills landfill in Staten Island.

The discarded copies of the issue-which features articles about conservation, biodiversity, and recycling, as well as guest editorials by President Clinton and Leonardo DiCaprio-are expected to decompose slowly over the next 175 years.

"Unfortunately, 'Earth Day 2000' wasn't as successful as we had hoped," Time managing editor Walter Isaacson said. "After selling out of such special issues as 'The Future Of Medicine,' 'Baseball At 100,' 'The Kennedys: An American Dynasty,' and 'Celebrating The American Automobile,' we thought we had another winner with this one. But of a press run of 485,000, only 35,000 sold. I guess we overestimated the demand for a full-color, 98-page Earth Day issue printed on glossy, high-pulp paper."

Green issues don't sell say a number of publishers.

As global warming was first becoming a cause célèbre a few years ago, many serious environmentalists worried that green was in danger of becoming a fad -- something that would inevitably recede from consciousness after overtaxing our limited pop-cultural attention span.

Sad to say, that prediction shows signs of coming true. Last week, The New York Times noted that the advertising industry is pulling back from green-themed marketing, having "grasped the public's growing skepticism over ads with environmental messages.

And advertisers' concerns are buttressed by the recent sales figures for magazines that have published a "Green Issue" this year. Time's Earth Day issue was the newsweekly's third-lowest-selling issue of 2008 so far, according to ABC Rapid Report. A typical issue of Time sells 93,000 or so copies on the newsstand; the April 28 installment, which substituted green for red in the magazine's trademarked cover design, sold only 72,000.

The New York Times says ad agencies are starting to get it.

At an annual gathering of the advertising industry a year ago in Cannes, the environment was the topic du jour. "Be seen, be green," one agency urged on the invitation to its party at a hillside villa.

Al Gore, invited by another agency, delivered a message linked to "An Inconvenient Truth," his book and film about climate change: That the ad industry could play an influential role in encouraging businesses and consumers to change their ways and slow global warming.

The sun was still beating down on the Côte d'Azur last month as advertising executives from around the world returned for this year's festival. But Mr. Gore was nowhere to be found, and the party buzz was about the American presidential election, the Euro 2008 soccer tournament and even the business of advertising itself. Green marketing, while booming, had lost some of its cachet.

Democrats may be in for a rougher time this year than they expect. I have some advice for them: "It's the price of gasoline, stupid."

H/T Counting Cats in Zanzibar

Cross Posted at Power and Control

Welcome Instapundit readers.

Wretchard of the Belmont Club links to some war stories. One of the commenters also gives a link. If you like to read about courage under fire may I suggest that you read them all. This is why we are still in Iraq and the insurgents (for the most part) are not. Sen. Obama - take note.

To my brothers in arms. Get some.

Night Stalkers
Saving Germans
Guitar Heros

Cross Posted at Power and Control

Still moving, and things are crazier than even I could have imagined.

While I would have paid professional movers, the only company I fould find in the area with high recommendations was booked up for the entire period, so I decided to go with YouPack.com. For less than a third of what a regular moving outfit charges, they'll drop off a large (28') trailer, and as the name says, you pack it.

Easier said than done.

Anyway, I don't have time to prattle on , but yesterday a friend who used to work as a mover showed me an ingenious way of tying things down, which is so simple and so strong that I wondered how I ever got along without it.

It's known colloquially as the Trucker's Hitch, and because I had a little trouble remembering what my friend showed me, I was forced to resort to Google.

I found a diagram online, and I am presenting it as a public service:

"Once you learn it, you wonder how you got along without it."

That would be a nice ad slogan. The trouble is, there's no money to be made in ideas, especially if they're tied up in knots.

H/T Lubos Motl's Reference Frame post about Cargo Cult Science.

Adam Nagourney at The New York Times asks with reference to the Obama campaign, "Where's the Bounce?" It may be in his step but it is not showing up in the polls.

WASHINGTON -- It is a question that has hovered over Senator Barack Obama even as he has passed milestone after milestone in his race for the White House: Why is he not doing better?

