CIA preventing former engineer from writing book on K-129 salvage

CIA preventing former engineer from writing book on K-129 salvage: "David Sharp, now 75 and one of the CIA engineers behind the Glomar Explorer's attempt to raise the Soviet submarine, K-129, has been trying to write a book about the mission.

The CIA has been denying him the ability to tell his story based on 'security' concerns, although most of the details of this story have been revealed already.

You may have read and seen it in Blind Man's Bluff, but there have been several documentaries about this, as well.

Hopefully, Mr. Green will get to write his book, and tell us something new about this exercise. Sounds like his angle is the engineering challenges this project faced.

"

Alfa Romeo Coming Back to States in 2012

I had been considering getting rid of my Jeep Liberty soon, but, if Alfa is coming back to the states in 2012, I guess I can wait two years.

If all Fiat/Chrysler is going to do is badge engineer and position Alfa against BMW/Mercedes, I may have to reconsider.  I really can't see paying a premium for Chrysler.

Fiat, however, is bringing the Fiat 500 microcar to market first.  If you're not familiar with these size cars, check it out here...

Tech blows another one at home. One game closer to end of Hewitt era.

After handing Carolina its ass this week, Tech was primed to win one on the road at Maryland.

However, horrible free throw shooting (as usual; 11-20 and 2-8 for Gani Lawal), and an interesting addition of .6 seconds to the clock at the end allowed Maryland to hit a jumper as time ran out to pull out the home win.

Unless Paul Hewitt somehow convinces Derrick Favors to stick around for another year, here's to another nail in the Hewitt coffin.

Tech Sucking it up against Wake

Tech losing to Wake Forest now 70-64.  Playing our way to an NIT berth.

Good thing from this season: Goodbye Paul Hewitt.

More Snow Pics...

Snow Day in Georgia

Since the rest of the East Coast is enjoying an unusually snowy winter, the South finally decided that instead of our usual 2 inches of rain this week, we'd go for a little snow.

Without further ado, it's been snowing about 1.5 hours now, and here's how it looks here.  We're expecting a whopping 1"-3" today.

That's a lot for us, though.

Obligatory Porch View

View from the front

Another front view

Fun Times!

Just wanted to go ahead and spread the news.  I was accepted entry into the Help for Heroes 2010 European Rally.  http://www.h4hrally.co.uk/  H4H is a charity in the UK here for wounded British soldiers in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.  The event is to raise money for the charity.  The itinerary is amazing, It's 10 days driving across Europe covering 1800 miles through six countries. 

I'll be driving my 1984 Land Rover 90.  It'll be set up for the offroad events along the way and will likely be painted up by a guy in my squadron who's very talented and has created lots of T-shirts and patches.  I'm going to be doing a bunch of fund raisers here to raise money for the event, but just wanted to share the news with the rest of y'all.  I'll be sure to post updates as I get the truck ready and kitted out.  The event is June 19th-29th, so I won't be in the UK if anybody is planning a visit at those times. 

Got cancer, but no insurance? Don't worry, Obama will eulogize you if you wear his t-shirt to the grave

I guess it doesn't matter to the universal health care crowd that this a woman who was "very active" in the Obama campaign had breast cancer and no health insurance, but, at least she will be buried in her Obama t-shirt.

From Moonbattery, Moonbat Burial Shroud:

"At a Democrat fundraiser in Washington DC, Zero informed his Cult that true devotion to the Leader extends beyond life, and into the grave.

'I got a letter - I got a note today from one of my staff -- they forwarded it to me -- from a woman in St. Louis who had been part of our campaign, very active, who had passed away from breast cancer. She didn't have insurance. She couldn't afford it, so she had put off having the kind of exams that she needed. And she had fought a tough battle for four years. All through the campaign she was fighting it, but finally she succumbed to it. And she insisted she's going to be buried in an Obama t-shirt.'"

Aerial View of Starfish

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What the iPad Means for the Future of Computing

What the iPad Means for the Future of Computing

Tech Wins!

Tech hands Wake Forest a beat down.  After losing to ACC also-ran FSU twice this season, it's nice to beat the crap out of a second tier ACC school.

How's Carolina doing?

