Education And Ignorance

I took a first crack yesterday at Governor McRory's attack on higher education in North Carolina. Make no mistake - that is what it was.

Concealed in his remarks about "butts in seats" was an apparent contempt for liberal arts education. Also embedded in his remarks is an erroneous thought that has been given wide credence: namely, that our present level of unemployment is the result of a mismatch between jobs available and personal skills of job applicants. This view seems to be widely shared across party lines. To correct unemployment, some contend,  we need only train more persons in the skills that are so desperately needed.

Unfortunately for the theory, there is no evidence to support it. Unemployment is uniformly high across all fields of endeavor. The problem is lack of aggregate demand, not a jobs-skills mismatch.

Of equal significance, CEOs uniformly complain, not about inability to find qualified employees, but that they can't find employees who can analyze a problem and write persuasively about it.

They are looking in the wrong place for skills like that. They should be seeking graduates of liberal arts colleges.

Brian Rosenberg explains in today's Huffington Post.

Elections And Democracy

Something to think about.

You can't have democracy without elections.

You can certainly have elections without democracy.

There are several schemes afoot to do just that.

Seventy Years Ago: Battle Of Rennell Island, Phase II

Dawn on January 30, 1942, found Admiral Giffen's Task Force 18 on its way back to Espiritu Santo. Their mission had not been completed. They did not rendezvous with the destroyer division from Tulagi, as had been planned. The resupply ships unloaded their supplies on Guadalcanal without the protection of TF 18.

Apparently Giffen lifted radio silence, because the previous night's disaster was reported to Adm Halsey in Noumea. At Halsey's direction, the two escort carriers kept a combat air patrol (CAP) on station over Chicago and Louisville all night long. He also ordered Rear Admiral Frederick Sherman's Enterprise carrier group to dd more CAP aircraft from dawn to dusk.

Halsey dispatched the tug Navajo and the destroyer transport Sands to go to Chicago's assistance. That afternoon, Halsey directed Giffen to return to Efate with the remaining battle worthy ships, turn the towing duties over to Navajo and rely on CAP to defend Chicago. Giffen took with him on Wichita the force's only trained fighter direction officer (FDO). Chicago had no practical way to control the CAP sent to their defense.


Four Grumman F4F's from Enterprise spotted a Japanes scout bomber and chased it for 40 miles, leaving Chicago unprotected. Eleven Japanese Bettys appeared over the horizon.

USS Enterprise, now only 40 miles south of Chicago, directed a flight of six F4F's to intercept the bombers, which appeared headed for Enterprise. The Japanese bombers immediately reversed course and headed for Chicago, which they believed to be a battleship. They identified the destroyer La Vallette, still standing by the cruiser and tug as a "Honolulu-class" cruiser. About 4:20 pm, nine Japanese bombers appeared out of the clouds and made their final approach in the face of heavy anti-aircraft fire.

At 4:24 one torpedo hit the starboard side forward, followed almost immediately with three torpedoes right where the ship had been hit the previous day. The captain ordered "abandon ship." At 4:43 pm the ship rolled to starboard and sank with her colors flying.

Navajo, Waller, Edwards and Sands picked up 1,069 survivors. La Vallette took one torpedo hit and survived.

Admiral Nimitz was irate when he learned that Chicago had been lost. He blamed Admiral Giffen. Giffens career survived, however, and he retired after the war as a Vice Admiral.

Chicago lost six officers and 55 enlisted men when the ship went down.

Chicago was the last ship lost in the struggle for Guadalcanal. By February 9, Japan had evacuated their last soldiers from the island.

This may have been the final "turning point" of the war. After this, Japan was fighting a rear guard action. The United States was busy replacing their lost ships, planes and sailors. Japan was not able to.

The cost of victory was high. For 2500 square miles of jungle, tall grass and sluggish rivers, the Allies had lost two fleet carriers, eight cruisers, 14 destroyers, numerous smaller vessels and aircraft, and over 6,000 lives: nearly 1600 Marines and soldiers, the rest - three times as many - Navy officers and men.