It shadowed him as he struggled against Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in many states through the primaries, results that sometimes stood at odds with the huge, enthusiastic crowds that turned out to see him. It was there in the exit polls that suggested that many Democrats were uncomfortable with Mr. Obama, putting an asterisk next to some of his biggest primary victories.

And it is back again as he returns from an overseas trip that even Republicans have described as politically triumphant. In this case, the question is why -- given how sour Americans feel about President Bush and the Republican party, and the perception that Mr. Obama is running a better campaign than Senator John McCain -- the senator from Illinois is not scoring even higher in national opinion polls.

Most surveys now show Mr. Obama with a lead of about 6 or 7 percentage points over Mr. McCain nationally, and Mr. Obama rarely breaks the 50 percent threshold. Those are statistics that have given Republicans, who are not exactly feeling joyful these days, a line to grab, and they have fed some underlying anxiety among some Democrats.

"They've known John McCain for years," Bill McInturff, a pollster for Mr. McCain, said of survey participants. "But people say in focus groups, 'Who the heck is Barack Obama? Had you heard of him before six months ago?' And he's 46 years old. He's somebody nobody knows about."

Here is what one commenter there sees:

ridgerunner:

A pattern that I use in stock index trading is what I call a 1-2-3, wherein a trend has three successively steeper subunits. In the Intrade graph that would be 1=subunit from Nov07-Feb08, 2=subunit from Feb08-May08, and 3=subunit from May08-July08. A break of the last subunit probably signals a decline. Then very often there is a rapid retest of the high of subunit 3, followed by a more prolonged decline. The Obama graph is not as vertical as I would like for one to be be before making a sizeable bet but it has the look of a crest.

In any case, may I suggest reading Wretchard's post and the checking out the wisdom of many of the commenters.

As to predictions - here is what I have to say: "Prediction is a lot of fun, especially about the future." Make of it what you will.

PUMA PAC an anti-Obama/pro-Hillary Dem organization takes a look at the bounce question. Here is a bit of what they say:

So if you fancy yourself the Democrats' Karl Rove -- an unbeatable master of politics and strategy, how come the Grand Tour was such a flop for your guy? Sinking in blue swing states, tanking in red states. . . Most Americans believe the Ego Trip, I mean World Tour, hurts or doesn't help his chances in November. Your guy can't even make a dent against an old guy who hasn't even begun to campaign against you in earnest. You're losing during the warm-up? Oops. Groan.

I also liked this piece they did: Walking Eagle. Very funny.

Cross Posted at Power and Control

A blog claiming to represent Bioethics International suggests that having a baby is equivalent to buying and running a patio heater.

A pair of doctors have said that British parents should have fewer children, because kids cause carbon emissions and climate change. The two medics suggest that choosing to have a third child is the same as buying a patio heater or driving a gas-guzzling car, and that GPs should advise their patients against it.

Will the people who came up with this idea suggest that families start turning out more patio heaters if the solar guys are right?

In any case I always distrust these kinds of folks. It is just a short ways from declaring that there are too many people to industrial solutions to the problem. The question then becomes which people will get the industrial treatment?

Cross Posted at Power and Control

Peter Huber in Forbes takes a look at the reality of carbon hysteria.

A number of influential people in Russia, China, India, Indonesia and Vietnam say the planet is now entering a 30-year cooling period, the second half of a normal cycle driven by cyclical changes in the sun's output and currents in the Pacific Ocean. Their theory leaves true believers in carbon catastrophe livid.

To judge by actions, not words, the carbon-warming view hasn't come close to persuading a political majority even in nations considered far more environmentally enlightened than China and India. Europe's coal consumption is rising, not falling, and the Continent won't come close to meeting the Kyoto targets for carbon reduction. Australia is selling coal to all comers.

No serious student of global politics can accept the notion that the world will soon join ranks behind Brussels, Washington and the gloomy computer and its minders. Dar is surely right when he says, "The U.S. and Japan will not tell Asia and Africa to choose poverty, disease, hunger and illiteracy over electricity." Europe might, but nobody will listen. It won't have moral authority until its own citizens are emitting less carbon than Bangladeshis. That won't happen soon.

