Prairie du Chien side trip from Oshkosh

If you’re looking for something to do southwest of Oshkosh… Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin (KPDC). This is a quick crew car ride away from Effigy Mounds National Monument, a collection of massive earthen sculptures made by Elizabeth Warren’s ancestors during Joe Biden’s youth. Read up on the approaches and departure procedures due to the challenging terrain surrounding the airport. Terrain? On the Wisconsin/Iowa border? This is the Driftless Area that was not scraped flat by the most recent glaciers. Note that the airport is at 660′ above sea level and towers near the airport are on ground that is as high as 1150′ above sea level (1449-299).

Here’s an explanation for the evolution of these sculptures in the Effigy Mounds visitor’s center:

You’re on the banks of the Mississippi River when at the visitor’s center and must ascend 350′ to the top of the bluffs before reaching the mounds.

Consider packing some bug spray because this is the not the artificially-bug-free paradise that Florida somehow manages to achieve for most natural areas. The mounds themselves are tough to photograph, but if you love history you’ll enjoy them. The views over the river:

Once you’re down from the walk, you can celebrate all things 2SLGBTQQIA+ and BLM in Marquette, Iowa:

Back on the Wisconsin side, you can enjoy some food from Pete’s, started in 1909. Two choices: with onions; without onions.

The flight out is beautiful, but note the bluffs rising steeply from the river banks.

I met some city-dwellers who have vacation cabins in this area so there is apparently a fair amount of exploring that could be done with an overnight stay.

Full post, including comments

Migrants are welcome on the island of Martha’s Vineyard….

… but they need to be “off island”. “‘I Ended Up on This Little Island’: Migrants Land in Political Drama” (New York Times, today):

Ardenis Nazareth, newly arrived from Venezuela, was standing in a McDonald’s parking lot across the street from a San Antonio shelter a few days ago contemplating his next steps. … Then she made an enticing offer: a free flight to a “sanctuary,” he recalled, where there were people to help them get on their feet. The place was called Massachusetts. … he was surprised when he found himself on Martha’s Vineyard, a small, picturesque vacation destination in the Atlantic. “I thought I was coming to Boston,” he said. “I ended up on this little island.”

“I left my country to support my family,” said Mr. Nazareth, a 34-year-old construction worker. He said that since leaving his home country 18 months ago he had tried to make a living in Peru and Chile. But he could not make ends meet, and word spread among his friends that Venezuelans were managing to enter the United States, where jobs were plentiful.

On Thursday, Mr. Nazareth expressed gratitude for the warm reception that he and his brethren had received in Martha’s Vineyard. “They’re treating us super well,” he said.

“We’re getting food, clothing, all our needs met. I love Massachusetts!”

The migrants arrived just as the busy season ended and during one of the worst affordable housing shortages in the island’s history.

The church where they are staying is home to the sole homeless shelter on the island. St. Andrew’s sits in a quiet corner of Edgartown, off the main drag where summer visitors feast on dripping ice cream and oysters.

“We are meeting their needs for food, shelter, and we are definitely supplying them with a lot of love,” said Lisa Belcastro, the manager of the only homeless shelter on the island. “They need to be off island. Their immigration appointments are not here.”

Perhaps this need for migrants to “be off island” will abate if the Obamas begin work on a migrant shelter at their 29-acre Martha’s Vineyard estate. Given the number of seasonal houses on MVY, there should be immediate space for at least 50,000 migrants to live between now and May 2023. After that, Google Maps shows that there is plenty of undeveloped land near the MVY airport and to the south. Much of this land is actually owned by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and thus there would be no obstacle to building permanent housing for as many migrants as wish to settle in this exclusive vacation paradise.

Folks in Massachusetts who say that life in Texas and Florida is intolerable due to malgovernance, the lack of abortion care for pregnant people in reproductive health care settings, etc., now also say that migrants are being injured by being transported from Texas and Florida to Massachusetts. One friend on Facebook, regarding Air DeSantis:

State tax money should not be used to fund a politician primary [sic] at the expense of the lives of asylum seekers whose life’s [sic] are already miserable.

