Is there anyone on this planet who doesn't have a blog?!? Even Saddam is getting into the act!

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I've noticed one recurring theme in the comments about the loss of the Columbia: What if... If you go to target="_blank">FreeRepublic.com, you'll find dozens of posts that involve brainstorming about possible was the tragedy could have been avoided. This is, I think, human nature. We want to fix things. The idea that this was simply an unavoidable accident is unpaletable to many people. No one likes that helpless feeling. Granted, it's only been about 48 hours since the accident, but it's looking more and more like damage to the left wing's thermal tiles was to blame. About 24 hours after the launch, reviews of the launch films showed a piece of debris striking the left wing. Worse still, it looks like the exact point of impact may have been the gear well door. This is a weak point in the wing; the worst spot to have a burn-through. href="http://qs240.pair.com/sfnvideo/sts107/030203e212_qt.html" target="_blank" title="QuickTime needed to view clip">A clip of the impact is here. This was about 80 seconds into the flight. If I remember correctly, the shuttle is supersonic at that point. Even a light object will hit with considerable force. The clip shows just such a violent impact. Back to "what if...". Some people have wondered why they just didn't abort the flight. NASA maintains landing sites in Africa and Spain for just such a contingency. The problem, as stated above, is that they didn't spot the problem until the next day. They have a ~4 minute window to bail out of a launch and land at a "TAL" site. "Couldn't they have used the arm to look under the wing?" This mission didn't require the arm. It was removed to save weight. "Couldn't they have spacewalked under the wing?" This brings us to the $64,000 question: Even if they could, what would they have done next? Assuming that they could reach the underside of the wing without causing more damage, the shuttle crew isn't equipped to repair the orbiter's tiles. (Though this leads me to my own personal "What if": What if they had a thermally resistant version of Bondo to trowel into a damaged tile.) Confirming the damage wouldn't have saved the crew. There's currently no way to repair damaged tiles in situ and no way to protect the damaged area during reentry. Rather than surprise at the unexpected loss of the orbiter and crew, we'd have all been treated to the horror of knowing that a crew was about to be lost. style="text-align: left; width: 100%;"> Assuming that this was an accident caused by insulation breaking off of the External Tank, what next? After the Challenger was lost, NASA shut down the shuttle program for over two years. I don't think that such a shut down is necessary this time. When the style="font-style: italic;">Challenger was lost, a "cultural" flaw at NASA was to blame; they were grandstanding. They launched when it was far too cold. NASA's "can-do" attitude had morphed into a "must-do" attitude. That doesn't seem to be the case here. No one could have known that the insulation would break off. And even if we all wince at their estimate of the size of the gash in the tiles, there wasn't anything that could have been done. There wasn't a cultural failure as happened with the Challenger. Thus there isn't a need for a protracted shut down. The bonding method for insulation on the ET needs to be improved. Perhaps a "better-than-nothing" tile repair technique should be designed. But that's about all that needs to be done. NASA could be safely flying by the time the ISS crew needs a ride home. style="text-align: left; width: 100%;"> On a side note: At the time that the Challenger was lost, my wife was working with the same material that went into the boosters' O-rings. She and her co-workers all assumed that the launch would be scrubbed because of the cold. They all knew that the rubber became brittle at cold temperatures. They were shocked to hear that the launch was going ahead.

It's obviously not a good morning.

I remember Columbia's first flight. I was a senior in high school. The day that it returned to Earth, a friend and I ditched school to watch it land at Edwards AFB. That was back in the days before everyone started to think that shuttle flights and landings were mere routine. I still remember the way she looked high overhead when we all heard the twin sonic booms with two chase planes in tow.

France Surrenders to Texas High School

Well that sucks... I just realized that the New Times L.A. is no more. Their website now mirrors that hideous, left-wing, cage-liner we know as the L.A. Weekly.

"Bang Bang, Your Suit's Dead"

I've figured out what it takes to make me a more responsible, active
blogger...



BREAK THINGS!!



In the process of cleaning up the mess, I inadvertently post stuff.

Blixey's pixeys report "Iraq Seems Unwilling to Give Up Weapons"

Nothin' gets by the Swedish Chef, does it?

(OK... I know that it's bogus, but if you look for the exact phrase "French military victories" on Google, it only turns up ~70 hits out of the 3.1 billion pages they've crawled!)

Are liberals starting to see that they've been slugging it out with a tarbaby?

NEWS ANALYSIS
Bush has mastered D.C. politics
Halfway into first term, he's seen as 'far better than his father'

...From the SF Chronicle, of all places.

There's a book called "Dial 911 and Die". (Available here from Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership.) Its basic premise is that gun control works because enough people have been convinced that Government will protect them. As a result, people get killed waiting on hold. David Kopel shows that it can happen on a larger scale.

In the 1990s, the UN convinced the Bosnia Muslims that they didn't really need arms of their own; UN forces would be there to protect them. This is in keeping with the UN's view that "The spread of illicit arms and light weapons is a global threat to human security and human rights". By this, Koffi Annon means the types of arms we Americans recognize as protected by the 2nd Amendment to our Constitution. These are small arms that one can use to protect home and hearth. The type that the Bosnian Muslims surrendered to the UN.

