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rains all left the michigan central station many moons ago posted in uncategorized leave a comment shikha dalmia on detroit s flashy projects september 9 2009 by jmchugh4u she won t be fooled again in her latest column for forbes reason foundation senior analyst shikha dalmia includes a poignant touching rendition of her immigrant s eye perceptions when she first arrived in detroit 21 years ago not long departed from her native new delhi what was surprising was that there was no sign that the looters of detroit s abandoned homes were doing anything constructive with their ill gotten gains in india the entire project of life can be conducted out of ramshackle structures erected on dirty sidewalks from scraps of discarded tarp pilfered corrugated metal bamboo poles and a few logs for fuel scavenged daily from trash heaps in these filthy exposed dwellings families are raised goods produced and sold tandoori roti dal sabzi services provided ironing shoe repair and even animals given shelter they are not ennobling or uplifting but they are testimony to the powerful human need to survive and flourish even in the direst circumstances it didn t seem plausible that this basic urge had somehow ceased to exist in detroit hence when mayor dennis archer started talking in the mid 90s about reviving the city by erecting new stadiums and casinos his message resonated with detroiters including me dalmia goes on the recap how these flashy projects from archer and his successor failed to revive the city and to express amazement at the latest credulous hype this time fueled by misplaced faith that a handful of artsy craftsy bohemian types buying some cheap houses will act as first stage gentrifiers paving the way for the return of doctors and lawyers and other bourgeois professionals this notwithstanding out of control crime a completely dysfunctional city government and a fiscal black hole that threatens to further diminish an already meager and alienated remainder of a city that once claimed 2 million thriving souls the mackinac center s michael lafaive has documented in more detail the rise and fall of some of those flashy projects dalmia refers to tags detroit economic development posted in uncategorized 3 comments is boone pickens history s boldest rent seeker august 23 2009 by jmchugh4u probably not there have been some real doozies over the centuries but he certainly is one of the boldest in the current era last year he made news with a cockamamie scheme to use government subsidies to build a zillion windmills out in the prairies with the absurdly expensive power backed up by wait for it generators fueled by the natural gas in which he has substantial investments this week he s proposing a slightly less byzantine but equally goofy scheme in the wall street journal adopting a cash for clunkers program in the utility sector can save money and reduce emissions right away by retiring the oldest least efficient and most polluting power plants in exchange for modern gas powered plants yep gas power plants powered by the fuel in which wait for it he himself has substantial investments you almost have to admire such gall almost posted in uncategorized leave a comment collectivists accuse opponents of what they themselves perpetrate august 10 2009 by jmchugh4u back during the cold war i was often struck by how many times the evil empire would accuse the u s and the west of doing things that were in fact sop for the communists themselves such as rigging elections quashing dissent manipulating statistics etc actually these things are characteristic of government itself but in the open societies of the west attempts to perptetrate them rarely escape public exposure and retribution while in police states they are business as usual so now we have the spectacle of the president democrats the left and their tools in the mainstream media accusing the right of whomping up bought and paid for opposition to a government run health care system here s hack columnist bill press reason hit run s characterization on the current opposition to obamacare taking a page right out of a nazi playbook organizers bus in professional protestors and arm them with instructions on how to take over meetings shut down discussion shout over any pro health care reform speakers and then post video of the resulting chaos on youtube it s mob rule pure and simple taking a page right out of a nazi playbook organizers bus in professional protestors and arm them with instructions on how to take over meetings shut down discussion shout over any pro health care reform speakers and then post video of the resulting chaos on youtube it s mob rule pure and simple gosh all that sounds so much like every right of center speaker on a college campus in the past 25 years getting shouted down for daring to voice dissent on minority preferences global warming socialism etc how many times have we seen bussed in protestors on the capitol lawn in lansing when the issue was pay or benefit cuts for government workers accepting a 200 million charter school grant for detroit placing a anti minority preferences ballot initiative that had received 500 000 petition signatures on the ballot reducing state higher education appropriations and many more just as the governments in the open societies of the west could rarely get away with secretly using police state political tactics in the either the cold war or present era so the right is completely incapable of mounting astroturf and hire a mob tactics in this health care debate without the story quickly being exposed on page one of the washington post and nyt people intuitively know that claims to the contrary are laughable which might explain why the president and his allies are getting a black eye for suggesting it tags health care politics posted in uncategorized 2 comments conservative has become a meaningless term august 5 2009 by jmchugh4u discuss and analyze burkeian conservatism is an honorable tradition and a coherent political theory however conservative as used in the current political context denotes nothing but an idiosyncratic bundle of disconnected prejudices the specifics of which vary with each person claiming the label as such the word has become meaningless and much besmirched the label has been claimed by everyone from arlen specter to david duke and richard nixon and in its current sense they all have a legitimate claim to it hayek and milton friedman knew what they were about when they declined the label so the admiral stockdale question who am i why am i here libertarian is a meaningful term but it has its on problematic connotations hangs with kooks although these seem to be diminishing it s also very broad encompassing everyone from anarcho capitalists to people who claim the same awkward label that i do supports limited government someone recently challenged the usefulness of that saying everyone supports limited government they did not understand the term limited government is a noun not a noun with adjective it denotes a system like the one created by our founders with government s role restricted to explicitly delineated powers and duties and no more btw one reason conservative may be so vulnerable to abuse is that it is relativistic it only has meaning in reference to something else notwithstanding the shortomings of libertarian it actually does mean something all by itself independent of any other political theory posted in uncategorized 