So does the climate computer have a real audience, or is it really just another bag lady muttering away to herself in a lonely corner of the intellectual park? That the computer is heard in Hollywood, Stockholm, Brussels and even some parts of Washington is quite beside the point--they have far less global power and influence than they vainly imagine. Vinod Dar is right: "Contingency planning should entail strategic responses to a warming globe, a cooling globe and a globe whose climate reverberates with laughter at human hubris."

Of course if CO2 is not really a problem, the cheapest thing to do and the best for plants is to do nothing. Plants just love CO2 and for most of them the optimum CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is around 5,000 ppm. We have a long way to go to get there. Many centuries worth of burning carbon based fuels. In any case we are not going to be burning much fossil fuel in 2100 due to the advance of solar and wind technologies, not to mention the definite possibility of fusion power.

What do I think? The era of carbon craziness is almost over.

H/T Insty

Cross Posted at Power and Control

Welcome Instapundit readers. May I suggest a look at Patio Heaters which covers the "we must reduce population" faction.

I just did a post about this post and the decline of the enviro movement Fresh Kills. Congress should take note before the Critters there start losing elections.

They say that war is hell, and while I think that's true, moving comes a pretty close second.

That's why I haven't been blogging these past few days, and only now have the briefest amount of time for a teensy post.

This is a response to a post and the subsequent comments about AL Gore's plan for powering America with alternative energy in ten years.

First:

Al Gore is an idiot.

Second:

He is a promoter. He stands to get very rich if he can persuade Congress to implement his schemes.

Third:

Solar scientists are predicting a little ice age. How many solar scientists are on the IPCC? Hint: less than one.

Fourth:

Al is totally ignorant of logistics. Just making all the solar cells required in 10 years is not possible. The best place to put them is the desert. Not many power lines in the desert. What is the total world solar cell production capacity? We can make maybe 100 MW (peak electrical output) per year. We need to make 500 GW or so just for America (and that just covers the power when the sun is shining). Wind power is more promising and the upper Mid West is the best place. Problem? Power lines.

Fifth:

The longer we put off going solar the better the technology will be. So what should be done now is what is economically feasible. No subsidies or mandates. Same for wind.

Sixth:

The #1 problem with alternative energy is storage. Al says nothing about that.

Seventh:

To make all this come together we will need 2 MV DC power lines. How many 2 MV DC power lines are there any where in the world? Zero. Who is currently planning on building any? No one.

Did I mention Al Gore is an idiot?

Well maybe not so much. He has conned a lot of rubes after all.

Cross Posted at Power and Control

An old cowboy responded to an Englishman who asked, "Is your master about?"

"That sombitch ain't been born yet", the cowboy replied.

From the comments at American Thinker.

Cross Posted at Power and Control

Samizdata has a bit up on flying in old aircraft. War birds and commercial jobs. Here is a bit I added to the discussion:

Way back in the dark ages (early 60s) I got to fly in a DC-3 that was carrying passengers. It was an experience.

Conversation in the cabin was hopeless in flight.

The only reason screaming kids are a problem these days is that aircraft are so quiet. We didn't know how good we had it.

The New Republic has a pretty good article up explaining European misconceptions of America. The article especially looks at Obama's recent German rallies and how those rallies feed European misconceptions.

Europe's favorite dream: a post-Bush America cut down to size and chastened, a meeker and more modest America, a more "European" (that is, a more social-democratic) America, which at last casts off some of its nastier capitalist habits. An America that is a lot more like us Europeans who have forgone power politics and sovereignty in favor of communitarian politics and integration.

This is the canvas Europeans have been painting with wildly enthusiastic brush strokes. If Obama wins, the reality will be different. Sure, President Obama would speak more softly than did Mr. Bush in his first term, but he would still be carrying the biggest stick on earth. He will preside over an America that is still No. 1 and not part of a multipolar chorus populated by Russia, China, India, and the E.U.

Germans should have read the foreign-policy chapter in Obama's The Audacity of Hope. There are passages in there which read like pure Bush--on unilateralist action, on the right of pre-emption, on playing the world's "sheriff." Obama's upshot: "This will not change--nor should it." This doesn't mean more Bushism if Obama is elected. But it is a useful reminder that the U.S. plays in a league of its own--with global interest, with global military means, and with the willingness to use them.

