More On Soldering

No, not "look at that moron soldering".

Soldering is a big topic, and I was specifically thinking of soldering electronics assemblies.  In general, soldering is a method of joining metal pieces with a filler metal that melts at a lower temperature than the metals do.  This doesn't convey much information: many metals and techniques can fill that definition, and even worse, the terminology itself is used almost randomly.  A somewhat arbitrary divider is to refer to process that take place below about 800F as soldering or soft soldering, and processes that take place at higher temperatures as brazing.  Soldering copper pipes uses a silver-alloy solder and requires a torch to achieve the melting points, but isn't called brazing.  Jewelry uses alloys that melt fairly close to the melting point of the metals being soldered.  Silversmiths often use different grades of silver solder with different melting points; "easy" solder melts at 1240F and flows at 1325, while "hard" solder melts at 1365 and flows at 1450F.  Gold alloys will melt at higher temperatures.  Yet they refer to this as soldering, not brazing. 

Electronics assemblies are usually soldered with a tin alloy, historically tin-lead, which melts at a around 365 F.  The exact temperature depends on the alloy chosen, and the most common alloys have been 60-40 or 63-37 (tin/lead percentage).  As I've talked about before, the European Union has forced electronics manufacturers to use lead free processes, and one characteristic of those alloys is that they require higher temperatures than the common tin-lead solder.  I would highly, Highly, HIGHLY (enough emphasis for you?) recommend that you solder any electronics you are going to repair with a lead-containing solder.  It should not be difficult to find surplus spools available at swap meets, ham radio conventions (hamfests) or just about any place you might get old electronics.  A small spool will last a hobbyist a lifetime.  And never, Never, NEVER use an acid core solder on electronics.  Either use a rosin-core solder, or use a separately applied flux and solder without a core. 

Follow the same common sense precautions around solder as with ammunition: you don't want to handle lead alloys and things you put in your mouth.  Wash your hands after you solder, just as you wash them after shooting, reloading, or casting bullets.  Don't eat while soldering.  If you're a smoker, don't smoke while handling solder because lead residue on your hands gets an express ticket into your lungs and circulation.  You wouldn't smoke and reload, right?  The same goes for the electronics you're working on.  It probably has lead on it, too. 

The most dangerous aspect of soldering is that 400 or 500 degree soldering iron tip.  I guarantee you will find it in the worst possible ways, from time to time.  Yes, I have a drawer full of those T-shirts.  I'm the only person I know who has burned their ear with a soldering iron (hey - I was 13). 

Tools?  As I mentioned there are many good instructions online for how to solder, but let me point out a few things.  A soldering gun is going to be nearly worthless for electronics.  Something like this was "da bomb" when I was 13.  As electronics has shrunk, they've become essentially obsolete. 

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Soldering pencils, as thin profile irons are often called, are much more useful.  The cheap ones are "open loop" - no temperature control and simply run 25W or so to heat a tip.  This is OK for casual use, and maybe even building some things, but I'd recommend you don't get one unless there's no other option.  There are models with a thermostatic control like this Weller station that are very useful for most everything you'd want to do.  The advantage of the thermostatic control is that they automatically turn up the power when you need it; like soldering something to a larger piece of copper or wire that sucks the heat away.  Likewise, they don't overheat and burn the soldering tip because of the temperature control.  The tips are interchangeable, going from wider, chisel points, to tiny pointed tips for today's surface mount components.  On a power supply, for example, you may have a large component that needs a lot of power to remove, next to smaller parts.  You just change the tip for task at hand. 

You will rarely splice wires and solder them together.  I did a piece on Working with Wiring some time ago, and recommended using either crimp joints or wire nuts.  I stand by that.  You might solder large copper wires together building an antenna.  Those can tax the big soldering guns.  Crimp if you can, solder if you must.  The previous owner of my boat spliced wires by just wrapping them around each other and covering in vinyl tape.  Be better than that.  I spent a day cutting those apart, stripping wire and crimping connections.

Modern electronics is small.  Got a dead thumb drive you can take apart to look at?  Soldering surface mount parts is slightly harder than the larger leaded parts.  With a leaded part, you can stuff it through holes in a Printed Wiring Board, and spread the leads a little.  That usually gave enough resistance to falling out that you could turn the board over and solder it.  Surface mount parts, in addition to being tiny, don't stick to the board.  I generally have to hold it down with a tool of some sort, usually sharp tweezers.  At home, a toothpick or X-acto knife edge will hold it while you solder one end.  Be gentle; it's easy to play tiddly winks with those parts!  (Yup, got that T-shirt, too). 

I really can't tell what size those parts are, but chances are those unmarked beige-ish components (capacitors) are no more than 0.12" long and .06" wide.  That's large by today's standards, where many resistors and capacitors are .040"x.020" - 1/3 that size.  Or smaller.

Assuming you can't get a microscope, get a decent magnifying headset, like an Optivisor.  And, yes, they really are better than the cheaper plastic ones you can find on eBay. 

You never want to rely on solder for a mechanical joint, and the worst belief you can have is the old saying, "the bigger the blob the better the job".  Yeah, you can have too little solder, but it's difficult if you have a connection.  Too much isn't awful, either - most of the parts in that photo have too much solder.  Apply the tip of the iron to where the part and the PWB touch, heat both of them, and then flow enough solder onto it to fill the joint.  You're trying to create a conductive joint that will last, not create artwork.

The Importance of Doing Things

Can you build things from piles of lumber, steel, aluminum or bricks?  Can you fix broken things?  Can you create new things?  Can you look at something that someone else created and see better ways to do it? 

If you can answer "yes!" to at least one of those, you are one of the remnant that is going to rebuild things after the Coming Bad Times hit. 

I started out a series here on "the least you should know" about a host of subjects a while back and painted myself into a corner.  The least you should know about electronics varies depending on what you're trying to do.  Say your SHTF radio dies: if you're trying to find and replace a single defective component, you need a lot more knowledge and tools than if you're trying to determine if you replace something like the video card or a power supply in a PC.  That knowledge and tools may not carry over to fixing a PC at all - just as knowing how to fix a PC may not help you fix that radio.  

When I was 13, a friend had a portable radio that had stopped working.  Completely naive, I said I'd look at it for them and fix it if I could.  Now, I've got to tell you I had never fixed a radio in my life and I literally had no idea what I was doing.  The strange part is that I fixed it - pretty much just by observing things.  A wire from the battery holder had broken off a solder joint onto the circuit board.  I saw a solder joint with broken strands of wires sticking out of it, and a wire that looked like it matched.  So I held the wire there and the radio sprang to life.  I soldered down the wire and a junk radio was rescued.  This sort of thing is still possible, and it required no knowledge of electronics, just a willingness to look around for clues and try things.  Could I have ruined the radio that way?  Put it this way, if I did, the radio came out of the garbage for me to try to fix; how much worse could I make it?  