He implies that arriving by chartered jet to MVY is somehow a bad thing for asylum-seekers. If Florida and Texas are bad due to their respective infestations of Republicans, shouldn’t the Massachusetts Democrat be happy and relieved that a migrant has found his/her/zir/their way to Massachusetts? Gavin Newsom says that being given free transportation to a Democrat-governed Science-following state is “inhumane” and that the people who arrange this transportation should be prosecuted as kidnappers.

Not everyone sees this as criminal kidnapping:

Another strange aspect to Democrats’ response to the arrival of migrants in their own states and cities is the allegation that Ron DeSantis is wasting taxpayers’ money by chartering regional jets. Colleges can afford to charter regional jets to move sports teams around. If a state-funded college can afford to charter a regional jet, why can’t a state afford to charter a regional jet or Airbus A320? (Florida state government took in 21 percent more than was spent in the last fiscal year, resulting in a $22 billion surplus. If we assume per-passenger charter costs of $1,000 that’s enough to fund transportation for 22 million migrants.)

Update from Alex (comments below): “MA National Guard Activated To Aid Martha’s Vineyard Migrants”. Rather than enjoy access to water, cash jobs from folks with “No Human Being is Illegal” signs on their front lawns, etc., the 50 migrants will be moved off the island at gunpoint by 125 soldiers and confined to an inland military base.

Related:

Full post, including comments

Pent-up inflation from low labor force participation rate?

In the spring of 2020, the typical state governor ordered his/her/zir/their subjects to stay home and watch TV or play Xbox. A lot of us are still following the habits that we developed in 2020. The U.S. labor force participation rate:

A business executive with whom I talked in Oslo said “it takes three months to create a new habit,” which was his explanation for why a fair number of Norwegians haven’t returned to their pre-coronapanic work habits. (World Bank stats show that Norwegians are much more likely to work than Americans, with participation rates of 66 percent versus 61 percent. Part of this may be a difference in family law. It is not straightforward in Norway to live comfortably off a prior sexual relationship, either by alimony or child support. The country offers no-fault (“unilateral”) divorce, but anecdotally, profits are limited to about 10 percent of the defendant’s pre-tax income. Having sex with a high-income defendant and harvesting child support is even less lucrative.)

I’m wondering if there is some pent-up inflation that we’ve built into the U.S. economy by teaching people how great life at home with a plethora of screens can be. Getting Americans back to work at previous levels plainly will require paying them more than what employers are currently paying.

We saw evidence of this in every state that we visited this summer between Florida and Oshkosh, Wisconsin. A coffee shop near Great Smoky Mountain National Park:

Indianapolis:

A hotel manager in Oshkosh explained that he had to fly people in from Florida and Georgia to work during the peak EAA AirVenture week.

An airport manager retired in May 2021 and, as of July 2022, the city of Prairie du Chien had not been able to find a replacement at the wages offered (about $63,000 per year, plus benefits worth another $40,000 per year?):

The saddest photo of all… a homemade donut shop with shortened hours in Chattanooga:

What do we think? Is there a round of inflation built into our society that is yet to hit us? Either employers will have to raise wages to get Americans off our couches or money will need to be borrowed/printed by the government to fund all of the means-tested benefits to which the couch-dwellers are entitled (raising tax rates is not an option, I don’t think, for increasing revenue because rates are already set to the level that maximizes taxes actually collected). Both of these changes would be inflationary.

(Norway, incidentally, has no help-wanted signs nor, as far as I could tell given my illiteracy, any apology signs. The locals say that service businesses are short-staffed and that quality has suffered, but that all recruiting is done online so customers won’t see signs encouraging job applications.)

Related:

