Which would have major implications.

Four hours of flight time would mean it could be anywhere in a circle with a diameter of 2,200 nautical miles. It could be in India; it could be in Mongolia; it could be in Japan; it could be in Australia. And of course all the thousands of square miles of ocean around.

But it's more than that: Because pilots don't just shut off their transponders and stop all communications without a reason for doing so.

U.S. investigators suspect that Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 stayed in the air for about four hours past the time it reached its last confirmed location, according to two people familiar with the details, raising the possibility that the plane could have flown on for hundreds of additional miles under conditions that remain murky.

Aviation investigators and national security officials believe the plane flew for a total of five hours, based on data automatically downloaded and sent to the ground from the Boeing Co. BA engines as part of a routine maintenance and monitoring program.

So, while the plane's transponders and radio were off, its engines were still sending out data to satellites. At least according to the WSJ's sources. And the engines sent out data for four hours past the plane's disappearance.

Which leads to this possibility:

U.S. counterterrorism officials are pursuing the possibility that a pilot or someone else on board the plane may have diverted it toward an undisclosed location after intentionally turning off the jetliner's transponders to avoid radar detection, according to one person tracking the probe.

Terrorism or some kind of skyjacking is not ruled out.

At Hot Air, Malaysian officials dispute these claims, and China is criticizing them on their response to the whole matter.

Via Nidermeyer's Dead Horse... An NPR interview with the WSJ reporter who wrote this story.

He says the new theory being explored is that the plane either landed, or crashed at some later point en route to a planned landing place. (Actually he doesn't clearly say that last "or" clause but it's implied by what he does say.)

Posted by: Ace at 10:44 AM | Comments (551)
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I agree with this.

And not just because it's Mel Gibson. I'd say this about anybody. There is a penalty to be paid for making un-PC remarks: But that penalty should fit the actual crime. Gibson's crime was to say nasty things about Jews ("they start all the wars") and rant insanely at his ex-girlfriend.

These are grounds, certainly, for criticism and wondering if Gibson has anger and alcohol issues.

But they're not grounds for a nigh-complete boycott by the only industry he's ever worked in.

People have a tendency to take their Rules and push them too far, to the point of inhumanity.

The Rule against anti-semitic remarks (or homophobic remarks, or misogynistic remarks, or racist remarks) is a good one. I support that rule. I try to abide by that rule myself (and I inflict it on others in the comments).

But what should the penalty for deviation from the rule be?

People take a sound enough rule but then make a mistake: They decide (possibly without thinking about it) that if the Rule is good, ergo, no amount of enforcement of it can be disproportionate; in fact, each additional ounce of punishment must be good.

But this isn't true. This is the thinking that leads to unfairly punitive mandatory minimum sentences for drug possession. The thinking goes, "Drugs are a social wrong; selling drugs is worse; ergo, the stiffest possible penalties must be just and good."

But that's not true. There comes a point when draconian enforcement becomes a greater evil than the original ill one has sought to penalize.

Gibson's outbursts are upsetting, particularly for any of the groups he spoke about. And Gibson's outbursts do indicate he has some anger issues to work on.

But what tangible harm did he inflict on anyone?

From the moment he berated that cop, he was marked as someone who would bear the stigma of being called an anti-semite for the rest of his life.

That is in itself a heavy penalty. Racism, anti-semitism, etc. are now adjudged by most of polite society to be greater crimes than most actual crimes.

So, he has already been penalized. He will carry the burden of being judged a monster until the day he dies.

But at what point do those who go out hunting monsters become monsters themselves?

Because, at this point: Who is it who's actually working to deliver tangible, real harm and hurt on to another person?

As far as I know, it's not Gibson; it's the thousands of high-placed rule-enforcers in Hollywood who are enforcing a boycott against him, probably without even thinking about it very much, probably without even questioning whether or not it makes sense to continue punishing him.

Tolerance is a virtue -- that is the animating notion behind the campaign to stigmatize, and penalize, intolerance.

But this devotion to tolerance can itself become intolerant. And frequently does.

Tolerance is indeed a virtue. And so is mercy and forgiveness.

Another important virtue is this: a variation of the Golden Rule, to not inflict on others rules that one would find insufferable if inflicted on oneself.

If most people in Hollywood would find it unfair if they themselves were blackballed over some objectionable outbursts -- and I imagine most would -- they should not seek to impose that penalty on others.

