Author: Pat Chiles

An expatriate Southerner in the Midwest, writing about writing and whatever dadgum else interests him. Author of the science fiction thrillers FROZEN ORBIT, FRONTIER, and ESCAPE ORBIT, published by Baen Books.
Posted on

Bureaucrats Behaving Badly

Of course it’s more than just your appointed, unaccountable time-servers we’re talking about here. The fish rots from the head, as they say:

IRS senior managers like acting Commissioner Steven Miller insist that the illicit behavior was the work of a handful of rogue employees. The trouble is that even though we are starting to learn who those employees are and who supervised them, we still don’t know what orders they were acting on, why no one stopped them and why they thought it was appropriate to selectively harass private citizens on the basis of their using such dangerous labels as “Tea Party,” “liberty” and “patriot.”

These IRS employees believed that they had implicit consent to ideologically profile nonprofit advocacy groups. Where did that come from? Lois Lerner—the IRS official who headed the division overseeing tax-exempt groups and who is now on administrative leave—certainly didn’t elucidate matters when she exercised her right against self-incrimination rather than testify before Congress on May 22.

Emphasis mine. She pulled a neat trick by first asserting her innocence, as just about any lawyer will tell you pleading the 5th doesn’t work that way. You either shut up, or you don’t. It’ll be fun to watch what happens when they haul her back in front of that committee – assuming the Republicans have the stones to do so. They’ve been so cowed by years of hectoring from the Left that they’ve become incapable of standing up for the principles they espouse, much less for the Constitution itself. It’s telling that when men like Ted Cruz or Rand Paul make solid Constitutional arguments about the prescribed role of government, they’re painted as lunatics. Because raaacism!

Ace of Spades has a pretty good read on this, as usual:

With all of these scandals (and I do include the Secret Service and military scandals), one has to wonder how much of our Congressional and current Administration behavior is to blame. Why follow the rules, the law, when the Senate blows off completing a budget for years? A congressman tweets his weiner and now runs for Mayor. IRS agents and management flagrantly violate the law but get put on paid leave or allowed to retire with full benefits. Susan Rice lies to the country on national TV and gets promoted to be the President’s National Security Advisor. Bad behavior will continue when no punishments are handed out.

It’ll take a lot more than just punishment of some bad actors, even if they’re agency heads. This is the end product of a bloated system that was primed to erupt in our faces – all it needed was a crowd at the top that made the functionaries feel like they had free reign to finally act on their fascist impulses (which were projected onto conservatives instead). It’s past time to start simplifying the tax and regulatory regime, and defund a few agencies accordingly.

Maybe it was necessary for us to reach this state in order to piss off enough people to ensure something finally changes. Want to see real economic growth and a flood of new tax revenue? 17% flat tax on all income above, say, $45,000. No cut-outs, loopholes, or deductions except that first 45 grand. That protects lower- and middle-income families from getting hit (the former group pays none at all, the latter loses their mortage interest deduction but may actually gain in reduced taxable income). The 1040 would be reduced to the size of a postcard, and the potential for misbehavior would shrink accordingly.

Hey, a guy can dream.

Posted on

“Ameritopia”

I may have to finally pick up a copy of Levin’s book, though it looks like we’re already there:

The National Security Agency is currently collecting the telephone records of millions of US customers of Verizon, one of America’s largest telecoms providers, under a top secret court order issued in April.

The order, a copy of which has been obtained by the Guardian, requires Verizon on an “ongoing, daily basis” to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems, both within the US and between the US and other countries.

The document shows for the first time that under the Obama administration the communication records of millions of US citizens are being collected indiscriminately and in bulk – regardless of whether they are suspected of any wrongdoing.

To be clear, collecting “metadata” of numbers, cell tower locations, etc. isn’t quite the same thing as listening in on every single conversation. But that doesn’t mean this shouldn’t give you the creeps, particularly if you’re a Verizon customer (as we are). And don’t worry, I’m sure there are similar orders out there for AT&T so their customers don’t feel left out.

There could be a perfectly legitimate reason for this, but I doubt it. Given all of the current revelations, it would be foolish to presume good will on the part of the guv’mint. Let’s run down what we’ve learned just in the past few weeks:

– The IRS ‘fessed up to targeting conservative and libertarian groups for harassment. Said harassment included demands for information that no reasonable person could be expected to provide, all under the penalty of perjury.

– In the meantime, liberal groups sailed through the same process. In the case of “Organizing for America”, tax-exempt status was granted retroactively.

– Pro-life groups were asked to detail the content of their prayers and activities conducted during prayer meetings, and required to sign affidavits that they would not exercise their rights to free speech by demonstrating at Planned Parenthood facilities.

– The EPA is showing similar favoritism by gumming up the works (which is what they do best) for companies, organizations, and individuals who don’t suit their politics. That is, they’re targeting groups that don’t bow before the altar of Anthropogenic Global Warming.

– EPA’s actions included disclosing private information on private citizens (specifically, farmers) to environmental extremist groups.

