Bunker Mulligan "Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry." ~Mark Twain

Walter Williams is one of my favorites. He is an economics professor at George Mason University who manages to cut through the BS on many topics. One issue, in particular, catches my eye. That is the Free State Project.

Their plan, as stated on their website is: “20,000 or more liberty-oriented people will move to New Hampshire, where they may work within the political system to reduce the size and scope of government. The success of the Free State Project would likely entail reductions in burdensome taxation and regulation, reforms in state and local law, an end to federal mandates and a restoration of constitutional federalism.”

The concept is sound, but I’m sure there would be many lawsuits before any of this got implemented. This concept is already in place, however, and shows some signs of success. It is happening in France and England, and the free-staters aren’t American Constitutionalists, they are Muslim.

Both France and England have growing Muslim populations, and the governments have shown little desire to restrain “bad” behavior. The fundamentalists in Islam have show they can be patient. They’ve learned the major lesson of the Vietnam war, among other low-intensity conflicts, that the West has a very short attention span. Small setbacks are simply that–an inconvenience. As long as they can grow their following in the UK, they will eventually be able to elect Imams to Parliament. Once it is no longer a novelty, more and more can be elected until there is a majority, or a coalition can be built. With that, their man becomes PM.

In France, they can elect a President with support of various extremist from both left and right. They simply need to build a majority.

Russia has a problem with separatists, but doesn’t see a huge influx of radical muslims who have the potential for takeover of the government through the ballot box.

Why are these three countries an issue? The nations of Europe which have nuclear capability are France, England, and Russia.

The rift between the US and France is an issue in more ways than simply diplomacy. France, since the days of DeGaulle, has had an inferiority complex regarding the US. They have not been a major world power since Napoleon, yet still view themselves as “big time.” And they are, if only in the nuclear armament realm.

To maintain their status, they have played the US against the USSR during the Cold War, the US versus Vietnam in that war, various countries in Africa against US interests, and relations with Iraq in the recent past. They have been consistent in their animosity toward the US. I think part of it stems from the adoption of English as the language of diplomacy to replace French!

As their population continues to grow due to the influx of Muslim immigrants, and these new immigrants gain more and more power through numbers, the danger becomes much greater. France, with nuclear weapons, is a prime target for the free-state concept. They don’t realize it, which makes the issue even more important.

Little Green Footballs has a story on the PA announcing they “are a State.”

I think this is a great turn of events. Remember 4 July 1776?

Actually, what this will do is force them to now admit they consider all of Israel part of Palestine. Anything less means they are willing to accept their current territory as the State of Palestine. If they want more than that, they will have to declare war on the “invaders.”

I can’t wait to see how the UN and media deal with this one!

One more reason “why they hate us”:

A key risk is that the recent slide of the U.S. dollar against other major currencies could become “disorderly,” the researchers said. The dollar has declined sharply since early 2002 against both the European common currency and the Japanese yen, complicating the task of European and Japanese monetary policymakers, said Charles Collyns, who heads the IMF team that monitors the U.S. economy.

Those damn cowboys in the US control the world’s economy because their economy is the most powerful one in the world and it’s controlled by all those Jews who make economic and political decisions that their puppet government must respond to and we in the rest of the world are doomed because…well, because.

You know the line.

The drop of the dollar against the euro and yen are hurting those countries because it means we “stupid” Americans don’t buy their goods, or travel to their vacation spots. Not that any of this has happened yet, nor is it completely due to the currency exchange rate.

Howard Dean’s and Wesley Clark’s campaigns have been actively soliciting donations from citizens of other countries. The rest of the world wants a say in how our country is run. Is there any better reason not to support a Democrat this year?

Steven Den Beste has an article by Walter Russell Mead in The National Interest mirrored on his site as part of his Essential Reading page. I’ve read it several times, and did so again today.

I’ve always viewed my attitude about international issues as being based on my military background, or the inherent western US philosophy (having grown up with John Wayne and James Stewart movies), or even just from being a Texan. All have had an influence. I’ve never really been able to define it completely, though.

I taught Military Theory at the Air Force Academy, along with Honor and Ethics. The two are really intertwined. Prior to the Gulf War, I told my students that our forces would swing around behind the Iraqi forces in Kuwait, cut them off, and destroy them. It was the logical approach, in my mind. Military maneuver has always been about turning the opponent’s flank, or making him think you were about to try that.

The cadets thought I was wrong, and that our goal was to get the Iraqis out of Kuwait, so we needed to attack them directly and push them out, perhaps even use an amphibious assault as one point of attack.

When the battle ended, and our forces did precisely what I predicted, the cadets all thought I was some kind of military genius. I’m not. I’m just Jacksonian. So is President Bush.

I think there’s something to the Texas link. After all, Andrew Jackson was the Grandfather of Texas. He sent Sam Houston down to stir up a little trouble (it was already brewing, but Jackson wanted to be sure!). When the Texicans needed backup in 1836, Jackson saw to it that Federal forces were availble if needed. He wanted Texas as part of the United States. The term used to describe such men at the time was “Go-Ahead Men.” Bush is the modern version of Go-Ahead. Say what you mean, and mean what you say. He could star in a Nike commercial.

Democrats used to be Jacksonian. Now they have departed from that spirit and become Wilsonian. Mead’s article spells it out, and I don’t want to plagarize his work. Think Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow WIlson and you will see Bush and Clinton; Hillary Clinton. Most Americans are also Jacksonian, and that bodes ill for Democrats this year. Jacksonians are willing to accept the fact that other people and nations may have differing opinions. But when those differences threaten the security of the United States, they should expect the full force of our military to be used to eliminate, not just abate, that threat.

