So that's why they never fix the federal budget...

  I don't normally pay much attention to politics or news--

  And like any sane person I've made it a policy to ignore the awful stench emanating from the so called 'news' channels(Fox,CNN, and pretty much any american news channel), but the Japanese earthquake and the recent explosion of rebellions in the middle east has sparked my temporary interest, although I try to stick to more reliable and less commercially soaked sources such as NPR, BBC.  Another interesting source is Al Jazeera which is generally good but sometimes has some very Fox News style innuendos, but with a anti-Western bend.

 So the US has entered Lybia for yet another war, and people are complaining about the cost of the war and the federal deficit.

 Isn't it interesting that each new politicians always seems to claim they have a plan to fix the deficit, but when elected, nothing ever gets fixed?

 So.. why is that?

  Actually it is really obvious as to why, and anyone involved in financial aspects of the government probably knows exactly what the problem is, and exactly how it could be fixed.  They are just helpless to actually enact any of these plans.

 Here are the major expenditures in descending order.

1 - $695 billion (+4.9%) – Social Security
2 - $663.7 billion (+12.7%) – Department of Defense
3 - $571 billion (−15.2%) -  Discretionary (Much of this is just more Defense related stuff)
4 - $453 billion (+6.6%) – Medicare
5 - $290 billion (+12.0%) – Medicaid


And in chart form...

With a large drop-off after these five, and besides, together these five constitute 80% of the entire federal budget!


 One thing that isn't clearly from this chart is that the Defense budget is actually closer to 40-50% of the entire federal budget!

 See the section labeled Discretionary, well much of that goes to extra defense related programs such as Veteran Affairs($70b), Homeland Security($47b), Veterans Pensions($54.6b), International Affairs($5-$63b), and many others.

 The total for defense related expenditures is an amazing:  $1,030 - $1,415 trillion

 Now common sense says if you want to fix the budget, you start where you can make the largest gains.

To fix the budget all you have to do is reduce payments to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and the Department of Defense, and presto-magic budget = fixed.

 But wouldn't you know it-- these are the exact places the public won't let politicians make any changes too.

-Old farts don't want to see their precious Medicare & Medicaid & Social Security go away-- any politician who tries it would be quickly removed.  And the old fart population is just growing...

-Republicans have a hard-on for anything military, so cutting the Defense Department never flies with them.


 So basically, nothing gets fixed because the people lack the will to actually let anything be fixed.

Meanwhile this lovely bit:

6 - $164 billion (+18.0%) – Interest on National Debt

 Just keeps growing :)



Source for budget:
US Federal Budget
2010 US Federal Budget
US Military Budget

Why does Tekkeon battery chirp?

 While charging my Tekkeon battery on solar power it sometimes starts chirping at me and I am not sure why(it has 4 of 8 lights on the charge meter, so it shouldn't be chirping because of low or full battery).

   The manual doesn't mention anything about this, the only instances where it mentions beeping is when a device draws too little power.  I don't have anything plugged into the battery, so I'm not drawing any power.

 My assumption right now is that it might have to do with not enough voltage reaching the Tekkeon(it requires 12V to charge), since it does seem to happen more often when the clouds are out.

 EDIT: it seems that by actually plugging something into the battery(like my laptop) causes the chirping to stop.  WTH?  Also I'm uncertain about it being related to cloud coverage as it was happening earlier even in full sunlight.

Under Volt

The lowest voltage that my MacBook Air seems capable of running on is 13V.   The power plug that comes with the mac apparently runs at 16.5.  My battery has a manually adjustable output voltage, which I've had at 16V up until now. 

At 12V the MacBook does not detect the external power source and just runs on battery. 

 At 13V it runs off the external power, and while I initially didn't expect it to charge the battery( given that the Mac Airline 15V charger does not), it does actual charge it.

Running at a lower voltage means using less power, and the laptop can also run cooler without any performance degradation.

Commercial Space Flight

 NASA's space fleet is powering down, but there are some commercial attempts to replicate, at least in part what NASA has done.

   One is the SpaceX Dragon, which has already successfully reached low earth orbit; the first commercial enterprise in history to do so.  So far only the cargo version is been flown, the manned version isn't planned for a few years.

  Quite Apollo in appearance, tiny and not reusable--still it is wonderful to see any development.

  Virgin Galactic is working on SpaceShipTwo, the larger successor to the single person craft that claimed the X-prize back in 2004.  

No more Shuttle Fleet :(

  It is pretty depressing knowing that this is nearly the end for NASA's shuttle fleet.  I watched discovery land yesterday, for the last time, and couldn't help but feel depressed.
 Only two more shuttles are scheduled to leave Earth, one flight each for Atlantis and  Endeavour and then mothballed off to museums; the USA will no longer have the capability to put a person in space for an undefined period of time, but likely many years.

 The Constellation program, initiated after the Columbia disaster, which was basically just Apollo 2, has been more or less canceled; not such a bad thing, it was underfunded and uninspired-- but where is the inspiring replacement?  The current plan is to promote commercial space flight in the hopes that it will produce a cheaper more efficient path to manned space projects.

 It seems to be a common misconception that NASA takes a large percent of the federal budget, but the actual number is closer to half of one percent.

  Here are the numbers, as you can see US budget is $3.55 trillion, and NASA receives only $18.7 billion of that.

 That is 1/190th, or ~0.005%.

That is a pretty damn small percent.  Politicians waste more money on pork barrel projects each year than the entire budget of NASA.

Gear List

 Not complete, but currently I have a 13 lbs base weight.  I think this is pretty good considering I have 5 lbs of electronics and a 3 lbs backpack.

Pack & Pads

 This is the pack I'm planning to use. An Aarn Mountain Magic 55.  It is about three pounds by itself, so it is heavier than many of the packs commonly used for the PCT.   In the picture you can see two small packs, one of the left and one on the right.  These wrap around your body and end up hanging off your chest, it is supposed to help counter balance the weight on your back.  I've got it loaded with about 20 lbs in this picture, which I've been carrying around on training hikes.

 Here is the sleeping pads I'm currently planning to use, the egg carton looking one is torso length, and the thinner rolled up one is body length.  The clear plastic thing is my ground sheet.