It's very easy to judge other people so harshly. And that's why we do it. Because it's easy. It's also -- and few admit this, but it is true all the same -- pleasurable. To judge another feels good.

Judging gives each person two wonderful feelings: The feeling that he is intrinsically superior to another human being (and this feeling is magnified when the person judged is of a high status, because it feels just great to know one is superior to a former $20-million-per-film movie star), and the feeling that he is living virtuously by enforcing a code upon another person.

These things feel good.

Which is why they must be restrained. Anytime something feels good, a person is in grave danger of over-indulging in it. Making a new sexual conquest feels good; the pleasantly warm oblivion of drunkeness feels good; calling out another human being for scorn and ostracism feels good.

All of these things have a purpose. None of these things is necessarily bad, in and of themselves. But all of them will be over-indulged if not restrained.

This is particularly a problem with judgment. Sex and alcohol are, of course, already taboos in society, regulated by various rules and restraints.

But the zeal for zero-tolerance "Tolerance" is not so restrained. In fact, in many people's minds, it's an unambiguous good to indulge the urge to judge and punish as much as possible. There is no "mandatory minimum" sentence for a show of intolerance that they would consider excessive.

After all, if doing a little ostracism/Otherizing/ritual scapegoating is good, then doing a whole lot of it must be even better.

Right?

No. Doing a bump of coke at a party once a year might feel good but do it four times a day for a year and you've got a serious problem.

There are three contributing factors this ugly situation of never-ending scalp-hunting:

1. Cruelty is more pleasurable than most human beings care to admit. In fact, they will rarely admit this to themselves. Cruel actions are justified as "doing good." A gut-level, primitive-mammalian urge for dominance games is justified by ideology or philosophy, and hence is never recognized for being sadistic.

2. Guilt by association. One can never say something like "I think drugs should be decriminalized" without people saying Wow, you must really like drugs.

The assumption is that if you speak up in favor of a merciful attitude towards a social ill, then you must either not be opposed to that social ill, or are actually in favor of that social ill (that is, you don't think it's a social ill, but a social good).

Thus anyone who thinks it may be time to decriminalize pot must like pot.

Not true.

And thus, anyone who argues that the penalty Gibson has paid for his anti-semitic outburst must be not think anti-semitism is any big deal, or must actually be in favor of anti-semitism.

Also not true. I'm philo-semitic myself, and known to be anti-anti-semitism, but there does come a point at which the punishment seems to greatly exceed the actual crime.

Nevertheless, there is a penalty that is imposed on anyone who would speak up for Gibson: The sneaking suspicion that anyone who says anything in his defense must himself be anti-semitic.

And thus, Gibson has few defenders. Just this writer, Robert Downey Jr., and Jodie Foster, pretty much.

Most people decide it's not worth it to get branded themselves as anti-semites, so they remain silent.

And:

3. Social Competitiveness. Human beings love competing. They never stop competing.

We especially compete in a social environment. Most of us aren't athletes; many of us work in competitive fields, but few of us are really the best in our particular field.

But we can always compete in the social environment -- and, if we define the rules of the game to our own advantage, we can pretty much "win" according to our own criteria in every outing.

This leads to the bad phenomenon in which people who generally agree with a basic proposition begin attempting to compete for the prize of who is most strongly in favor of that proposition.

And so the bidding goes thus:

South bids: Four diamonds. Gibson's outburst was anti-semitic and unacceptable.

West bids: Four hearts. Unacceptable, indeed! In fact, his outburst proves that he intended an anti-semitic message in Passion of the Christ, doesn't it?

North bids: Double. In fact, one can trace a relentless message of homophobia, misogyny, racism, anti-semitism and Holocaust denial in all of his films, if you look hard enough. Can't you?

East bids: Redouble. You're certainly right -- in fact, I think Mel Gibson should never work in this town again.

You can see this dynamic in play in any meeting of people who basically agree on most things. Because they agree on the basics, they begin competing on another ground -- how passionately they believe in the basic proposition, and what amount of indignation, outrage, and penalization they are willing to inflict on others in advancement of that proposition.

Whoever is willing to do the most -- whoever is the most outraged -- whoever wishes to be the cruelest in vindication of that principle -- well, he wins. He is The Most at This Thing.

