Vigilante

Frankly, longtime readers know that I am a gun owner and, in fact, have a concealed carry permit. Which I use. Longtime readers also know I am very adamant that illegal gun crimes need to be prosecuted - with vigor. But I read an article like this in a British newspaper, the Telegraph, about the antics of the mayor of New York City and wonder who, exactly, appointed him as the marshal over all of the United States.

Indeed, there is a growing backlash against Mayor Bloomberg in southern states over a gun control campaign that stretches far beyond New York's borders. The operation is arousing accusations of Northern "Yankee" interference in a region where old Civil War antagonisms still linger.

The hostile reaction illustrates the obstacles that Mr Bloomberg will face if he enters the presidential fray. He may be highly rated in New York for his success in running the city, but in much of rural America where carrying arms is regarded as a birthright, his anti-guns crusade would be a vote-loser. His aides have been assessing his prospects if he staged an independent run for the nation's highest office, and holding meetings with potential backers, even as the mayor continues to insist he has no plans to join the race.

He certainly does not lack the cash. The 65-year-old founder of the eponymous financial information company is estimated to be worth $13 billion (£6.6 billion) and is understood to be willing to spend up to $1 billion if he tries to win the White House. The mayor, a lifelong Democrat who joined the Republican Party to run for New York's top job in 2001, insists that he is not a politician, but a manager and philanthropist who gets things done.

He has been adopting a notably higher profile recently and has just revived his personal website. Last week, he co-hosted a global climate change summit for mayors from across the world, with Bill Clinton, the former president whose wife, Hillary, is the Democratic front-runner for the White House.

His best-known initiative is Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a network of 226 city leaders across the country that could provide the basis for a national political campaign. As part of his drive against gun crime, he has sent private investigators to firearms stores across the country that his officials say are the source of weapons used by criminals in New York. The investigators visited the stores with hidden cameras and filled out the paperwork to buy guns on behalf of people who were banned by law from owning weapons, an illegal so-called "straw purchase". The firearms lobby was infuriated when the operation resulted in New York filing lawsuits against 27 gun dealers in five states.

Activists argued that the dealers were the victims of sting operations by agents provocateurs. Local politicians were angered that Mayor Bloomberg was conducting these missions outside New York without seeking authorisation, or even informing them.

Virginia has led the fightback against such unilateral ventures, making it a crime to conduct similar missions without the supervision of state or federal authorities. Last week, prominent Republicans in Georgia said they intended to follow suit.

Knowingly filling out false information on a BATF form is a Federal crime. Every. Single. One. Of Bloomberg's "investigators" committed a Federal felony and should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Period. Bloomberg is the mayor of a city, not the enforcer of Federal law nationwide. And he is a vigilante with a very high opinion of himself which will, if he chooses to enter the race, lead to a vast squandering of his money on a fruitless quest. Because this man might be a legend in his own mind, but the rest of the country isn't going to like him very much.

Romney Slams The Senate Immigration Deal

Mitt Romney has scored a bunch of points with delegates to the South Carolina Republican convention. He was cheered when he did so. The same crowd booed their own South Carolina Senator, Lindsey Graham, when he defended the deal. (Prediction - the deal will not go through - there is 'way too much resistance to the way this thing has been handled.)

The immigration compromise between key senators and the White House played strongly at the convention as more than 1,000 delegates and Republican activists gathered. Many in the crowd wore stickers with "Senate amnesty bill" crossed out.

They cheered as presidential candidate Romney told them: "One simple rule: No amnesty."

During his speech and before his remarks, Romney said a proposed new visa for immigrants amounts to amnesty if it can be renewed indefinitely.

"If that's not a form of amnesty, I don't know what is," Romney said.

The crowd booed South Carolina U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, a key ally of McCain in both his 2000 and 2008 presidential bids, when he said he had worked with U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., on the immigration legislation.

"It's the best bill I think we can get to President Bush," Graham said as some in the crowd shouted "No!"

Graham was cheered earlier in his speech when he talked about the war in Iraq.

After the speech, Graham said he was booed on immigration because "it's an emotional topic. People are mad."

South Carolina's other U.S. senator, Jim DeMint, is on opposite sides from Graham: He supports Romney and said he opposes an immigration bill that allows permanent residency of illegal aliens.

Not everyone was pleased with Romney, however. Some delegates criticized his changing positions on a number of issues. So it isn't all rosy. But there is a lot of opposition to this deal and a lot of unhappy voters - on both sides of the aisle. Which is why I think the deal will fall apart before it even comes to a vote. We'll see. (Yes, I know some very respected members of the blogosphere are saying it is the best we can get, but I really think it is in trouble. As Graham said, people are mad about this issue.)