Bad to Worse for Obama - Random Thoughts

• Frank J (over at IMAO) says Obama is going to announce a freeze on any new Democrat representatives.
• Tacking to the center, Obama will ask Congress to repeal 'Don't ask, don't tell' in SOTU
• Michael Bloomberg (Mayor of New York) says no to terror trial in lower Manhattan.
• Can't wait to see Eric Holder up on the Hill testifying about the interrogation and subsequent Mirandizing of underwear bomber.
• World class cretin John Edwards and wife split . Didn't see that one coming.
• Apple introduced the iPad today. Just a big iPod Touch? For $499 you get a big MP3 player and an ebook reader, plus it is promised to run iWorks, so you can work on the thing.
• Republicans have been warned: No "You Lie" moments. Jay to Bam: Try not lying.

"

Bam to Moon: "Been There, Done That"

The Orlando Sentinel reports today that the Obama administration plans to propose cutting funds for further manned moon exploration.

As you may know, a key part of NASA's post-Space Shuttle plans involved a return to the moon, using the Ares booster as part of the Constellation project. It has been controversial, with a recent commission headed by former Lockheed CEO Norm Augustine, saying NASA's plans were significantly underfunded.

As a conservative, and in a time of great budget pressures, the cancellation of a return to the moon is probably a good decision, if it hurts national pride somewhat, and means that people in Florida, Alabama, and Texas will lose jobs, well, what does Bam care about those red staters, anyway.

On the other hand, as I have posted before, I'd rather us spend $787B on space exploration and defense projects than what Stimulus 1 spent it on (ummm, nothing useful). To reiterate, nothing would show the Chinese who the biggest, baddest kid on the block is than sending men back to the moon, and building a 600 ship Navy. Take that, China!

Instead, Bam wants NASA to focus on measuring the effects of global warming. Now, that's useful.

Anyway, a pretty sad day.

Toyota's Suck?

Toyota is recalling over 2M cars, and suspending sales of pretty much every model they make, due to issues with stuck accelerator pedals.

I know many of the readers and contributors to this blog have Toyotas.  They are great, reliable cars.  However, better be careful in your Avalon, Matrix, Highlander, and Sequoia.  I think they're all guilty models.

This article has some useful advice about what to do if this happens to you:

• First, try to hit the pedal or agitate it to make sure nothing is forcing it down.
• Next, PUT THE CAR IN NEUTRAL IMMEDIATELY, and gently start to brake, being aware of the traffic around you, and pull the car to the side of the street or road as soon as possible.  
• The last resort is turning off the ignition, but you have to make sure that you do not lock the steering wheel. You will lose your power in the brakes and steering. DO NOT try to drive the vehicle, as it will rev the engine to a dangerous level.

It would take a series of malfunctions to prevent the car from going into neutral and still have this problem, but, I suppose it's possible that a stuck accelerator, coupled with a transmission problem, coupled with a car that has one of those pushbutton starters that fails, could make all these ineffective.  Then, what do you do?

My suggestion would be to use all the brakes the car can muster.  Try anything you can to get the car out of gear.  Neutral obviously preferred.  But, lower gears will slow the car, perhaps enough to allow you to safely use the brakes without burning them out.  Use the parking brake.

Here's the deal on that California accident that started this whole mania with Toyota.  I don't believe it, because the driver was a state trooper, who should have known how to stop the car.  My theory is it was suicide.

Women and rats...

So, we've been having a little rodent problem here in Georgia.

A couple weeks ago, a guest saw a rat in the kitchen. I kind of discounted it, but, discovered some evidence and trotted out a couple of traps to catch the little guy.  With two dogs, hiding places that the sleeping idiots (the dogs) wouldn't stumble on and injure themselves are at a premium, but I found one.

At the same time, granma had rotator cuff surgery and was staying with us (and her two dogs, making four) and sleeping in our recliner to recover.  One night, we're watching a movie, and we hear a "bang."  It's one of my traps going off, and there's a rat, free of the trap, but, obviously incapacitated.  Well, suddenly, the two women are all compassionate for this not-dead cretin.  He hadn't gotten himself snared in the trap, but I boxed him up and took him outside to whack him and put him out of his misery.  Well, when I opened the box to smack him (oh, for a gun!), he had recovered enough and sped off into the darkness.  Drat!

