Sailing the Last Voyage with Newton and Pascal
It's not too often that I make an engineering commentary on this site, but the characterisation of the NTSB's conclusion that a design flaw was the "critical factor" in the I-35 bridge failure in Minneapolis, MN, strikes me as a little misleading. (The NTSB's own announcement is here.) In its interim report, the FHWA went …
Continue reading "Design Flaw for the I-35 Bridge Collapse?"
The flap over Hillary Clinton's remarks about the role of Dr. Martin Luther King in the civil rights movement can be seen as a tempest in a teapot, as so many discussions of race in this country are. But her idea that it was Lyndon Johnson's signing of the Civil Rights Bill in 1964 speaks …
Continue reading "The Role of Dr. Martin Luther King and the Democratic Primary"
On a visit to Houston, my client was kind enough to take me to a very nice South American restaurant. One of the items on the menu was the pollo camisado, or literally the shirted chicken (the “shirt” consisted of plantain chips.) I joked that Juan Peron's favourite dish would have been pollo descamisado, or …
In the novel The Ten Weeks, both the heroine and her father drive variations of the Citroen 2CV, the latter the original and the former the Dyane. This form of "basic transportation" helped many Europeans to have a car--with ecologically friendly gas mileage--of any kind in the years after the devastation of World War II. …
John Kerry's endorsement of Obama is based on one of three things: Conviction he's the best. Anticipation he'll get the nomination, and thus reward Kerry for his endorsement. Revenge against some offence the Clinton's committed (and there are many Democrats who have grievances against them.) It would be foolish to assume that Hillary is down …
Continue reading "John Kerry endorses Obama. He better hope he’s right."
Hillary Clinton's victory in New Hampshire is perhaps the result of the following: "I listened to you. And in the process, I found my own voice," Clinton told her victory rally. "Now, let's give America the kind of comeback New Hampshire has just given me." Or, put another way, she told the story like it …
One of the more interesting adventures my family business got itself into was my brother's two attempts to sell our pile driving equipment to an Indian shipyard. As he cruised the streets of Mumbai in the early 1980's, he inhaled the fumes of the Tata manufactured trucks, which were cleverly aimed at the level of …
Hillary says that Vladimir Putin "doesn't have a soul:" Speaking in Hampton this evening, Hillary Rodham Clinton said the president of Russia "doesn't have a soul." She was riffing on the danger of inexperience, and reliance on personal relationships, in foreign affairs, indirectly comparing Obama to George W. Bush, who notoriously looked into Vladimir Putin's …
Mike Huckabee's version of "New Testament compassionate conservatism" may bother many on the right, but the positive feedback--in the form of events like the Iowa caucuses--is a sign of the Republicans' core problem in moving forward this election year. That problem, simply put, is that Americans in general are less and less willing to be …
Continue reading "Mike Huckabee and the Dilemma of American Conservatives"
Hillary Clinton's ignominious defeat in Iowa (and for that matter Mike Huckabee's win) are signs that we still have a competitive political system. Both parties have attempted "coronations" in this, the most open election year since World War II. But neither has worked. Clinton's is especially galling since she, more than any other Democrat candidate, …
Positive Infinity 