Desert Tortoise comments

I had enough underway time for one lifetime in the Navy thanks. With 10,000 passengers and crew, far more people than any aircraft carrier takes to see, maybe it should be the Icon of Disease, the world's largest ocean going petri dish.

This will probably date me, but when I was 18 I bought a 1967 Corvair - a truly beautiful car for its time - and dropped a Chevy 283 in the back seat,

I love it! I never owned a Corvair but drove some of the second generation examples like your '67 and loved them. They drove like a slot car (remember those ?) There used to be a shop in Chatsworth California called Batway Automotive that would put a Toronado front drive driveline complete with the big 455 cid V-8 in a Corvair.

I fear the residents who lost their homes and jobs will be priced out by the rebuild. I hope that isn't true but I fear the new Lahaina will be a pricey tourist trap too expensive for the original inhabitants to afford a home in.

Muscle cars are for men who are unable to perform like one.

I enjoy driving something like an old early 1990s Mazda Protoge or a modern Ford Focus, either car but it has to have a manual trans, right to the ragged edge on a curvy road. I'd rather have a Focus RS than any V-8 muscle car. Better yet, put a Focus RS engine, driveline, suspension and brakes under a Ford Transit Connect Van :)

I think Dodge has them beat with the 700 hp Challenger and Charger Hellcat models.

Btw, the US had a hypersonic air breather as far back as the 1970s when a test of a proposed missile called ASALM exceeded Mach 5. Ultimately the US stuck with subsonic cruise missiles because they hit the target more reliably and cost a lot less. Salvo size matters. As for the ability to evade air defense, both have their advantages. A subsonic missile with a low RCS and low heat signature two meters off the deck is not easy to find and shoot down while the high diving screamer is highly visible, glowing like the Sun on infrared, but gives you very little time to engage it.

What about hypersonic missiles? How about developing these?

The US Army is fielding missiles topped with hypersonic glide vehicles now. The three Zumwalt class destroyers are all heading to the yards in the coming 12-18 months to have their Advanced Gun System removed and launchers for a the same missile installed. US Navy subs will also get that same missile. Japan has a separate hypersonic missile program. The US is close to finalizing the design of a weaponized air breathing hypersonic missile. This is not AGM-183 ARRW but something called HAWC for Hypersonic Air breathing Weapons Concept. Air breathing hypersonic missiles are the Holy Grail because they can fly at lower altitudes and for greater distances maneuvering on the way in ways that Hypersonic Glide Vehicles or HGVs cannot. HGVs can only descend and they have to trade speed and altitude in order to have energy to maneuver. Air breathers do not have these trade offs.

Why does this kind of thing become public news? Why not just do it in secret and hold it until its needed. Making news out of it just gives the other side info to develop something else

Good question. Secrecy costs a lot of money to achieve so one has to ask what is gained by trying to hide the existence of a particular program. There is probably no way to adequately test such a system that won't reveal its presence. Even if the US and Japan do not admit to the program they will have to conduct rocket motor tests and eventually shoot some at targets. Pretty hard to keep a missile defense test event secret. Those have to be announced so air and maritime traffic stay out of the test area. Saying you have a program doesn't tell anyone what your technology is. That will certainly be a well kept secret.

https://www.semafor.com/article/08/11/2023/why-proterra-went-bankrupt

So you are correct about the bankruptcy but can you please show us the fraud? I don't see it.

From what I know on the operational end, BYD buses do not meet their range claims and have a high failure rate. Transit agencies who bought their buses are unhappy. Proterra's buses are lighter and can go farther on a charge than BYDs. Both are made in Southern California btw so labor costs are a wash. Neither company can yet build a bus that can run the longest routes in Southern California on a single charge, which is a problem across the board for electric buses.

It appears from the data in the article that none of the companies are profitable yet. BYD has the Chinese government backing it. Proterra does not. But to accuse them of fraud is a bit over the top when the problems they face are common across their industry.

They won’t be flying over Russia though.

China Eastern and Air China sure do. They fly up the US west coast to Alaska, cross the Behring Strait at almost the narrowest point then fly down Siberia crossing briefly over a small part of the Sea of Okhotsk before entering Chinese airspace. US flagged airlines will stay out of Russian airspace but the Chinese don't.

It's interesting too as there are lit up areas, little towns and such all the way north along the coast of the US, Canada and Alaska right to the tip of Alaska, but Russia is as dark as the open ocean. No lights anywhere. Then you hit the Chinese border and you can almost see the line between the two nations China is so lit up.

There are not any easy and simple solutions.

So true. The most effective solutions will originate in the Middle East and not on a French beach. Reduce the conditions that drive people to flee their homelands. They are not doing this for fun. They are desperate to save their lives.