– The IRS performed a similar service by disclosing information on prominent (and not-so-prominent) conservative donors. This information, including their tax returns, went to “progessive” interest groups. I doubt their intent was to invite them over for a few drinks and a game of cards.

This actually explains a lot. I had volunteered twice last year to be a poll-watcher for True the Vote, but never heard back from them. Now I know why – the group’s founder was too busy digging out from under a mountain of paperwork while her husband was fighting off the EPA, OSHA, and ATF…who, for some reason, had suddenly taken an interest in their business. Coincidence, I’m sure.

And don’t forget my last post. Taken together, it’s clear that the mechanisms of our government have been turned against us. All that stuff the Left fantasized about Bush doing? Obama’s actually doing it.

I had no problem at all with wiretaps of phone calls between the US and foreign countries when a suspected terrorist was on either end of the line. That’s because I don’t think we should treat potential WMD attacks as criminal matters. It’s war, and should be conducted as such. That means we get to spy on the bad guys and not tell them about it.

But this is different…it’s hard to ignore the fact that things are coming to a boil. Plan accordingly.

Posted on

Creeping Tyranny…Again

It’s getting harder and harder to ignore an out-of-control Federal government. Robert Goyer at Flying magazine has apparently had enough:

As far as the pseudo detention program is concerned — nobody at TSA or Homeland Security will even confirm the existence of any such program — my best guess is that there’s some kind of flight profile that triggers a response, similar to what happened to me in my unregistered, leased airplane. The only common threads so far seem to be that most of the pilots stopped were traveling west to east and all of them so far were male — no surprise considering the overwhelmingly male pilot population. Some were on IFR flight plans, some were on VFR plans, and others were just legally flying VFR without a plan. They have all been questioned about what they were doing and why, where they were going, what they had in the airplane and why they were headed to the destination they landed at.
For the record, none of this is any of their business.
The new ramp check: “Your papers, please…”

Damn skippy it ain’t. Combined with the stories of pilots being detained by local po-po for violating nonexistent no-fly zones, and one might come to believe that the thugs are feeling – shall we say – emboldened? And make no mistake: the thugs are always there. There will always be a latent tendency by some in positions of authority to throw their weight around in ways that don’t exactly comport with the rule of law. The difference lies in their sense of how likely they are to get away with it – or even if it’s expected of them.

This too shall pass, but it won’t be pretty in the meantime. It’ll all end in one of two ways, so pay attention and make informed choices while there’s still time to end this politely.
Posted on

Getting There From Here

Private missions to Mars are attracting more and more attention from the serious press. Here’s a clip from a piece today in The Economist discussing Dennis Tito’s Inspiration Mars project:

Even if everything does go according to plan, though, cynics might question the value of a billion-dollar, one-and-a-half year trip that comes within spitting distance of Mars but does not land. Dr MacCallum points out that even a fly-by would generate a great deal of publicity. “It would be a [Charles] Lindbergh” mission, says Dr Zubrin. “The point would be to prove it can be done.”

Exactly. Sometimes you just have to kick the tires and light the fires if you want to get things done. A privately bankrolled mission doesn’t have to fine-tune every aspect of it to please capricious politicians (who could really give a crap) and a skittish public (in reality, a skittish and hyperventilating press but you get my drift). That is, treating safety itself as if it’s the overall goal while at the same time making it such a bloated do-it-all attempt that nothing gets done except burning up a few billions on Powerpoint Engineering.

Really…what was the last manned spacecraft development program that NASA successfully completed? Hint: we just stopped flying them last year. And I’m defining “successful” as “a completed vehicle that managed to fly.” Anyway, it appears The Economist’s editors have a similar take on things:

It is entirely possible—likely, even—that neither of these missions will happen. Mr Tito has the better chance, but there are many more ways for him to fail than to succeed. Mr Lansdorp’s plans look too ambitious to be credible. And NASA’s recent history suggests that its aspirations, too, will be blown off course by a future president. But all this will not deter true believers, who have been discussing how to run a Mars trip for decades. With the cost of space flight lower than ever, it seems unlikely that the dream will die.

In related news, SpaceX is still at it:

First test of the Falcon 9 reusable first stage. Credit: SpaceX

Boeing, meanwhile, is still plugging away on their CST-100 system. And I hate to say it, but of all the commercial crew projects out there this one might be the least likely to succeed – and it has nothing to do with design or expertise. Rather, it’s all about The Borg’s commitment to private space. Personally, I just don’t think it’s there. They’ve made comments before about not being able to close the business case – or even being all that interested in trying to – if the funding dries up. That cost-plus contractor legacy must be hard to shake, considering NASA’s money is chump change when compared to Boeing’s resources. Of all the CCDev projects, they could certainly afford to throw the most money at it without hurting the company.

As the big dinosaurs fight over their food supply, smart little mammals stay out of their way and just keep doing what they do. In the meantime, here comes the asteroid…

Wow. Who knew aerospace had so much in common with publishing?

Posted on

Critical Mach

Yet another entry in the next-gen supersonic sweepstakes, but you’ve got to admit this looks sweet:

Credit: JAXA

The market for civil aircraft – both airliners and private – seems pretty full to me. If a Japanese manufacturer wanted to shake up the competition, this would be the way to do it.

