johnc

From Belmont Club http://belmontclub.blogspot.com/: Tuesday, June 22, 2004 The Revolution Within the Revolution The particular venom with which the Liberals regard President Bush is at heart a reaction to what they perceive as a coup de etat directed against the carefully constructed edifice of their historical achievements. To understand why the President and individuals like Paul Wolfowitz are described as "illegitimate", one should not, like the man who doesn't get the reference, look to the Florida chads or US Supreme Court decisions. Liberals are not talking about that kind of statutory legitimacy. Rather they are referring to what is perceived as a brazen attempt to negate the cultural equivalent of the Brezhnev doctrine, the idea that certain "progressive" modes of behavior, once attained, are irreversible. In this view, an entire set of attitudes, commonly referred to as "political correctness" and their institutional expressions, like the United Nations, have become part of a social contract, part of an unwritten constitution. President Bush, so the indictment goes, is guilty of ignorant trespass on these civilizational norms; he is simply too stupid, too much of a yokel to know better. Like a hairy caveman guided by only the most primitive of instincts, he is accused of reacting to the September 11 attack on America by clubbing all, near and far. Yet if George W. Bush is beneath contempt, not so his archpriests the "neoconservatives". They are the worthy heirs of a role historically filled by the Knights Templars, Masons and Jesuits: the scheming manipulators of the half-witted king. In the days following September 11, the Liberals watched aghast as America went to war -- when that had been abolished! -- against Muslims in the Third World, all but twitching away the hapless figures of France and the United Nations in the process. Arrivals to America were not ushered to sanctuaries run by enlightened clergymen. They were interviewed by Homeland Security. Abroad, the doctrine of containment for rogue states, kept in place by gentle diplomatic prods, was replaced by outright confrontation. But worst of all, liberals were faced with an intellectual movement, one that had developed an alternative ideology, a competing explanation for the way the world worked. Prior to that, Conservatives, however distasteful, were inchoate; they had tacitly acknowledged the intellectual leadership of the Liberal project. No more. Now Liberals were confronted with people who didn't want to read the New York Times, were unimpressed by celebrity and didn't want to go to Harvard. Many liberals didn't recognize "their" familiar country any more. James Lileks described the intensity of the revulsion at the barbarians at the gates; not Osama Bin Laden, but rather someone else. (Hat tip: Roger Simon) "I ask my Democrat friends what they’d rather see happen -- Bush reelected and bin Laden caught, or Bush defeated and bin Laden still in the wind. They’re all honest: they’d rather see Bush defeated." Osama Bin Laden, if he was regarded as a foe at all, was the 'far' enemy; but President Bush and the neoconservatives were the 'near' enemy. Osama Bin Laden's men came but once, like flaming apparitions across a blue sky mayhap never to be seen again, but President Bush sat day after day in the People's White House to their everlasting chagrin. In the most ironic of reversals the Liberals had unconsciously taken on the mantle of defenders of the ancien regime while the neo-conservatives donned the robes of Jacobins overturning the old order. But just as the terrorist threat didn't emerge overnight, neither did the nemesis of Leftist edifice. Both took shape at around the same time, in the dying days of the Soviet Union, while Jimmy Carter racked his brains helplessly for a response to the Ayatollah Khomeini, where if one looked carefully one could see that Leftism in the West was dying too. The key factor in the moribidity of both the Soviet and Western cases was that Leftism had ceased to work. Its last serious intellectual exponents, Baran, Sweezy and Joan Robinson had gone shuffling off to retirement homes. Its stultifying effect on demographics and freedom have been described elsewhere; but in one particular its failure was life-threatening: the "progressive" edifice had ravaged the Third