  • “Who Are America’s Missing Workers?” (NYT, 9/12/2022): “I could jump back in, but then I got used to being retired,” said Thomas Strait, who chose early retirement at the beginning of the pandemic. [moving from California to Florida] … men in their prime working years, from 25 to 54, have retreated from the work force relative to February 2020, while women have bounced back. [Is it men or women who love Xbox more?] … “A lot of workers are still disconnected, and we’re just not seeing them come on,” said Jesse Wheeler, an economic analyst with the polling and analysis firm Morning Consult. “It’s unclear how all of them are making ends meet, but I think it has a lot to do with consolidation of households and cutting costs. It would’ve been difficult to change if they weren’t forced into it.”
  • Help-wanted ad from the University of California, Santa Cruz: The Critical Race and Ethnic Studies Department (https://cres.ucsc.edu/) at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) invites applications for a an Assistant/Associate Professor of Critical Race Science and Technology Studies (STS). … A demonstrated record of research that de-centers Western scientific ways of knowing and challenges extractivist capitalist practices is especially welcome as are commitments to queer and indigenous ecologies, trans-species studies, and race-radical approaches to STEM. … Ideal applicants will demonstrate an approach to science and technology grounded in histories of and innovative methods of analyzing anticolonial, decolonizing, liberationist political thought and praxis, … Document requirements … Statement of Contributions to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion** – Statement on your contributions to diversity, equity, and inclusion, including information about your understanding of these topics, your record of activities to date, and your specific plans and goals for advancing equity and inclusion if hired at UC Santa Cruz. Candidates are urged to review guidelines on statements (see https://apo.ucsc.edu/diversity.html) before preparing their application.
Full post, including comments

Oshkosh 2022 wrap-up

Trying to get through my backlog of summer stories and photos… here are some miscellaneous thoughts from EAA AirVenture (“Oshkosh”) 2022, which enjoyed record attendance of about 650,000 people (stats; each member of our family might have been counted 7 times, however, because that’s how a weekly pass was accounted for, at least in 2001 (“The inflation of EAA attendance figures by the local media, by the Chamber of Commerce, and by the EAA itself is not a trivial matter.”)).

We wandered by the One Week Wonder, a kit airplane that goes from parts to taxi over 7 days. My friend said “How does this make people who are half-finished after 7 years feel?” The volunteer team started on Monday morning and here they are on Friday:

The airplane was inspected by the Federales and flew 2.5 weeks after Oshkosh, on August 18.

Who will paint it? From the world’s leading experts on aircraft paint, we heard good things about Aerosmith Aviation in Longview, Texas.

The predicted proliferation of $100,000 light sport airplanes continues, with approximately one type per certificated Light Sport pilot. Expect to pay closer to 400,000 Bidies, however, for the slick-looking ones. Here’s a French-built Elixir, new to the U.S. market:

You know that the real estate market has reached peak insanity when new airparks are developed. There were booths for The Fields near Chattanooga. Why use the 7400′ runway at KCHA that you paid for via your aviation fuel taxes when you can instead pay to build and maintain your own 4200′ runway? Another one is a through-the-fence project in Sandpoint, Idaho. The public airport to which the homes are connected has a 5,500′ runway.

The warbirds section was great as usual. We tried to organize a protest against the folks who painted a swastika on this ME-109, recovered from a lake in Russia and the subject of a 10-year restoration project:

Unfortunately, as with my attempts to get people to kneel during the national anthem at air shows, I was unsuccessful.

Another unusual airplane, the Bell P-63 (Wikipedia says that there are 5 airworthy examples in the U.S.):

The Lycoming engine disassembly/assembly demonstrations are worth watching. If they could manufacture an engine for the Robinson R44 Raven I that didn’t fail once a year (bad intake valves leading to dramatic in-flight kicking/yawing), that would be even better!

We found some good options for those traveling with a family. The University of Wisconsin’s Blackhawk Commons cafeteria has salad, vegetables, and fruit that can be tough to find in conventional restaurants. Plenty of space for kids to run around. I previously highlighted the “contains nuts” warning to the next generation of college-education geniuses (all paid for by the working class!) who are confronted with a pecan pie.

Those who want to enjoy an allergen-free dining experience have their own room:

Contrast to public school here in Palm Beach County, Florida. At a curriculum night for 3rd grade, the teachers noted that parents of a child having a birthday can send him/her/zir/them to school with a container of baked treats for the class. I asked “What are the restrictions on what can be included? If a parent sent cookies with nuts in Maskachusetts, the school building would have to be demolished.” There were none! Children who didn’t like or couldn’t eat what was sent in would get a backup treat from the teachers’ hidden supply.

A fun excursion is the Sweet Lair Cafe in Neenah, Wisconsin, which offers hundreds of board games for customers.

The airshows were great, as usual, including the epic fireworks after the night airshows. The performer about whom other airshow pilots wondered “How he is still alive?” is Skip Stewart, who likes to cut ribbons during low passes over the runway. We appreciated the afterburner-at-dusk show from Randy Ball, an Air Wisconsin captain, flying the MiG 17.

