Prevailing winds if not disturbed by it, and they probably will be, will send the ash cloud east. Various estimates put the layer of ash on an Iowa cornfield from 6" to 40 feet deep. One estimate is as good as the next in this case because the magnitude of the Yellowstone blow cannot be known much before it blows. The correct term is S.W.A.G., which many here are familiar with.

And if as big an event as some have written, it will do more than "slightly" impinge on the world food production. While I'm not saying it will happen on such a scale, the potential to starve 99% of this planets population of all genus combined genuinely exists. IOW, an extinction event on a par with the KT Boundary 65 million years ago. Or worse. But the record seems clear that it will not be benign, there are known valid records here on this continent between the last blow 640k? years ago, and the arrival of the first humans perhaps 25k to 50k years ago. The rock layer between the surface today, and the KT boundary is a bit short on major bone finds.

And short of drilling into it, and removing that heat by using it for geothermal power on a scale that will run the rest of the planet, probably not a thing we can do about it.

Cheers, Gene

And if that is not enough to salvage this Republic?

It does, and I can generally do it, until I run into somebody following a menu with zero common sense content AND an ego trip just because he/she is in a position of unlimited power to make my life miserable.

It generally doesn't take me long to deduce that, at which point its best to just STFU. But never smile unless its your own joke because you can't let the idiot know he has won this round. Don't encourage them.

What he/she fails to grok is that there are other, less freedom removing ways to get from point a to point b, and that I might just enjoy the trip since I may stop and smell the roses at my convenience. That's a bit inconvenient at 37k feet ASL.

I've driven over halfway across this country several times in my old GMC pickup for exactly the reason that a 4 or 9 hour detour trip to check on some of my old friends in old stomping grounds I have lived in, and which I still have kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids living in, was entirely at my discretion. I even detoured some on my way home from saying goodby to my oldest daughter (only one left, the younger of the two had succumbed a decade back to cancer) who was dying of cancer, at the house daddy built in '46, and which I wired at around my 13th birthday, to intro myself to the people living in it now, mooched a PBR since that was what they were having, and to find that my wiring job had only been updated from the 4 screw fuses I had put in the attic 65+ years back, to a 100 amp service about 2 years back, located in a small front porch someone had added years before. Then I got back on a local road (I was born there in Iowa) and drove another 150 miles, mostly in the direction I was going, and stopped to see my first wife's next in line. Now widowed for nearly 20 years, and living with one of her children in the same house she's been in since she married a fellow at 16 yo in the '50's. And still built pretty much like her older sister, nice set of 40FFFF headlights yet at 70+ yo. If I was free, and she wasn't so jaded about her situation I'd have made the offer to take her home. But it was plain she did have a guy, so I left it at that. We did had a nice visit, caught up some on the family gossip, and I got back in the GMC and motored on back to WV.

The fact that there will never be another engagement round with that industry, costing the industry an almost infinitesimal small figure just for me (but repeat for everyone else so impressed by it they follow suit), is totally lost on such a low functioning person.

Benjamin Franklin was right. He that gives up a little freedom for security, will have neither. And the cost to run all these 3 letter agencies and a military machine that is a total failure at winning wars, is the 2nd biggest item in the budget. SS is the biggest, supposed to have trillions in its balance, but don't open the vault to count it, all you'll find is IOU's from the treasury.

My daughters impending death leads to a ghost story about 2 days later, but I've already bored folks enough for one day, I need to go see about a script refill and a grocery list.

Cheers anyway, Gene

In my career, the TSA was a fact by the time I was being asked to go "put out fires" far enough away that flying was expedient. I served in that "fireman's" position for nearly a decade after I retired from the day to day trench warfare that trying to stay ahead of what was at times was the most destructive news dept personnel group ever collected, but which probably wasn't. But being the lone C.E.T. in the region, I learned that time IS money, and a laid up camera waiting for the factory to repair, at 3x the cost I could do it, was a money waster, with hidden costs in the ratings earned. So despite some legendary arguments with my GM's from time to time about the cost of said spares, in the end I won enough of those arguments that it got easier to "do it my way". But after the official dinner & Rolex presentation, I found myself being asked to go and fix some of the other facilities also owned by the same gentleman. But every time I flew, what I'd take along or try to, was more and more restricted each time. And each time it seemed like a balancing act to have enough tools to get right to work on arrival, or get thrown in jail with zero recourse against the arbitrary decisions of somebody on an ego trip, he's working for the TSA! One time, one of them threatened to confiscate a pair of 4" flush cutting diagonal cutters, without which you cannot clean up the bottom of a pcb after you have replaced a component on that pcb. Worth about a 30 dollar bill when you can find them, they cannot be found at the local radio shack or home depot. I talked him out of it, but why the hell should I have had to?