Ever had a car not start?  At the heart of things, a gasoline internal combustion engine needs two things to run: fuel and a spark.  If the computer is messed up, the car will run really badly, but more than likely it's a matter of finding which one of those is missing and why, so you can get it going again.  If the car runs really poorly, maybe limping along still gets you where you're going.

These are both examples of the topic of field expedient repairs.  That seems to me to be the important thing to know.  And this is an enormous field in itself.  What do you do if your water pump's housing cracks and there is simply no replacement?  Can you weld it together?  Even if it fails once a year, that's better than not having one. What would you do if you found that solder joint with a handful of broken wire strands hanging out, and you had a battery wire in the other hand.  Could you solder it?

So let's start there.  Do you know how to solder? Take a look around - there's a bunch of web pages, like Instructables, that teach some aspects of soldering.  We'll talk about it in a day or two.  And start looking for a Metcal station.  I picked up one like this at a hamfest for $100, a few years ago.  I became really sold on these when I used mine to solder wires outdoors, to ground, on cool day - a task that used to tax my large soldering gun. 

It's Virtual Shopping Day!

When I got home from work and started downloading my email, Thunderbird told me it was downloading 73 emails.  73?

I'm not that popular.

The 73 emails were, with less than 10 exceptions, all ads saying "start your cyber-shopping now!"  I'll just load up my virtual cart here...

No.  No, I won't.  I've somehow managed to acquire a head cold and don't feel like sitting here thinking hard.  Maybe later this weekend. 

A happy and blessed Thanksgiving to all.  May all of you enjoy a wonderful day with your families and friends.  Or by yourself, if that's your day.  Thanks to the EMTs, Nurses, Doctors, LEOs, Firefighters and others who work Thanksgiving so we can have the day off.  Thanks to the military men and women who keep the barbarians from the gates and give us the chance to relax.  For now, eat, drink, and be merry. Who knows what next year brings? 

A Little Geekery

The last few days have been pretty depressing to write, and to read, I'm sure.  I want sitemeter to give me a "slitmeter" - how many people read my stuff and slit their wrists.  So I want to write about  something more fun tonight.

Most people know the art of M.C. Escher, a 20th century Dutch artist known for his mathematically inspired drawings, many of which depict impossible objects.  A famous example is Belvedere, drawn in 1958 and shown here:

At first glance, this looks perfectly normal.  Then you notice that the columns that start in the front actually end at the back and vice versa.  Some of his drawings are impossible.  Look closely at the people on the stairs in Relativity:

Some Escher drawings, a Penrose Triangle for example, can be made into real objects by using forced perspective: they look the way Escher drew them only when viewed from one very specific angle.

Professor Gershon Elber at Israel's Technion Institute of Technology has studied the drawings and developed ways to actually make models of these.  See his ‘Escher for Real‘ project at the Computer Science Department.  Dr. Elber has created a video that has garnered a massive following.


Enjoy!

EDIT 2050 EST:  I forgot the link to "It's A 3D World" - lots of good stuff to look at there!

Paul Krugman Missing 48 Hours With No Trace

We here at The Silicon Graybeard have an exclusive story to report.  We have been informed Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize winner in Economics and Opinion Page writer for the New York Times went missing for almost 48 hours.  He was first reported missing Saturday, after submitting an editorial to the times calling for the return of the 91% tax bracket, implying that the extreme rate was responsible for the prosperity of the 1950s and early 1960s. 

NYPD investigators located Dr. Krugman, who somehow became trapped in a large brown paper grocery bag in his apartment and was unable to analyze a way out of the bag.  Authorities suggest that a few more hours of being unable to think his way out of a paper bag would have proven fatal to Krugman, 59. 

Over the top?  I don't think so.  Krugman is the poster child for more Keynesian spending and completely opposite my way of thinking, but this one ought to be about as hard as finding your way out of a paper bag.  The US was preeminent in the post WWII years despite those tax rates, not because of them.  The reason we had sustained economic growth is that Japan and Europe had been bombed back to the stone age and not only couldn't compete with us, they depended on our factories producing the goods to keep them alive and restore their infrastructure.  The rest of the world (rural China, the rest of Asia, South America and Africa) were either heavily damaged by WWII or didn't have enough infrastructure to compete with us.  The US grew to superpower size and status because we didn't fight any of WWII on the mainland, and precious little on "home turf" at all!  If we had a 91% top rate in today's competitive world, we'd be collapsed and gone in within a year.  Perhaps that's his goal. 

Obviously Krugman has never seen this graph which shows that since 1980, as the tax bracket on the richest 1% has gone down, the larger the share of the national tax burden they've paid.  It's not like this is secret information, though. 

Nor has he seen Hauser's work, which demonstrates that tax revenue - as a percent of GDP - remains remarkably constant regardless of tax rates.  This data goes back to the 1950s and shows the 91% rate he pines for.  The revenue was the same; all that the high rate did was punish those people who were paying it and keep GDP from growing. 

But it turns out Krugman isn't the only big name idiot out and about today.  Turbo Timmy Geithner says we should eliminate debt ceilings.  It seems Timmy, bless his pointy little ears, is not real good on hard data and facts.  Fact is we have never not raised the debt ceiling, so he already has his way.  Then he comes up with this knee slapper:

"We've had 100 years of experience with it, and I think only once--last summer--did people decide to use it to threaten default on the American credit for the first time in history as a tool for political advantage"

As I said at the time, not raising the debt ceiling is not default, it simply means we can't borrow more money.  Default means not paying the interest on the debt and we were never at risk of that. 

And quoting John Lott from that July '11 post:

Time after time, congress and the president have failed to agree on a debt ceiling increase and still there has been no default. Examples include: December 1973, March 1979, November 1983, December 1985, August 1987, November 1995, December 1995 to January 1996, and September 2007.

I gotta tell you, I'm not used to this much prime idiocy in one day's headlines.  It sure has been a bumper crop of bull crap this year!

Economics As a Con Game

In a comment to the previous post (here) I mentioned something that I think needs a little development.  I said economics is partly a con game.

The complicating thing that makes it hard to predict is that Keynesian economics is a "con game". If other governments lose confidence in the dollar, it's over. On the other hand, if they keep believing in the dollar long after it's reasonable to, I think the global house of cards can stand quite a while. Some debtors will be happy to get the X dollars they're owed - even if those dollars are worth 10% of what they were worth when they signed the deal. They can do that by just digitizing a decimal place or two. Anyone living off savings will be ruined, but - hey! - omelet, eggs, you know the story. Sucks to be the egg.