The kind they could have used when the Bosnian Serbs rolled into Srebrenica on July 11, 1995.

Over 7500 Bosnian Muslim men and boys died there. They died waiting for the UN to come and rescue them. The Dutch troops assigned to protect the Srebrenica area never showed.

Now fast forward a few years. It's Fall of 2001. Four aircraft take off from East Coast airports. Their passengers are mostly Americans who've also been told that their Government will protect them in times of danger. They've been conditioned to think that active resistance to violence on their part is inappropriate. "Just dial 911." They've been told that fighting back against criminals will make things worse. They are all sure of this. And the 19 foreigners on board were all well aware of how the others on the planes were indoctrinated into this thinking.

The rest of that history we all know. We also know how one plane's American passengers realized, unfortunately too late, that they were responsible for their own safety. They realized that Government could not protect them and that action on their part would be their only hope. The passengers of Flight 93 fought back. They lost their lives in the fight, but in doing so, they saved an untold number of lives in Washington D.C.; including, perhaps, many in Congress who would have the rest of us disarm in the belief that Government will always be there to protect us.

All the news that's fit to ignore...

Jonah Goldberg goes after the weasels here.

The Axis of Weasels

Instapundit has a running catalog of "Axis of Weasels" comments. The phrase is growing in popularity. (Perhaps because it fits!)

The phrase is being widely credited to Scrappleface.com, but FReeper Julliardsux claims that a friend first used the phrase here on the Little Green Footballs site.

BTW: The Scrappleface piece is hysterical!

Rumsfeld Sorry for 'Axis of Weasels' Remark

(2003-01-22) -- U.S. Secretary Defense Donald Rumsfeld apologized today for referring to France and Germany as an "Axis of Weasels."


"I'm sorry about that Axis of Weasels remark," said Mr. Rumsfeld. "I
didn't mean to dredge up the history France and Germany share of
pathetic compliance with ruthless dictators."


The Defense Secretary said he was "way out of bounds" with the comments.


"I should have known better than to remind people that these two
nations--which live in freedom thanks only to the righteous might of
America, Britain and their allies--that these nations are morally and
politically bankrupt, and have failed to learn the lessons of history,"
he said. "It really was an inappropriate thing to say--you know, the
Axis of Weasels thing. I really should not have called them the Axis of
Weasels. I think it's the 'Weasels' part that was most offensive...you
know, when I said that France and Germany form an Axis of Weasels. Of
course, I'm so sorry."

So... are the Euros annoying or what?

Happy new year... 21 days late.

Lott's out and perhaps the Dems should learn to be careful what they wish for. Sen. Frist will likely be a much stronger leader than that ol' creampuff from Ol' Miss.

Time for a good rant...



California State Senator Jack Scott, ever impervious to little things
like facts, has proposed href="http://info.sen.ca.gov/pub/bill/sen/sb_0001-0050/sb_35_bill_20021210_introduced.html"
target="_blank">SB35. SB35 is Jack Scott's latest pipe dream:
Ballistic "Fingerprinting". (Or as Scott fantasizes, "DNA for guns".)



Back in October, the politicos in DC were proposing this at the
National level. The NRA, of course, opposed this for a variety of
reasons. Now there are plenty of people who refuse to listen to
anything the NRA says. No matter how accurate they might be, there are
people who automatically ignore whatever they say on any subject.



Will you listen to a shooter and
optical engineer who knows a fair amount about computer science?



Why am I qualified to voice an opinion? Because I have a certain level
expertise in the sciences that figure most prominantly in this issue. I
know guns and I know the optical systems that a ballistic
fingerprinting system would use. I also have a fair amount of knowledge
on computer science. First, let's start with some technical background
information...



A ballistic "fingerprint" is a photographic record of the markings a
firearm leaves on an expended bullet and its discarded shell casing.
Whenever a round is fired, the gun leaves marks on its components. The
barrel's rifling leaves a pattern of grooves on the bullet. The firing
chamber, extractor, and firing pin leave marks on the metallic shell
casing. Thus the components from two rounds fired through two different
guns will have different markings. It is thus style="font-style: italic;">possible to match a particular
bullet to a particular gun.



Once the fired components are recovered, they are photographed to
produce a record of the marks. This isn't easy since the bullets and
casings are cylindrical. The photo must "unwrap" the image by rotating
the component on a special stage while it's being photographed.
Preferably, more than one rotation about the circumfrence is recorded
to allow for offsetting while indexing the photo to other images. The
rear of the casing must also be photographed to record the marks left
by the firing pin.



OK... so what's the problem?