Then again, time can be saved with a handy Cessna and with my wife of nearly 25 years being pulled down by COPD, leaving her alone for extended periods of time is not a good idea. So rather than 3 days driving each way to get to the UP from here, when the time there to effect a patchup repair generally only a day or 2, I've had the Cessna and its driver come and get me.

I didn't consider that aspect of it until I was in Grand Junction, running that 4 station complex for almost 4 months while the commission was agreeing to the sale & the takeover logistics were being arranged, that I realized I had better not do that again for that length of time. But that, and a short summer in the UP while I rebuilt an old leaky, channel 8, 8 bay antenna that was destroying the transmitter with its high VSWR, were my last lengthy trips out.

And now my physical condition is going downhill, the diabetes is getting worse, so there is no way I can do even a 6 hour days work.

I was called up to our local AM'er yesterday because his transmitter let the smoke out of some stuff it shouldn't have, and by the time I had extracted the bad choke, about 10Kg worth, fried extra crispy by a gassy 807 tube, the "domino" that started it all, I had spent about an hour down on my knees. Today, muscle cramps, even though I'm eating tums & B vitamins like they were M&M's, are making it difficult to even walk around the house, let alone go out and shovel the approximately 1" of partly cloudy off the deck. That on the knees bit is also insulting the hell out of a knee I tore up back in September. I've had the obligatory 3 shots of Hyaluronan, at $150/copy, but the torn cartilage, if it heals, will be slow, the age, nearly 80, and the diabetes are both working against it.

So the TSA is no longer a worry for me, I simply won't fly commercially again. But because of the TSA, the airline industry 12 years after 9/11/01 is probably half the size that it would be without their arrogance and screw you attitude they inflict on the passengers today. All these mergers are, pure and simple, the effect of the TSA bankrupting the industry, its dying gasp that I hope never gets to the final one. The bottom line is that all these 3 letter agencies are such a huge brain on the economy that they are THE major contributor to the USA's decline into a 3rd world country.

To relate the diffs of 50 some years a bit, I had an aunt who was the managing hostess of a major LA eatery, got a phone call as they were closing, I think in '60, that a long time friend had passed, in New Orleans. She called and was able to get a night flight, so left the place after locking up, with the days 4 digit proceeds and her carry piece in a bank bag in the bottom of a large shoulder purse she always carried. The carry piece was easy as she was married to the local Chief of Police. Anyway, she gets to N.O., and runs out later that morning to pick up some fresh underwear & discovers the genuinely sick bird piece is still in her purse. So she never let on, and 2 days later flew home with it. Today they would jack up the jail, slide you under it, and would not even "stick a brick under one corner", you would just "disappear".

TBT, if I knew there was somebody on board carrying, and who had the sense to put a bullet deep into a body as opposed to ventilating the skin of the craft, I'd be more relaxed knowing there was somebody who could say stop, and stop it if he had to. That's only common sense and ringing ears because even my teeny little (and permitted) carry piece would be very very loud when confined inside the craft.

Now I think I'll go see if I can find a comfy position for this knee. No beauty sleep tonight, way to late for that even if it did do some good... :(

Quite a few floors below the cloud of debris? And what pray tell is the source of the dust when the collapse is still 15 floors above the puffs of debris being blown out of the corners of the building? Where there were no windows?

And make no mistake about my feelings for the 3000 that died that day. IMO there should have been murder charges filed for every one of them.

Now, remember from what I have intimated in previous postings here as to what I was the last 19 years of my working life, the Chief Engineer at a TV station in WV.