This is an idea that popped into my head fully formed about 35 years ago,  during the nasty inflation roller coaster of the 70s.  The example that occurred to me was to imagine every talking head getting on TV and saying a recession is coming; if enough people stopped spending because they thought they were going to lose their jobs, that slow down could start a recession.  I believe the media and democrats (redundant, I know) tried to do this to Bush 43 - remember "the worst economy since Hoover" campaign?  Likewise, if everyone thought inflation was coming and spent ahead, thinking whatever they need won't get any cheaper, they could cause some economic growth.  I think some of the growth in the economy today is exactly that: preppers.  People buying food and other supplies because they see really bad times coming.  How ironic would it be if their preparing for disaster forestalled it!  It's one reason Ben Bernanke will look you in the eye and swear things are working to plan and everything is getting better: if people lose confidence in the dollar, it could collapse in minutes. 

Disclaimer:  I'm probably not being strictly correct in saying "Keynesian economics is a con game" - it's economies that don't depend on a commodity standard, be it gold, silver or the stone rings from Yap Island.

It's a question I've talked about many times before: what's a dollar worth?  Exactly what you'll give in exchange for one.  No country in the world, certainly, no major economy, is on a gold standard (that "barbaric relic" as Keynes called it).  So why does it take about $1.28 to buy a Euro today?  The market believes that the Euro, even with the ongoing collapse of several EU economies, is worth more than a dollar.  If anything, it shows just how little they think of us.  The market doesn't include the devaluation of any currency over long periods of time, it's just "what will you take for that dollar today?".  The dollar appreciated in value over the course of the 19th century.  Since the Federal Reserve was created, it has declined in value by 95%. 

This interdependency of countries and complex dependency on individuals is why it's hard to predict how things will work out in the next few months to few years.  Do the collapsing currencies prop each other up, or pull each other down?  Does it fail as a cascade?  Sort of a giant set of falling dominoes?  It's pretty hard for me to believe they'll hold each other up. 

As an aside, today was the final gun show before Christmas here in the Silicon Swamp.  We didn't need anything in particular, but we dropped by, partly curious to see how busy it would be.  The crowd seemed bigger than it did before the election, but it wasn't a turn away crowd.  I heard one vendor telling his booth partner it was the busiest hour he has ever had at a show and simply had to sit down.  I heard more talk in the aisles about getting ready for trouble.  Everyday people who think something bad is coming.  And I spent an hour chatting with an engineer I used to work with a decade ago, who was talking about how to store enough food, water and supplies to not have to even open the door and go out for a few months. 

Apocalypse One of These Days

There's a big, nasty question that several of us have been asking since the election: just how long do we have until the economic meltdown that's coming.  Is it once we get into the New Year?  Is it years away?  I don't believe we have 10 years, despite the CBO claiming 2027 before the collapse.  I don't think there's enough significant digits for them to know. 

One of our big problems is the things we've tried to fix the economy. Bayou Renaissance Man links to Karl Denninger at the Market Ticker in "Math Wins".  Karl is on a mission to get everyone to realize monetary inflation is a tax.

The "Money Fairy", that is, deficit spending and/or monetary games such as QE are exactly identical to a tax on the economy.

Of course, even Ben Bernanke himself has said as much (almost at the end of that video: skip to the 2 minute mark unless you love hearing Ron Paul talk). 

The coming collapse can't be stopped by fixing the "fiscal cliff" we keep hearing about.  Letting the tax rates go up will raise about $50 billion dollars - 12 days worth of deficit.  How much good will this do?  There's an experiment you can do to demonstrate the effectiveness of this, if you happen to live in Hawaii, try pissing on an erupting volcano to stop it.  It doesn't matter what the tax rate is, you can't fix the problem that way, spending must be cut and the big entitlements addressed.  Social Security, and Medicare themselves take up all revenue, so we decided to double down and add a couple of trillion in defict spending for Obamacare.  As always, the debt ceiling will be raised, and, as Mark Steyn puts it:

In the weeks ahead, Democrats and Republicans will reach a triumphant “bipartisan” deal to avert the fiscal cliff through some artful bookkeeping mechanism that postpones Taxmageddon for another year, or six months, or three, when they can reach yet another triumphant deal to postpone it yet again. Harry Reid has already announced that he wants to raise the debt ceiling — or, more accurately, lower the debt abyss — by $2.4 trillion before the end of the year, and no doubt we can look forward to a spectacular “bipartisan” agreement on that, too. It took the government of the United States two centuries to rack up its first trillion dollars in debt. Now Washington piles on another trillion every nine months. Forward!

It has more to do with the enormous, gaping, largest-in-history deficit hole we dug ourselves into.  Steyn, again (RTWT):

In the course of his first term, Obama increased the federal debt by just shy of $6 trillion and in return grew the economy by $905 billion. So, as Lance Roberts at Street Talk Live pointed out, in order to generate every dollar of economic growth the United States had to borrow about five dollars and 60 cents. There’s no one out there on the planet — whether it’s “the rich” or the Chinese — who can afford to carry on bankrolling that rate of return. ... In order to avoid the public humiliation of a failed bond auction, the U.S. Treasury sells 70 percent of the debt it issues to the Federal Reserve — which is to say the left hand of the U.S. government is borrowing money from the right hand of the U.S. government. It’s government as a Nigerian e-mail scam, with Ben Bernanke playing the role of the dictator’s widow with $4 trillion under her bed that she’s willing to wire to Timmy Geithner as soon as he sends her his bank-account details.

Stirring conclusion also to Steyn:

Americans as a whole have joined the rest of the Western world in voting themselves a lifestyle they are not willing to earn. The longer any course correction is postponed the more convulsive it will be. Alas, on Tuesday, the electorate opted to defer it for another four years. I doubt they’ll get that long.

And that's as precise as I can get.  We are the brokest nation in history, so far past broke, you can't even see it with binoculars.  We're creating money out of thin air to buy our bonds to make it look like we're not just creating money out of thin air.  Does anyone honestly think the Chinese, Japanese and our other creditors don't realize that?   And what do you think will happen if they start to act on that?  The Chinese government is smart.  They probably won't destroy us before they've gotten their money's worth.  They may just round up people to work at Foxconn, the Apple factory where workers are so happy, they leap to death from the nearest balcony.

Kilauea.  I recommend drinking a lot of beer before you go try to put this out... 

The Latest Menace - Your Dishwasher

If you have an old electric dishwasher, it's about time to either rebuild it with as many new parts as you can get, or have your favorite appliance repair place do it for you.

As of May 2013, dishwasher manufacturers are not going to be allowed to make or sell a machine that works, according to this story at the Laissez Faire Club

Why?  The environment, of course.  It's for the children. 

The excuse is energy and water conservation of course. The presumption is that consumers and manufacturers have no interest whatsoever in saving energy and water even though everyone pays for both and, for the most part, our usage determines what we pay. The reason that companies and consumers have not adopted the new standards on their own is that they are incompatible with clean dishes.