Unfortunately I’ve not been able to find any more information beyond what’s already at the link – which is a mite thin to begin with. It’s not clear how they plan to conduct the test flights, if it’s a powered drone then that’d be Teh Awesome. The alternative would be mounting it to a fighter that can zorch around at Mach 1.0+…not as cool, but perhaps more useful than wind-tunnel testing. Either way let’s hope this makes it somewhere beyond the model-airplane stage.

Posted on

Sunday Crazy

It’s entirely too quiet around here, so let’s do something about that:

I’ve finally got Red Bull’s marketing strategy figured out: hire crazy people to jump off of really high stuff. Or high people to jump off crazy stuff – might not make much difference.

Not that I’d do anything that nuts, but if I ever did it’d have to be dressed as Batman. Because BATMAN!

Posted on

Old Engineers Never Die

…they just unbalance to infinity.

That’s a geek joke.

The latest issue of Air & Space (which still has yet to run the article they paid me for!) follows up on the post-shuttle careers of a few NASA engineers. Ordinarily of interest to me, but not compelling, until I came to this guy’s story:

Perry Lewis, a former Johnson robotics flight controller, thought about where he might apply the skills he’d been using at NASA. “I used to talk with the astronauts, leading them through their on-orbit activities, so I concentrated on where I could use that ability to communicate effectively while still using my engineering skills,” he says.

Lewis came up with three industries that had a level of “operational complexity” similar to that of the space shuttle program: the military, the cruise-line business, and the airlines.

…

Today, you can find Lewis on the 27th floor of Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower) in Chicago, where he is an airline dispatcher. “I work in the Network Operations Center for United Airlines,” he says. “We run 6,000 flights every day, 40 to 60 of which come across my desk. I juggle weather, fuel, desired routes for all these flights, and use that information to release each flight.

“You have the pilot, the air traffic controller, and then you have me. Most people don’t realize my job even exists…”

Amen brother. You guessed it, this guy’s job is exactly what I did for about 10 years before moving into performance engineering (a closely related discipline). Ten years of having to interpret complex information and make snap decisions in a very time-sensitive environment forced me to become a hard core left-brainer…and that, kiddies, is how an English major ends up in an Engineering job.

I always wondered how much similarity there was between a flight operations center and mission control. It was pretty much my whole basis for creating those environments in Perigee, and if they’re not exactly the same at least they have the same…flavor, I guess.

Before…

If you were to draw a Venn diagram between the two worlds, I’d imagine we overlap in the “solving complex problems under serious time pressure with large metal vehicles moving through the air at high speed” part. This probably won’t win me any friends in the media world (like I have a lot to begin with), but I don’t want to hear any newspaper or TV people wail and moan about deadlines. You have no idea, dudes.

…and after.

So there you have it, my tenuous connection to the human spaceflight program. Oh yeah, and this guy I served in the Marines with who went on to become an astronaut. He’s now found gainful employment doing something similar for a private venture, but I’m not gonna name drop.

Ahem…yeah, it’s one of these guys.

Posted on

Remember

Soldier, rest! Thy warfare o’er,
Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking,
Dream of battled fields no more.
Days of danger, nights of waking.

-Sir Walter Scott

“It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather, we should thank God that such men lived.”

-Gen. George S. Patton

Posted on

DIY Space Program

When deciding to become a novelist while keeping the day job – sadly necessary if you also choose to live in a house and eat food – you have to be willing to give up most of your hobbies, or at least the most time-consuming ones. In my case, that was modeling and high-power rocketry (HPR, for the uninitiated).

HPR is the grown-up version of the ubiquitous Estes model rockets some of you might have toyed with as kids. Typically the rockets are big enough, and engines powerful enough, to require FAA waivers which close the airspace to conflicting traffic. You also have to go through a certification process with one of the national hobby organizations.

“Red Death”, headed for 6,000′ AGL and Mach .90, never to be seen again.

If you’ve been hanging out at this blog for a while, you know I’ve been a rocket and space geek since I was a little kid watching Apollo missions on the old black-and-white TV. When I discovered high-power about ten years ago, it hooked me completely. Better Half was less excited but she at least tolerated it. And to be fair, it’s not cheap: the cheapest motors are around twenty bucks each, and that’s if you’re using a reloadable system which means you’ve already forked over a hundred for motor casings. Throw in medium- to high-tech materials (fiberglass, composites, etc) and electronics (those parachutes don’t deploy themselves at 10,000′) and stuff gets spendy in a hurry. I built a couple of fiberglass rockets and one partially with composites, and that’s about as techy as it got. Perhaps if I’d invested in an altimeter-controlled recovery system, I’d still have Red Death instead of it being carted off by winds aloft somewhere into the next county.

This project, on the other hand, looks to be a bit more complicated.

It’s essentially an open-source Mercury/Redstone vehicle, taking advantage of modern building materials and 50-odd years of acquired knowledge. If you’re looking for a challenging build, this might be it.

 

Website Powered by WordPress.com.