Marines need e-mail

Grim at Blackfive spoke with the commander of Regimental Combat Team SIX recently, and this for me is the highlight of the conversation -- what we can do to help the Marines:

GRIM: Is there anything that you and your Marines need that we could send you?

COL. SIMCOCK: (Chuckles.) I'll tell you what, the one thing that all Marines want to know about -- and that includes me and everyone within Regimental Combat Team 6 -- we want to know that the American public are behind us. We believe that the actions that we're taking over here are very, very important to America. We're fighting a group of people that, if they could, would take away the freedoms that America enjoys.

If anyone -- you know, just sit down, jot us -- throw us an e- mail, write us a letter, let us know that the American public are behind us. Because we watch the news just like everyone else. It's broadcast over here in our chow halls and the weight rooms, and we watch that stuff, and we're a little bit concerned sometimes that America really doesn't know what's going on over here, and we get sometimes concerns that the American public isn't behind us and doesn't see the importance of what's going on. So that's something I think that all Marines, soldiers and sailors would like to hear from back home, that in fact, yes, they think what we're doing over here is important and they are in fact behind us.

Here's the address: RCT-6lettersfromh@gcemnf-wiraq.usmc.mil
(Michelle Malkin wants copies of any emails you send, cc: writemalkin@gmail.com)



Here's my letter:

To the Marines and Sailors of Regimental Combat Team SIX,

I don't write letters often, but when I do it's usually because I feel strongly about the subject. In this case, it's your team, and what you mean to me and my family.

When I think of the Marines, the things that stand out most in my mind are pride and professionalism. In my younger days, I was a Navy junior officer, stationed on USS Manitowoc hauling Marines around the Mediterranean for two deployments*, on USS Iowa with a top-notch MARDET, and later on the staff of Beach Group TWO at Little Creek. I worked with Marines at every duty station for 10 years, and never met a Marine who was anything less than a professional. They deserved to be proud to claim the title.

You should be proud as well. Some people here in the States (e.g., the major media) have tried for the last four years to portray your mission as hopeless, or a waste. Some have fallen for the spin, and many more aren't even paying attention, but when I read stories about the war I see Marines being successful at every mission they take on. When I listen to the talking heads on TV, I hear negative comments, but looking around town it's extremely rare to see or hear vocal opposition.

You, like your brothers before you, are manning the front lines to make sure that our country's battles are fought over there and not back here. My family and I are thankful for your courage, for your resolve, and for your ability to get the job done right.


My heartfelt best wishes for the success of your mission, Semper Fi

Ken Adams
Delanco, New Jersey
http://smadanek.blogspot.com

* for the curious, it was MARG 1-86 (Guadalcanal, Ponce, El Paso, Hermitage and Manitowoc, 24th MAU/MEU) and MARG 4-87 (Nassau, Shreveport, and Manitowoc, 22nd MEU).

Please, send the Marines a little note to let them know that their mission is righteous, and that the American people are behind them 100%.

A Haiku

While walking in to work from the car this morning, the following popped into my head:


Springtime nor'easter
snow-covered cherry blossoms
Al Gore gave a talk

Happy Birthday to Me!

I got a really cool present for my birthday this year: a bunch of friends from way back, with whom I had lost touch, found this blog.
Lope, Cece, Kristi, and all y'all from back in the dark ages, it's great to hear from you.

Woodworking advice

In the never-ending quest to maintain our 91-year-old house, I have come across the need to replace some kitchen cabinets. At a couple-hundred bucks each, it makes sense to build them rather than buy them. The only major tool needed for such an endeavor, not already in my shop, is a table saw.

I've looked at a couple of different models, but would like some advice on which model will work best for an amateur like myself. I can afford something in the $500-600 range. My shop area is set up only for 120V power, and is in a basement with fairly low overheads and a not-quite-level floor. Here are the candidates:


Grizzly's G0444.
Pro: I've heard good things about Grizzly tools over the years. Nice fence.
Con: Stamped steel wings. Shipping cost. I could drive 3 hours each way to get one from the showroom.

Jet's 708100 JWTS-10.
Pro: I've heard good things about Jet tools over the years.
Con: Stamped steel wings. Shipping cost ($149), but apparently has free shipping today.