This article explains the operation and the legal niceties to a degree.

https://www.marineinsight.com/shipping-news/us-navy-to-deploy-marines-on-commerical-ships-passing-through-hormuz-strait-to-counter-iran/

Organise convoys, escort shipping, clear warning any Iranian ships or boats approaching will be sunk. Marines armed with heavy machine guns, missiles and armed jets on call.

Looking at the geography and the territorial boundaries of that region, there is not much else that can be done.

The US and NATO allies did that all through the 1980s during what was called the Tanker War. Iran was trying to sink any tanker that loaded out of Iraq or any of Iraq's Sunni supporters like Kuwait, Saudi Arabia etc. Meanwhile Iraq was trying to sink any tanker that loaded out of Iran. The US, UK and Dutch were escorting tankers flagged to their respective nations since there was no maritime law allowing US, UK or Dutch forces to protect third nation flagged ships. I was out there for some of those convoys.

Which makes me wonder how the US is going to finesse putting US forces on a ship flying the flag of Panama, Marshall Islands, Greece, or ???? Will the US have letters from their governments permitting this? I have not read how the US is working international maritime law to permit this. I do agree that the possibility that the IRG could encounter some Marines as they attempt to storm a merchant ship ought to deter such attacks.

A deflationary spiral is better than an inflationary spiral. Be careful what you wish for.

Or not. As prices decline and buyers put off purchases with the expectation of lower prices in the future, firm's revenues decline leading to layoffs, reduction in work hours and wage cuts. The overall effect of a deflationary spiral are falling wages and prices.

What does not decline are outstanding loan balances. Banks still expect their loan payments. That puts increasing pressure on both businesses and home owners / consumers with outstanding debt as more of their declining income goes to loan payments.

This can only last so long before the snowball of mass bankruptcy starts rolling. No economist really knows where the bottom is in a fully developed deflationary death spiral, but the resulting human suffering is very real and rivaled perhaps only by the suffering of war.

This is an interesting analysis of US exports to China.

https://www.piie.com/blogs/realtime-economics/five-years-trade-war-china-continues-its-slow-decoupling-us-exports

The long term trend for US companies is to move at least some of their operations out of China.

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/small-biz/trade/exports/insights/us-imports-of-chinese-goods-decline-to-lowest-levels/articleshow/100810383.cms

same lady was involved with a green energy company that just filed for bankruptcy.

I am curious what company you refer to? All of the companies on Secretary Granholm's bio remain in business. None have filed for bankruptcy. She left Talmer Bancorp when it was purchased by Chemical Financial Corporation, which in turn has been merged with yet more firms but remains in business. The other firms who's boards of directors she served on like Dow Chemical (hardly a green energy company), Proterra (manufacturer of electric buses, still in business and recently publicly listed) and Marinette Marine, a Wisconsin based shipyard building warships that will build the new Constellation Class frigates for the US Navy.

The only other woman mentioned above is Hélène Pilorgé, a French born academic who is a Research Associate at University of Pennsylvania and was previously a postdoctoral fellow at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute. She holds a PhD in geology from the University of Lyon (France), where she experimentally studied water-rock interactions in serpentinites under high pressure and high temperature conditions at the subduction zone interface.

So where is all this bankruptcy and criminal activity you mention?

Chumps like Uncle Sam will offer aid anyway. The US has given more than $2B in aid to the Taliban

More distortions. The US funds relief groups and UN agencies operating outside of the official Afghan government.

@Desert Tortoise That's some Fantasy Island material there and a good way to start a war. I'm sure our friend Aussie Pete would be happy to send a Royal Australian Navy frigate or whatever they have to offer.

The US Navy routinely, as in every week, flies P-8 patrol planes over China's man made bases. Under international maritime law a man made structure erected in international water has no territorial seas or territorial airspace. Because those reefs have nothing exposed at mean high tide they are by definition international waters no nation may ever possess. They will always be international waters and international airspace regardless of anything the Chinese government might claim or build on them. Knowing this the Chinese will make a lot of noise on the radio and maybe even in the press but they won't shoot at that P-8 because they are not stupid enough to commit an act of war against the US. The US has every right to fly over them and they know that even as their public statements say otherwise.

That is why I feel pretty confident that if the US, Australian, Canadian and other friendly navies escorted a Philippine resupply mission that Chinese coast guard ship would stand aside and do nothing.

 What you call 'haters' is directed at right-wing thought, and that is not by definition 'hate'. 