Our satellite truck was first on the scene at Shanksville, to find access to the site severely restricted by a crowd of "security" people who intended to block access and totally control the pictures the media may have been able to take and upload. Just that took more time to arrange the logistics of getting that many people to the site in the about 4 hours it took us to drive. They would occasionally trot out a "piece of evidence" like that bit of landing gear and a partial turbine wheel. Both of which weren't anything that was ever bolted into a 747. 20% of the correct size. Or smaller.

The dirt damage to the hill wasn't anything like you would expect a 747 could do, and there was no debris visible from where we were allowed to take a camera. We packed up and left at the end of the 2nd afternoon, as our guys were by then in bad need of a shower & clean clothes. But our driver was just curious enough to see if he could drive around and see the site from a different angle. Not so much, but sitting in the trees on the far side of that hill was a small bulldozer, one about the right size to have carved up the other side of the hill in 2 or 3 hours work two days before.

A rumor surfaced a couple months later that that aircraft's tail number was sitting in the back lot at Dayton AFB, but no one has managed a legible picture, so take that as hearsay.

You can say what you believe about me, we have a 1st amendment yet... But please look at the evidence and reach your own conclusions instead of asking for yet another glass of TPTB official koolaid.

FWIW, plug this into your calculations. Those buildings were loaded with asbestos, many tons of it and would have cost quite a few 10's of millions just to clear that hazard out before any legal demolishing could have been done.
Food for thought.

And I am far from convinced, with all the legal crap put in the way, the first responders & survivors who have since passed from breathing that stuff, none got anywhere near the medical attention they deserved. Generally I think the expression is "thrown under the bus".

But like you, I am done. We are, within the limits of this media, incapable of changing the others already made up mind.

Did you take another look at those videos before deciding that, or are you just repeating the "company" policy?

Those buildings survive on the rental fees they generate. Neither of the 3 were even 50% occupied.

You have obviously not taken a good look at the videos. The demolition charges going off can plainly be seen below the main collapse. And why did WTC-7 fall hours later?

Long enough I missed my flight Anything electronic, like my Hitachi v1065 scope, and to be drug out (it was wrapped in a 2 week supply of clean whities in a rollabout suitcase at the time) and plugged into prove it was what it was, even if the dipshit watching the xray screen had no f______ clue what it did. I had to take the batteries out of my camera and throw them away even after I had taken his picture. And damn I hate dealing with people whose measured IQ is less than the eyelet count in their shoes. To me, it was pure and simple that he had the power to harass, and was enjoying the hell out of it. IMNTLBHO, some village was missing its idiot.

I am with a guy named Marion Morrison, I've been in the house he was born in twice, its a minor tourist attraction in Winterset IA, not far from where I was born, and whom you may recall as John Wayne, who once said that "stupidity should hurt", and this guy needed to hurt, bad.

But this thread is about worn out.

Cheers (or maybe not), Gene

Only occasionally in re work. I'm in the middle of doing our local AM'er, whose daytime transmitter let out a quite considerable and stinky quantity of smoke at sign on time this morning. Domino effect, a gassy 807 effectively crow barred the medium high voltage supply, doing a truly excellent job of toasting a 10 kg 10 Henry choke in the power supply. Old gates transmitter, all the worlds spares are up in PA someplace, and locked up by the current blizzard, so it could be Monday before I have the stuff to revive it. But he has a 50 watt nighttime box that sounds great, so he will survive till I can get the 1kw Gates revived yet another time.

As far as the digital, I missed that for the most part, we were still doing analog when we had a turkey dinner and I was given the obligatory Rolex watch at the end of June 2002. But I am still there often enough to be well aware of some of its problems, 50% of which have originated in a $15K Apple video server we bought 4 of, all with $0.12 bushing fans. All of which have now been replaced with in house built linux boxes with very high Iron contents. Our IT guy, who was a 17 yo when I walked in the door in '84, has turned into quite a computer whiz. 64 to 128 gigs of ram, and at least dual Zeons at 3.5Ghz or better. And up to 50Tb worth of drives in raid configs. 5% of the troubles we had from Apples coffee warmers. We do 4 digital channels out of there, and in a pinch, the newest server can do all 4, AND write two other programs into the raid array, all at the same time.