Ridgid TS3650.
Pro: I can walk into Home Depot and walk out with this saw. Twenty-six 5-star reviews on the Home Depot web site. The wings appear to be cast rather than stamped. 12-months no payments/no interest if I use my Home Depot card.
Con: I don't see any, but could be wrong.

So can anyone out there help me?

New Jersey 2008 State Budget - Municipal Aid

Enlighten New Jersey notes today the inequality in state aid to municipalities.

As required by law, each Legislative Distinct (LD) has approximately the same number of residents, and yet proposed municipal aid ranges from a low of $23,625,299 in LD-24 to a high of $119,422,814 in LD-29. The proposed average municipal aid per Legislative Distinct is $43,178,397.

Proposed state aid for each municipality and Legislative District can be viewed here and New Jersey population statistics as of December, 2006 can be found here.

Why are there differences? Enlighten doesn't come out and say it, but the two districts cited provide a clue. District 24 has a large number of small municipalities, 31 in all, receiving an average of $768,558.

District 29, on the other hand, covers Hillside Township and a portion of Newark. The average state aid in 29 is $59,721,407; Hillside will receive $5,676,440, while the tab for Newark is $113,766,374.

The observant will note that in addition to the difference in character (rural vs. urban), District 24 is represented in the Senate and Assembly by Republicans, while 29 is a Democrat District. Surprise!

Actually, it gets better. Breaking down the municipalities statewide by their representation, an interesting trend emerges. All-Democrat districts (Senator + 2 Assemblymen) receive an average of $5.3 million (per municipality) in total state aid, while all-Republican districts average $1.59 million. Here's the breakdown by representation:

Senate	Assembly	Average Aid	Average Increase
D	D, D	$5,304,771.40	1.95%
D	R, D	$2,582,107.63	1.91%
R	D, D	$2,106,762.21	1.91%
R	R, D	$3,081,757.84	1.91%
R	R, R1	$1,589,208.16	1.88%

Breaking it down by county, it's clear that this year's state budget remains, as always, a vehicle for transferring cash to the New York area, at the expense of the rest of the state. Hudson County, with the largest starting aid level, also leads the way in growth at 1.97%

COUNTY	0607 Average Aid	0708 Average Aid	%Change
Hudson	$15,408,884	$15,711,918	1.97%
Essex	$9,831,517	$10,023,886	1.96%
Mercer	$8,766,272	$8,938,238	1.96%
Middlesex	$6,204,436	$6,324,626	1.94%
Passaic	$5,883,483	$5,996,404	1.92%
Union	$5,791,894	$5,904,388	1.94%
Camden	$3,359,636	$3,424,738	1.94%
Ocean	$2,129,170	$2,169,268	1.88%
Somerset	$2,074,086	$2,113,291	1.89%
Monmouth	$2,036,287	$2,075,099	1.91%
Bergen	$1,824,555	$1,858,832	1.88%
Cumberland	$1,781,920	$1,816,349	1.93%
Morris	$1,717,062	$1,749,088	1.87%
Atlantic	$1,679,125	$1,710,660	1.88%
Burlington	$1,630,726	$1,661,178	1.87%
Salem	$1,619,646	$1,651,477	1.97%
Gloucester	$1,512,750	$1,540,960	1.86%
Cape May	$1,390,098	$1,416,850	1.92%
Hunterdon	$815,436	$831,054	1.92%
Warren	$780,444	$795,219	1.89%
Sussex	$739,841	$753,266	1.81%
Grand Total	$2,993,880	$3,051,477	1.92%

Furthermore, larger municipalities continue to grow faster than smaller ones:

Municipality Type	0607 Average Aid	0708 Average Aid	%Change
City	$11,846,443	$12,079,345	1.97%
Town	$4,418,015	$4,503,779	1.94%
Township	$2,953,055	$3,009,313	1.91%
Village	$1,629,736	$1,660,126	1.86%
Borough	$1,043,348	$1,062,833	1.87%
Grand Total	$2,993,880	$3,051,477	1.92%

Combining the representation cut with municipality type, the disparity in state aid to municipalities becomes abundantly clear.

