The Last Bomb

36 minute video about the B-29 bomber missions from the Mariana Islands to Tokyo during the last year of WW2.


The Last Bomb
Bomber LeMay divided his 720 planes among three islands: Guam, Saipan and Tinian. The P-51 fighter escorts were based on Iwo Jima, which is about half way to Tokyo. I suspect one reason for putting the planes on multiple islands was to minimize congestion. With four runways you could get all the planes in the air four times faster than if they were all using the same one. The trip was 1500 miles one way and took 15 hours round trip. Each B-29 could hold 9,000 gallons of fuel. 9,000 gallons times 720 planes means each bombing mission needs 6.5 million gallons of av-gas, not counting the fighters or refueling on the way home. A WW2 era oil tanker (ship) could hold about 4 million gallons.

Link to larger map.

The weird thing is that although the Japanese were pretty well beaten once we started bombing them with the B-29, they didn't give up, or at least the high command refused to surrender. Just the nature of crazed people to be stubborn, I suppose.

Update September 2018 replaced missing video. 

Update January 2021 replaced missing map.

Inspired Lunacy

Stolen entire from

Monday Evening

Guest writer by Marcel Lately I've found it hard to express the nuances of my political and cultural opinions, some of which seem to contradict others. Rather than try to reason out some kind of consistent position, or take refuge in irony, I'll be inviting occasional guest bloggers post their views from time to time. Frankly it was either that or write up a series of modern fables featuring talking animals. First up guest blogging is Jamahl Leiderman-Edwards. Jamahl is a graduate of Georgetown's masters program in Anti-Western Studies, with an undergraduate concentration in atheistic theology and weed. His articles have not appeared in Mother Jones, Forbes, and the LA Times. Jamahl condemns your intolerance, but understands the fear that makes you a bigot. Jamahl writes: Thanks, Marcel, for making a down payment on your debt to the truth by giving me my platform. The point that's missed about giving the undocumented worker their driver's license is this: The requirement to possess a state-issued license to drive uniquely burdens the undocumented worker, just as it uniquely privileges the US citizen who killed the indigenous American and took his car along with his land. This is reinforced by the narrative in which the Pontiac is an automobile instead of a great native American leader for peace and justice. The driver's license, as an imposition of the ruling oligarchy, is inherently discriminatory. Now we cannot stop issuing licenses, because that would reduce the involvement of the state in people's lives. What we must do is give a license to anyone who wants one, under whatever name s/he chooses. Thank you, Jamal. In the interests of space I've held the rest of your post for now, but I'm sure in the future we'll take up suburban culture, queer text, and the internal combustion engine as narrative.

Death to My Enemies

Quetta, Pakistan

Looking at some news reports it appears that they were a whole bunch of bombings in Pakistan and Afghanistan in the last day. All three of these reports from DAWN dot COM in Pakistan are less than 12 hours old.

• Blast leaves 21 dead, 70 injured at Swat religious centre
• Karachi violence: At least eleven killed in one hour
• Quetta blasts leave 70 people dead, 120 others injured

I am wondering if bombings have not just become a regular part of daily life there, background noise if you will. Looking at a British timeline it seems that one to two hundred people are killed every year by bombs. We (the USA) kill 40,000 people with cars every year, which is like one person in 10,000. Pakistan has a population of 180 million (!!!), so losing 200 people to bombs is like a one in a million chance of it happening to you, 100 times less likely than getting killed in a car wreck in the USA. So while bombs are horrible and vicious, people will think that "it didn't happen to anyone I know", so it doesn't matter.

Car Talk

If I was going to buy a car, this is the kind of car I would want, except I would want a real one, not a model. Ah well, just as well, probably couldn't afford the model, much less a real one. Found on Strange World Studio, via Concept Vehicles.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, my siblings are talking about buying new cars, so I chime in with my priceless pearls of wisdom:

    We bought both of our current cars new. These are the only cars we have bought new. I bought my 99 truck in the summer of 99 when they were closing out the 99's to make room for the new models in the fall. There was an ad in the paper that sounded good. Turns out the only trucks the sale price applied to were the sport models with stick shifts and crank windows. The dealer screwed around for an hour until I got tired of waiting and then they retired for ten minutes and came back with a price about 10% off of list.
    I think we bought the 2006 Mitsubishi in January of 2007. The manufacturer was offering a $5,000 discount (I think), which brought it down to the low 20's, about the same as the truck.
Know what you want and what you want to pay. Find the car and make an offer. Give them no more than five minutes to decide whether they want to sell it for that amount of not. If not, walk away. You don't have to be rude, just smile, say thank you and good bye. If you are feeling obligated, tell them you have an appointment with your shrink.
    The whole ploy of dealers is to wear you down, drag it out, make you suffer. Remember, the salesman's commission is measured in hundred's of dollars, not thousands. If he can squeeze an extra couple hundred bucks out of you by making you sit there all day long, he will, and he won't even be the least bit sorry about it.
    Don't worry about a good price. Whatever deal you get, somebody else will have gotten a better deal and will make a point of telling you all about it. Figure out what you are willing to pay and what you want. If the price you are willing to pay is retail, well, make some salesman a happy guy and pay retail.