What I mean by "haters" are the religious, racial, ethnic and sexual bigots of the world. The people who say Africans or Arabs or whomever are somehow inferior people to "us" the righteous whomever us happens to be. Or those that hate the people of a particular country or ethnic group like the Turks who hate Kurds for example, or Sunnis who call Shiite's "apostates" and "infidels". Or the Catholic nun who told me I was going to hell simply because I disagreed with their dogmas and from first hand personal experience as an altar boy knew their priests to be drunken do-nothings with no moral authority but who command absolute obedience to an endless list of Canon Law. I have no patience for that in my life. All it does is bring you down and fills your own heart with bigotry. The lowest common denominator has its attractions but it is not for me. It is like hands reaching up from below trying to always drag you down. We have to do better. Leadership matters and leaders need to appeal to people's better angels than to their darkest fears.

"The Tungsha (Pratas) Islands, Shisha (Pracel) Islands, Chungsha Islands and Nansha (Spratly) Islands as well as their surrounding waters are an inherent part of the Republic of China's (ROC) territory and waters, whether from the perspective of history, geography or international law. 

No they are not, and certainly not from the perspective of international law.

So 38% are unemployed, plus the portion of that 62% actively looking for work.

Oh my.

Oh my the distortions. That 38% includes non working housewives, students, and the disabled who cannot work.

Yeah, you can do that by firing Musk, undoing all of his asinine decisions, including the name change, and rehiring the moderation teams. Simple plan, no?

No. X can't be changed back to the Twitter that existed before Mr. Musk bought it. That bridge is burned and gone forever.

Putting it on live TV would create another zoo like the OJ Simpson trial. However I think covering it live on radio and live streaming the audio on the internet would be very wise.

The increase in jobless is expected: it's called loosening up the supply chain.

No. What is happening the past two years is an increase in workforce participation. People who had no jobs are moving back into the workforce. People see opportunities to work where a year or two ago they didn't. Workforce participation, meaning the percent of the working age population either working or actively looking for work has increased from 60% to 62% from 2021 to today.

cant your body temp rise when….it’s hot? Like it is in….summer?

No. It should not. Your body should make you sweat to cool it to regulate temperature, and if that isn't enough it will dilate blood vessels near the skin to shed heat. If your body in still unable to regulate its temperature and your temperature starts to rise you are experiencing a medical emergency called heat stroke.

Some facts to clear up. The winds on Maui were not from the Hurricane passing well to the south of the Hawaiian Island chain. They were caused by a pressure gradient. The Hurricane is a low pressure weather system. The lower the pressure in the eye of a hurricane the greater its strength. To the north there was a high pressure system. The difference in atmospheric pressure between that high pressure ridge to the north and the low pressure hurricane to the south along with their relative closeness created a "pressure gradient" that leads to high winds. The winds were often hurricane strength, a measure of wind speed, but the winds were not the winds of the hurricane to the south. That hurricane was too far away for its winds to affect the islands directly. Rather it was the difference in atmospheric pressure between the low and high pressure systems that caused winds of hurricane speed. Does that make sense?

Exacerbating that was a prolonged drought on the leeward sides of the mountains on the various Hawaiian Islands that left lots of dry fuel that was ready to burn.

US, Australian, Canadian and possibly even Japanese naval vessels should accompany Philippine resupply missions. Then make it clear through diplomatic channels without making any kind of public comment that would look like the west was backing China into a corner that if the Chinese attempt to interfere their ship(s) will be shouldered aside or even fired upon. Then do it!

Companies like Pilot are always and forever looking for new drivers. They grossly mistreat the drivers they have and they leave. I worked for many of their competitors and it is always the same story, they want you to work 12-14 hour shifts every day, pay you by the load and/or by the mile to force you hustle, then constantly look for any excuse to short you on your pay while typically offering no sick leave (in fact the dispatchers will berate you if you call in sick and maybe even say there is no work for you when you do come back to work just to punish you), no paid vacations, no paid holidays (and no overtime if you do work a holiday). So you burn out and leave. But the next tanker company is no better and there is an industry wide driver shortage.

If you have exhausted 26 weeks of unemployment benefits, that's it. You can't get it again.

While that may be true, as I said above if you are actively looking for work regardless of whether or not you are collecting unemployment benefits, you are still considered unemployed. Someone fired from their job for cause is usually ineligible to collect unemployment benefits but they are still counted as unemployed as long as they are seeking a new job.

If you get a new job and are laid off 52 or more weeks from when you filed for unemployment after losing the previous job, you can collect unemployment benefits. The benefit year lasts 52 weeks. You can collect unemployment benefits for 26 weeks of any benefit year. The benefit year begins when you first file for unemployment.

But as I said, even if your benefits expire after 26 weeks but you are still looking for work statistically you are still considered unemployed.