The USAF came out to show off the F-35. Nobody needs an assault rifle, certainly, which is a weapon of war that should be necessary only if there is an invasion (note that millions of asylum-seeking migrants coming across the southern border is not an invasion). EAA AirVenture is a gun-free environment, with firearms being strictly prohibited and visitors and bags checked to make sure that no knives or guns come in. Not exactly the war situation that President Biden said might call for an assault rifle. Yet the USAF decided that the parked F-35 should be guarded by… some guys with assault rifles. [Correction from a reader: the parked F-35 is actually a Navy plane, which means that there were at least two F-35s at OSH.]

We made the mistake of going to the seaplane base when there was a touch of wind/chop and, consequently, nobody was flying. The AirCam, now available with three seats, is always great to see!

Hope to see everyone at Oshkosh in 2023!

Full post, including comments

Today’s stock market drama

From May 9, 2022, S&P 500 down at least 6 percent since Joe Biden took office:

Who wants to get bragging rights by calling the bottom on this market slide? I’m going to say that the correct value is 3,200 (pre-coronapanic value) plus 0 percent growth for 2020 when Americans cowered in place and 8 percent growth for 2021. Then add 20 percent for the inflation rate that is experienced by people with enough money to buy stock. So today’s correct nominal value is 4,096. Markets tend to overshoot, though, so let’s take 5 percent off that for the bottom: 3,891.

Today the S&P 500 closed at 3,932, down 4.3 percent after the government released inflation numbers.

Let’s look at the chart:

Not a huge change compared to May 9, 2022, at least in nominal dollars, but the index is down in real terms given the inflation that continues to eat away at savings.

My prediction that the stock market would bottom out at 3,891 was wrong. 3,667 on June 16 was the local minimum. But some of the folks who commented were off by even more, e.g., with a prediction of 2,700 (but on the third hand, I didn’t specify a time interval so it is possible that we will yet reach 2,700).

Full post, including comments

Inflation at Target

The latest CPI numbers are out today. What’s the correct level of panic?

Here are a couple of mid-August pictures from Target:

Prices were going up to fast that the “Sale!” numbers are actually higher than the regular prices, listed above (it isn’t a positional error; the SKUs match).

“U.S. Inflation Eased to 8.3% in August” (WSJ, today) headlines what seems like an irrelevant number in a world where half-trillion-dollar government spending programs may be announced at any moment (e.g., Joe Biden’s transfer of student loan debt from the laptop class to the working class, funding housing, health care, food, etc. for millions of additional migrants, ). Is the price increase compared to a year ago informative regarding what to expect next month? If we dig into the article we can learn a bit about what is happening now:

On a monthly basis, the CPI increased 0.1% in August from July, despite a sharp decline in gasoline prices. The core CPI rose 0.6% in August–double July’s pace.

The best estimate of current inflation, then, is 7.4% annually (the 0.6% core number, fed into the Google as 1.006^12). But it could also be only 1.2% (based on the 0.1% month-to-month number).

Full post, including comments

COVID emergency powers expiring in New York State

“Gov. Hochul will not renew COVID emergency powers” (ABC, today):

It’s been nearly two years since New York has led the fight against the coronavirus, but as the virus evolves so does the battle. On Monday, Governor Hochul announced she will not be extending COVID emergency powers which she’s held onto since former Governor Cuomo left office in August of last year. … Hochul says she feels comfortable relinquishing those powers which will expire by midnight tonight.

(Why is it “nearly two years”? Andrew Cuomo shut down public schools and made it illegal for small business to operate in New York 2.5 years ago, no?)

New Yorkers will no longer be living under a state of emergency then? New laws will have to be passed by the legislature rather than decreed by the executive? No. From Friday, September 9… “Hochul Declares Polio State of Emergency for New York” (nytimes):

Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York declared a state of emergency on Friday over the growing polio outbreak…

Some photos from a June 2021 trip to NYC (I used to go there for business every 2-3 months, but now everything is via Zoom).

Full post, including comments

What were your favorite parts of the U.S. Open tennis tournament?

I was disappointed that our fellow Floridian Frances Tiafoe did not win the U.S. Open.

