Going Old School

For the first time in decades, a US Navy Ship, the  USS Essex (LHD-2) navigated from Oahu to San Diego entirely through celestial navigation.

This technique, which came to its full fruit in the mid 1700s, when marine chronometers became accurate enough to allow its use, has largely fallen by the wayside in these days of GPS and other navigational aids.

Kind of cool:

In February 2022, just a few miles off the coast of Oahu, Hawaii, all electronic navigation systems on the bridge of the USS Essex (LHD-2) went dark. The bridge team shifted to navigating by celestial fixes plotted on paper charts. Five days and more than 1,800 nautical miles later, the Essex arrived off the coast of San Diego, California, on time and on track.

A casualty did not cause this to happen. With the approval of the Essex’s commanding officer (CO), Captain Kelly Fletcher, her navigator (coauthor and then–Lieutenant Commander Stanton), and the lead navigation instructor from Surface Warfare Schools Command in Newport, Rhode Island (coauthor Walter O’Donnell), the Essex tested its own proof-of-concept for navigating with a total loss of integrated electronic navigation equipment. Any navigation equipment that used electricity was prohibited, including all GPS sources, the Essex’s electronic Voyage Management System (VMS), and the computer-based celestial navigation software STELLA.

Celestial navigation competence was still necessary just a generation ago. The practice waned with the advent of more sophisticated and precise electronic navigation solutions; yet, as U.S. adversaries’ cyber and electronic warfare capabilities advanced, analog navigation techniques became relevant again. However, it is still rare for a Navy warship to intentionally operate without its electronic navigation suite. As The American Practical Navigator (aka “Bowditch”) states, “No navigator should ever become completely dependent on electronic methods. The navigator who regularly navigates by blindly pushing buttons and reading the coordinates from ‘black boxes’ will not be prepared to use basic principles to improvise solutions in an emergency.”

I wonder if they used a mechanical chronometer for this?  Probably not.

Why a Carbon Tax is Better than a Carbon Market, Part 3.1415926

The EU which has the largest and most ambitious carbon market world, has effectively shut it down by refusing to subsidize it:

The European Parliament this week voted 334-315 (with 60 abstentions) against a controversial "back-loading" plan that aimed to boost the flagging price of carbon, which since 2008 has fallen from about 31 euros per tonne to about 4 euros (about $5.20). Since the vote, the price has fallen even farther, to 2.80 euros. The collapsing market is hardly the kind of firm foundation needed for building a clean-energy economy.

"Now, the market is dead, as far as I can see," said Steffen Böhm, director of the Essex Sustainability Institute at Britain's Essex Business School.

What will be the aftermath of the ETS collapse? Here's a quick primer on what happened, and what it could mean elsewhere, particularly in California, which inaugurated a new carbon market at the start of this year. (Related: "California Tackles Climate Change, But Will Others Follow?"

The "backloading" is an indirect subsidy which would pull carbon credits off of the market to raise prices.

Cap and trade does not work without extensive government intervention, it costs more to administer, and it requires extensive and ongoing government subsidies.


Tell me again why cap and trade is better than a carbon tax again?

The only thing that I can figure out is tribalism:  It allows politicians to create yet another mechanism for them to throw profits toward their classmates from their "elite" schools who are working at Wall Street or the City of London.

Gee, Corruption Much?

Before letting the eviction ban expire, the Congressional Democrats took mega-donations from real estate interests.

This is not surprising.  Pelosi's husband made much of his fortune in real-estate, and she has been a big supporter of real-estate interests:

House Democrats’ super PAC took in a million dollars from the chairman of a massive apartment rental company in June, before letting the federal eviction moratorium expire over the weekend amid a COVID-19 pandemic that continues to surge.

Last week, President Joe Biden’s administration belatedly called on Democrats in Congress to pass legislation to extend the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) eviction ban only days before it was set to expire on July 31 — a full month after Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote that the moratorium would have to be extended by legislation.

The late request by Biden’s press secretary Jen Psaki seemed to catch Democratic lawmakers off guard as they were getting ready to enjoy a long summer recess period. House Democrats tried to quickly pass legislation extending the moratorium by unanimous consent, a maneuver that Republicans blocked. Afterwards, the House adjourned, and lawmakers started streaming out of town.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said last Friday that Democratic leaders had only learned one day earlier that the Biden administration was counting on lawmakers to renew the eviction ban via legislation. However, she claimed the next day that her colleagues had led a “relentless campaign” to extend the moratorium, blaming Republicans for its failure. On Monday, Pelosi sent a letter to Democratic lawmakers arguing that “the moratorium must be extended by the administration.”

………

Meanwhile, Democrats have been raking in money from residential real estate interests that could benefit from the moratorium expiring.