World with its nostrums and willful blindness. Countries like India and China quietly abandoned the dogmas of Leftist progressivism in favor of a market economy but the more dysfunctional societies of the world turned to stronger waters. In Africa it was mayhem; in Arabia and South Asia it was Islam. The rise of Islamic fundamentalism coincided with the collapse of Nasserism. The Koran was what the incendiary Arab grasped when he cast away the Little Red Book in despair. Through the long summer of 1990s, the wounds festered as the infection deepened. It was masked by the ineffectual cologne of NGO projects, corrupt aid delivery, United Nations peacekeeping public relations projects, by selective media coverage and by the jangling of fund raising concerts at which a Secretary General appeared, like some secular pope, to give his blessing, until the boil burst over Manhattan on that bright autumn day. As the debris showered on New York it obscured the fact that a new post-post-colonial ideology was ready to push the Liberal edifice aside and take up the challenge of Islamic terrorism; underneath the War for Terror there was now a War for the West. James Lilek's friends must know that electing John Kerry to the White House will not restore the antebellum world. Things have gone too far for that. The Third World in general and the Islamic World in particular have burst their bounds; they can no longer be herded into the decrepit and threadbare tent of the United Nations; the Kyoto climate agreement; the International Criminal Court or any of Potemkin treaties woven by the European Union. Islamic fundamentalists are openly attacking Russia; besetting India; seizing British naval vessels; threatening to interdict the Straits of Malacca; menacing the House of Saud; renewing hostilities in Kosovo; bombing trains in Spain; raging through the Sudan and building nuclear enrichment plants. No Clintonian ceremony in the Rose Garden can replace the planets in their old orbits. All John Kerry can do if he must pay the price of restoring the Liberal dream is to withdraw, like Prince Prospero, into the artificial gaieties of last Bal Masque while the Red Death stalks without. Niall Ferguson, writing in the Wall Street Journal described a world exactly like that: "...a world with no hegemon at all may be the real alternative to it. This could turn out to mean a new Dark Age of waning empires and religious fanaticism; of endemic rapine in the world's no-go zones; of economic stagnation and a retreat by civilization into a few fortified enclaves." But that nightmare does not lie at the end of the Conservative dream; a dream which springs not from the Paris Commune but from the Declaration of Independence. And therein lies the problem for Liberals; that the only impetus to social survival springs from someone else and that illegitimate. To John Kerry's task of corralling Osama Bin Laden must be added the daunting job of persuading many Americans to renew their touching faith in the United Nations; to grasp the pages of the Time and Newsweek again as if they were gospel; to laugh on cue at the network anchor's artificial smile: to return, in short, to the Big Tent so recently punctured by the suicide pilots of the Al Qaeda -- as if nothing ever happened. From a practical standpoint, the Liberal project will not die overnight. It is too old and established for that. But neither will the new faith that has risen to challenge it be banished by single John Kerry term. It is too vigorous for that. Sooner or later Liberals and Conservatives must form a coalition of national unity to face the barbarian horde as one. Perhaps President Bush is too polarizing a figure to achieve that; perhaps the current crop of Democratic candidates are too narrow to see that their world has ended forever. They will pass, and a new polity will emerge as the old wanes. On a long-ago summer in that vanished world, children played and sang a song so beautiful that it seemed it would never end: "Some will come and some will go, We shall surely pass. When the wind that left us here, Returns for us at last. We are but a moment's sunlight, Fading on the grass." But the last strains have sounded: the golden children have aged; night has fallen and the Morlocks have come. At their peril, for a flame still burns in the West.