The war on terrorism takes many forms. Yet, the least visible may be the most effective. It isn’t intelligence, although that plays a large role in the one thing that matters most: money.

With the failure of Al Queda to mount any catastrophe during the recent holidays, the forces of “good” must be congratulated. If, in fact, several operations were cancelled due to the vigilence of security forces, these very operations served to drain terrorist organizations of their resources, whether successful or not.

Every time an operation is planned, resources are consumed. Every time a terrorist moves from place to place, money is spent. Every delay causes terrorists to expend more money to keep operatives trained and ready. Every cancellation of an operation is money wasted. A continual drain of money, coupled with decreased funding, puts terror groups into a position of having to limit their plans to what the can afford.

It has the added psychological benefit of causing morale to decay. It increases paranoia as members of these groups begin to look at one another wondering who the mole is.

It doesn’t make for exciting television, but it becomes more and more effective as time goes on. We, then, control the clock.

Having heard and read so often about roadside bombs as the weapon of choice for insurgents in Iraq, I had to make a comment.

President Bush and his administration are constantly berated for failing to have a plan in the aftermath of a quick war in Iraq. All of the Democratic candidates make this their prime focal point, especially Kerry, Lieberman, and Gephart, all of whom supported the conflict. Now they say they supported it, but are disappointed there was “no plan for the peace.”

I have absolutely no doubt there was a very detailed plan in place, and it has evolved as cicumstances required. Proof?

Consider a single item in the original budget for Iraqi reconstruction: garbage trucks. It drew a lot of criticism. My original thought was that it made perfect sense to make garbage collection a prime issue for health reasons. With all the NGOs of the world predicting thousands of deaths due to disease, cleaning up the streets seemed like a smart move.

Perhaps, though, the plan was even more detailed than that. The best way to eliminate the possibility of simple roadside bombs would be to ensure the streets are clean. Any object along a road would be cause for suspicion.

Now, I don’t really expect the Administration was that prescient, but you have to wonder!

For generations who have been fed a steady diet of fantasy in movies and television, the thought of an armed Air Marshal or armed pilot firing a gun through aircraft skin may be horrifying. From Airport with Van Heflin exploding a briefcase bomb, to Auric Goldfinger being sucked out of a tiny window of his private jet, the uninitiated believe rapid decompression sucks everything out of an aircraft.

My first experience with rapid decompression came during the altitude chamber phase of physiological training as a crew member. The chamber, about 15 feet long and 10 feet in diameter, was brought to a low pressure rapidly to simulate decompression. The chamber clouded up as all the moisture inside condensed, and we donned oxygen masks as quickly as possible. That was it, except for changes in ear pressure for some.

The movies always show gale force winds lasting for many seconds as the higher pressure air escapes through whatever hole has been created. Never is the source of this hurricane explained. It’s as if there is a huge reservoir of air at the other end of the cabin which must somehow find its way out the hole.

As an engineer in the airplane business, I’ve had to do some calculations on precisely this contingency. Interior doors must be capable of opening to allow equalization of pressure between cabin areas (which is why airliners have curtains rather than doors) to preclude bulkhead failure. The volume of air is actually negligible, and it escapes at, roughly, the speed of sound. Which means it’s all over rather quickly. No more than one second to completely evacuate an entire airliner cabin.

Consider a football or basketball. The pressure in the ball is about 13 pounds per square inch. That is actually the gage pressure, or differential between internal pressure and atmospheric pressure. If you put an inflation needle into the ball, it returns to something close to atmospheric pressure pretty quickly.

Airliners fly at altitudes of about 35,000 feet as a general rule. Some can fly higher, but 40,000 feet is the limit established by the FAA unless specific conditions are met in construction and operation. Above 40,000, the air pressure is low enough that at human body temperature, water boils. This causes problems with the bloodstream!

At 35,000 feet, the atmospheric pressure is 3.5 psi. I don’t know what interior pressure airlines maintain in their cabins now, but they used to keep it close to, but below 10,000 feet. That is because cabin pressurization requires compressed air to be extracted from engines, which lowers the efficiency of the engine, which costs more to operate. Any altitude above 10,000 feet is bad physiologically because available oxygen isn’t adequate to support human respiration for more than about 30 minutes. At a cabin altitude of 9,000 feet, the air pressure is about 10.5 psi.

What this means is that the difference in air pressure from the cabin to the exterior while flying at 35,000 feet is about 7 psi, or about half the pressure in a basketball. Not enough of a difference to cause a huge rupture of the aircraft skin if pricked.

The real danger of a bullet penetrating the skin of an aircraft is crack propagation. Modern airliners are designed with Damage Tolerance features. Manufacturers spend a great deal of time and money doing structural analysis and testing, and FAA requirements are very stringent. For Damage Tolerance compliance, skin stresses and fatigue vulnerability are validated first by calculation, and then by testing, and must exceed the requirements by a factor of 1.5, which means at least 50% stronger than it needs to be. In addition, there are techniques for stopping cracks from reaching a critical length which are built into the airframe. Critical length for a crack is determined to still be flyable.

What this all comes down to is that the danger of a bullet penetrating the skin (pressure vessel) of an aircraft is minimal. There will be no gaping hole through which all unsecured passengers are sucked out, and no Force 10 gale blowing down the aisle. So if an Air Marshal or pilot carrying a gun worries you, you are worried for the wrong reason.

Now, a bomb is a different matter…