In Berlin, hundreds of thousands will cheer a projection rather than a flesh-and-blood Obama on Thursday. After Inauguration Day, alas, Europe and the world will not face a Dreamworks president, but the leader of a superpower. Whether McCain or Obama, the 44th president will speak more nicely than did W. in his first term. He will also pay more attention to the "decent opinions of mankind." But he will still preside over the world's largest military, economic, and cultural power.

This vast power differential is what Germans and Europeans don't quite fathom in their infatuation with Obama. Their problem was not Mr. Bush, but Mr. Big--America as Behemoth Among the Nations, unwilling to succumb to the dictates of goodness that animate post-heroic, post-imperial, and post-sovereign Europe.

The fact that the Germans rallied for Obama is not a big selling point in these United States. In fact it could be a a negative point. Note to Obama - large French rallies are a less threatening image than huge rallies in Berlin. You would think Mr. Image would be able to get this. If not him, his staff. He seems to have a really tin ear for this stuff. It didn't help Kerry any to be identified with Europe. Well France any way - Kerry was ridiculed for aligning himself with "surrender monkeys". Obama will be ridiculed for aligning himself with a nation we had to beat into a bloody pulp to get them to behave. Of course that is all history now. Except for the funny guy with a mustache who, even now, gets a lot of unwanted press. Europe is a no win situation for any American politician stumping for President. Did Obama think that by giving a speech in Germany he could do a Kerry without getting all stigmatized by it? Some one needs to explain that it is not any particular country, but Europe itself that is the problem. Being President insulates you from all that (its just business). Being a candidate does not.

So how could he have gotten away with it? Go to Britain. Except that the Labor Government there is falling apart. That is not a good image to project for a person who is on the far left of practical American politics (i.e. not on the lunatic fringe - but close).

In any case the differential between American growth rates and European growth rates is going to widen the divide. What can the Europeans do? Become more like Americans. In that sense his speech shows that Obama is going in the wrong direction. Americans do not want to join the European league (the phrase in America is bush league - har). He should at the very least be thinking of dragging Europe our way, rather than making efforts to drag America to theirs. That might have mitigated what will, I predict, be the downfall of the Obama campaign.

I'm told Obama has rented a stadium for his Convention acceptance speech. Wrong direction Barry. We are going to see more of those pictures juxtaposing him with that German guy with the funny mustache. Barry, what are you thinking? For a man whose campaign is image over substance, he has to be very careful not to tarnish his image, because once that his gone he has nothing.

Cross Posted at Power and Control

Eric in a post on the Obama birth certificate controversy asks a question of the utmost importance in this campaign.

Aren't Americans entitled to know the Truth?

Cross Posted at Power and Control

Well isn't this special. Obama says a visit to wounded troops would be inappropriate.

BERLIN (AP) - Sen. Barack Obama scrapped plans to visit wounded members of the armed forces in Germany as part of his overseas trip, a decision his spokesman said was made because the Democratic presidential candidate thought it would be inappropriate on a campaign-funded journey.

So what would be more appropriate? Putting On The Ritz.

++ Obama Takes Time to Work Out ++

4:49 p.m.: Obama enters the luxury Ritz Carlton hotel wearing a T-shirt, black sweatpants and white trainers -- apparantly to work out in the hotel's gym. He kept up the campaigning on the way there, smiling and waving at tourists and other onlookers.

Atlas Shrugs may have some insight about what was behind the change in plans.

A very interesting email from a source I must protect suggests that Obama's visit to the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center had the green light until a campaign staffer raised a stink about going with Obama. (There are rules meant to ensure candidates do not use soldiers or military bases for campaign purposes, and they state that personal and committee staff may accompany a sitting senator on a visit but campaign staff may not.) I am told that when one of Obama's campaign staff was told he or she would be denied access, the visit was canceled.

The last-minute cancellation speaks more poorly of this unidentified staffer than of Obama himself. But in the end, shouldn't Obama have been able to say, "fine, the staffer stays in Berlin (or where-ever) and I'm going to Landstuhl? Can he still say so?

