Case in point: "The Chinese-spy-balloon incident appears to have quickly evolved from embarrassing national-security failure to national farce." I was wondering as news broke of those other shoot-downs whether Dementia Joe had authorized the splashing of some kid's science fair project. It was almost that good. "The intelligence community's current assessment is that these three objects were most likely balloons tied to private companies, recreation or research institutions, studying weather, or conducting other scientific research." Or ham radio operators soliciting QSL cards. “I’m guessing probably they were pico balloons.” Might be my neighbors? "A group of hobbyists in Illinois that says one of its balloons is missing."
No response yet from NORAD, either about hobbyist balloons or the Santa Tracker. The weekly round-up of pithy elaborations of traditional Cold Spring Shops themes follows.
1. Go to Cabaret for the tunes. "The idea that if you talk to someone then you automatically hold all of their beliefs is ludicrous."
2. Oh, shut up. "Liking music and dressing well is how his dad bought into 'white supremacy.'"
4. Yes. Next question? "Is it possible that admitting members of minority groups to universities and professional schools for which others are better prepared could reinforce negative stereotypes?"
5. Bye-bye, DIE? "When institutional fat is offering to trim itself, one shouldn’t decline the proposal."
6. So stop deconstructing logic and content. The basic story about declining trust in media is that the media industry became a lot more competitive to the point where it’s pretty hard to say what exactly people are referring to when they talk about 'the media.' One consequence of this increased competition is that it’s now much harder to manufacture consent." That's a good thing.
7. It's called maturity. "I kept having experiences that didn’t fit the narrative."
8. New rules. "Now GOP leaders in some of these legislatures are using their expanded power to implement legislative rules that undermine the usual deliberative process and allow controversial bills to be fast-tracked."
9. Who is John Galt? "[The social-democratic] model's promise of free service relies on coercing medical professionals into providing care on government's terms. What happens when those professionals do not accept the terms?"
10. "Studies" don't show. "Pandemic policies showed that lack of rigor notwithstanding, few are those who will say ‘to hell with your study, this isn’t government’s business in the first place.’" Wise Experts are more often than not deserving of scorn. "They have so much confidence in their intelligence and 'transformative' technology that they can find a way to get around the hard, messy, and expensive requirements that challenged previous - less blessed - generations." Be alert to the power grab behind the research. "Politicians and intellectuals claiming the end times are near often manifest as nothing more than cover for harmful government interventions into the economy."
11. Or perhaps the "studies" are a cover for wish-fulfillment? "Those who populate our political class are largely there because they seriously enjoy telling other people what to do."
12. True learning is a skill. "Education nihilism — the belief that students no longer need to know things — is responsible for dumbing down schools for millions of children and is partly to blame for the massive college dropout numbers."
13. Speaking of Weimar America: "I think he worried I'd leave him for a woman, so now I'm moving on and embracing my bisexuality." Anybody surprised there are multiple divorces in the story?
14. Who will be coerced into shifting? "Society must make the necessary shift from a society that prioritizes wealth accumulation and economic growth to one that puts personal and societal well-being above profits."
15. Surprised? "Importantly, we find that bans or restrictions that specifically target 'assault weapons' increase demand for handguns, which are associated with the vast majority of firearm-related violence."
16. Money can't buy bourgeois norms. "Indianapolis public high schools are failing—but it isn't for a lack of money."
18. Bet on emergence. "Houston’s lack of zoning appears to be a significant factor behind its relative affordability. Abundant housing and low market-rate rents make it much easier to combat homelessness."
19. So it always is with zealots. "Climate activists just hate any kind of mobility for the masses."
20. The extension is straightforward. "The state’s endless commitment to driving is damaging Missouri’s economy."
21. Technocracy and condescension. "People in Appalachia have been putting up with this sort of thing for too long. They are very tired of it. And that is a huge, underappreciated, and potentially decisive fact of our nation’s politics right now."
22. I'm waiting for the reaction from Weimar America. "Idaho House of Representatives Passes a Resolution to Start Talks About 'Greater Idaho'."
23. When the can reaches the end of the road. "Failure to reform [Social Security and Medicare], in fact, means benefits will automatically get cut."
24. Buckwheat knows her limitations. "Jean-Pierre did not respond to a question regarding electronically controlled brakes."
2 comments:
Electronically controlled brakes: I'd assume that they cant/shouldn't be used unless ALL cars in the consist are ECB equipped...is that correct?
And is there enough experience with these to know that they're as trustworthy as old-style air brakes?
The current incarnation of the concept has been around for a while, there's a good overview in the November 1996 Trains starting at page 70. With some versions of the electronic braking, there are ways to combine cars in consist, often with the cars equipped with the electronic braking up front. That's not much better than the early days of the air brakes, which well into the modern era had British "partially fitted" freight trains with all the vacuum-brake-equipped goods wagons on the head pin, and the unfitted cars (and a guard with strong arms in the brake van) to the rear. Made for a lot of extra shunting.
Trustworthy? That I don't know. There was a story, also in Trains, I think it involved delivery of diesels, in which one of the EMD field representatives was headed back to Chicago on one of Union Pacific's fixed-consist, partially articulated streamliners that had an early version of the electropneumatic system. In his story, that system had some kind of failure just as the train he was riding approached an interlocking in West Chicago with a speed restriction (two tracks widening to three, it's still there today) but by the time the engineer switched the braking to the old Westinghouse system, the train was through the interlocking, fortunately still on the tracks, but if anybody was drinking in the diner or bar car ...
Generally, the system works better on fixed formation trains, which are being more common in Passenger Rail these days, with captive cars such as rapid transit applications, which we have noted in these pages previously. That 1996 Trains article notes an implementation of the system on interchange freight cars would involve fitting some cars, and perhaps running freight trains restricted to the fitted cars (do I hear an echo of those British trains) until enough of the general freight interchange pool was so fitted. The British dodge of putting the fitted cars on the head pin might not be such a good idea, as one class of cars the Obama era rule that has been in the news again would have mandated being fitted is ... tank cars hauling the most hazardous of consignments, which is to say, cars hauling stuff that Norfolk Southern wasn't even hauling on that East Palestine train. Under no circumstances should any such consignment be marshalled immediately behind the locomotives!
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