There’s a pretty good chance that your current dishwasher using 6.5. gallons in a load. In the future, only 5 gallons of water can be used in the course of washing dishes. Maybe the manufacturers can ramp up the intensity of spray? Think again: new “energy efficiency” standards require that they use even less energy. Less energy plus less water equals dirty dishes. Plus, the new energy standards will substantially increase the cost of the appliance, taking it out of the affordability range for elderly people and the poor.

The Regulations are your typical legalese/bureaucrat speak and painful to read.  The final ruling is a pdf here.  

The fed.documents show that the average cost of these inferior dishwashers is going to be $48 more than the dishwashers which work better.  The annual energy savings will get you back those $48 in 11.8 years, or not quite $4.07 per year.  The typical dishwasher appears to last somewhere between 8 and 12 years so some owners won't ever see economic payback.  Wow.  Sure am glad Fed.Gov is looking out for us.

Commenter Sofie Miller of the George Washington University Regulatory Center writes:

“Thousands of Americans will spend time washing dishes by hand as the price of dishwashers increases,” she writes. “The value of time reallocated to washing dishes by hand totals between $241.4 million and $963.6 million, or almost $1 billion, even at a very conservative estimate. The cost of this time, which will most likely be borne by low-income and elderly Americans on fixed incomes, was not taken into account in the Department’s analysis of the direct final rule.”

I've written on the problems with single-agenda agencies like the DOE when I examined the problems with their rulings on top loading washing machines. 

The DOE, of course, is driven by the agenda that energy efficiency is the single most important characteristic in any appliance, and if you consumers don't always buy the most efficient, then you're just too stupid and need to be nudged into the right choices.  Consumers, however, seem to consider a wider variety of factors in choosing things to buy, not just the energy efficiency.  In reaction to how consumers were not always buying what their algorithms concluded were the most efficient machines, the DOE created rules that effectively eliminated top loading washing machines - protested by almost 3:1 among consumers.  One study showed that the average family does fewer loads of wash per week than the assumptions built into the rules did.

The same problem with the decision being based on assumptions that may not be realistic are here in this dishwasher study, as well.

Back to the Laissez Faire Club article for a comment on dishwashers and clothes washing machines:

These two machines together were the greatest boon to American women in the twentieth century, doing far more for women’s liberation than all the legislation and political activism. They created that greatest gift, free time. They allowed women to emerge as full public citizens, to spend time with their kids instead of slaving with household routines, and created the space in life to cultivated the mind and civilization itself.

The regulators want to drive us back, back, back, imprisoning everyone in life of drudgery so that the “earth” can flourish and the rest of us languish, die, and be buried in soiled clothes.

 Back to the... past, not future.  Coming soon. 

Thought for the Day

It occurred to me recently that when I was in high school and college, I had no desire at all to study history.  It was  boring, and totally uninteresting, just dull recitation of dates and names.

Now when I read history, it scares the living crap out of me.

The difference from 40 years of seeing how history may not exactly repeat, but it rhymes too well.

Odds, Ends, Rambling

On the Red/Blue Map and Where We Go From Here.

By now, I'm going to assume everyone has seen this map of the red/blue distribution in the last election.

I find some surprising pieces here.  New Hampshire more blue than Connecticut?  "Live Free or Die"?  Not so much.  Most of the map shows the overall tendency for blue counties to be the big populations, as I wrote about last year, but upstate New York, Minnesota, and western Mass?  Pretty low population density, I think.  I assume that swath through the Carolinas into Mississippi is the old cotton belt - very poor families on all sorts of assistance.  Montana and Texas are scary, and South Dakota is bluer than I expected.  Look at how the pushing of the FSA from Mexico into southern Texas is turning it blue.  How much longer do they have as a sane place?

Someone, I think Victor Davis Hanson, was saying the Democrats have successfully put together a coalition of the bottom 47% and the uber rich.  Look at California, on the sea side of the fault line;. These are the Mark Zuckerbergs and other techno-millionaires and billionaires.  The Republicans have become just the middle class, say $50k up to $200k per year, and small business owners who are constantly in the vise.  Maybe call it a turnip press after the old "you can't get blood out of a turnip". 

Another thing that strikes me is just how similar the map is to the one from the in 2004 I posted last year.  I think we've all pondered that between the two sides, north of 2 billion dollars was spent on this campaign "season", and yet the balance of power is exactly the same as it was two years ago.  The exact number of seats may be different (I honestly haven't checked) but 2 Billion Dollars for changes along the margins. 

As for what direction Obama will take, expect the maximum thuggery you can get.  Socialism for the masses, private accumulation of as much plunder as they can get.  Expect cap and trade.  The now-defunct Chicago Climate Exchange trading house was designed to get as big a piece of that multi-trillion dollar action into as many friends' pockets as possible.  I expect the same racket in a different building.  Obamacare can not and will not be stopped - the system designed from the ground up to fail and force us into a single-payer NHS.  Destruction of their voters?  They can just blame it on the Republicans, just like Democrats successfully blamed it on them when they had full majorities in both houses.  Destruction of the country?  Who cares?

On The Secession Movement

Of course, we've all seen the stories about the states requesting to secede.  Clearly this is about as official and meaningful as that email from a Nigerian bank.  Seems like it's just a way to get on the White House enemies list (or Predator kill list).  And it raises the questions of whether any state could survive on its own.  Texas is something like the 15th largest economy in the world - could they put up a defense industry that could stand the Northern Aggression they'd get this time around?  Could there be an amicable separation?  Take away the spending addicts money?  Can you amicably take away a heroin addict's supply? 

Like it or not, we all ride this glider into the dirt.  Or the cliff. 

Speaking of which, did you see that Putin says Obama is coming over to see him?  I assume we'll get to see the flexibility he famously promised Medvedev about.  Our nuclear arsenal down to zero?  He has said that should be a goal. 

The Dragon's Teeth Have Been Sown

As Velociworld put it. 

I don't see the wheel turning for 10 or 12 years, but when it does it will be an outraged and vengeful Millennial demographic, likely libertarian with no care whatsoever for social issues, that will be dragging all of our asses, Democrat and Republican alike, off to be shot.

As we sow the dragon's teeth, so shall we reap. All of us. I'm surprised my children even consider me a human being at this point.

Maybe not so much libertarian as the 2022 incarnation of Occupy Whatever, but that's quibbling over flourishes when the melody is right.  

Professional Journalists - Don't Try This At Home!

From ABC channel 7NEWS in Denver, for their 5 PM news cast, actually grabbed an image of Paula Broadwell's book that had been altered from "All In" to "All Up In My Snatch":

If you or I grabbed a Photoshopped image off the web and ran with it, well, we're just amateurs.  We're not real journalists, as snobby Juan Williams flung at Michelle Malkin. 

Enough of that.  While I like Vanderleun's take at American Digest, I want to go in a different direction.  Go read the whole thing there - and get a look at the cast of characters who now appear to have ruined their lives.  At least the General, and Mrs. Broadwell, both of whom are married and have families that have been hurt.