The Science-following part of my brain was gratified that Novak Djokovic’s filthy unvaccinated Science-denying body was excluded by President Biden’s orders (not applicable to asylum-seekers, of course). It was also good to see that Stefanos Tsitsipas was punished with an early loss for his previously expressed lack of enthusiasm for the Sacrament of Fauci (see “Why So Many Tennis Players Don’t Want the Covid Vaccine” (New York Times, August 30, 2021)).

It was disappointing that Margaret Court wasn’t selected by ESPN to provide commentary. From Wikipedia:

Court has been a consistent critic of LGBT rights and same-sex marriage in Australia. In 2012, she opposed proposed same-sex marriage reforms. Court has been criticised for such statements by openly gay tennis players Billie Jean King, Rennae Stubbs and Martina Navratilova, and in 2012, an LGBT rights protest group called for the renaming of Margaret Court Arena.

Court was criticised in May 2017 after writing a letter to The West Australian decrying Qantas, the largest airline in Australia, for being a corporate supporter of same-sex marriage and saying that she would boycott the airline. … high-profile guests Martina Navratilova and John McEnroe paraded a banner calling for the Margaret Court Arena to be renamed in honour of four-time Australian Open champion Evonne Goolagong. In 2020, her Margaret Court Community Outreach charity was denied a Lotterywest grant for a freezer truck on the basis of her public statements on gay people.

Who better to start the much-needed dialog on these topics, which are important enough to the tennis world that the “This is Pride” banner was larger than the American flag at the Delray Beach Open (February 2022):

Out of principle, I watched only the open-to-all-gender-IDs ATP events that are, I believe, unfairly characterized as “men’s”. I don’t think that there is any requirement in the ATP Rulebook that a player identify as a “man”. I did not watch any of the “women’s” events organized by the gender-discriminatory Women’s Tennis Association. However, it would have been interesting to see a rematch between Serena Williams and beer-drinking, cigarette-smoking Karsten Braasch (“He was well-noted for … his habit of smoking during changeovers.”)

Full post, including comments

A visit to the Nobel Peace Center

Today is 9/11, the anniversary of the 2001 jihad, our reaction to which was to engage in years of war. I’m going to devote today to describing a visit to the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo.

The Peace Center is in a former train station, no longer needed because Oslo, unlike Boston, constructed a tunnel to unify all of its trains into one station. A view from the National Museum (mostly art):

The red brick towers behind the building are the City Hall, where the Nobel Peace Prize is actually awarded.

The visitor experience begins with a history of Alfred Nobel, whose father was an impoverished entrepreneur and engineer. In addition to being a chemistry nerd, he loved to write fiction:

When he was young and poor, women refused to marry him. When he was old and rich, he didn’t want to get married.

This is what set him up to die without heirs and, therefore, endow the Nobel Prizes.

Treason is not just for Donald Trump and the January 6 insurrectionists. Alfred Nobel was also convicted of treason:

The visitor can use a touchscreen “peace personality” explorer. If you put in zero interest in helping anyone, the software says that your closest match among Peace Prize recipients is Barack Obama.

Moving upstairs, we find a room devoted to polar explorer Fridtjof Nansen, who later become a diplomat. Nansen seems to have been one of the originators of the idea that people in non-Malthusian situations are obligated to send money, food, and other aid to prevent the consequences of Malthusianism. His lecture in 1922:

“When one has stood face to face with famine, with death by starvation itself, then surely one should have had one’s eyes opened to the full extent of this misfortune. When one has beheld the great beseeching eyes in the starved faces of children staring hopelessly into the fading daylight, the eyes of agonized mothers while they press their dying children to their empty breasts in silent despair, and the ghostlike men lying exhausted on mats on cabin floors, with only the merciful release of death to wait for, then surely one must understand where all this is leading, understand a little of the true nature of the question. This is not the struggle for power, but a single and terrible accusation against those who still do not want to see, a single great prayer for a drop of mercy to give men a chance to live.”

In the spirit of Nansen, the UN World Food Programme won the prize in 2020 “for its efforts to combat hunger, for its contribution to bettering conditions for peace in conflict-affected areas and for acting as a driving force in efforts to prevent the use of hunger as a weapon of war and conflict.”