If he wants to go fast...

I can also get them from Erik. Sometimes its easier working through me because I see Erik every week and also have his home phone number.

Luckily the thread stayed civil but I'm as guilty as anyone for hijacking it. Sorry. RIP Paul Johnson Jr.

CR ASTM 36 (1018) steel plate has a yield strength of 36ksi and an ultimate tensile strength of 58 - 65ksi. 2024-T351 aluminum plate has a yield strength of 47ksi and an ultimate tensile strength of 68ksi. 6061-T651 aluminum plate has a yield strength of 40ksi and an ultimate tensile strength of 45ksi. 7075-T7451 aluminum plate has a yield strength of 68ksi and an ultimate tensile strength of 76ksi. Seems to me that the aluminum plate is stronger then the mild steel plate.

Without knowing the material, I wouldn't use it. But a sheet of 3/16" 6061 T651, 2024, or 7075 would be plenty strong enough. The brackets holding my race seat in my 240Z are 3/16" 2024.

FYI... I'm pretty sure the Lincoln Invertig 205 is the made by the same folks.

I wouldn't be using Carter as an authority for anything except how to build cheap housing.

An anonymous "Letter tot he Editor" that I think makes sense: ---- "THE WRONG LESSON:" "People out there are learning the exact wrong lesson from the shortfalls of intelligence about Iraq. The failure of our intelligence organizations to correctly assess the status of Saddam's WMD programs is actually a powerful argument IN FAVOR of preemptive - or even preventive - national security doctrine. Sure, it's fair to hold the CIA accountable for this "intelligence failure," and I don't argue that the intel community could have done better. But think about it this way: The question of Iraqi WMD was one of the most critical national security issues for the United States for over a decade, and the US, our allies, and the UN directed vast intelligence collection and analysis resources against it. Regardless of what particular mistakes were made, the degree to which the CIA came up short reveals a larger truth: This type of intelligence problem is fundamentally impossible to solve with the precision necessary to support a security policy based on traditional "imminent threat" criteria. Whether Saddam's WMD capabilties were overestimated or underestimated is a peripheral issue. What is essential is that we didn't - and probably couldn't - know for sure what those capabilities were. Contrary to the assertions of many who opposed war in Iraq, this epistemological limitation does not argue for the abandonment of a preemptive doctrine. In fact, it argues for yet greater urgency in the preventive (yes, preventive) elimination of regimes that have the potential to use WMD or supply them to other actors. The definitive intelligence issue for this doctrine is not what specific weapons programs, terrorist links, or ill intentions a certain state might possess, but rather the nature of that state. That is a question that is readily answerable and is therefore a more valid guide to ethical decision-making on issues of war and peace. Just war doctrine has long rejected this line of reasoning, as it could provide pretexts for endless wars of agression. But times have changed. The civilized world can no longer safely permit governments like Saddam's to exist. The precise status of WMD programs (especially bio and chem) in countries like Iraq, Iran, and North Korea are practically insurmountable intelligence problems. The solution lies not in trying to improve the intelligence, but in getting rid of the problems." ----- As my mom and stepdad told me, "9/11 IS another Pearl Harbor and if this country does not understand that, many more people will die." During WW2 my stepsdad served on destroyer escorts in the north Atlantic and my mom drew maps for the USGS.

You're not going to get a definitive answer from a message board. Here's my suggestion, HTP, Miller, and Lincoln all have some kind of 30/60/90 day trial period. Get one of each and try them all. Keep the one you like and send the other two back. That's really the only way you're going to be able to get the answers you're looking for.

That's a tough one to figure out via a message board. Get on some RX7 forums and search. Maybe go to a local autocross and talk the to rotary guys who drove their cars to the event.

Borla.

Borla.

Supposed to be that way for a street muffler. If you want performance, the Borla XR-1 raceline is about the best. Loud at idle but actually quits down under power.

As I've posted before this is the most lucid, thoughful, and level headed analysis of what's going on regarding the war on terror: http://belmontclub.blogspot.com/ IMHO of course...

Having been on a racetrack and driven through clouds of dust caused by a car going off track, I'll tell you that its not a good thing. Instead of blowing up the car in front of you and creating a huge hazard for yourself, you'll need what I've been trying to invent for a while: The Auto Spatula It projects forward from your car and can flip the slow poke left, right, or for that tailgater that's been riding your ass for the last mile, the Auto Spatula can flip the car up over your roof.

Here's mine (1 3/4" primaries) on a workbench: The "Y" pipe is next to it. Both have been coated with Jet Hot 2000.