Count me among those very suspicious of all of this breaking now.  I've had a slew of security clearances in the past, including the types he'd be required to have.  They don't just look at your credit report (although that's one of the first places they look); they go and interview neighbors, friends, go way back into your past, "talk with your 3rd grade teacher" and follow you around town, as the jokes go.  It seems highly unlikely that investigators like the ones I've dealt with would miss something like this.  Granted, there isn't a month that goes by that I hear of some politician doing something that makes me remark to Mrs. Graybeard "if you or I did that, they'd pull our clearances so fast our heads would be like the other end of a lawnmower pull rope". But that's after they have the clearance. 

Why would the president and DOJ put a guy in charge of the CIA with an obvious security problem?  Quite simply: bargaining chip.  Should something involving the CIA come up so they need someone to sacrifice, you have him.  "You wouldn't want we should go public with this, would you?"  Petraeus had been on the ground in Libya himself and would likely be the go-to guy for what was going on there.  Getting rid of him may have been a ham-handed way to get him out of testifying in front of Congress.  He will most likely be subpoenaed anyway; several congress-critters have called for it. 

The timing simply just doesn't feel right.  But America loves a sex scandal, so you know it will be on the front page.  They may - accidentally - even report some of what happened in Libya.  If they can show it somehow involved the generals and their mistresses.  Picture "Petraeus and Broadwell in Benghazi Safe House" in large type on the newspapers.

As Small Dead Animals said,

"In retrospect, Ambassador Chris Stevens would have gotten more attention sending snotty e-mails to random citizens"

Or sleeping with a general.

QoTD - Voter Fraud Edition

Monster Hunter Nation isn't on my Frequent Reading List.  I know many of you will think even less of me for that than if I told you I'm not much of a beer drinker (my favorite underhanded compliment, "I couldn't think less of you").  Nevertheless, I stop by now and then, ran across this fantastic quote yesterday:

Yeah, about the voter fraud, really, Cleveland? You get 100% turn out in your inner city districts? I used to live in the inner city. I’m fairly certain you could hold a FREE all you can eat barbeque, with pony rides, a wet t-shirt contest featuring Playboy bunnies, and a Jay-Z/Led Zepplin/50 Cent/Kayne/Beyonce/Elvis/Sinatra/U2 concert, which handed out a free Obamaphone to every visitor, and you still wouldn’t get 100% turn out. That’s cool though, because Philly did even better, because after they threw out 70 of the court appointed observers, not only did their super record banana republic level turn out beat every possible expectation, they also voted 99% for Obama. But Colorado was not to be outdone, because they had ten democrat counties with over 100% turnout? That’s even better than Venezuela or Cuba! Bravo.

I’ll be honest. As an auditor I’m a little offended, because that is some ham fisted bullshit right there. Normally we have to at least do a little math and shuffle some papers to spot fraud, not just look at it and go “well, duh.” This is really irksome, when you look at the actual results of the election and realize that it would take only about half a million votes in total across three swing states to have changed the electoral college results…

I started out today looking for back up for these statements, and there are some strange stories out there: counties with more registered voters than residents, precincts with virtually 100% Obama voters (less surprising) or over 90% turnout.  Then I ran into reports that St. Lucie county, Florida (about a hundred miles south of the Silicon Swamp) had a 141% turnout.  It "turns out" that the number isn't what the reporters say it is - according to the Supervisor of Elections.  I don't have any particular reason to believe the SoE now that there are some corrupt-looking goings on there, but the explanation is plausible.  What she's explaining is a stupid procedure, but not too stupid for county government:

...(T)urnout percentages will show over 100% due to a two page ballot. the tabulation system (GEMS) provides voter turnout as equal to the total cards cast in the election divided by the number of registered voters. also note that some voters chose not to return by mail the second card containing the amendments.

The Florida ballot consisted of two cards, so if each card counts as one voter, then that means "only" 70.5% turnout if everyone turned in two cards.  But isn't even that strange? Granted it's not the Pennsylvania 95% turnout, but even in presidential elections, 60% is a big turnout.  With the last sentence, she's saying there's a number of people who only turned in one card. That could make the actual turnout over 100%, but we don't have enough information to know.   

In a couple of years, it will be just as important and just as "mainstream" as the birth certificate stuff.  Just noise. 

(Ramirez)

On Veteran's Day

There really isn't anything I can add to the quality writing exhibited around the blogs today.  I came of military age while the Viet Nam war was winding down and the draft switched over to a lottery system.  My number was high enough that they didn't get to me that year, and because no one in my family or group of friends had a history of enlisting, it simply never occurred to me.  I had one friend who went to the Air Force Academy, but that just seemed different.  So while I'm not a veteran, I have deep respect for those of you who are.  You allow me to sit here and write this. 

Read Lawyer with a Gun, who reproduces the great truths, so well stated by Father Dennis E. O'Brien, USMC:  

It is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us freedom of the press.
It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech.
It is the soldier, not the organizer, who gave us the freedom to demonstrate
It is the soldier, who salutes the flag, who serves beneath the flag.
And whose coffin is draped by the flag, who allows the protester to burn the flag.

 (source)

I've Got to Admit I Admire Obama

I've got to admit I admire Obama - in the same sense as I admire Ebola.  Or a great white shark.  All three are ruthless killers that will destroy you in a blink with no remorse whatsoever - because they're just doing what they do.  They attack over and over again, at any points they feel are weak.  I admire the ruthless efficiency.

Within hours of re-election, he moved to re-start the UN Small Arms Treaty which could implement gun control in the US that negates the 2nd amendment.  Before the election, Feinstein (always under armed guard, herself) announced that once he won, she'd introduce an assault weapons ban worse than the Clinton ban that expired in 2004.  One of the features we hear of is no grandfathering this time -which presumably means that the most popular rifle in America, the AR-15/M4 clones, would be confiscated.  Door to door raids to round up guns?  It would suck to be that SWAT team.  There's probably around 20 million of these in individual's hands to round up.   

I think the FBI statistics said that the last AWB may have influenced as much as 1% of crime.  

(A completely non evil AR-15 - instead of an Evil Black Rifle, it's a Cute Pink Rifle.)

This rifle is 100% legal in California because it is based on an "off-list" lower receiver made by Stag Arms and has no evil features at all, instead featuring a fixed stock instead of the evil collapsible stock, a muzzle brake in place of the vile flash-hider, and a MonsterMan Grip instead of the heinous and malicious plastic pistol grip.  The C Products magazine looks like a 30 round magazine body but is permanently modified to only allow 10 rounds. 