I try to keep up, but with my "other" interests, (cnc machine tools on a small scale, woodworking, a legacy computer) the wet ram gets overloaded easier than it used to. That is not a pleasant realization . :(

Cheers, Gene

"i'm webmaster for bostoncamerata.org, the medieval music group mr. razgui has performed with:"

Unforch, I surmize you are 200% correct. But I would like to thank you for bringing yet another of our "governments" (insert laff track here(but push wrong button & get sob track instead)) completely arbitrary, and asinine to me, abuses of power.

I have no clue how long it will take him to replace those, but I hope he can. Unfortunately I'd also imagine we will never again get to hear him, in any US venue. I sure as hell would never again set foot on US soil, for any reason.

Cheers, Gene

Nah, I've watched the progressive loss of our freedoms since the 1940's. And I've railed against it since. Dec 7 1941 was an eyeopener for me when I saw my father & grandfather crying after we'd heard the evening news on Grandpa's battery powered radio. They understood what it meant. But we rallied, did without, and whuped their butts in about 5 years and change, then taught them how to do business. 9-11, had it not been the demolition job it was, should have resulted in our ruling the middle east. But the stage was already set when Truman flew in and fired Mac because he wanted to stop the Mao driven Chinese on their side of the river. That, quite likely would have been one we lost fair & square.

But Ike was right, when he warned us, everything we've done since has been designed to entrench the military as a standing, and uncontrollable draw on the treasury.

One thing is glaringly obvious today, and that is that the present tyrannical situation could be a major source of energy just from the likes of Thomas Payne, Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson's spinning in their graves. Its intolerable to me, but my kids grew up with it, as have their kids, and now my great grandchildren. And it makes me sad because of the things I got to do that they will never be able to do until our Constitution and Bill of Rights are restored to be the final law of the land. Like T. Jefferson said, "the tree of liberty needs refreshed with the blood of patriots and tyrants from time to time, and God help us if we go 20 years without it." The much needed reset, will not be bloodless. Will I live long enough to see it? I'd toss a quarter and call it heads, but some SOB would invent a law that says he can legally catch it and run while its in the air.

Sigh....

Yup, and come the revolution they will be first in front of the wall.

What I don't get is the almost PETA rabidness of some who have posted above blaming this person. Do society a favor and see if you can win a Darwin Award with your inherent stupidity.

As an artist in my own right, I have no clue how long it took him to find all these reed's, dry, carve and seal them into musical instruments that could then be used to convey the proper sound for a piece of music composed in the time of Herod or before. What I do know is that they will not do that to me for free. There would be a payback that would make the front page.

This is the same stupidity that has been harassing the Gibson Guitar people for the last decade, but they did know about the import restrictions on Rosewood, and had the permits, but some ass hole didn't get the fucking memo. Repeatedly.

I face much the same thing when I have to fly because I am a television broadcast engineer, who often has to pack up his tools and go someplace to resuscitate a tv station or their transmitter. I can't take my tools, several thousand dollars worth, with me to the job via anyplace that takes me past a TSA checkpoint, so now the stations who need my talents have to send their corporate airplanes to come and get me and bring me home. Or I have to drive, which could be a 5 or 6 day each way trip to some of the places I have been since I retired 11 years ago. That is bull shit, the finest stuff, which if applied to an Iowa cornfield and matched by 30+ inches of rain, will grow 220 bushels to the acre.

So when do we take our country back folks? Seriously, I'd like to see it on my watch, but since I'm on my 80th circuit around this star, there might not be much time left for me to watch.

So sign me "Seething mad at the magnitude of the idiocy, Gene"

Most of the above post is true, Apple designs and build some nice servers in a pizza box format, and they are used extensively in the digital broadcast environment to serve up your favorite tv programs. But if you want to keep on using them, you either replace all the fans in them at 6 month intervals with even noisier, higher speed ball bearing versions or keep 50% spare stocks on hand. So we are now, and have been for 3 or 4 years, building our own in-house. And generally speaking, they Just Work(TM) for however long it takes a hard drive to die once spun up & virtually never again stopped.