“I’ve been looking at real estate, housing, and landlords for about 15 years, and this feels like an extension of what I have seen at the state and local levels,” said Sara Myklebust, Bargaining for the Common Good research director at Georgetown University's Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor. “You certainly see a pattern of landlords having close relationships as a result of money and influence, and that can affect the way lawmakers see these issues, the questions they ask, and the timelines on which they are willing to take action or not.”

………

George Marcus, chairman of both the massive real estate brokerage Marcus & Millichap and the real estate investment trust Essex Property Trust, donated $1 million on June 1 to House Majority PAC, a super PAC that works to elect Democratic lawmakers. The donation amounted to nearly 7 percent of the total funding the committee has raised so far this year.

Marcus also donated $263,400 in June to a joint fundraising committee benefiting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s campaign, her leadership PAC, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), the party committee that works to elect House Democrats.

During the 2020 election cycle, Marcus donated a combined $1 million to the DCCC and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which elects Democratic Senate candidates. He contributed millions more to the party-aligned super PACs that aid those committees: $3.5 million to Senate Majority PAC and $3 million to House Majority PAC.

………

In an earnings call last week, Essex Property Trust CEO Michael Schall said that the company expects its delinquency rates will “return to normal levels over time, as more workers enter the workforce and eviction protections lapse on September 30 in both California and Washington.”

When asked about the expiring federal eviction moratorium, Schall said that “we expect to work with our residents to the extent we can.”

This is why people refuse to believe that the Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) will work for them, because they don't.

Support Your Local Police

It appears that an officer at ICE protests used the injury of a journalist to steal her bag full of photographic equipment.

At least time, he was charged.

A law enforcement officer in New Jersey was charged on Thursday with stealing the camera equipment of a photojournalist who was covering a protest outside the Delaney Hall immigration detention center in Newark.

The photojournalist, Angelina Katsanis, 25, dropped her camera bag after she was injured at the protest on Saturday, she said in an interview. The bag contained roughly $10,000 worth of equipment, according to a statement from the state attorney general, Jennifer Davenport.

The bag was later tracked using an Apple AirTag to the home of Darryl Brown, 43, a sergeant with the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office, the statement said. Sergeant Brown, of Sparta Township, N.J., had been deployed to Delaney Hall during the protest, prosecutors said.

………

A law enforcement officer in New Jersey was charged on Thursday with stealing the camera equipment of a photojournalist who was covering a protest outside the Delaney Hall immigration detention center in Newark.

The photojournalist, Angelina Katsanis, 25, dropped her camera bag after she was injured at the protest on Saturday, she said in an interview. The bag contained roughly $10,000 worth of equipment, according to a statement from the state attorney general, Jennifer Davenport.

The bag was later tracked using an Apple AirTag to the home of Darryl Brown, 43, a sergeant with the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office, the statement said. Sergeant Brown, of Sparta Township, N.J., had been deployed to Delaney Hall during the protest, prosecutors said.

………

Later that night, Ms. Katsanis and another photographer, who was on assignment for The Times, made their way to a nearby hospital using a wheelchair given to her by a medic at the scene.

From a hospital bed, she watched on her phone as the AirTag in her camera bag traveled across northern New Jersey — on the highway, then to a private residence, and then to a bar close to that home, she said.

Ms. Katsanis said her boyfriend and the other photographer went out to track the AirTag and found that it had been removed from her bag and was on the side of the road. She said that her name and contact information were still clearly written on the AirTag.

“That was a pretty clear sign to me that this was a theft and not just a law enforcement officer holding onto this bag for safekeeping,” said Ms. Katsanis, who reported the missing bag to the attorney general’s office.

This is likely far more common than is reported in the  press. 

Well Duh!

This just in, a new study has shown that homophobes are likely to be self deluded closet cases:

Homophobes are a group of people who have a negative feeling towards homosexuality, but new research claims that people who express hatred of gays are secretly more likely to be attracted to the same sex.

Researchers from the University of Rochester, the University of Essex and the University of California in Santa Barbara have discovered that homophobes are actually attracted to the same sex but they do not admit it because they grew up with authoritarian parents who forbade such desires. They found this when they conducted a series of psychology studies.

The researchers assert that people who define themselves as straight and who hate homosexuality are often attracted to the same sex. They believe that homosexual people remind them of similar tendencies within themselves.

"Individuals who identify as straight but in psychological tests show a strong attraction to the same sex may be threatened by gays and lesbians because homosexuals remind them of similar tendencies within themselves," said Netta Weinstein, a lecturer at the University of Essex, in a statement.