Whenever any sportsman's group warned that the lifelong gun grabbers, like Obama and Holder, wanted to eliminate private ownership, they'd tell us we're paranoid.  Now they're proving it, moving within hours of the election.  Don't lull yourself into thinking that it will never pass congress because the electorate has changed.  Doesn't matter if they don't care.  Remember, these are the guys who appointed Sotomayor and Kagen to the Supreme Court, both of whom lied under oath about gun rights and voted against us in the very first case that came to them.  Ever notice the administration's tendency to rule by executive order?  Bet on it. 

In the last debate, Obama said, "What I'm trying to do is to get a broader conversation about how do we reduce the violence generally. Part of it is seeing if we can get an assault weapons ban reintroduced. But part of it is also looking at other sources of the violence. Because frankly, in my hometown of Chicago, there's an awful lot of violence and they're not using AK-47s. They're using cheap handguns." 

Yeah, Chicago is the murder capital these days.  You have more of a chance of being killed there than as US military in Afghanistan.  The reality is that cheap handguns are not shooting kids by themselves.  The problem is the gang culture producing the feral kids that shoot other kids.  Until they address the fact that their stupid progressive policies have destroyed the culture these kids grew up in, and take steps to fix that, there's going to be a problem with violence.

And that's just one of the things he's done in the last few days.  Before the election, it's rumored Obama instructed the EPA to lighten up - best not to scare any Ohio or Pennsylvania voters - and prepare a November surprise.

Like most of you, surrender isn't in my style.  My hobby for years was hundred mile bike rides, biathlons or running.  Giving up when it hurts isn't my strongest point. That will probably get me killed soon, but for now we need to redouble our efforts.  Give to the gun organizations: NRA-ILA, GOA, NAGR, SAF, JPFO or your local equivalent of Florida Carry - whichever you want or all of them.  They all need to fight.  If you can only give to one, local is better. 

The Free Sh*t Army has the advantage that since they don't work they can occupy their congress critters offices or phone lines.  I have a good senator and an evil one.  The good one needs encouragement and reinforcement, the other needs discouragement. 

You may recall that I, along with thousands, said that whomever we elected president would probably not be able to stop the coming economic collapse, just that with Obama it was likely to come faster.  Nothing has changed.

Rig for collision.  Seriously bad times are on the way. 

Why Are You Still Sitting There?

The word has gotten around that Tam has a bit of a problem and could use a little hand from the rest of us.  When I consider all the chuckles and genuine laughs I've gotten from View From the Porch, it's the least I can do to help.  We've never met in meatspace, and only exchanged a few comments, so it's not like we're friends.  But I read her stuff every day I'm near a computer.  Which is 99.9% of the time. 

If you like other incentives Borepatch links to Zercool who is raffling off a couple of sweet holsters and Life in 3D who has some nifty grips for something or other.  Basically, the story is everywhere and some folk have premiums of some sort.  <shrug> I don't care.  I'm not gonna do this for some sorta raffle.  If that blows your skirt up, go for it.  I went and stuck a few bucks in her tip jar because it's the right thing to do. You should, too.  For whatever reason.

(Besides, PayPal is under my real name, so she'll never know it was me!  Bwa-hahahahahahaha)

And speaking of making a donation - those of you not in Florida may leave now - the elections have consequences Chucky doll is running with scissors here.  Florida Carry reports

Generally pro-gun but anti-open carry State Sen. Ellyn Bogdanoff (R-Fort Lauderdale) was defeated by rabidly anti-gun/anti-self-defense State Sen. Maria Sachs (D-Boca Raton).

State Rep. Chris Dorworth (R-Lake Mary), who sponsored Campus Carry and Open Carry legislation in 2011 and is in line to become House Speaker, is currently 37 votes behind his anti-gun challenger Mike Clelland (D) who wants to make it illegal to purchase ammunition in quantity or via the internet and has decried the private ownership of “Assault Weapons” and “Large Clips”.

Amidst the George Zimmerman Self-Defense trial and the media storm that surrounds it; the incoming Senate Democratic Leader, State Sen. Chris Smith (D-Fort Lauderdale), has been an outspoken critic of Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” and Self-Defense Immunity laws and has even called for repeal of long standing “Castle Doctrine” protections.

Just as the Federal situation looks tenuous, with the prospect of fighting several battles at once, it looks like we're going to have to fight several battles here in state.  If you're in Florida, or care about it here, join or donate to Florida Carry. 

The Gleaming Candy-Like Button!

I think IMAO has the post of the day.  The setup is a movie called The Box.  I'll let Frank set it up:

You know a while ago they had that movie The Box about how a couple who were presented with a box that had a button in it, and if they pressed the button they got a million dollars but someone they didn’t know would die.

Frank sees it as a metaphor for government spending:

You have in front of you a button labeled “Free Stuff.” If you hit it, you can get all manners of free things from the government like food or birth control or vouchers for electric cars. But someone you don’t know will suffer. You don’t know who will suffer — or even how many. Businesses could be destroyed, lives ruined, whole industries could crumble. But you’ll get free stuff. Do you hit the button?

Go read and watch the video.

These Are The Times That Try Men's Souls

A lot of folks have written about the election.  I'm sure you've read them.  I just have a few thoughts from my perspective.

First, boy, was I stupid to think that the polling organizations don't know what they're doing.  Yes, it didn't make sense to me why they were adjusting their samples like they were (and it still doesn't make sense), but whatever "secret sauce" they were adding, they got it about right.  In my biz, we refer to doing things based on "engineering judgement"; it's the summation of all your experience with similar systems.  I guess their adjustments were "pollsters' judgement" - although I did hear Scott Rasmussen say he had no idea how it would really turn out.

It was a bad day all the way around.  Here in Florida, conservative star Alan West is deep in recount (they jerry-mandered his district to engineer this).  We were unable to dump Senator Bill Nelson, a dependable rubber stamp for Obama.  I'll never forget the first time I sent him a letter about about something - he answered it about four months later with a curt brushoff.  An Orlando democrat known for insane histrionics, Alan Grayson, voted out in 2010, engineered a way back into the house.  There are local stories that the Orange County Democrats contributed big bucks to his eventual opponent during the Republican primary because they thought the guy Grayson eventually faced was more beatable.  Alcee Hastings, a Democratic representative from south Florida was re-elected by something like 85 to 15% over an NPA opponent.  So what?  He was a judge convicted of soliciting bribes in 1989, impeached, kicked out of his office.  After some time (presumably learning better criminal skills) he ran again and has been a fixture in office ever since.  He has a constant barrage of allegations of criminal or unethical behavior against him, but he keeps getting re-elected.

At some point, you have to say, "South Florida, if you keep electing criminals, don't be surprised when they rob you". 

Elsewhere, my personal favorite Mia Love was defeated in her bid for the House of Representatives - black Republican women get even less respect than white Republican women - in the same way black conservatives are attacked more than whites.

So what can we expect?  As Obama told Russian President Dmitry Medvedev,

"This is my last election," Obama said. "After my election I have more flexibility." 

