I was the Quality Assurance Officer in the maintenance department of the largest helicopter squadron in the Marine Corps, so allow me to pass along a few notes on military aircraft maintenance procedures and the cost accounting of mishaps.

Everything in the maintenance department is done by checklists and written procedures because people make mistakes; written instructions help minimize those mistakes as long as the procedures are followed. In addition to the written instructions, there are at least two levels of QA: Collateral duty inspectors, who are more senior mechanics who check the work was done right, and Quality Assurance representatives, who are still more senior and check the work after the first inspection (they are prohibited from watching the work to ensure they look at each job with no preconceptions). Given the insanely complex maintenance that goes into these machines, this setup is a marvel of efficiency and effectiveness. (Evidenced by the low number of mishaps attributed to maintenance errors.)

RFID tool control works just great until the computer loses power. A lot of maintenance is done in very austere environments and under combat conditions. The current tool control systems are designed to work when the lights are out and the world has gone to hell in a hand basket. If your tool control idea won't survive incoming fire, it's not robust enough.

The bottom line to both of these is that taking shortcuts bypasses the system that prevents these mishaps. Follow the procedures and things will be fine 99.9% of the time.

As regards accounting, when an aircraft sustains more than $2 million in damage (used to be $1 million), it is considered a Class A mishap, which is the same classification for a mishap resulting in total loss of the airframe or the loss of life. From that point of view, $25 million is a total loss. Add in the factors of old airframe, hard to get parts, etc. and you see why this is considered a total loss. If you don't like it, blame the Congresscritters who make the laws, not the guys who live under those laws.

The real problem is very succinctly described by Prof. Richard Muller of Berkeley (a who believes in AGW), who points out the problems wiht the data in this video: http://youtu.be/8BQpciw8suk

If you try doing this to your data in a high school physics class you will fail; it should not be acceptable from professional scientists. As Prof. Muller says, these are people whose conclusions can no longer be trusted because their actions forfeited that trust.

The problem has a political source: government-approved monopolies for cable providers. So the solution must also be political: eliminate the government-approved monopolies. This crap won't happen when there is more than one alternative in the marketplace. Many locations are only served by one provider because the government has granted that provider a monopoly. Get on your state and local legislators' butts about it and get the law changed.

The major problem with teacher training in the US is not that too many teachers are weak in math and science (although that is a problem), it is teacher certification programs that concentrate on the task of teaching and not on how to convey particular material. Most states require teachers to spend almost two years getting a teaching certificate in order to be allowed to teach in the public schools; this certificate is based on learning education theory and not on learning the subject to be taught. I'm a PhD candidate, and when I finish my degree I could get a job as a college professor teaching all manner of IT-related courses. But in most states I couldn't get a job teaching a middle school keyboarding class because I won't have a teaching certificate.

Maybe eliminating that particular certification would entice more technically savvy people into the classroom.

Correct and well said, up to a point.

Assuming a person has some objective phenomenon they can point to, such as hearing a noise or seeing an object move, that particular phenomenon can be investigated. For some, an obvious cause can be determined: the pipe is hot because water flows through it; the voices you heard were from another room and were channeled through he heating duct. For other phenomena, no explanation can be found: no one has been in the room, but something left a person-shaped depression in the bed. The cause could be anything from a practical joke to some paranormal phenomenon, but all that can be said is that the investigator does not *know" what the cause was.

If the phenomena are less physical (e.g., seeing something or having a feeling of something), it becomes much more difficult to prove a cause due to their intangible nature. Causes can be suggested, but no one can say for sure exactly what the cause was.

I have a biologist friend who has debunked part of a reputed haunting in his house through a little careful deduction, but other aspects remain unexplained. That is the crux of "science" -- being able (and willing) to distinguish between what you know and what you suspect or believe. And the fact is, nobody *knows* what causes the phenomena generally attributed to "ghosts."

One other important point to consider about CBO estimates is that the CBO can only base its estimates on the information the Congress gives it.

One example in this bill is the contention that Congress will cut Medicaid reimbursements to doctors by 20% per year. This cut has been on the books for a long time and Congress has waived it EVERY TIME. Does anyone really believe Congress will suddenly stop waiving those cuts? But still, CBO must include those cuts in its scoring because that is what Congress told CBO to include.

As with any process, garbage in == garbage out.

More than socialized education, it is the ever-increasing tendency to invest the schools with responsibilities beyond teaching. When schools are insisting students perform "community service" in order to graduate, are pressed into service as monitors of their charges' weight, and similar activities having nothing to do with the conveyance of academic knowledge, then it is only natural that some administrators will come to see themselves as the arbiters of all student behavior.

Too many school administrators increasingly tell parents that they are the "experts" who know best how to run their kids' education and that parents need to butt out. Power tends to corrupt; this is only the logical extension of a culture where administrators feel they are the final authority on child rearing.

To be fair, much of the blame must be laid at the feet of politicians who insist that schools be used to effect social change to that politician's liking. Leave the schools to teach the three Rs and leave the social engineering out of it and this sort of problem will cease.

Actually, you missed the very beginning of the argument. Those of us who remember the 70s recall the breathless press accounts of the coming ice age, which would have had a substantial portion of the world population dead of starvation by now because of the loss of farmland to glaciers. Given the full 30+ year history of climate change alarmism, a little skepticism is healthy.

The plain fact is, there is a whole lot more uncertainty surrounding the climate than most people are willing to admit.