Frigate For Sale

Feel like taking up the life of a pirate? Feel like a bit of commerce raiding on the high seas? Or would you just fancy reliving the glory days of the Royal Navy when Admiral Horatio Lord Nelson led the Royal Navy to victory at Trafalgar? Here's your chance!

Are you bored by your Learjet? Fed up with your private island? Then why not splash out on a full-size replica of an 18th Century British frigate, complete with 12 cannon? One care- ful owner and an absolute snip at £3million.

The Grand Turk is the ultimate millionaire's plaything. I know because I built her.

She was commissioned by ITV for the Hornblower series starring Ioan Gruffudd in the title role and Robert Lindsay, and was the first wooden frigate to be built for more than 150 years.

I never expected it to be easy - after all, my family has experience of shipbuilding that goes back to the 12th Century - but we were hit by so many disasters, including droughts, animal sacrifices and gun-wielding debt collectors, that I thought I might die trying.

My first task, when I won the commission in 1996, was to find the best place to build such a ship because, sadly, Britain no longer had enough skilled shipwrights to rule the waves. We finally chose Marmaris in Turkey, which had a highly skilled workforce and an enviable reputation within the industry. We aimed to start work in December 1996 and deliver the ship for the beginning of filming in Yalta, on the Black Sea coast of Ukraine, the following summer.

But when we arrived in Marmaris, the timber we had ordered - 200 hardwood trees - was not there. A drought in Africa meant the trees could not be floated down-river for export and we had to scour Europe for replacement wood. At the same time, Turkey's worst weather in 50 years caused long power cuts.

It's a pretty good read. Getting the Grand Turk built was an adventure all by itself. She is actually a replica of a ship that would probably not have still be in service by the time of Trafalgar (and would not have fought in the line, anyway), being based on the design of HMS Blandford, a ship built in 1741. Her 12-cannon are also much lighter armament than a typical fifth-rate would have carried. They would have been armed with 32-44 cannon. But she is a handsome ship. Here's the Grand Turk's website with more pictures and a description of her features.

Yo, Ho, Ho

Well, it seems the British have their collective noses a bit out of joint about the American company that recovered the huge trove of silver and gold coins, using words like "stole" to describe how the treasure was obtained. The company, Odyssey Marine Exploration was extremely careful to keep their operation secret and especially careful not to land one bit of the treasure in Britain - because the British government would have immediately seized it.

Gee, I wonder why they didn't land it there.

The treasure hunters who recovered gold and silver worth an estimated £250million from a shipwreck off Cornwall spirited their haul to the United States in an apparent attempt to stop Britain staking a claim.

In a highly secretive operation, American firm Odyssey Marine Exploration worked on the wreck of an English ship, believed to be the 17th Century Merchant Royal, less than 40 miles from the British coast.

But Odyssey carefully avoided landing their treasure on UK soil.

If the 17 tons of coins, gold ornaments and tableware had been brought ashore, Odyssey would have been obliged to inform the Government's Receiver of Wreck, which would probably have impounded the haul, triggering a potentially lengthy legal row about ownership rights.

Instead, the trove was secretly moved to the tax haven of Gibraltar. Odyssey then chartered a jet to take hundreds of plastic containers brimming with coins to the United States on Thursday, where they have been analysed by Nick Bruyer, an expert in antique coinage.

He said: "The find is unprecedented. I don't know of anything equal or comparable to it."

Salvage companies have spent years looking for the wreck of the Merchant Royal, known as the "Eldorado of the seas', which sank in bad weather near the Isles of Scilly in 1641.

Under salvage law, Odyssey could get up to 90 per cent of the haul's value, although this may depend on whether other claimants come forward. With the treasure now on American soil, it is highly unlikely that Britain will seek a share of it. But experts believe that, as the cargo originally belonged to Spain, its government will have a better case.

The arcane salvage laws have grown up over a long period of time and can get quite complicated as I understand it. There is at least one descendant of the Merchant Royal's captain who is reportedly investigating whether he (or she) might have a claim. But it sounds like Odyssey isn't free and clear on their haul just yet. Which is no real surprise. Any time a treasure is recovered everybody and their brother wants a slice of the pie. Starting with the government, of course. (The Daily Mail link has a good bit of historical background on the ship.)

The Catch

I noted a report yesterday about a researcher at Purdue University who claims to have discovered a way to generate hydrogen on demand. I noted that I had a number of reservations about the practicality of the process. Some astute readers also chimed in with a number of very sharp comments that are worth reading. Well, the researcher is making even more extravagant claims today, including one that the man is keeping him down, man.