	All-Democrat	All-Republican
City	$ 22,981,789.73	$ 4,145,897.80
Town	$ 9,016,540.40	$ 1,996,690.78
Township	$ 3,909,956.64	$ 2,266,959.05
Village	$ 1,891,688.50	$ 1,428,564.00
Borough	$ 1,470,199.91	$ 817,775.29

The budget does not, as the governor said in his address, provide "an across-the-board two percent increase in municipal aid." It provides additional aid at less than the 2% he claims, and in the most divisive and partisan manner possible. If he had any shame, Governor Corzine would resign after submitting this garbage.

---

¹ Posted edited 3/2 9:20 AM to fix a typo

Global Warming

Is global warming induced by human activity? What is the relationship between human energy output and atmospheric temperature increase?

Some would have you believe that we are all doomed if we don't cut our carbon emissions, because a 1 degree rise in temperature would raise sea level, wiping out coastal habitation. They claim that a majority of scientists agree that this is true.

Others discount these pronouncements, claiming that these theories are unproven and that the climate models on which they are based are both incomplete and not in agreement with observations.

So, armed with some basic facts, my trusty spreadsheet, and a knowledge of thermodynamics gained at great cost to the US taxpayer, I am going to explore the mathematics of this problem. This will probably take several posts.

First off, I want to know what the contribution of simple human existence is to the temperature of the planet. There are approximately 6.6 billion people on Earth right now, and we all generate heat just by living. The question is, how much heat, and what does that heat do to the atmosphere? Fortunately, the science of thermodynamics has figured out all kinds of cool ways to make these kinds of calculations.

The basic unit of energy is the Joule. The Wikipedia article I linked has a number of different conversion factors for Joules, but here are the most useful for this exploration:

1 joule in the real world is approximately:

• the energy required to lift a small apple (102 g) one meter against Earth's gravity.
• the amount of energy, as heat, that a quiet person produces every hundredth of a second.
• the energy required to heat one gram of dry, cool air by 1 degree Celsius.
• one hundreth of the energy a person can get by drinking a single 5 mm diameter droplet of beer.

So, a quiet person produces 100 Joules/second, which will heat 100 grams of dry cool air by 1 degree Celsius. Extending that to the entire population of the Earth, we produce enough heat energy every second to heat 660 billion grams (6.60x10⁸ kg) of dry air by 1 degree Celsius. That's a lot of heat!

So how much atmosphere are we heating? An estimate here puts the mass of the atmosphere at about 5,000 trillion metric tons, or 5.1480×10¹⁸ kg.

If we assume perfect conduction of human-produced heat energy into the atmosphere, then we can just divide the mass of the atmosphere by the mass-temperature rise each second to get the time it would take basic human existence to increase atmospheric temperature by 1 degree Celsius.

5.148 x 10¹⁸ kg / 6.6 x 10⁸ kg per sec = 0.78 x 10¹⁰ sec

7,800,000,000 seconds to heat the atmosphere by 1 degree Celsius equates to:

• 130,000,000 minutes
• 2,166,667 hours
• 90,278 days
• 247 years

So, if we assume (as above) that the atmosphere is a perfect receiver of heat, and that none of it goes into other things (like heating up the ocean), then in about 250 years the air will be 1 degree Celsius warmer (on average) due to the mere fact of human existence. This timeline doesn't support many of the claims, so the energy that is raising the temperature of the atmosphere must be coming from something other than basic human metabolism.

Next up: Raising the temperature of the ocean.