In any case, I wouldn't be surprised if it was part of an evolution in his campaign tactics to prevent gaffs. Keeping Obama from making public appearances without his paid minders is something I can understand. How will he know what to say without some one whispering in his ear? Which probably says something unflattering about Obama's (57) states of mind.

H/T Instapundit

Cross Posted at Power and Control

The Inquirer has done it again.

Their front page article about Obama's Ich bin ein Obamanburg Gater! speech is not available at the Inquirer web site, which has this AP writetup. On today's front page, though, is an earlier (apparently last night's) version of this New York Times writeup, and all I wanted to do was quote this paragraph, which appears in a (strategically?) different place in Times edition than in the Inquirer edition:

Manfred Krause, 65, a retired citizen of the former East Germany, said Mr. Obama's address brought back memories of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s quieter visit to East Berlin in 1964, when he was a student. As Mr. Krause waited for Mr. Obama's arrival on Thursday, he said, "I thought, here is someone coming from the same place."

However, it does appear that Obama has the East German vote wrapped up! Oh, and also the German press:

The address received overwhelmingly positive attention from the German news media, which has frequently gushed over Mr. Obama for his aura, or as the large-circulation Bild daily put it on Wednesday, the "political pop star."

And what about this?

Campaign volunteers holding clipboards shouted to passers-by, "Stop here, registering American citizens to vote!" Bratwurst-and-beer stands shared space with vendors who were selling an array of Obama products, including a T-shirt that declared, "The World For Obama '08."

That's because we greedy Americans have disenfranchised the World.

In honor of Congressional restrictions on drilling for oil in America we have a new bumper sticker:

Click on the image to order one or more bumper stickers.

If you want to add the above image to a post, I explain how here.

Thanks to Karl Egenberger of Envision Design/ Plum Creative Associates who did the artwork.

I just came across a site with streaming High Definition Videos. Vreel. It looks very good with my 720p monitor. It must be awesome at 1080. Of course besides the high def monitor you will need a broadband connection.

H/T zbarlici

Cross Posted at Power and Control

The Obama birth certificate truthers (discussed in these posts) have suffered a setback in light of the discovery of a birth notice in the August 1961 Honululu Advertiser.

However, they're apparently gearing up with new questions, like "Have you noticed that there are no photos of Obama as an infant?"

Actually, I don't usually spend much time with baby pictures, although I've recently been forced to go through my own as I consolidate things in preparation for moving. However, I remembered that I did see a picture of Obama as a baby, shown here with his mother:

What this proves is absolutely amazing. Barack Obama was once a baby! And his mother seems actually to have held him!

What will the Truthers say?

Hot Air concludes that the Advertiser notice ought to end the nonsense:

Unless someone wants to argue that the Advertiser decided to participate in a conspiracy at Obama's birth in 1961 to provide false citizenship on the off-chance that an infant from a union of a Kenyan father and a teenage mother would run for President, then I'd say the "mystery" is over.

What proof do we have that Barack Obama was ever born at all?

I mean, the Truthers are spinning their wheels trying to show he's an alien, right?

What if he's this kind of alien?

I see a striking resemblance.

And I'm not the first to notice:

It's waaay too early to say "case closed."

Aren't Americans entitled to know the Truth?

One of the worst aspects of moving has been the inordinate amount of time I have spent on hold.

Seriously. Precious hours have been wasted. For whatever reason, the large telephone and Internet companies hire either incompetent Americans or people in foreign countries to supply "customer support."

Things have reached the point where I am relieved if I get a foreigner, and I never thought I'd think that.

I haven't been following the Obama birth certificate kerfluffle, but other people have been. Including a guy who who claims to be a forensic document examiner. Let me start with a little background:

Barack Obama may be on a world tour surrounded by a fawning media, but Sunday an expert in electronic document forensics released a detailed report on the purported birth certificate -- actually a "Certification of Live Birth" or COLB -- claimed as genuine by his campaign. The expert concludes with 100% certainty that it is a crudely forged fake: "a horribly forgery," according to the analysis published on the popular right-wing Atlas Shrugs blog.

The analysis was done by a person who calls himself Techdude.