Expect more flexibility.  More executive orders.  Expect a carbon tax, if not outright carbon trading (cap and trade) because Sandy was caused by Global Warmening, doncha know (H/T to Tam).    Of course you'll get more taxes and less economic growth.  It appears that's not a bug, it's intended.

 

Hauser's Law demonstrated.

Obamacare, of course, becomes the law of the land.  They can pass a few more bills to repeal it with no effect like the 30 or so they've done already, but they can't stop it.  More companies will drop their employees' health insurance, as intended - so the Fed.gov can ride to the rescue.  As planned.  This will, as sure as the sun rises in the east, hurt seniors, poor people, young kids with disabilities - anyone not on the peak of the "whole lives" healthcare system curve.   Gun control?  Sure.  Assault Weapons Ban?  Already on the table. Smith and Wesson (SWHC) was up 9.6% today and Sturm Ruger (RGR) was up 6.8%.  Already, reports of black rifles being sold out are coming in.

THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.

A Little Distraction

Sick of the political crap?  How about an amazing LEGO machine?  The Great Ball Contraption:

A full 7:04 of almost useless motion. 

Twas The Night Before The Vote

I may as well go down on record as thinking that the election isn't as close as most polls are saying.  I think it's a very big win for Romney.  In the range of 300 electoral votes. 

Why?  The polls consistently show independents are breaking very strongly for Romney, and the independents are what the whole election is about.  Rs and Ds are expected to vote for their guy around 90% of the time, it's the swing state independents that will decide this - as they always seem to.  Buried in a CNN poll that says the two are tied 49-49, it says

But a figure buried in the report shows Romney leading Obama among likely independent voters, 54 percent to 40 percent.

It's not just there:

A poll conducted two weeks ago by Democracy Corps showed Romney with a 15-point lead among independents, 53 percent to 38 percent.

How do they keep coming to the conclusion the results are split evenly?  By oversampling Democrats over Republicans.  Throughout this cycle, the major polling organizations have sampled with the same turnout as the 2008 election.  The problem is that 2008 was a record turnout for Democrats and a lot of Republicans sat it out.  Why would they think every election will be the same? 

Let's say you went to your favorite lake and caught the elusive world record bass.  Or you went to your favorite place to hunt and shot the world's biggest elk or caribou.  Would you think that from now on they'll all be that size?   That's what they're doing.   

The truth is that the pollsters have been really awful at judging elections recently - especially those involving Tea Party favorites.  Take Ted Cruz from Texas.  In his runoff election, against a very entrenched, very establishment Republican, he won by over 13%. 

Remember the Chick-Fil-A day?  When someone said, "hey, let's do a day where everyone buys Chick-Fil-A to support free speech" and the country turned out in insane record numbers.  People waited in line hours for the chance to spend money there. Some stores ran out of food. I see parallels in the crowds between Chick-Fil-A and Romney's voters.

Piling all of this together, factor in the apparent enthusiasm gap (a concert for Obama featuring Stevie Wonder drew only 200, while Romney shows up at the Dubuque, Iowa, airport and drew 2000) the return of the "broken glass Republicans" and I just don't see this as being as close as they say.  

It could be that everything I think I know is wrong, too.  Hopefully, we'll know by Wednesday morning.  The last thing I want to see is a repeat of Florida 2000, or worse.  We don't need the Stewart Smalley effect.   

Getting There, Though Not Very Fast

You probably never really get there.  Where?  To be as good a shooter as you'd like. 

In an effort to get away from incessant phone calls, we hit the range today.  We needed to sight-in the new scope on Mrs. Graybeard's Marlin 336.  That proved to be a bit more difficult than I would have liked; we needed to put shims (provided by Marlin, so it must not be uncommon) under the rear of the short piece of Picatinny rail we added to mount the scope. 

It was a pretty typical day for this time of year; 59 at dawn and 80-ish for the high.  Winds variable, but not over 10.  At 25 yards, getting the scope aligned, it didn't matter much.  I took this shot of a target at 25 that Mrs. Graybeard practiced on, once the scope was set.  The blurry photo is due to shooting through my piece 'o crap spotting scope. 

And here's what she did with a 10/22 from the same distance:

To be honest, the group spread out because as the paper and backing were eliminated, it was hard to figure out where she was hitting.  While she was plinking on that target, I put my AR on a target at 200 yards. That's next:

The crosswind matters for a long time of flight and spread things out a bit.  This target is one magazine full of 30 rounds.  Everything easily within a 6" diameter circle at 200 yards; 2 MOA is 4 inches diameter out there.  Take away a few flyers and it is that 4" diameter. This is with plain old bulk .223 ammo (this stuff), not my reloads.  I'm okay with this.  For now.  I know there are folks who shoot 600 yards with iron sights.  My eyes are not that good. 

I've written many times about our trips to the range, and our journeys toward being competent with both long guns and handguns.  I haven't been shy about how bad I suck.  Our first time shooting at 200 yards, I felt lucky to hit the target, and that was a 12" circle, not one of these 8" targets.  We used every inch of that 12" target, too. 

Don't Think I've Ever Posted Country Before

 But I've really liked "Banjo Boy" since the first time I heard it.  Not pure country, more of a "cross-country".  Or satire.  Or ... just plain fun.



Ryan Shupe's Rubber Band comes across as a talented bunch of guys having fun.  Catch "Dream Big", too. 

Blame it on Borepatch, who posted the video with Bela Fleck, who Ryan Shupe references in "Banjo Boy".  

Wanna Leave a Caption

Got this picture in the mail:

My caption, "Semi-dark.  Bitter.  Not much of a head.  A beer just like our president."

Care to leave a caption? 

Looks Like I Was Suckered

Not that there's any reason to feel bad about falling for a scam when you use a story from a national sources, but my previous post about the gay Republican campaign worker who was assaulted is based on a story that seems to be falling apart. 

The Blaze in a followup article is reporting (from here):

In an interview this afternoon with Madison Police detectives, the victim in this case recanted his earlier statements in regards to this crime. This crime, alleged to have occurred on High Street in the South Police District, will be cleared as “Unfounded” for case reporting purposes. Once follow up investigation is completed, MPD’s case file will be reviewed with Dane County District Attorney’s Office.

I'll be the first to admit that I not only don't understand deviant psychology, I don't care to understand it.  Still, it's out there and you need to keep your head when reacting to things around you. One of the signs of deviant psychology is the sheer number of racist and hate crimes that are faked by their victims.  There are many of these, including a faked hate crime just a few days ago.  Sweetness & Light put up this list of faked crimes although it was back in '06/-'07. 

So while the premise of the piece is wrong, I still stand by my conclusions. 

Consider getting a concealed carry permit and never answering a door unarmed again.