You Cannot Blog Without Memes

The Original


The Final Frontier


Meme²

Bernie Sanders showed up at the inaugeration as ……… well ……… Bernie Sanders, in a coat and mittens that he has worn for quite some time and a high order meme detonation occurred:

Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont is a fierce advocate of fair wages and a former presidential candidate who lost the Democratic nomination to now-President Biden. And thanks to his practical clothing choices he is also now the center of a seemingly endless flood of altered pictures that dominated some corners of the internet in the hours after Mr. Biden’s socially distanced inauguration on Wednesday.

Amid the dark suits and bright coats dotting the Capitol steps, Mr. Sanders was photographed sitting masked, cross-legged and bundled up in a bulky coat and mittens against the frigid weather in Washington, D.C. Soon after, the image, taken by the photographer Brendan Smialowski for Getty Images, began to circulate on social media inserted into a wide array of photographs and scenes from movies and artworks.

On a day all about Mr. Biden, it was in some ways appropriate that Mr. Sanders, whose strongest political support in the presidential race came from young voters, would nonetheless be the star of the day’s biggest meme by doing nothing but sitting and crossing his arms. In their primary competition, Mr. Sanders enjoyed a significantly larger online following than Mr. Biden, especially among those who often communicate through memes.

Though other memes starring Mr. Sanders were often used to say something — he wore what appears to be the same coat in a 2019 fund-raising video in which he is “once again asking for your financial support,” a line that has been repurposed in a litany of ways — there was no such deeper meaning to the newest meme. Instead of using his image to make an argument, he was simply placed into new contexts, with his pose, outfit and expression themselves serving as the joke.

Just a quick note, if you think that those mittens are fabulous, and they are, don't contact the teacher who made them as a gift asking for some, she has a day job.

BuzzFeed News reported that Mr. Sanders got his mittens from Jen Ellis, a second-grade teacher in Essex Junction, Vt., who made gloves on the side. She said she sent him a pair after he lost a bid for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016.

Ms. Ellis tweeted that the mittens were made from repurposed wool and lined with fleece.

In an interview with CBS, Mr. Sanders laughed off the attention.

“In Vermont, we dress, we know something about the cold,” he told Gayle King. “And we’re not so concerned about good fashion. We just want to keep warm. And that’s what I did today.”

The reason that  this meme has exploded is because, as Bradley Whitford notes, "They know he would have worn exactly the same thing if he had won the presidency. "

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

In Vermont, of all places, the the water superintendent for Richmond cut fluoride levels in the town drinking water without telling anyone.

According to him, a couple of people, anti-fluoride nut jobs no doubt, complained to him, and he reduced the levels for 3 years without telling anyone. 

First, fire him now.  Second, make sure that there is no unexplained deposits in his bank account, because this seems corrupt as hell:

An employee of the Town of Richmond may be in hot water for reducing the level of fluoride in the town’s drinking water for years without the public’s knowledge or the consent of town leaders.

Water superintendent Kendall Chamberlin, a 37-year worker, acknowledged during a September 19 meeting of the town’s Water and Sewer Commission that he lowered the fluoride level to less than half of what's recommended by the state due to his own safety concerns.

………

Chamberlin told commissioners he decided to reduce the levels several years ago because “a couple” of water system users told him they were against fluoridation and he preferred to be “ahead of the curve” when it comes to removing chemicals from the water supply.

………

A follow-up meeting is scheduled for Monday, and Chamberlin, who also sits on the Essex Selectboard, acknowledged he may face disciplinary action given the intense criticism he has received from the public on what he called a “hot-button issue.”

“I would expect that’s probably where they are headed,” Chamberlin told Seven Days on Wednesday, referring to the town’s five-member Water and Sewer Commission.

Fire him now.  Name and shame the people who pressured him.

Here Is a Shocker

The Registrar of Deeds for Guilford County, North Carolina, Greensboro and environs, after hearing horror stories about fraudulent loans, decided to go through his own deeds, and went through all the deeds transferred from 2006 to 2010.

The results? That in a cursory examination, well over half of the deeds were in some manner fraudulent:

But Jeff Thigpen, the register of deeds in Guilford County, North Carolina, a county of about 465,000 in the center of the state (the largest city is Greensboro), decided to survey all the mortgage documents submitted to his office by DocX, a notorious "mortgage mill" that processes documents on behalf of lenders, between August 2006 and April 2010. He was inspired by a 60 Minutes investigation revealing numerous forgeries, backdating, and other false information on mortgage documents. "When I saw that [story], I was basically on fire," Thigpen says. "'I know this material is in my office, I've got to find it, I've got to get it out.'"