There is a room of tablets on sticks, a bit like some of the installations in Marfa, Texas (“Visitors are required to wear masks indoors”, said the site on September 4, 2022). Each prize winner gets a tablet:

Following Olympic viewing procedure, we will concern ourselves only with Americans. Barack Obama (2009) is featured for creating “a new climate in international politics”. Quite a few winners are featured for ending wars, but somehow the Big Guy didn’t win in 2021 for ending our war in Afghanistan? Al Gore won in 2007 and Jimmy Carter in 2002. Notorious racist Woodrow Wilson won in 1919 for his role in founding the quixotic League of Nations. Norman Borlaug won for deferring our date with Malthus via the Green Revolution.

A notable non-American winner is the Dalai Lama, some decades before “Dalai Lama Says Europe is for Europeans, Refugees Should Go Home and Rebuild” (Newsweek 2018) and “Dalai Lama Says a Female Successor Must Be Attractive, or People Won’t Want to Look at Her Face” (Newsweek 2019).

The museum promotes “freedom of expression”, but the gift shop suggests that some perspectives are more welcome than others. A sampling:

Gro Harlem Brundtland, Prime Minister from 1990-1996, liked to say “It’s typically Norwegian to be good at things.” (source) The Nobel Peace Center is certainly consistent with this point of view.

Readers: What are you thinking about today with respect to the events of 9/11/2001?

Full post, including comments

The least insane electric aircraft vendors at Oshkosh

The typical electric aircraft company is stuffed with cash on one end (e.g., “Joby Aviation raises $1.6 billion in SPAC merger at $6.6 billion valuation”) while huge promises come out the other end. So far there is little evidence of delivery on the promises that were made years ago, much less on the more recently made promises. Example promise: Joby now says that they’ll be operated eVTOL air taxis in 2024; they tout the fact that they got an air carrier certificate using, apparently, a Cirrus, as evidence that they are progressing toward this goal.

Generally speaking, the electric aircraft folks who showed up to Oshkosh 2022 had the same promises that they were making at Oshkosh 2018, e.g., “we’ll be certified and flying commercially in three years.” It doesn’t seem as though any progress has been made. The batteries are the same as in 2018. The computers and software that enable autonomy and/or idiot-proof human piloting are functionally the same as in 2018. The overall aircraft architectures are the same as in 2018. What these folks are doing with their $billions is a mystery. Let’s keep in mind that the U.S. involvement in World War II spanned the same time period: four years. Admittedly the percentage of GDP devoted to improving aircraft technology was larger, but the changes from 1941 to 1945 were dramatic indeed (B-17 to pressurized B-29, for example; development of the Lockheed P-80 jet fighter).

One area where it seems as though electric-powered aviation has a good chance of near-term success is carrying cargo, e.g., for “last mile” deliveries or going out to islands. What vehicle is already big enough to carry 200 lbs. of cargo and doesn’t need a runway? A single-seat helicopter! These have always been niche products since there aren’t a lot of folks who want to build and fly their own one-seat helicopter that is even trickier to fly than a Robinson R22. But what if the cabin is turned into a cargo compartment and the flying is handed over to a computer with the fast reflexes required to make this kind of machine safe? The folks behind the Mosquito helicopter, in partnership with a Canadian company, are doing just this:

At least for the moment, the heavy lifting will be done by a conventional gasoline-powered engine. Since Oshkosh is more about the human experience of aviation, including building one’s own aircraft, the biggest companies in drone cargo weren’t there, but the event reminded me to check in with Amazon. A June 2022 press release says “We are working with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and local officials in Lockeford [California] to obtain permission to conduct these deliveries and will continue with that collaboration into the future.” So it could happen next week, next year, or next decade!

Readers: What’s your best guess as to when it will be possible to get an aerial Uber in at least 5 U.S. cities? And your best guess as to when it will be possible to get packages delivered by drone to your suburban house in at least 5 U.S. metro areas? Given the technical and regulatory challenges, I’m going to say 2028 for the Ubers and 2026 for the delivery-to-house drones. I think there will be regular drone-based delivery services to at least 5 remote areas of Canada, however, by 2024 (smaller population means it will be easier to get everyone to agree).

Related:

  • NASA at Oshkosh (thinking about how to ensure that these autonomous vehicles are airworthy on a continuing basis)
Full post, including comments