Posted 9/18/2012 08:34:00 PM by Douglas

This is what America was up to 150 years ago: The bloodiest day in American History. And here are some stirring pictures from the day. I liked this quote about Brady's photography:

“Mr. Brady has done something to bring home to us the terrible reality and earnestness of war,” a reporter for[sic] the New York Times wrote after a visit to Brady’s studio. “If he has not brought bodies and laid them in our door-yards and along streets, he has done something very like it.”

Posted 9/13/2012 05:36:00 PM by Douglas

It’s good to see the last space shuttle getting some air-time before it gets mothballed out in L.A., but this is a bit ridiculous.

After taking off from the former shuttle landing strip Monday morning, Endeavour and its carrier jet will fly low over Kennedy and the beaches of Cape Canaveral, then head west toward NASA points along the Gulf of Mexico. The pair will swoop over Stennis Space Center in Mississippi and Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, where the shuttle booster rockets were made.

Next stop: Ellington Field near NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Endeavour will remain at Ellington until Wednesday morning so space center employees can see the shuttle up close. Houston had bid for a shuttle; the loss still nags many there. NASA chose New York City as the winner for the shuttle prototype Enterprise, which was relinquished by the Smithsonian to make room for Discovery.

After leaving Houston on Wednesday, Endeavour will stop for fuel at Biggs Army Airfield in El Paso, Texas, and then perform a low flyover of the White Sands Test Facility in New Mexico, which served for decades as an emergency shuttle landing site. Then it will head to NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base in California, another old shuttle touchdown venue.

On Thursday, Endeavour will fly to Northern California, home to Ames Research Center in Mountain View. NASA plans low-level flights over San Francisco, Sacramento and other major cities before heading to Los Angeles and a late-morning arrival at Los Angeles International Airport.

NASA was mum Thursday regarding the exact times of all these flyovers for security reasons. Officials warned that the weather needed to cooperate to allow for such a full and busy schedule.

Did you catch that? After that rather lengthy description of the shuttle’s whereabouts, all for the express purpose of public visibility, NASA claims it can’t tell the exact times, because of security. Doesn’t that kind of defeat the purpose? As well as coming pretty close to becoming a scene in Airplane!

Ted Striker: My orders came through. My squadron ships out tomorrow. We're bombing the storage depots at Daiquiri at 1800 hours. We're coming in from the north, below their radar.
Elaine Dickinson: When will you be back?
Ted Striker: I can't tell you that. It's classified.

It’s just that silly. They approve:

Labels: Airplane

Posted 9/13/2012 05:08:00 PM by Douglas

Some headlines are supposed to sound like good news, but you just know that they aren’t. “Rectal probes get 0.2mm smaller!” or “IRS sending out lavender scented audits this fall” all sound like good ideas that just aren’t. Enter the Fed and their shenanigans from today:

Fed unveils bold, open-ended steps to aid economy

FINALLY! After TARP, and the Stimulus, and the Detroit bailout, you would think that the printing presses at the Fed have printed just about all the phony fiat currency that the system can support. Well you’d be wrong:

As part of its bold and open-ended plan, the Fed said it would spend $40 billion a month to buy mortgage bonds to make home buying more affordable. That will be the third round of bond-buying in an effort to spur the economy, and the Fed left open the possibility of taking other steps to encourage borrowing and financial risk-taking.

This has relatively nothing to do with making homes more affordable, but have you ever noticed that when the government tries to make something “affordable” (college tuition, healthcare, homes), that’s when the price goes through the freakin’ roof. Why is that? Anyway. . .

Some economists suggested that the Fed might continue to buy $40 billion a month in mortgage bonds for up to three years. That’s how long some expect it will take for the unemployment rate to dip below 7 percent, toward a ‘‘normal’’ rate of 6 percent or less.

If the new bond buying lasts three years, Ashworth said it would add about $1.4 trillion to the Fed’s purchases. That would be close to the $1.7 trillion the Fed spent in its first round of bond buying, which began in November 2008 and ran until March 2010.

The Fed’s second bond-buying program totaled $600 billion. It ran from November 2010 through June 2011.

OK, Fed, last chance. I know you think there is a magical amount of gasoline you can pour on that fire to put it out. Every time you think that you’ve got the right amount, but every time you’re wrong, and you need more Keynesian gasoline to put out the fire. Maybe this time will do it. Thankfully, no one in America is paying attention. Otherwise, there’d be blood in the streets.