Now, Amy is going to to stay at granma's for a few days as she recovers at home, but, I am thinking, ok, rat gone.  All is well.  Except, one night I am enjoying "24" and I hear a racket from under the stove, and I turn around, and there's a big ole rat and I in a Mexican standoff.  Either he has a friend, or he's back. Amy's still staying with granma and one morning I come downstairs and I have a little blood trail.  I check my traps and sure enough, one's tripped, but he someone freed himself, or was injured in the process.  At this point, without telling Amy, I decide to supplement my traps with a couple of glue traps.  I had been forbidden to use these, as they were inhumane.  But, hey, she's at granma's and won't be the wiser.  Can anyone, please, tell me, the plan is the RAT ENDS UP DEAD, since when do I have a responsibility to be humane?  I have a responsibility to KILL him.

This past Friday, Amy's back for good, since granma is able to take care of herself pretty much on her own now, and she notices the glue traps.  She's not happy, but, I am like, hey, gotta catch the little rat, and he's evading the real traps.

So, this morning, at 7:30, we're awakened, as usual, by whining dogs (pee time?).  Amy is kind enough to let them out and she hears squirming under the piece of furniture I have my rat gauntlet (2 glue traps, 2 traditional traps) under.  She's all mad, because she thinks this rat has gotten itself caught in the glue trap and is suffering, so I am summoned, to finish it off.

Turns out, the little moron got whacked by the regular trap and was just finishing up his death throes (this is probably what got the dogs up, of course, they didn't have the energy to do any real investigation).  The trap had flipped and landed in the glue trap beside it.  So, I have a rat caught in a trap caught in a glue trap.  It's actually funny.  Not to mention that when I go to get my reusable trap unstuck from the glue trap, I get my gloves caught in the glue.   haha.

Keeping  a long story long, rat's gone (confirmed dead). Hopefully he has no more brothers, but I have a glue trap and a regular trap still waiting for them....

What's your best rat story and what do you find the most effective way to capture these disgusting little creatures?

Gibbs on Fox, redux

My latest political brilliance is up at SleepyEyedWhiners.  Washington Bob Gibbs on Fox News with Chris Wallace today.

A brilliant analysis of the moron Gibbs and the head-in-the-ground Obama administration.

Can  you say "President Palin"?

Get used to it now.

KKG website

Here's the link to the Epsilon Gamma website, in case anyone wants to see what I've been up to at school. I'm in pictures all over the website, so take a look!

Also, sad about the Carolina basketball game tonight. I guess it's too much to ask to have a good season after winning the National Championship...

Chris Matthews Crapping His Pants. The Tingle is Gone

Because they're being so circumspect on Fox about the Scott/Coakley race, I decided to flip over to MSNBC and see what those commies over there were doing.

My old fave, Chris Matthews has seen the thrill up his leg reduced to a vibration.  Howie Fineman, some other Lib and Chris are all over there whining about how rough things are for Dems and that it would have taken a Kennedy to win this seat, "Teddy Kennedy's Seat" as Chris likes to say.

Haha!

It's "The People's Seat" as Scott Brown likes to say!

Only old fashioned thievery can save them now...

Beach Shots

Looking at my picture folder, I have a few shots I took at the beach, specifically the day we went to the Music Park:

New Den Arrangement

For some reason, we decided to rearrange our den this weekend.  Looks a lot better, and I got to move my recliner from the basement to the den.

These were taken with my phone, so they're not that good:

Jay replies to Pop who replied to me re:Fouls and Carolina. Are the refs biased?

Original Email Reply from Popster:

"OK. Sounds to me like you/re setting up Georgia Tech for foul troubles
and blaming it on Carolina. I really don't think refs have any
prejudices. They call them as they see them."

My immediate thoughts:
1. Tech is a big, physical team, with a 9 man rotation, so I am not surprised that we foul more. As part of my study, I will analyze Tech separately, to see if we generally outfoul our opponents.
2. I have heard enough people complain about ACC refs favoring UNC/Duke over the years, that I wonder if we can make a statistical argument for validity.

Finally, there was much ado made here in SEC country this season about calls going for Alabama and Florida, two schools the SEC clearly had an interest in keeping in the national title hunt until the very end.

People in the ACC have always complained that Duke and UNC get a better shake from the refs than do other ACC schools. I'd like to look at some quantifiable statistics and see, which was precipitated by watching the Tech/UNC game and clearly seeing a couple of questionable calls go to UNC, many more fouls (until the last couple of minutes, when UNC was playing to foul and get back in the game) called for UNC, and several questionable no calls. Interestingly, most of these observations occurred in the last 10 minutes, when Carolina was feverishly coming back. A little assist from the refs?