Out of the 6,100 documents Thigpen examined, 4,500 showed signature irregularities. The name of one DocX employee, Linda Green, who was acting as a vice president for several major banks, was forged 15 different ways on the Guilford County documents, rendering them invalid. Thigpen's investigation was one of the first systematic assessments of mortgage document fraud in the entire country, certainly more robust than anything conducted by state and federal regulators.

Thigpen, as well as his Essex County equivalent John O'Brien, have been making as much of a stink as they can about this, they have asked the Iowa Attorney General, Tom Miller, to hold off on his proposed national settlement pending a real investigation. (some older posts here)

That would be the right thing to do, of course, but considering the fact that Miller is angling for some sort of position in the Obama administration, and the Obama administration is as interested in pursuing the banks for wrong doing as they are in pursuing Dick Cheney for outing a CIA agent, I don't expect that there will ever be a meaningful investigation of Bankster wrongdoing.

OK, I'm Having Some Transportation Mishaps Today, and So is All of Baltimore

Bad day at the office

I was driving down the road on I-795, and a red pickup truck a few car lengths ahead of me had its driver's side front wheel come off.

The truck continued down the road, trailing sparks from the break disk on the pavement.

Thankfully, the driver managed to control the truck, and get off onto the right shoulder.

The wheel continued to roll down the road, and careened off the center median Jersey barrier, and wheel bounced across three lanes, and also went off the right shoulder.

Thankfully the wheel did not hit anyone either, though it came within 10 feet of me and another driver.

I then called 911, changed my underwear, and went off to a scheduled appointment with my chiropractor.

As to the rest of Baltimore,  there was a train derailment and explosion in Rosedale:

A freight train smacked into a truck carrying garbage and careened off the tracks in Rosedale Tuesday afternoon, triggering an explosion felt throughout the region and sending up a plume of black smoke visible for miles.

Authorities identified the driver of the truck as John Alban Jr., a retired Baltimore County firefighter who owns a waste collection company near the scene of the crash. The Essex man was listed in serious condition at Maryland Shock Trauma Center Tuesday night, a hospital spokeswoman said. No other serious injuries were reported.

Officials shut down surrounding roads for several hours, slowing traffic through the region. The roads were reopened by Tuesday night, and a spokeswoman for the State Highway Administration said the morning commute should not be affected.

Michael “Vince” Brown, the operations manager at a business near the crash site, was sitting in his office at about 2 p.m. Tuesday when it began to “rumble and shake.”

“I screamed at my employees, ‘Everyone get in their cars and get out of here now,’” Brown said. “We were on Lake Drive, and I asked if everyone was there, and as soon as I said that, the train blew up. It blew me against my car.”

Authorities have advised people in a two block radius to leave the area because of possible toxic fumes.

I Was Wondering When This Would Happen

The deed recorder for South Essex, Massachusetts asking for an investigation of MERS to see if they illegally evaded recording fees for mortgage assignments:

“It’s a basic issue of fairness. MERS says that if you are a member of their club, you can avoid fees on assignments of mortgages forever. Those are fees that everyone else pays,” [deed recorder John] O’Brien said. “I’ve never before heard of a private company that has attempted to unilaterally take over such a public function as property recordation. Imagine if someone tried to do this with drivers licenses.”

Silly man, don't you know?  The banksters don't have to obey the laws!

Here is hoping that he gets his investigation, and he nails those bastards to the wall.

H/t Atrios.

Put a Fork in it, MERs is Done

Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems (MERS) has been under increasing pressures for its legal basis (it appears that they never registered loan transfers), it's corporate structure (a few dozen employees, and tens of thousands of "Vice Presidents" who were actually employed its clients, so it functioned as principal and agent), and its shoddy record keeping.

Well, MERS is now done.

First, it instructed it clients not to foreclose in its name, then Essex County, MA and Guilford County NC both filed multimillion dollar lawsuits against the entity for illegally evading county recording fees, and now Freddie Mac has said that servicers of its loan portfolio will no longer be allowed to foreclose in MERS's name.

So, the PTB have come to the conclusion that MERS is complete sh%$, both from a legal as well as a factual perspective.

Of course, they knew this 15 years ago, when MERS was founded, but now they realize that he courts are recognizing it as well.

One question though:  Why is no one going to jail?

Ah, This is Obviously Some Strange Usage of the Phrase "Not an Aircraft Carrier" With Which I Was Previously Unfamiliar

Click for full size

---

This is not an "Aviation Destroyer"
(Background)

The next generation of Japanese naval aviation will be the 22DH ships, which are the size of the Essex Class fleet carriers of World War II.

The kicker here is the fact that they are looking at deploying the F-35B STOVL fighter on the ship.

I understand why the Japanese are leery of saying that they have an aircraft carrier.

It makes them nervous.

Hell, it makes me nervous.

That being said, this is not a helicopter carrying destroyer.