The cost of defeat was higher. Japan lost two battleships, a small carrier, four cruisers, 11 destroyers, and more than 23,000 men.

But they also lost any hope of victory.

Pat McRory: "Philosophy Is Bunk"

OK, that isn't exactly what Governor McRory said to a national audience yesterday, but it isn't far off. Gender Studies (one might say that is a subdivision of history with an admixture of other disciplines) is also, apparently bunk.

What is education for, anyhow? Governor McRory has a simple answer. It is about getting a job. So if a graduate doesn't find a job, education has failed, right? So we must revamp our system of higher education to make it into an elaborate vocational school.

Balderdash!

The purpose of education in all places and all times has been to transmit our best understanding of the universe and how it works to the next generation. It is how society perpetuates itself. And how we expand our understanding of the cosmos, bit by bit and generation by generation.

Not everything we learn must lead to a job. Some knowledge is not primarily utilitarian. For example, all of our great universities began as places to study theology. Not directly utilitarian except for those seeking positions as clerics.

Take philosophy, which apparently arouses the governor's contempt. I took a look at UNC's description of the graduate curriculum in philosophy. It turns out that there are a number of sub disciplines. But all students must take courses in symbolic logic.

What is that good for?

Pretty much everything. Symbolic logic occupies the boundary between mathematics, science and computer technology.

How many jobs are there in the field? No one knows.

But great universities are research centers exploring and expanding the boundaries of knowledge.

Another way to think about universities is to think of them as agglomerations of knowledge and agglomerations of people who can expand our frontiers of knowledge.

North Carolina once was led by visionaries who saw the benefits of such an agglomeration as the Research Triangle.

That's a better foundation for economic growth and the future of our citizens than building a new factory.

Seventy Years Ago: Battle Of Rennell Island

The first six months of the war in the Pacific were fought mostly with ships, planes and men already in the Pacific when Pearl Harbor was attacked. They had been worked up to a high state of combat readiness by their fleet commander, Admiral Husband E. Kimmel. Even after Kimmel was relieved of duty following the attack, the surviving forces acquitted themselves well.

The Pacific Fleet was hard pressed. They had lost four of their six large aircraft carriers in combat, and the remaining two, USS Saratoga and USS Enterprise,  were just returning from extensive repair.

Some Pacific Fleet assets had been diverted to the Atlantic for the invasion of North Africa. That invasion now over, ships were moving through the Panama Canal to reinforce the Pacific.



That was the good news. The bad news is that the ships, their officers and their admirals weren't accustomed to operating in the Pacific. Not only was the tactical challenge different from the Atlantic, there was a less tangible difference of attitude.

The Atlantic Fleet was a "spit and polish" outfit. The Pacific Fleet was more a "get the job done" operation. That was especially true of the aviators and submariners.

RADM Giffen's Formation

RADM Robert C. "Ike" Giffen, a favorite of Atlantic Fleet Commander Admiral King, had just arrived in the Southwest Pacific with heavy cruiser USS Wichita and escort carriers Chenango and Suwanee, all having just completed the invasion of North Africa.

Giffen had experience against German submarines, but none against Japanese naval air forces. He also had very limited experience operating aircraft carriers. The two escort carriers were slow. Converted oilers, they could make no more than 18 knots. Worse than that, the wind was from the southeast, opposite from the direction Giffen needed to go.

Giffen had no concept of Japanese naval skills at operating both warships and aircraft at night.

Giffen's task force of three heavy cruisers, three light cruisers, eight destroyers and two escort carriers left Efate January 29. Destination: Guadalcanal by way of Rennell Island. Mission: Support a four-ship resupply mission for the marines, then sweep up through the "slot" to find and destroy Japanese ships.

Giffen ordered radio silence. Japanese submarines and aircraft tracked the force from the time it left Efate.

Louisville Towing Chicago

Under the circumstances, strict radio silence made little sense. The ships used their air and surface search radars, which the Japanese could detect at about the same range as the UHF radios used for line of sight communications. Most importantly, this order prevented the cruisers from communicating with the aircraft launched by the carriers.