Update: Michigan Mike chimes in with his two cents.

I don't think there is appreciable ground to be gained negotiating on terms. I think a better bet is to walk in on the last day of the month at the last hour (monthly numbers), in the dark, in the rain, when even a car salesman has some creeping doubts that he needs new tires for HIS car. Get them when they are weak. Negotiating for terms takes extra time,and the salesman will have to bring donuts for the finance guy next week, because the finance guy is salary and he ain't gonna stay late to do the paperwork for a salesman who will probably snort up the commission anyhow. He's got a decent book to read and some crispy snacks waiting for him at his condo. 

L7 - Pretend We're Dead

Kind of a grim title, but seems to be a protest song. I finally managed to break out of my Six Underground rut.

Sound Barrier

AVRO Arrow

From the Wikipedia article about the AVRO Arrow, a Canadian jet aircraft that was developed in the 1950's:

Avro engineering had been considering supersonic issues for some time at this point. Supersonic flight works in a very different fashion and presents a number of new problems. One of the most critical, and surprising, was the sudden onset of a new form of drag, known in the West as wave drag. Wave drag was so powerful that engines of the era could not provide enough power to overcome it, leading to the concept of a "sound barrier".

German research during the Second World War had shown the onset of wave drag was greatly reduced by using airfoils that varied in curvature as slowly as possible. This suggested the use of thinner airfoils with much longer chord than designers would have used on subsonic aircraft. These designs were impractical because they left little internal room in the wing for armament or fuel. However, they also discovered it was possible to "trick" the airflow into the same behaviour if a conventional thicker airfoil was used, swept rearward at a sharp angle, creating a swept-wing. This provided many of the advantages of a thinner airfoil while also retaining the internal space needed for strength and fuel storage. Another advantage was that the wings were clear of the supersonic shock wave generated by the nose of the aircraft.

First time I ever heard of "wave drag" or the reason for swept wings. And once again we've got Nazis in the mix. Will we never get shut of these warthogs?

Update May 2020 replaced missing picture.

MARC BY MARC JACOBS

The battery in my wife's watch died, so I took it to the Interstate Battery Store over by the Costco in Hillsboro to get a new one. Last time I needed a new watch battery I ended up replacing it myself because the nice lady at the jewelry store obviously wasn't interested in doing it. It wasn't especially difficult, just a little tedious. I usually go to a jewelry store for watch batteries because 1) I hate having to look all over the local mega-mart to find the coin cell display, 2) I hate having to look through all nine hundred batteries they have on display to see if they have the one I need, which means I need to open the watch and find my glasses so I can read the leetle teeny numbers stamped on the battery, and 3) they usually don't have it anyway. So I go, or rather went, to the jeweler. After this last go round, and with the wonderful luck I have been having with battery stores, I thought I would give this one a shot. No problemo, back of the watch pops off with a snap, I locate a couple of likely looking batteries and here the nice lady behind the counter offers to put it in for me. Well, how cool is that? Except it takes her a long time, so I walk over to check on her, and it's a stupid watch. You can't just pop the old battery out and pop in the new one, you have to loosen a couple of screws so you can move the teeny weeny retaining straps so you can get the battery out, and then after you get the new battery in you need to reposition the straps and tighten the screws. What. A. Pain. After endless agonizing minutes she accomplishes this task and now all we have to do is pop the back back on. Right, just line it up and give it a little squeeze. Hmmph. No go. No matter, nice lady has special, fancy schmancy press designed for just this task. Still no go. She hands it to me. I squeeze hard, but I am not feeling any motion. It's like the watch has turned into a rock, and the back is still sitting loose. Well this sucks. I take the watch home and put the back cover in the freezer overnight. Maybe that will help.

Today I tackled the watch again. Freezing the back did not help. Measuring the back and the hole I get a difference of about eight thousandths, which is a bit much for a press fit, but we aren't dealing with solid steel, so maybe all we need is a little force. So I get out my C-Clamp and a couple of sockets, line everything up, give the handle a couple of turns and stop. No pop. I was expecting a pop when the cover finally seated, but I got no sound at all. Is it in? Loosen the handle and check. Success! The lid is firmly in place. Now all we have to do is take it back to the store and complain that it died because even with the new battery it's still not working.
    MARC BY MARC JACOBS is the logo inscribed on the watch, not to be confused with Marc Jacobs the fashion designer who is the head designer for Marc Jacobs the fashion company. MARC BY MARC JACOBS is also designed by Marc Jacobs, but it is a "diffusion line", whatever that is.

Update January 14, 2012. Nordstrom replaced the watch, no questions asked.