Techdude's detailed report, which runs more than 3000 words and 20 pages with extensive magnified illustrations and comparisons, reaches the following conclusion about the documented that was first published on the Daily Kos extreme left-wing blog and subsequently publicly endorsed by the Obama campaign, both in statements by official spokesmen, and featured on its "Fight the Smears" website. Here are some of conclusions:

"The (Daily) KOS image security border pattern does not match any known specimen from any known year. It does not match the pre-2006 nor does it match the post-2006 certificate patterns. The placement of the text in all of the pre-2006 and post-2006 certificates are almost identical pixel location matches while the image?s text placement does not match any known specimen from any known year. The shape and kerning of the fonts used in the 2006 through 2008 certificates are identical while the shape and kerning of the fonts used in the image does not match any known specimen. The KOS image shows clear signs of tampering such as the mismatch in RGB and error levels, visible indications of the previous location of the erased security border, easily detectable patterns of repeating flaws around the new security border, EXIF data that says the image was last saved with Photoshop CS3 for Macintosh, and finally a technician from Hawaii who confirms it just looks wrong."

So what does this tell us about Obama? Nothing. If the document is a forgery it may be a red herring: something done to generate controversy so that the real document can later be produced to discredit those who bought into the "not a citizen" riff.

Or it may be Obama is not a citizen of these 57 (or is it 59?) States.

Keep your eye on this one. How ever it turns out it will be interesting.

Cross Posted at Power and Control

Simon's post about forced change being wasteful was so good that I'm glad I haven't had time to blog.

However, the whole issue of the government forcing change on people is a pet peeve, and I recently read a horror story about New Jersey (where else?) legislation forcing local governments to provide "affordable housing":

Actually, the landmark bill Corzine signed last week reformed the state's affordable-housing policy by doing two things. One, it requires every municipality in New Jersey to provide for poor, as well as moderate-income, families. (Before, towns got around the requirement by building only for moderate-income residents and seniors.)

I found more details here. Apparently, local governments have been evading their "responsibility" to provide the housing by entering into regional contribution agreements. No more!

...[local governments] have a constitutional responsibility to provide the opportunity for low- and moderate-income housing

The new measure signed by the governor closes a loophole in those laws that allowed suburban and rural towns to enter into regional contribution agreements with cities and poor towns to accept part of their required share of affordable housing in return for funds to rehabilitate existing low-income housing.

Since 1990, Burlington County towns have paid other towns a total of $19.3 million to rehabilitate 953 units of affordable housing, according to statistics from the state Department of Community Affairs.

Advocates for the poor say these agreements enabled rich suburbs to circumvent their court-ordered obligation to provide affordable housing.

But officials in suburban towns worry this new law -- as well as new administrative rules that increase the number of affordable housing units they are required to provide -- will allow developers to build large housing developments that could be burdensome for existing taxpayers.

Corzine and other supporters, however, contend that existing land-use laws still would be enforceable and that towns would be free to negotiate with the state Council on Affordable Housing to devise acceptable plans for reaching their fair share of affordable housing.

He noted the new law creates a fee on new commercial development that will provide $20 million annually for grants for building new affordable units or rehabilitating existing affordable homes and apartments. The law also requires that towns provide housing for the very poor -- including some earning less than 30 percent of the area's median income.

It is nothing less than unadulterated socialism.

A brave few are calling it just that:

According to the latest affordable housing guidelines no longer can towns pay to have their affordable housing mandate shifted to another community that wants or needs housing. That means that Bergen County will have to add 4,689 more affordable housing units and 554 rehabilitated housing units to meet the state mandate. Those figures do not include the thousand or more housing units that would have to be built in East Rutherford to accommodate housing mandates for the 2.2 million square-feet Xanadu mega-mall.

At a 5 to 1 ratio of market rate housing to affordable units granted to builders by the state, Bergen County could end up hosting more than 23,000 new units of housing. Additionally the new rules require one affordable unit be built for every 16 new jobs created in a town and levy a 2.5 percent tax on new non-residential development.

The new eligibility income limits for those eligible for affordable housing, said Calabrese, are more than the median income in most South Bergen Municipalities. Now families of four with incomes exceeding $77,000, and families of five with incomes topping $83,238 will get subsidized housing.