Early the afternoon of January 29, Giffen worried that he wouldn't be at his rendezvous point on time. He ordered the two carriers, along with two destroyers, to continue at best speed, while the remainder of his force increased speed to 24 knots, remaining in a formation designed to protect against submarines rather than aircraft attack. Steaming at that speed increased the force's self noise so greatly as to render the sonar used to detect submarines nearly useless. It also announced the presence of the task force out to almost as great a distance as UHF radios would have.

Shortly after increasing speed, radar operators on the cruisers began picking up radar blips of unidentified aircraft ("bogies"). The US radars were equipped with an IFF feature to electronically distinguish friend from foe, but operators deemed it unreliable. To find out whether the radar blips were friendly or hostile aircraft would have required fighter-director personnel to send aircraft from the carriers to visually identify the aircraft. But they couldn't do so because of radio silence.

Radio silence made no sense.

At sunset, Giffen ceased zigzagging his force and proceeded on a set course to his rendezvous. The bogies were about sixty miles to the west, approaching fast. They were in fact hostile, Japanese twin-engine land-based bombers, armed with torpedoes. The Bettys maneuvered around Giffen's force and attacked from the east, where they sky was dark, but with Giffen's ships silhouetted against the evening twilight.

Giffen's ships put up a barrage of anti-aircraft fire, and the first wave of bombers did not damage any of the ships. USS Louisville was struck by a dud torpedo, but there was no damage. Giffen issued no orders, and the force continued as before.

A second Japanese air group dropped flares alongside Giffen's cruisers in the moonless night. At 7:38 pm, the lead Betty crashed in flames off USS Chicago's port bow, brightly silhouetting the ship for the following aircraft.

One air launched torpedo hit Chicago in the starboard side, flooding the after fire room. Two minutes later, another torpedo hit at number three fireroom. Three of the ship's four shafts stopped turning, the rudder jammed, and soon the ship was dead in the water. Another torpedo hit the flagship Wichita but did not explode.

Chicago's crew managed to control flooding with the list at 11 degrees. At first, they had only electrical power from the emergency diesel generator. Soon they were able to relight one boiler and generate more electricity to use more powerful pumps.

Giffen ordered USS Louisville to take Chicago in tow. By midnight, The tow was underway at three knots, headed for Espiritu Santo.

Problems With Outsourcing

Boeing's vaunted new Dreamliner aircraft have all been grounded, with no prospects for flying again until its battery problems are solved.

Just an unforeseeable problem? Not according to New Yorker's James Surowiecky.

In a recent article, Surowiecky lays the problem at the feet of Boeing's bean counters.

This sort of thing has happened before in American industry. When General Motors was taken over by accountants instead of engineers, this started a long decline in quality which eventually drove the company to bankruptcy.

W. Edwards Deming, whose management techniques were adopted by Japanese auto manufacturers in the 1950's, had no problem with outsourcing. But he did have a problem with outsourcing based price. He especially did not like short term contracts with multiple suppliers, a particularly favorite of bean counters.

We have outsourced government functions, prisons, military operations, etc. all under the illusion that this will save money.

In Boeing's case, it demonstrably cost money. And reduced quality.

The whole approach needs another look at all levels of government and industry.

Should We Worry About Wind Farms And The Marines?

Today's County Compass reports a brouhaha resulting from a request by representatives of Cherry Point MCAS to appear before a joint session of the Pamlico County Board of Commissioners to discuss wind farms. Commissioner Delamar, who has supported wind farms in Pamlico County, voted against the meeting. His was the only vote against it.

I plan to attend the meeting. I hope to hear from the Cherry Point representatives an informative discussion examining potential problems, including a technical explanation, along with proposed solutions. I want to see some empirical data backed by research. I would hope that an expert from NRL might appear. If the proposed solution is not to have wind farms in Pamlico County, I will be very disappointed.

One commissioner is quoted as saying "the Marine Corps deserve our respect just based on who they are." I share that commissioner's high regard for the marines. At the same time, I would hope that our marines are bending every effort to insure that we can share the land, sea and air space of Eastern North Carolina without precluding other future economic development in the region.