Arguing With the Idiots

Although that was the title of a book, this has nothing to do with the book.  Instead, it's about all the idiots that decided, even before the storm wound down, that Sandy was the result of global warming.  Bloomberg's Businessweek looked like this today:

I've often thought, and stated here, that Bloomberg is the most dependable asshole in American politics.  When you need someone to do something so astoundingly stupid that even Joe "Drain Bamage" Biden thinks it's stupid, Bloomy's your boy.  Like a throwback to an insane monarch of the middle ages, or a Rasputin who gained power, he issues decrees and expects the world to jump.  Not just content to regulate salt or soft drinks larger than 16 ounces, he wants to rule everything.  Just today, the asshole "snubbed borough president Markowitz' plea to bring the National Guard to Hurricane Sandy-scarred Brooklyn".  Bloomy refused the National Guard?  Why, on God's green earth would he refuse the National Guard?

“The NYPD is the only people we want on the street with guns.”

I think I have permanent face palm.  Against this random selection of headlines from Drudge, he's going to turn down help because the National Guard are, well, highly trained soldiers?  WTF is wrong with this guy?

Drivers Waiting 6 Hours For Gas in NYC...Tempers Rise in Wake of Storm...
'Finding bodies left and right'...Restaurant, hotel prices skyrocket...
CHUCK SCHUMER CONFRONTED: 'We Are Gonna Die!'
CRAIGSLIST: $15 a gallon...Utility workers pelted with eggs...
Misery...'We have nothing'...Staten Islanders Plead for Help: 'We Need Food'...
Residents Furious RED CROSS Offering Cookies & Hot Chocolate, Not Blankets Or Clothes...
Jet Fuel Supply Fast Becoming Concern At Airports...
'Please don't leave us'...
VIDEO: Stranded New Yorkers Defecating in Apartment Buildings...
DIRE...

An earlier Bloomberg quote is only a slightly more insane:

Silence!  In addition to that, all citizens will be required to change their underwear every half-hour. Underwear will be worn on the outside so we can check. Furthermore, all children under 16 years old are now... 16 years old! 

Unfortunately, it's not just Bloomy, it's everywhere.  The allegation that "hurricanes will be stronger and more frequent" is, perhaps, the weakest link to climate change that you routinely hear of.  Gore famously said that after Katrina, but as FSU researcher Dr. Ryan Maue has demonstrated (through actual measurement), the amount of energy in all the world's cyclones has been in a decline.  This year, though, has essentially been normal, with a year to date ACE of 495 vs a normal of 500.   There is no agreement between the climate modelers and the meteorologists / atmospheric physicists who study hurricanes that "warming" will create more frequent, stronger storms.  The warmists cite higher surface temperatures, but that's stupidly simplistic.  There area many more factors at work, and systems like the El Nino/La Nina pattern (also called ENSO), the North Atlantic Decadal Oscillation, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the Arctic Oscillation, and still more.

Roger Pielke, a "dissenting" hurricane expert stated in the WSJ,

To put things into even starker perspective, consider that from August 1954 through August 1955, the East Coast saw three different storms make landfall—Carol, Hazel and Diane—that in 2012 each would have caused about twice as much damage as Sandy. 

Pielke goes on to point out what Ryan Maue's data says:

While it’s hardly mentioned in the media, the U.S. is currently in an extended and intense hurricane “drought.” The last Category 3 or stronger storm to make landfall was Wilma in 2005. The more than seven years since then is the longest such span in over a century.

So when someone like NY Governor Andrew Cuomo states

“There has been a series of extreme weather incidents. That is not a political statement; that is a factual statement… Anyone who says there’s not a dramatic change in weather patterns, I think is denying reality,” he said calmly.

what he's really saying is "I'm too young to remember those storms, too lazy to look up records, and I'm betting you're young and lazy, too".   Note the storms in this area between 1954 and 1960 (Source: National Hurricane Center). 

(Coincidentally, Hurricane Donna is the first storm I remember being in - I was pre-school, but I remember the rushed activity and then living on hurricane lanterns and Sterno).  

In general, people don't like too many details and they especially don't like to do any math, so it's great when some "philosopher/priest scientist", preferably with a white lab coat, tells them what to think.  Caleb Shaw, over at Watts Up With That, posts a wonderful "Reply to Hurricane Sandy Alarmists" just full of snark.  Of real interest is how he compares Sandy's record storm surge to the storm of 1821. The difference between them is that Sandy hit at peak high tide, on a full moon, while the "Great Gale of 1821" hit at low tide under a very different moon.  It can be calculated that the 11.2 feet of surge from the 1821 storm, if moved to the same tide and moon phase, would have been 19.2 feet.  Sandy was 13.82 feet.

Sandy was a Cat 1 storm.  It just happened to hit at a bad time and in a bad place.  Weather happens.  Look - there's real suffering going on up there - witness that stack of headlines from Drudge, and the apparently true story about out of state utility companies coming up to help restore power and being sent home if they were non-union.  I don't want to minimize that.  But using that suffering for political gain by blaming everything on "global warming" so you can extort more money out of people is just plain wrong. 

Odds and Ends

From the EconoMatrix (and H/T) to Bayou Renaissance Man,  Megan McArdle in the Atlantic sees some interesting things in the European situations, but still doesn't quite get it: 

Since the invention of birth control and antibiotics, country after country has gone through a fairly standard shift. First, the mortality rate drops, especially among the young and the aging, and that quickly translates into a bigger workforce. Then, birthrates drop, as families realize that they no longer need to birth a basketball team to ensure that a couple members will survive to adulthood. A falling birthrate means that parents can invest more in each child; with fewer mouths to feed, more and better food can nourish each of them, and children can spend more years in school, causing worker productivity to rise from one generation to the next. As the burden of bearing and rearing children lightens, mothers can do more work outside the home, boosting both household resources and the national economy.
....
But the dividend does not last forever. Eventually, the baby bulge reaches retirement age, the labor force stops growing, and older workers start spending their savings, depleting the nation’s supply of capital. The virtuous cycle turns vicious. This is what is happening right now in much of southern Europe.

Yes, economic growth would help right now, and yes they (and we) may have set up programs that were destined to lead to the collapse by assuring a shrinking population, but the answer isn't tweaking society to implement more Keynesian multiplication.  We simply can't keep growing at the rates we've been growing at.  Those rates are artificial.  It will collapse.  All bubbles pop.  Remember the logistic growth curve of bacteria, weeds, and government regulations:

As one of the commenters said,

"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." - Dr. Alan Bartlett

---

Observant readers may note that I've added two new pages to my list of permanent pages in the right column.  First, a permalink to my article where I demonstrate by using the global warming advocates' own data that you could shutter the US, drive us back to the stone age, and not affect the temperature in any measurable way.  I had this discussion with an Obamanoid this week and it occurred to me it was worth the permalink.  Second, I've added a repository for the "The Least You Should Know" series, which I'm planning to get back to.   Real. Soon. Now.