A Purdue University engineer and National Medal of Technology winner says he's ready and able to start a revolution in clean energy.

Professor Jerry Woodall and students have invented a way to use an aluminum alloy to extract hydrogen from water — a process that he thinks could replace gasoline as well as its pollutants and emissions tied to global warming.

But Woodall says there's one big hitch: "Egos" at the U.S. Department of Energy, a key funding source for energy research, "are holding up the revolution."

Now claims like this are popping up more and more and are being loudly proclaimed by - let's be charitable here - scientifically-challenged individuals, who really have no understanding of the process, the problems or the underlying equations.

Enter Ragnar over at the Jawa Report. He lays out the inconvenient facts that happen to make the good professor's wild claims of revolution seem like something that looks and smells a lot like snake oil.

Generating hydrogen fuel from water and metal sounds like a really good idea until you realize some troublesome facts, starting with…

TROUBLESOME FACT # 1 : By mass, water is mostly oxygen. There's not much hydrogen in water.
In fact, in 9 pounds of water, there's only 1 pound of hydrogen. Since a hydrogen-burning engine generates water as its waste product, this isn't as big a problem as it may first appear, as the waste water can likely be recycled.

The other troublesome facts are, however, more "troublesome."

The article touches on the fact that this process consumes aluminum, but it fails to go into any detail as to how much. The article refers to the aluminum almost as if it were just some type of catalyst or something, but in fact this process consumes very large quantities of aluminum. I noted above that it takes 9 pounds of water to get 1 pound of hydrogen. This brings us to…

TROUBLESOME FACT # 2 : The process of reacting aluminum with water consumes roughly eight pounds of aluminum for every pound of hydrogen it generates.

TROUBLESOME FACT # 3 : The process of reacting aluminum with water generates roughly sixteen pounds of aluminum oxide waste for every pound of hydrogen it generates.

Now, 16 pounds of solid waste product may not seem like a big deal until you realize that the 1 pound of hydrogen fuel you've just generated is the energy equivalent of less than 0.5 gallons of gasoline. That's where the big, 350-lb. chunk of aluminum alloy comes in. The article mentions that there's a 350-lb. chunk of aluminum alloy added to the vehicle and that some aluminum is consumed by the process. The article fails to elaborate…

TROUBLESOME FACT # 4: At an average level of automotive efficiency, the 350-lb. chunk of aluminum will be consumed every few hundred miles.
This is an important fact that was left out of the article. Another thing…

TROUBLESOME FACT # 5: Given the same assumption, the 350-lb. chunk of aluminum will be converted into a 700-pound chunk of aluminum oxide which will, again, have to be disposed of every few hundred miles.

Add to all that the fact that Jerry Woodall happens to be a computer engineer - which does not in any way disqualify him from working in the field. But it does say that his training and specialization is not in the energy field. The article makes much of the fact he won the National Medal, but kind of minimizes the fact that he got it for computer-related research. I pointed out yesterday that the energy equations for the entire cycle, including the manufacture of the aluminum-gallium pellets, need to be scrutinized very closely. I think they need even closer scrutiny now that Woodall is making accusations and extravagant claims.

The real problem, I think, is that the claims of a revolutionary process are all being made on the back end, so to speak. What is being left out is that a lot (a REAL lot) of energy is used in smelting and refining the aluminum in the first place. Woodall is then extracting a portion of that energy back out by reconverting the processed aluminum back into aluminum oxide. It isn't a miracle, it isn't rocket surgery and it is very likely completely impractical in the real world.

For A Good Time, For A Good Time Call….

867-5309. Well, actually, for a plumber call that number, at least in Rhode Island. A plumbing company there trademarked the number and is locked in a legal battle with another plumbing company from Florida over the right to use the number. The case is in Federal court and the Rhode Island company has won the first round.

Now, a Rhode Island company and a national firm are battling over the right to use the number, which doesn't reach the "Jenny" that Tutone sings about, but could find callers a decent plumber.

Two years ago, Gem Plumbing & Heating of Lincoln, R.I., trademarked the phone number in the early 1980s hit, which reached No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Gem acquired the number in Rhode Island when its original owner, Brown University, gave up 867-5309 after growing weary of the constant prank calls.

Gem's number works in the 401 area code in Rhode Island and the 617 area code in southern Massachusetts.

But Florida-based Clockwork Home Services, also a plumbing company, uses a toll-free version of 867-5309 in New England. They argue a company can only trademark a vanity number, like 1-800-FLOWERS.

Gem won round one in its legal fight over the number when a federal judge in Boston recently barred Clockwork from using the number in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, effective this week. But Clockwork's lawyers said they would fight on.