By the way, we should all recognize that effective alternate energy sources to replace the burning of fossil fuels is an urgent national security priority. In fact, the Department of the Navy (including the marines) has taken the lead in DOD in fostering alternate energy development.

I gather that the marines share a concern of a number of government agencies that wind farms present a particular challenge to radars, including air search and air control radars, including doppler radars for meteorology. The fundamental concern is radar clutter.

Clutter has been a major challenge for radar designers from the earliest days. Dealing with clutter has generated an alphabet soup of anti-clutter measures: STC, AGC, FTC, IAGC, MTI, frequency agility, circular polarization, Moving Target Detector, Pulse-Doppler Systems, and on and on. Clutter presents some of the same challenges as are presented by electronic and mechanical jamming.

Solving particular problems of clutter from wind farms may not be trivial, but is certainly surmountable.

The following is an executive summary of a 2008 report by The MITRE Corporation, one of our premier defense contractors with experience in this area.

Wind Farms And Radar

January 2008

The MITRE Corporation


1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

"Wind farms interfere with radar. This interference has led the FAA,
the DHS, and the DOD to contest many proposed wind turbines in the line
of sight of radar, stalling development of several thousands of MW of wind
energy. A large number of such denials is a serious impediment to the nation’s
mandated growth of sustainable energy.

"There is no fundamental physical constraint that prohibits the accu-
rate detection of aircraft and weather patterns around wind farms. On the
other hand, the nation’s aging long range radar infrastructure significantly
increases the challenge of distinguishing wind farm signatures from airplanes
or weather.

"Progress forward requires the development of mitigation measures, and
quantitative evaluation tools and metrics to determine when a wind farm
poses a sufficient threat to a radar installation for corrective action to be
taken. Mitigation measures may include modifications to wind farms (such
as methods to reduce radar cross section; and telemetry from wind farms to
radar), as well as modifications to radar (such as improvements in processing;
radar design modifications; radar replacement; and the use of gap fillers in
radar coverage).

"There is great potential for the mitigation procedures, though there
is currently no source of funding to test how proposed mitigations work in
practice. In general, the government and industry should cooperate to find
methods for funding studies of technical mitigations. NOAA has an excellent
research plan, but no adequate funding to carry it out.

"Once the potential for different mitigations are understood, we see no
scientific hurdle for constructing regulations that are technically based and
simple to understand and implement, with a single government entity tak-
ing responsibility for overseeing the process. In individual cases, the best
solution might be to replace the aging radar station with modern and flexi-
ble equipment that is more able to separate wind farm clutter from aircraft.
This is a win-win situation for national security, both improving our radar
infrastructure and promoting the growth of sustainable energy.

"Regulatory changes for air traffic could make considerable impact on
the problem. For example, the government could consider mandating that
the air space up to some reasonable altitude above an air-security radar
with potential turbine interference be a controlled space, with transponders
required for all aircraft flying in that space. This would both solve the
problem of radar interference over critical wind farms and would provide a
direct way to identify bad actors, flying without transponders.

"Current circumstances provide an interesting opportunity for improving
the aging radar infrastructure of the United States, by replacing radar that
inhibits the growth of wind farms with new, more flexible and more capable
systems, especially digital radar hardware and modern computing power.
Such improvements could significantly increase the security of U.S. airspace."

For what it's worth, in my opinion the Marine Corps needs to take the lead in getting this project budgeted. FAA, DHS, Air Force, Navy, DOD and perhaps some other agencies should chip in.

This is not an optional program. We urgently need more renewable energy sources. The cost of failure to control global warming and allowing the sea level to rise is incalculable. It is already threatening Norfolk, VA. Projected sea level rise of one meter later in this century will make my home unlivable - and those of many other Pamlico County residents as well. One meter this century may well be an underestimate.

There is no single silver bullet. We need to explore every avenue.

Not just for the residents of Eastern North Carolina, but for the marines as well.

Senate Reforms

The good news is that the United States senate adopted some reformed procedures to tackle grid lock.

The bad news is that the changes were pretty weak and unlikely to do the job.

I could be wrong.

But I don't think so.