Stahl is a good choice or try the Nissan Comp 1 5/8" primaries.

I'm not sure what a "racer type" is, but I own and use a Miller, two Lincolns, and I just bought an HTP 2400 MIG welder. The welding distributors I deal with are morons so I prefer HTP's direct support model. If something goes wrong with the machine you get out your voltmeter and call their 800 tech line. They will walk you through a diagnosis and then overnight any parts you might need. If the machine is still covered by their 3 year warranty, everything is free. The owner's manual contains detailed instructions on how to test and replace every part on the machine. It ain't rocket science. I prefer to rely on myself to repair a machine then have to work through Moe, Larry, and Curly to get a machine fixed - 3 weeks after I drop it off. I'm a one man shop so I can't afford down time.

Depending how quick you need it done, I can do it. I've got work for the rest of June and then a person is bringing me a 240Z do do some suspension/chassis work and swap in an RB. After that I should have time.

> If its unreliable how about installing a on/off switch > like they do on some driver training cars? Now you've added a level of complexity to a supposedly already unreliable system. Also, the brake bias of an ABS equipped car is very different from an identical car not equipped with ABS. Turning off the ABS might make the car almost impossible to stop on a race track (the Acura NSX is one example). > When you guys talk about out-braking some one with ABS, > is that just in a straight line, or corners too? ABS sometimes screws you up if you're trial braking a car into a corner. Again, with Chevy Camaros and Z06 Corvettes, when the software detects hard braking loads and a high yaw rate at the same time it occaisionally figures the car is on ice and dramatically reduces brake pressure to all 4 wheels. I've seen SS Camaros at autocrosses just fly off course with no brakes until the driver shuts the car off. > With ABS, doesn't it control individual brakes? To my thinking, > an ABS car could reduce braking on an individual wheel to > prevent skidding/lockup, where as an 'experienced' driver > when threshold braking would reduce braking to ALL wheels > just to stop one wheel locking-up. On a race track you're dealing with pretty much equal surface traction at all 4 wheels unlike street driving. Bumps can upset things and you can throw out the old "oil on the track" argument, but a properly balanced braking system will tend to lock up both wheels on either end instead of just one. What's most important in braking while racing is consistency and predictability, not ultimate stopping distance. Whether Joe Racer can post shorter braking distances with his Super Tho Down Mo Fo ABS system is irrelevant if he can't do it every single time. All it takes is one corner where Joe Racer's ABS system kicks in a little early and, at best, he's off line and at worst, he's off track. Now, that being said, for the average racer out there, ABS on a race track is a great help. If you are allowed to run it, do it. Also, many professional race series (SCCA WC GT and Touring) allow ABS and most drivers use it if testing proves it can work.

As I said above, I'm very happy with my Lincoln Invertig 205. I've welded AL, SS, CroMo, Ti, Ni, and mild steel with it. AL welding on large structures may regquire pre-heat becuase you can get only about 160 amps AC out of the unit (that's plenty for almost anything you're welding on a car). When I went to the Lincoln Electric Welding school all the instructors were ditching their personal Precision TIG 175s for the Invertig 205. FYI... it also works just fine on 110V and you can easily carry it around.

Lots fo reasons: 1. Rules - many sanctioning bodies don't allow ABS for various classes. 2. Performance - many race drivers can outbrake ABS systems and this is especially true for older ABS systems. And some of the more recent ABS systems are so finely tuned that race rubber messes up their software and braking becomes unpredictable. Chevy's going into "Ice Mode" is a common problem. 3. Complexity - simplifying anything on a race car is a good thing because it makes maintenance easier and reduces the chance of something going wrong. 4. Weight - as you said and always remember most racers would kill to take 25 lbs out of their race cars. 5. Cost - how much does that ABS valving cost?

Its amazing floppy the Z gets when this isn't done.

And as they wear they get very loud.