5 comments my oshkosh 2009 a real life hero an amazing coincidence the most beautiful airplane ever august 2 2009 by jmchugh4u as expected my first experimental aviation association annual oshkosh fly in was overwhelming an airplane buff s utopia way too much to describe in detail but here s a couple high points one of the main features of this year s show was the arrival of one of only two flying examples of the wwii avro lancaster heavy bomber which flew night missions over germany for the raf from 1942 45 i described to friend kate and 9 year old nephew lucas how grim and terrifying those missions were in the dark and cold at 20 000 feet knowing that at any moment a german nightfighter or flak could turn your roaring heavy truck of a bomber into a flaming coffin with no warning whatsoever lancaster at eaa 2006 when i was not much older than lucas i read one amazing story about a lanc tailgunner s near death experience the rear turret was so cramped that the gunner could not wear a parachute he crawled in though a small hatch at the rear of the fuselage the door of which had to be closed for the turret to rotate if the plane was hit the idea was that he would climb back through the hatch put on the chute and jump yeah right kate lucas and i were able to peer into the rear turret and confirm that yep you could not sit in there with a parachute on anyway the story i read decades ago told of a gunner whose plane was hit and was going down in flames he reached for his chute but it was a smoldering ruin from the fire the airman 21 year old nicholas alkemade faced a grim choice burn to death or jump without a chute he jumped amazingly he lived falling through pine boughs and landing in a snow drift after my long talk with the spitfire pilot below while sitting below the wing of that gorgeous fighter with lucas putting on sunscreen i was repeating the story to a young gal who was there with the spit s owner vintage wings of canada we were politely interrupted by an elderly gentleman excuse me i hope you don t mind the interruption but i was in stalag luft iii with the man who jumped from that plane well you could have knocked me over with a feather not just at the coincidence not just the living history but because i was instantly aware that we were in the presence a hero why my friends there was only one way to become a guest of this infamous german luftwaffe pow camp for allied aircrew the camp at which the great escape occurred and that was to survive getting shot down over occupied europe the new participant was bill whitney a b 26 marauder pilot who was shot down in flames over dunkirk in may 1944 read about it on his my shot down story webpage here bill whitney in 1944 he looks the same in 2009 except older if there was one mission worse than flying lancasters in the cold and dark over hitler s germany it was flying medium bombers like the b 26 on straight and level bombing runs over some of the most heavily defended targets of the war unlike the heavies b 17s b 24s lancasters which flew at 24 000 feet or higher mediums like the b 26 flew at much lower altitudes mr whitney s formation was at just 14 000 feet when his plane was hit by flack up above 20 000 feet only the big 88s could reach the heavies but everything above 20mms could reach out and touch aircraft flying below 15 000 feet and did i salute you for your service mr whitney and am proud to have met you like many of his generation he is modest and matter of fact about what he did it s just what you did in that time and place yes just as leaping without a chute from a burning lancaster is just what you did in that circumstance also incredible men incredible times mr whitney added this little tidbit to the nicholas alkemade story the orderly germans were so blown away that he had survived the leap that they gave him a certificate stating that he had bailed out without a parachute and lived bill whitney is 87 and said this will probably be his last oshkosh i now realize why i should have attended long ago these guys are going fast now but my sister chided me for saying so correctly observing that i should be glad for the experience i did get to enjoy i m also glad that 9 year old lucas now has his own piece of first person wwii history to pass on for another 80 years or so btw here s the story of the no parachuted survival as related in wiki on march 24 1944 21 year old flight sergeant nicholas stephen alkemade 1923 1987 was a member of no 115 squadron raf his lancaster ii s for sugar was flying to the east of schmallenberg germany on its return from a 300 bomber raid on berlin when it was attacked by a luftwaffe junkers ju 88 night fighter caught fire and began to spiral out of control because his parachute was destroyed by the fire alkemade opted to jump from the aircraft without one preferring his death to be quick rather than being burnt to death he fell 18 000 feet 5500 m to the ground below his fall was broken by pine trees and a soft snow cover on the ground he was able to move his arms and legs and suffered only a sprained leg that s the people story of my oshkosh here s the hardware one also with some people parts i spent a couple joyful hours worshipping at a temple of the most beautiful airplane in the history of manned flight the supermarine spitfire and not just any spit but perhaps the most beautiful of all spits a mark 16 with teardrop canopy and full elliptical wings the mark 16 was a mark 9 with packard merlin and they all came off the line with cropped wings this one had the full ellipticals because it was the personal aircraft of sir james robb raf air chief marshall who had places to go and people to see so they put the easily added wingtips on his plane giving slightly better high altitude performance at the expense of low level speed vintage wings of canada spitfire mk 16 much thanks to pilot john aitken an ex rcaf voodoo and f 104 jock who was most generous with his time offering detailed information about the aircraft and his own fascinating career poor guy his last air force duty was evaluating the various types under consideration when canada adopted the f 18 john was forced to fly the f 16 mirage f1 and possibly one other and then years after retiring for his sins they gave him a spit to fly i also spent some time swapping history stories with another spitfire worshipper as we paid homage together to this magnificent aircraft we both agreed that but for the spit the brits almost certainly would have lost the battle of britain cut a deal with hitler and dropped out of the war this was hitler s actual goal in the summer of 1940 he didn t really want to invade britain if that had happened germany would have had a free hand when it invaded russia in the spring of 1941 and given how close the wehrmacht s panzers came to victory that fall probably would have won the war among other things barbarossa would not have been delayed by a campaign in greece to pull mussolini s rear end out of the fire a delay that proved fatal when the russian winter closed in early six months later it s entirely plausible that from the atlantic to the urals europe today would still be part of the greater third reich and under the rule of hitler s successors but for a nail the shoe was lost but for a shoe the horse was lost but for a horse the soldier was lost but for a soldier the war was lost but for the spitfire and its designer reginald mitchell interesting sidelight the f 104 starfighter was kind of a cold war version of t...