Let's start with the gun. That "fingerprint" isn't a fingerprint at
all. Your fingerprints are a permanent
feature of your body. They'll be a part of your body even after it's
been laid low and you're off to your eternal reward. They do not
change. The marks left by a gun, however, are style="font-weight: bold;">not permanent features of the gun;
they are transient features. Barrels wear as ammunition is fired
through them. Different types of ammo cause different amounts of barrel
wear. Lead bullets (as opposed to copper jacketed bullets) leave
residue in the barrel that fills in smaller defects. Thus the scratches
left by these smaller defects vanish if lead is present. Firing
chambers also wear and brass can fill smaller features thus obscuring
their marks. Firing pins and extractors also wear and, if broken, are
easily replaced. Thus time alone changes the characteristics of the
markings a firearm produces.



It is also very easy to deliberately change the markings. Some shooters
polish the bores of their guns to improve accuracy. Something as simple
as a dab of toothpaste on the tip of a round can alter the barrel's
scratch pattern. Chambers can be similarly polished. (To improve ease
of loading and extraction.) Barrels can also be replaced.



(An added note: In many rifle calibers, it's possible to fire a smaller
bullet with a sabot. The bullet will then be left with only the feeble
markings from the disposable sabot; not the rifle barrel. It is thus
possible to fire a bullet that has style="font-weight: bold;">no fingerprint whatsoever!)



Thus by time or by deliberate effort, a gun's "fingerprint" can be
erased. The photographic record becomes worthless.



But what if the gun is neither worn nor deliberately altered? Could the
record be of use then? Perhaps... If you're lucky.



I mentioned that the images must be recorded on a rotating stage. The
wrinkle there is that there is no correct way to index the bullet or
casing in the stage. There's no up or down to the thing. Neither is
there a correct orientation for the back of the case. Thus the before
and after images are aligned to different rotations. Your image
processing system must first deal with this.



The easiest thing to do would be to take a Fourier transform of the
over-rotated image. This records the spatial distribution of the features
in the image. This distrbution is independent of the indexing. This
provides information that a computer can use more easily to sort out
possible matches to the gun under test. (It will still be necessary to
do a final examination of the candidate matches by hand.) However, not
all of the spatial information is useful as not all of the marks were
left by the gun. New cases jostling together in their box on the way to
the gun store will leave marks on one another. So will the pavement
when the expended case hits the ground. Bone will deform the bullet.
All of these things leave their own spatial signature in the transform.
Buried in this mish-mash of data is the spatial signature of the gun.
An image processing system must be able to discard the false data
without losing the real record. This isn't easy. The conditions in the
crime lab will also affect the process. Different lighting or different
optical systems will produce different images. Different technicians
will focus their cameras differently. All of this affects image
quality. To make matters worse, many of the images will be nearly
identical. For example, all of the Smith & Wesson 9mm barrels will
produce very similar results. All of the Glock 9mm barrels will look
very similar. All of the Sig-Sauer 9mm barrels will look very similar.
Why? Because large operations like theirs can produce very consistent
products. The differences will be subtle. (By the way: The more subtle
the differences, the more easily they'll be worn away.) The image
processing system will have to make an initial catalog of these guns
that's able to draw some distinction between articles. Obviously, the
problem gets worse as more and more time elapses between the baseline
test and any subsequent test.



Now the data must be stored and easily retrievable. To accurately
record the details in the data, the image files must be large and style="font-weight: bold;">uncompressed. Compression
algorithms, like the JPEG standard, will distort the data. How large
will the record be? I would guess that 2000 pixels by 2000 pixels (4
megapixels) would be sufficient. The images can be gray scale, so that
limits the depth to 8 bits. However, the resulting .BMP files are still
3.81 MB each! And there are three of them per record plus their Fourier
transforms which are also 3.81 MB each!! Thus each firearm in the
system requires at least 15.24 MB of diskspace. File compression can
lower this somewhat, but not by much.



AB35 counts upon many improbable things happening. It assumes that the
guns in the system will not show wear nor will they be deliberately
altered. It assumes that all test labs will produce image files of the
same quality. It assumes the ability to design a database system will
be able to sort through enormous image files to produce a few possible
matches per test subject.



Even if these impossible conditions can be met, there are still more
hurdles to cross. The one that's most likely to get the bill tossed is
especially relevant in this State: How are your going to pay for it?
This system would cost millions to set up, who knows how much to
maintain, and promises very little in return. Maryland has had a
similar system in place for about three years now. They finally solved
a case with it a few weeks ago. Millions that could be used to hire
more police will, instead, be spent on programers. This is good for the
geeks, but not so go for the rest of us.

Poor Trenty Lotty. He's up and get something stuck in the wringer.

Truth be told, the Teletubbie from Mississippi didn't say anything worse than what's come out of Grand Dragon Bobby Byrd's (D-KKK) mouth. It's not like the guy was on national television going off about "white niggers". However, it was a pretty stupid thing to say. (Or as the Hooded Wonder from West Virginny might say, "Pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty stupid.")

But should Lott step down?

Yes, but not for this.

Lott has less backbone than a washed up jellyfish. He squandered the GOP's power when he briefly held the Majority Leader's spot in 2001. He has a long and infamous history of appeasing and coddling Democrats. It's fitting that he should lose the top spot in what would be the ultimate example of caving-in to the Dems.

No, he should go because of his stupid remarks; but it make as good an excuse as any.