One of the founders of the group Tommy Tutone, Tommy Heath, thinks the whole thing is ridiculous. Frankly, I don't really see where either company has a legitimate claim on the number, either. But trademark law is weird. (Contrary to the AP report, Tommy Heath is not "Tommy Tutone". That is the name of the group, not the individual who was once lead singer of the band.)

The Act You’ve Known For All These Years

Russ Smith writes a tribute to Sgt. Pepper, the landmark Beatles album that came out 40 years ago. He reminds us that the album, for good or ill, changed music forever. He's right.

"Sgt. Pepper," the group's first album that wasn't supported by a world-wide tour, captured, to use a word that didn't become a cliché for years afterward, the "zeitgeist" then, impeccably in sync with the "Summer of Love," "flower power," psychedelia and the youthful lifestyle of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll. That the Beatles, weary of avoiding hordes of fans and tabloid reporters, abandoned live concerts was in itself a radical shift of gears, but spending more than four months in a recording studio on a single project, and a "concept" album at that, was unheard of. Revisionists today, when critiquing the Beatles' discography, aren't quite as rapturous about "Sgt. Pepper" as millions of fans were in 1967, but the immediate impact of the album can't be overstated.

When "Sgt. Pepper" appeared, it was as if a massive block party had appeared outside your window. I was nearly 12 years old at the time and when one of my four older brothers came home with the highly anticipated new Beatles record, we listened to it over and over, marveling at the sheer audacity of songwriters John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Doug, overwhelmed by enthusiasm and hyperbole, declared, matter-of-factly, "The band has changed its name forever and rock 'n' roll will never be the same."

And it wasn't just the music. The album cover itself was breathtaking, a puzzling and colorful collage by Peter Blake that showed the band, in gaudy mock-military costumes, presiding over the burial of the "old" Beatles, with scattered mug shots of high and low cultural icons hovering in the background. You'd go cross-eyed trying to figure out just how many notables were depicted — a mass of pop art that included Marilyn Monroe, Karl Marx, Aldous Huxley, Marlene Dietrich, Sonny Liston, Laurel and Hardy, Oscar Wilde, Marlon Brando, Leo Gorcey, Bob Dylan, Lenny Bruce and Mae West.

Almost forgotten these days by a lot of people (or even never known by younger people) is just how technically innovative the album was. It was a massive experiment in many ways, with new techniques that have become standard these days. And it was recorded in what is now considered to be a positively stone-age studio. To underscore how transitional the album really was, it was originally recorded, mixed and released in mono. Abbey Road Studios engineers remixed it into a stereo version. (The two versions have a number of differences, as well). I actually have both the mono and stereo versions on vinyl. 

An Incomprehensible Bill

Fred Thompson - continuing to run a heck of a campaign for someone not even in the race - comes out with a full broadside against the "comprehensive" illegal immigration reform bill that the Senate announced. Which hasn't even been written yet - and may not be available for inspection until after it is voted on. Heck of  a way to run a government.

I'd tell you what was in the legislation, but 24 hours after the politicians agreed the bill looked good, the Senate lawyers were still writing what may turn out to be a one thousand page document. In fact, a final version of the bill most likely will not be made available to the public until after the legislation is passed. That may come five days from now. That's like trying to digest an eight-course meal on a fifteen-minute lunch break.

We've tried the "comprehensive" route before to solve the illegal immigration problem with a bit more care and deliberation, and the results haven't been good. Back in May 1985, Congress promised us that it would come up with a comprehensive plan to solve the problem of illegal immigration and our porous borders. Eighteen months later, in November 1986, that comprehensive plan was signed into law.

Twenty-two years and millions of illegal immigrants later, that comprehensive plan hasn't done what most Americans wanted it to do — secure America's borders. Now Washington says the new "comprehensive" plan will solve the problem that the last comprehensive plan didn't.

The fact is our border and immigration systems are still badly broken. We were reminded of this when Newsweek reported that the family of three of the men, arrested last week for allegedly plotting to kill American military personnel at Fort Dix, New Jersey, entered the U.S. illegally more than 20 years ago; filed for asylum back in 1989, but fell off the government's radar screen when federal bureaucrats essentially lost track of the paperwork. Wonder how many times that's been replicated?

Thompson figured it out - and will get a lot of votes from all sides in the general election should he secure the nomination. I have said ever since I started writing about illegal immigration that if the border is secured - really secured, not lip service - then a lot of other things can be worked out. I also believe Thompson's message will resonate with a lot of voters, regardless of their party affiliation or lack thereof. An overwhelming majority of people in this country want that border secured first before anything else. Thompson is listening.