Yeah, I know I'm a slacker

Bob over at eCache noticed that I pretty much abandoned my regular posting schedule last summer. Work had a large part in that, since I was working on a never-ending proposal effort from mid-June until last week.
Another factor was an online game that has consumed much of my mental bandwidth: BlogShares. (The observant reader will have noticed the graphic in my sidebar). It's a nicely addictive simulated economy, with multiple levels of play available. At the most basic level, a player starts out with an imaginary $500 with which to buy and sell shares of stock, representing blogs rather than companies. With a few tips, you can build that $500 to $100s of thousands in very short order.
The blogs are maintained in an index, which leads to another level of play. Players can vote blogs into industries, related to the subject or demographics of the blog. Smadanek, for example, is currently included in the index for Delanco (NJ), New Jersey Politics, Local Politics, Conservatism, Americas, USA Education Policy, English, Male, Politics, New Jersey, U.S.A. Politics, Navy, Free-Market Economics, Economics, Military, and Military Service. By voting correctly, players earn chips, which serve as a "social currency" within the game, and karma, which allows the player to eventually become a moderator of votes.
When new posts appear on a blog and Blogshares reindexes it (by visiting with a spider), the blog generates ideas. Ideas are treated as commodities, which can be bought, sold, traded, or used to create artefacts. Ideas also change in value each time an industry creates them, with the possibility of going up or down depending on how rare or common they are.
Once you get to this point in the game, it starts to get fun -- artefacts can be used to manipulate (temporarily) the price of a blog or an entire industry, to buy up all of the publicly available shares, or even to do a hostile takeover.
I've given myself something of a challenge with the game, attempting to push myself as far up the rankings as possible without buying a premium membership. It's tough, because non-premium members are limited to 21 transactions in any 24-hour period, while premiums are unlimited. But still, I'm pretty happy with the results - starting at $500 about 18 months ago, my net worth is now about B$ 1.5 trillion, good enough to crack the top 150 players. Still a long way to go, since the top player has gained almost 10 times that much this month alone.
So, if you like a fun game of building and competition, give BlogShares a try. I've only touched on the basics of the game; there are side competitions, games of chance, raffles, auctions and more awaiting you in this nice little world. Contact me in the game, and I'll get you on the path to a good time.

Happy New Year

Resolutions: none.

Predictions:
I know the prediction business is a risky one, but I feel pretty confident in making these.

• Solar fusion will warm the Earth, but not all of it and not all the time.
• My kids will fight.
• My back will go out, taking several days to straighten back up.
• New Jersey taxes will go up.

Hope your New Year is safe, happy, and prosperous.

Mine too!

Deer Season, Part Deux

A week ago, I got a big surprise when a young buck jumped into my headlights at a range of about 10 feet. My Blazer took some damage but was still drivable; the deer did not dare as well.
We got the call from the body shop, and it looks like a hefty $2,100 tab to replace the grill and a headlight, untwist the bumper, and replace the hood. What surprised me was that the insurance company decided to fix it, since the truck is 11 years old.
One piece of good news out of this incident - someone got some nice venison out of it. I spoke with our friendly neighborhood police officer, and he tells me that the carcass was gone pretty quickly.

Tags: Deer, Life, Road Kill

Go Navy!

Alright all you Navy football fans, get your beers chilled and your TVs tuned to CBS (the only reason to watch that pathetic excuse for a network):

Navy (8-3) will play host to Army (3-8) in the 107th edition of the Army-Navy game Saturday at a sold-out Lincoln Financial Field (68,532) in Philadelphia. The Mids will be gunning for a fourth-straight Commander-In-Chief's Trophy and with a victory, the Navy senior class will become the first in school history to go 8-0 against Army and Air Force.

The game is also available on Sirius satellite radio, channel 130, and online at http://www.navysports.com/.

I'm ready for a heck of a game!

BEAT ARMY!

Tags: Army, Navy, Football

Deer Season

As most folks in Jersey know, deer season opened yesterday in Pennsylvania. Living near the river, we always see a large increase in our neighborhood deer population during the week after Thanksgiving - the smart ones swim the Delaware River to avoid being shot. We've actually seen them climbing the banks down the block from our house.
This evening, I ran into one of the not-so-smart ones - quite literally - with my 11-year-old, 107,000+ mile Chevy Blazer. People talk about the figurative "deer in the headlights look," and I got to see the real thing.
So now I get to have body work done, and suck up a $500 insurance deductible right before Christmas. Isn't that wonderful?


Tags: Life, Deer

Have you ever?

Lifted this from Jim:

1. Bought everyone in the bar a drink – How can you not when it's 25-cent draft night?
2. Swam with wild dolphins – Virginia Beach, many times. They come within a couple hundred yards of the shore.
3. Climbed a mountain – Mount Monadnock. CYO hiking trip - twice.
4. Taken a Ferrari for a test drive – No, but I owned 3 different Corvettes.
5. Been inside the Great Pyramid – Outside on horseback, but not inside.
6. Held a tarantula – oog. I hate spiders!
7. Taken a candlelit bath with someone – Does an electrically-lit hot tub count?
8. Said “I love you’ and meant it! – Yep.
9. Hugged a tree – Once, after way too much schnapps. I thought it was my friend, and kept calling it Ralph.
10. Bungee jumped – Gravity is not a toy.
11. Visited Paris – Only tourists go there. If you want to visit France, go to the villages outside Toulon, where they still remember the American soldiers who drove out the Nazis.
12. Watched a lightning storm at sea – Watched it, then drove the ship into it because we needed to get the salt washed off.
13. Stayed up all night long and saw the sun rise – More times than I can count.
14. Seen the Northern Lights – Nope.
15. Gone to a huge sports game – 1986 NBA Championship, Game 6, Boston Garden.
16. Walked the stairs to the top of the leaning Tower of Pisa – No.
17. Grown and eaten your own vegetables – My (wife's) garden this year included carrots, peas, broccoli, tomatoes (3 kinds), squash, green beans, strawberries, currants, raspberries, blackberries, plums, cherries, quince, lettuce, onions, basil, spinach, peppers, and grapes. There was probably some other stuff I didn't notice.
18. Touched an iceberg – Nope.
19. Slept under the stars – Camping is fun. Field training is not.
20. Changed a baby’s diaper – More times than I can count, but I avoided it more often than not. I have a very selective sense of smell.
21. Taken a trip in a hot air balloon – Gravity is not a toy.
22. Watched a meteor shower – Yep.
23. Drunk champagne – The bubbles tickle.
24. Given more than you can afford to charity – Never that much, but I have given more than was expected.
25. Looked up at the night sky through a telescope – Telescope, binoculars, periscope, and a sextant.
26. Had an uncontrollable giggling fit at the worst possible moment – Not that I can recall.
27. Had a good fight – Some pretty bad ones, too.
28. Bet on a winning horse – Bet against a winning horse, too.
29. Asked out a stranger – If a blind date counts, yes.
30. Had a snowball fight – Awesome ones.
31. Screamed as loudly as you possibly can – Regularly, down at the tracks while growing up. Trains are really loud.
32. Held a lamb – Yes.
33. Seen a total eclipse – No.
34. Ridden a roller coaster – Only under duress. Gravity is not a toy.
35. Scored a winning goal – I'm more of a team player in a supporting role.
36. Danced like a fool and not cared who was looking – I only dance when drunk. Usually by the time I get that drunk, I'm asleep.
37. Adopted an accent for an entire day – Several times.
38. Actually felt happy about your life, even for just a moment – Feeling that way now.
39. Visited all 5 continents – There are seven. I've been to North America (duh), Europe, Africa, and Asia. Lived in Asia for a year.
40. Taken care of someone who was drunk – Absolutely.
41. Danced with a stranger in a foreign country – See number 36.
42. Watched wild whales – Yes. Seen dead ones, too.
43. Stolen a sign – No, just lumber.
44. Backpacked – Yep.
45. Taken a road-trip – I've done the whole East Coast several times. Longest leg was Boca Raton FL to Virginia Beach (930 miles) in one shot. Solo.
46. Gone rock climbing – Gravity is not a toy.
47. Midnight walk on the beach – Does a patrol count?
45. Gone sky diving – Gravity is not a toy.
49. Taken a train through Europe – Took a ship around it once or twice.
50. Been heartbroken longer than you were actually in love – Nope.
51. In a restaurant, sat at a stranger’s table, and had a meal with them – We weren't strangers by the end of the meal.
52. Milked a cow – Doesn't milk come in carboard containers?
53. Alphabetized your CDs – By first and last name!
54. Sung karaoke – I wouldn't exactly call it singing.
55. Lounged around in bed all day – Sure.
56. Gone scuba diving – Loved it - Hawaii, an old quarry in PA, even the Persian Gulf.
57. Kissed in the rain – Sure.
58. Gone to a drive-in theatre – Amazing how many teenagers you can fit in a VW Squareback when the drive-in has a $5 per carload special.
59. Started a business – No.
60. Taken a martial arts class – Mandatory classes in college: boxing (2 semesters), wrestling, judo.
61. Been in a movie – Just a movie theater.
62. Crashed a party – Yes.
63. Gone without food for 5 days – 24 hours is my personal record, but I prefer no more than 6.
64. Gotten a tattoo – No.
65. Got flowers for no reason – No.
66. Performed on stage – I wouldn't exactly call it a performance.
67. Been to Las Vegas – No.
68. Recorded music – From vinyl to 8-track, yes.
69. Buried one/both of your parents – Neither, thankfully.
70. Been on a cruise ship – It was a cruise, but not a cruise ship. Too many Jarheads blocking the passageways and standing in lines.
71. Spoken more than one language fluently – I can order a beer in at least 5 languages.
72. Picked up and moved to another city to just start over – Yes.
73. Walked a famous bridge – the bridge of a famous battleship, many times. Each trip was a 4-hour walk.
74. Had plastic surgery – Nope.
75. Survived an accident that you shouldn’t have survived – Three car wrecks, any one of which could have been much more ugly. Worst I ended up with was a sprained wrist and a near-totaled convertible.
76. Written articles for a large publication – Submitted, but not published.
77. Tried to lose weight seriously – Lost 70 lbs in 2002-03. It took 60 weeks.
78. Been in the military – US Navy. But you knew that.
79. Read a good book – And some really bad ones, too.
80. Piloted an airplane – Fixed wing and helicopter. Not qualified to do either by myself, with good reason.
80. Petted a stingray – Yep.
81. Broken someone’s heart – Don't think so, but it's certainly possible.
82. Broken a bone – Busted my thumb trying to beat some sense into a college roomate. Didn't work.
83. Eaten sushi – If I was meant to eat raw fish, I'd have been born a grizzly bear.
84. Had your picture in the newspaper – Sure.
85. Parasailed – Gravity is not a toy.
86. Skipped all your school reunions – No.
87. Shaved your head – Nearly. Lost my hair in a football game bet when I was a plebe.
88. Caused a car accident – See number 75. 16-year-old boys and 1968 Firebird Convertibles are a dangerous mix.
89. Pretended to be “sick” – Not that I can recall. Wished I was sick many times.
90. Swam in the Pacific Ocean – Yep, in Hawaii and California.
91. Saved someone’s life – Not directly.
92. Fainted – Not really fainting, per se. More like "sleeping it off."
93. Been in the room while someone is giving birth – Five times, once with a C-section. Cut the cord, too!
94. Hitchhiked – No.
95. Adopted a child – No.
96. Been caught daydreaming – I've been caught sleeping in class, but not daydreaming. No imagination I guess.
97. Been to the Painted Desert – No.
98. Called off a wedding engagement – Not in this life.
99. Become a follower of Jesus Christ – Sure, when my parents had me baptized.