I'm not calling it a conspiracy exactly, but I wouldn't be surprised if:
1. The ACC front office has a different "standard" for fouls for UNC and Duke
2. The officials aren't somewhat intimidated by Coach K and Roy Williams.

I enjoy doing these statistical analyses, so I'll look deeper after the ACC season has progressed and both UNC and Duke have had a chance to play some ACC games against decent opponents.

I think we're going to find that losing teams foul more. But, if we find that UNC and Duke, in losing efforts, foul less than the average loser, I think we're onto something.

So, here are my hypotheses:
1. Losing teams commit more PF's and shoot less FT's than winning teams (I think this is mostly proven already and is intuitively obvious).
2. Carolina and Duke, in losing efforts, see their opponents commit more fouls, and they themselves, get more FTA's than the average loser. If this pans out, then we can say there is a Carolina/Duke bias in ACC officiating.

I'll need some way to quantify this, which I will probably use a ratio of Loser FTAs vs. Winner FTA's and Loser PF's vs. Winner PF's. I will only analyze ACC games and games against top 40 competition (to give a larger sample size), and all losses for UNC and Duke.

We'll see. It'll be fun.

Fouls and Carolina. Are the refs biased?

The UNC/Tech game got me thinking.  What makes logical sense about free throws and fouls, since this would seem the easiest way for officials to have an impact on games?

We have long heard that home teams typically get more calls.  Is that true?  I am sure we can google some decent studies on that, but, my mostly unscientific study here reveals one thing - winning teams get more calls, and that is logical.

The losing team is more apt to be physically inferior, and, therefore need to foul more to hang with the physically better team.  The losing team generally is trailing at the end of games, and needs to foul to put the other team on the line.  Those two factors probably account for the advantage winning teams usually have in free throw attempts and in personal fouls.

So, let's look at a few of UNC's games, and see what we can tell.  In all of UNC's wins that I charted, UNC had more free throws and less personal fouls than their opponents (except versus Virginia Tech, where PF's were equal at 19).  Given the competition in those wins, this is not surprising.  But, let's look at the disparity in FT attempts (all in favor of the Heels) just versus decent programs:

• VT: 22-18
• Rutgers: 35-9
• Mich State: 30-16
• Ohio State: 25-22

In those 4 games, opponents committed 22 more PF's than UNC.  Yeah, right.

Now, let's look at UNC's losses FTA's (UNC first):

• GT: 24-15
• Clemson: 10-20 (UNC was shellacked, so they were obviously playing from behind)
• College of Charleston: 34-6
• Texas: 19-34 (another shellacking)
• UK: 13-22 (since UK had a 19 point lead at one point, UNC was clearly coming from behind)
• Syracuse: 26-10

So, does UNC get the benefit of the doubt?  I think it's too early to tell, but those GT, CoC and Syracuse numbers really jump out.  In those three games, the opponents had 18 more personal fouls.  Come on.  Do you mean to tell me College of Charleston, Syracuse, and Georgia Tech are that much more foul prone?

I am not buying it either.  Let's return to this subject after Carolina has some ACC games under their belt and we can look at Duke, too.

Despite officials, Tech manages to beat UNC at home

Tech beats Carolina, despite the best efforts of the ACC front office to make sure Carolina got enough free throws to win, changing calls, and ignoring obvious fouls.

However, if you're a Carolina fan, you can be thankful that they only turned the ball over 17 times.  That's an improvement.  And Will Graves was unconscious the 2nd half, so he might provide some outside punch for the Heels.

For Tech, Iman Shumpert dominated, and, watching Favors this season, I think he's playing himself out of being one of the best freshman in the country.  Foul trouble and long stretches where he does nothing are maddening for the previous number 1 recruit in the nation.

Why Tech can play good enough to beat Duke and UNC, yet lose to FSU and UVA (and look uninspired doing it), I don't know.  Paul Hewitt is a pretty lousy game coach, but, he seems to get pretty good players, so, I guess we're stuck with the new Lefty Dreisell.

Ouch.

UNC buys off officials?

24 Free throws for Carolina.  8 for Tech.  Obvious fouls ignored.

To my UNC family, if you win, be proud that the ACC front office willed it for you.

ACC Officiating. Horrible.

The game isn't over, but, obviously, in order for Carolina to get within 10 points of Tech today, they need the officials to make sure UNC gets 30 more free throws than Tech.

Just like the SEC protecting Alabama and Florida in football, the ACC will make sure Duke and Carolina get their wins.

Disgusting.