Links and Minifeatures 09 22 Thursday

I suspect that this guide to remaining anonymous online is going to be featured by a lot of people today. Given what it is intended to accomplish, the enabling of reporting from within regimes that repress free reporting, I support it wholeheartedly. We're not talking about an ideal situation where everybody is free to write what they want subject to few restrictions having to do with issues of responsibility such as not yelling "Fire!" in a crowded nightclub unless there is one. Given that these people are in a situation where officials will harass and persecute them for reporting the truth, they have good reason to remain anonymous.



With that said, the credibility of anyone who comes out of the shadows and puts their name and credibility on the line for something is always greater than someone who does not.



Even if it's Ted Kennedy talking about lifeguard training.

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Looks like it was an airplane day yesterday.



First, JetBlue emerges pretty damned well from a scenario that's kind of a nightmare for everyone who works with airplanes. It's one thing when they collapse upon landing. Okay, scary surprise etcetera. But if you know about the problem ahead of time you're playing lawyer-ball. (and by the way, gear fatalities and injuries are much more rare than most people think.



The thing that I don't understand is that they were watching the reporting on their situation on television. Why? You're not going to learn anything. I learned a long time ago how incompetent the legacy media is when reporting airplane incidents. I don't think I've ever run across one where they got any the main points of the story approximately correct. Maybe it's some sort of "Look, Mom! I'm on TV!" I'd have insisted on being somewhere where I didn't have to be subjected to coverage of "...and we're going to show you the fiery crash landing live as it happens!"



On a lighter note, Jet Fakes Emergency for Gambia Soccer Game. Okay, the flight crew would face an inquest if it were here in the United States, and I certainly can't think of any sports contest that important. Furthermore, as someone who's dealt with a few real emergencies of this nature, I'd be angry as hell to discover one was faked, not to mention potential impact on other aircraft, who also have some reason to be angry. There's still something inside me chuckling a little bit.



Congratulations to One Man's Trash for his first airplane flight. Looks like a Beech Skipper from the photos (Piper Traumahawk has a 3/4 T tail). When I was a controller, I always wanted to be able to say just once, "Gilligan 123, number three follow the Skipper turning base." Or something similar.



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Combs Spouts Off has some good coverage of preparations for Rita. What a difference having competent state and local government makes. How much the failures of Louisiana and New Orleans vice Katrina is motivating them is uncertain, but it can't be hurting.



HT to Mover Mike for this link to a Storm Track article on Eyewall Replacement



On Hurricanes: Stocks Dip As Wall Street Braces for Rita . This often means it's a great time to buy as long as you stay away from stuff in its path, and maybe even then if it goes low enough and you have a certain tolerance for risk. Short term "trader" psychology always over-reacts. Think like a long-term investor, don't try for the quick kill, and you'll end up miles ahead.



Recovering Democrat has an article making fun of the blame game. At least I hope it's intended to make fun of it.



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This is utterly cool! Classic Video games! Many classic video games! For about $30! I want! Speaking as a member of the first video-game generation, there is something amusing and challenging about those old games that's sadly missing from many of their successors. Yeah, the graphics and sounds are cheesy by today's standards. But they were fun, and they had to be cleanly designed. It didn't take six months to learn how to play halfway decent.



I wonder if Ripoff, Circus and Joust are included? Asteroids and Space Invader would be kind of de riguer, but my very favorite games weren't, by and large, the most popular.



And on the other end of the spectrum, I am kind of looking for a MMORPG to try. I'd prefer fantasy, non-class based, unlimited advancement. Something based on a Mage would be perfectly in line with my role-playing preferences, but that's hard to program, and I realize I'll probably be stuck with something D&D based.



I wouldn't object to a good sf-type fighter pilot game, either. My favorite PC game of all remains the not very well known Stars!, which I happend to stumble across one day about ten years ago. I don't play online or multiplayer, because it doesn't go fast enough at the beginning and goes too fast at the end when the empires get too cumbersome to do a turn per day, but if you're looking for a strategic conquer the galaxy game, it's wonderful. Last I checked it was still available as shareware, and there was still hope for an eventual sequel.



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People pulling crap like this is part of the reason houses are so expensive. Appeal made against houses on ridgeline. I'm glad that they didn't get away with it this time. The two council members who voted in the minority should be ashamed of themselves and I hope they are defeated for re-election and never elected to anything else ever again. Bravo for the Mayor and two responsible council members of Escondido!



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More on the financial meltdown in America's Finest Banana Republic City. Memo shows system 'in shambles,' Aguirre says. Looks like some moderately severe and easily prosecutable securities and banking violations to me. Maybe more. If the SEC, Treasury Department, and IRS aren't pretty much a part of the investigations, they should be.



Other related articles here.



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Forward Biased has a heck of a suggestion regarding a Porkbusters bill. Is it likely to pass? No. Is it worth the effort? YES. The Coburn amendment is one of those small strokes of genius that change things by just enough to make a major difference. And because Congress is dominated by Elephants, my local Moonbats may even sign on.



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Captain's Quarters is calling for subpoenas for DOD personnel involved in Able Danger and their superiors. I agree. That I think the game is likely a giant rope-a-dope doesn't mean I don't want it to come out.



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Michael Barone talks about interviewing John McCain. Even before I got to the bottom of the article, I had concluded he's running in 2008, and Barone thinks so too. I think McCain's got problems with the Elephant base and a lot of First Amendment types, and the number one thing he could say to burnish his chances would be "I made a mistake with McCain Feingold"



Patterico elucidates.



UPDATE: Decision '08 has a post on the same subject with similar conclusions.



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Air America, panhandler. I've got a better place to donate anything I can spare to than a group of shills for a con-game.



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Finally, Part Time Pundit asks if corporate fraud is worse than rape.



At the risk of sounding insensitive to rape victims, very possibly.



I'm not talking the small, penny ante $2000 tax defrauder here.



I'm talking the Ken Lay kill a company, rape people away from benefits they have earned over the course of years and may not have the time to earn again. I'm talking people who lose anywhere from hundreds to hundreds of thousands of dollars.



The pain there isn't as concentrated as one rape victim, whose plight I'm not denigrating in the least.



But just because the pain is spread out over thousands of victims doesn't make the aggregate pain any less, or the wrongdoing any less heinous. To see why, I ran across some comparisons of the energy released by a hurricane today - through a couple calories per cc of water, spread out over a large number of cc's of water, you get the energy to kill entire cities and level counties. The people killed by Katrina are no less dead than those killed by stabbing, beating, or shooting. And the death toll is over 1000. DU notwithstanding, nobody can create a hurricane or control its path. But, suppose for a moment, someone had built Katrina and aimed it at the Gulf Coast. What single murder could possibly compare?



As a society, we're far too complacent about crimes committed against the aggregate. They are not victimless. The victims have names and faces and lives, and they very often suffer for the rest of them as a result of this kind of malfeasance. If I were ever made dictator for life, I'd have made damned certain Ken Lay et al paid for the damages they caused to the last penny, and if they ran out of assets first, there'd be a lifetime lien against their earnings as well as a prohibition against serving in certain capacities.



(And I didn't have a penny in Enron that I'm aware of, nor TYCO, nor WorldCom).