Valour-IT End Game

It's coming right down to the wire in the Valour-IT Veterans' Day Challenge, with just over 4 hours to go, we are less than $4,600 just over $1,400 from our goal! The graph below shows that we were at $175,610 as of 1911 EST; as I prepared it Army crossed the line and the Marines brought in another big donation, pushing the total to $178,568



The only team not over $45,000 is Air Force. They're $8,300 short of the goal; must have spent their time building O-Clubs instead of airfields. Pretend you are Congress and give them more money to make them operational.

Updated 2000: Here's a snapshot of Army crossing the finish line. Nicely done.


Update, 2119: Ladies and gentleman, we have done it! As of this moment, the total stands at $180,095; Army took the hill with a $500 donation to get us there, supported by the Marines with another $50 for good luck. There's still time to help Air Force make it to the summit, but the primary main objective has been achieved! Congratulations, everyone!

Tags: Valour-IT

$24,966 ...

... and 12 hours are all that stand between now and the Valour-IT goal. The chart shows that we are oh-so-close to hitting $180,000 by 1100, 11/11.



All four teams have done their part today, with Navy still leading the pack, the Marines going vertical, and the Army and Air Force moving along briskly as well.


Our Jarhead brothers and sisters only need another $1,761 to hit the $45,000 mark. Watch the space below, and shift fire to get Army over the line once the Marines make the grade. If we keep up the joint effort, all four teams together will have done something wonderful for the injured men and women who have sacrificed so much for us.



Tags: Valour-IT

GOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLL!!!!!!!

At this instant in time, the Navy Valour-IT team is at the goal line, and has collected $45,000 to support our injured troops. Now that we have reached the first objective, it's time to push on. The next objective is $180,000 for the drive, and we must keep the pressure on to help the other services deliver.



Army, Air Force, and the Marines need our help, and this has always been a joint operation. Let's give the Marines a birthday present first, then move on to the Air Force.

Tags: Valour-IT, Navy