"If this isn't Socialism, then I don't know what is," said Calabrese, a real estate executive.

Now go back to China, you fools who thought you could come here and enjoy economic freedom. The text of the legislation is summarized here with links to the bill's language.

It's a disgrace, seeing such top-down tyranny in a supposedly free country. If they keep this stuff up, I wouldn't be surprised to see an exodus of the productive classes from New Jersey. They better leave now, before the state planners decide that people should be told where they can and cannot live subject to government approval, and restrictions are placed on selling or moving.

Think this is paranoia? Think they wouldn't do it if they could?

Already, big lefties like former California Governor Jerry Brown (who's gearing up to run again) promote deadly serious dreams of creating a Better World in which people are told where to live:

Today he is mulling a run for governor in 2010, when he will be 72.

In the meantime, Mr. Brown is taking aim at the suburbs, concerned about the alleged environmental damage they cause. He sees suburban houses as inefficient users of energy. He sees suburban commuters clogging the roads as wasting precious fossil fuel. And, mostly, he sees wisdom in an intricately thought-out plan to compel residents to move to city centers or, at least, to high-density developments clustered near mass transit lines.

Mr. Brown is not above using coercion to create the demographic patterns he wants. In recent months, he has threatened to file suit against municipalities that shun high-density housing in favor of building new suburban singe-family homes, on the grounds that they will pollute the environment. He is also backing controversial legislation -- Senate bill 375 -- moving through the state legislature that would restrict state highway funds to communities that refuse to adopt "smart growth" development plans. "We have to get the people from the suburbs to start coming back" to the cities, Mr. Brown told planning experts in March.

The problem is, that's not what Californians want. For two generations, residents have been moving to the suburbs. They are attracted to the prospect, although not always the reality, of good schools, low crime rates and the chance to buy a home. A 2002 Public Policy Institute of California poll found that 80% of Californians prefer single-family homes over apartment living....

I've been complaining about socialism, and I realize that it's a politically unacceptable term to use. But the forces of socialism are closing in for the kill. With socialized health care, the government confiscating an ever greater share of your money, restrictions on where to live, and the clamor for restrictions on the ability to travel, the noose is tightening.

Socialism can still be stopped, but if it isn't stopped soon by the people who have the majority to stop it, it may be too late.

Commenter Pastorius commenting on my article on Moore's Law suggested I have a look at this article by Ray Kurzweil on the accelerating rate of the rate of change.

...a serious assessment of the history of technology shows that technological change is exponential. In exponential growth, we find that a key measurement such as computational power is multiplied by a constant factor for each unit of time (e.g., doubling every year) rather than just being added to incrementally. Exponential growth is a feature of any evolutionary process, of which technology is a primary example.

One can examine the data in different ways, on different time scales, and for a wide variety of technologies ranging from electronic to biological, and the acceleration of progress and growth applies. Indeed, we find not just simple exponential growth, but "double" exponential growth, meaning that the rate of exponential growth is itself growing exponentially. These observations do not rely merely on an assumption of the continuation of Moore's law (i.e., the exponential shrinking of transistor sizes on an integrated circuit), but is based on a rich model of diverse technological processes. What it clearly shows is that technology, particularly the pace of technological change, advances (at least) exponentially, not linearly, and has been doing so since the advent of technology, indeed since the advent of evolution on Earth.

What does this mean in terms of solving humanity's technical problems? Say energy for instance. It says we should put off implementing a solution for as long as possible because better solutions are just around the corner. Al Gore's idea that we need to rush to fix our reliance on fossil fuels chop, chop, double quick, is flat out wrong. It would be much better for us to rely on current technologies for as long as possible (at least until the alternatives become economically competitive) because the solutions we will have available in five or ten years will be so much better than the ones available today. The important thing is to avoid, thorough any kind of government program, getting locked in or promoting any given technology.

In the home computer market that is pretty much what we do. If we assume a doubling of capability every two years replacing your home computer every four to six years makes a lot of sense. In four years your "old" machine will have 25% of the power of what is currently on the market. In six years the "old" machine will have 12.5% of the capacity of the latest and greatest. Its economic value at that time (six years after purchase) will be around zero. Which is why if you go out on garbage day looking for a computer you will generally find machines about five to eight years old. Business is a little different. They can't afford to get too far behind in technology. Which is why they get new computers on a three year schedule. They can't afford to give up more than a factor of three to their competition.

Here is another example (based on hypotheticals). Suppose we do a big push on solar and then some kind of nuclear fusion "magic" comes along reducing the price of electricity by a factor of 10X? Under those circumstances the less we spend on alternative energy at today's prices the better off we will be. Given the accelerating rate of change we are bound to come up with some new kind of "magic" of one sort or the other.

It all depends on the learning curve of a particular technology. I'm not sure what the learning curve for solar is but I can guarantee that what we can do in five years will be much better and more cost effective than what we can do today. Kurzweil estimates that the rate of technological change in 2100 will be around 20,000 times the rate of today. That is pretty damn fast. How fast? Changes that we would see in five years at todays accelerating rate will happen in a day around 2100. (I haven't done the math so that number is just an estimated representation to give a feel for what is happening).

What does this tell us in general? Forcing change is wasteful. Real environmentalists (who inherently are conservative) will resist change until the market provides economic solutions, because forcing change increases waste. We saw this in the solar boom in the Carter era. It didn't work out. Because of government subsidies there was a huge amount of waste. Or as that most wise of sages once said:

Patience grasshopper.

Cross Posted at Power and Control

We are about to come to the end of an era. Moore's law is coming up against fundamental limits. Right now the smallest transistors require hundreds to thousands of atoms. It will hard to get transistors much smaller than that. In addition as transistors get smaller than that, overall circuits actually get slower and require more power.

Chip and IC equipment makers are at a crossroads as they enter an era that might be called "More than Moore."

The relentless pursuit of scaling over the last 40 years, in accordance with the famed postulate known as Moore's Law, continues to be an aggressive goal.

However, the buzz at the Semicon West equipment show last week suggests the time has come to rethink what is scalable and examine other ways of adding value to semiconductor devices.

Although leading IC makers Intel and IBM remain committed to Moore's Law (Intel in part out of respect for founder Gordon Moore's scaling formula), both are starting to address its limits. In addition, those limits are not just technical; they are economic as well.

Is it still practical?
At Semicon West, where the relentless market pressures facing chipmakers are measured in the progress of tools able to refine physical transistor gate lengths down to 22nm, the Greek chorus of industry gurus sounded a warning: In chasing after ever smaller and denser devices, it might just not be practical to go on scaling for the sake of scaling.

"It's been an economic issue all along," said keynoter Bernie Meyerson, an IBM fellow and CTO of the IBM Systems and Technology Group.

"Moore's Law stipulates that you need to double the density of chips every 12 to 18 months [for scaling purposes]; that's an economic, not a technical issue."

The recipe for scaling is expensive and geometries are approaching single atoms, which won't scale. Those facts are forcing the industry to look "beyond CMOS," simply because "the result of further scaling is more power consumption, more costly [devices] and slower operation," said Meyerson.

So what are some possible answers? Stacking chips is one answer. That assumes that you can get the power out of a 3D structure without raising temperatures excessively. Another possibility is more efficient computer languages that get more done with fewer instruction cycles. As many of you know I like FORTH for that purpose. It is a language that lends itself well to mechanization in silicon. Our premier language today, C and its variants - not so much. Another thing FORTH has going for it is that the number of transistors for a given processor (8 bit, 16 bit, 32 bit etc.) is much smaller than the number required for current designs. Fewer transistors means that the transistors will be closer together (that will speed things up because the speed of light is now a fundamental limitation) and fewer transistors also means less heat production. Heat slows down the kind of transistors used in computers (MOSFETs) and it also causes problems because that heat must be dissipated.

Quantum computing might also help. Except for a couple of things. The number of bits (Q bits) is currently small and quantum computing requires temperatures near absolute zero.

One thing to keep in mind is that we have at least another 10 years to go with what we currently know. We may find an answer in that time. Another thing that will help is that every 10 years we double the area that is produced per batch (wafer). That means that cost reductions will slow down if that is the best we can do. However, we still have a ways to go before cost reductions stop all together.

Cross Posted at Power and Control