Now, this competitiveness -- this competitive bidding in favor of the most extreme possible position -- could be deflated and checked, were someone to venture the idea that "You go too far; you're nuking Gibson over a fairly small matter."

But the trouble is, few will say that, because of Factor 2: Guilt by Association. Hey, if you hate Jews so much, why don't you just join the Nazi party, buddy?

In a well-functioning marketplace of ideas, more excessive statements of the idea would be knocked down, and a more moderate (and merciful, and humane) rule would prevail.

But there rules are all set to privilege the least merciful and least humane rules, and they win most of the time.

And so it goes.

If anyone's interested in this line of thinking, I'd suggest they read Douglas Preston's 40 page essay, "Trial By Fury," available as an e-book ($2 to buy it, free to borrow with Amazon Prime). It's about a basic human desire for something called "altruistic punishment," punishing people on behalf of others -- that is, not punishing them for a harm they inflicted on the self (that would be self-interested punishment) but punishing them altruistically, for harms they inflicted (or are imagined to have inflicted) on others.

Altruistic punishment is in fact a very useful phenomenon. It works to improve human cooperation and mutual trust. It's a powerful tool we have, which generally has benevolent effects.

And we are rewarded for altruistically punishing other people, because it feels good.

But, like most things, it can be taken too far. It can be taken well past the point of a socially useful function and turn into pleasurable cruelty. And that cruelty will never be checked, because those indulging in the cruelty will never recognize it as such, but will instead call it "fighting the forces of evil" or whatnot.

Posted by: Ace at 09:06 AM | Comments (539)
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I've mentioned the RNC's new digital and data effort a couple of times. The idea is to modernize the GOP's voter targeting effort, make it a permanent program, and keep it in-house rather than revive it for election years with a different contractor every time. Then campaigns, committees, and vendors could use and update that data in near real-time across multiple simultaneous races. We're still waiting to see if that second part works out, but Rep-elect Jolly' surprise win in Florida was a good test run for the program.

RNC says its digital team is making headway, as proven by what the committee accomplished on the ground -- and online -- in Florida's St. Petersburg-area 13th district, where on Tuesday Republican David Jolly narrowly defeated Democrat Alex Sink. RNC officials said the party was still analyzing the results, but they pointed to a handful of new data gathering and analysis capabilities the party now possesses that they believe made a difference:

I can't in good conscience steal Drucker' list of the new tools, so you'll have to click over. I've been hearing about this for a little over a year, so it's good to see it working.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 06:58 AM | Comments (463)
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• Outrage Porn: How The Need For Perpetual Indignation Manufactures Phony Offense
  
• Pete Wehner's Unconstructive Governing Agenda
  
• Congress, This Time It's Personal
  
• Help The Dems You Love By Hiding Sharp Objects
  
• Low Rated CNN Boob Exposed As Idiot By Newsbusters
  
• Has Ezra Klein Made A Huge Mistake
  
• FBI Suspects Leftwing Eco Terrorist May Be Hiding In Hawai'i
  
• Dems Should Be Scared About What FL-13 Means
  
• Lecture On Climate Change Cancelled Due To Blizzard
  
• Landmark Settlement Reached In Police Filming Case
  
• Good News For Monkeys
  

Follow me on twitter.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 05:06 AM | Comments (393)
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In case the circumstances of this plane disappearance weren't odd enough already ...

U.S. investigators suspect that Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 stayed in the air for about four hours past the time it reached its last confirmed location, according to two people familiar with the details, raising the possibility that the plane could have flown on for hundreds of additional miles under conditions that remain murky.

Aviation investigators and national security officials believe the plane flew for a total of five hours, based on data automatically downloaded and sent to the ground from the Boeing Co. 777Â’s engines as part of a routine maintenance and monitoring program.

Update: Of course this report is disputed, but the amount of conflicting information on this thing continues to amaze.

Posted by: andy at 03:16 AM | Comments (251)
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Car F*cker Ready to Settle Down

There's comes a time for a man when playing the parking lot no longer holds the thrill it once did and he begins to long for a single vehicle to share his life with and perhaps one day even raise a fleet of little priuses with.

And for Edward Smith that time is...well real soon now.

After losing his virginity 45 years ago, Edward Smith of Yelm, Washington, knew that the way he felt about headlights and bumpers was the way most men felt about "boobs and buns." Although he never forgot his first - a neighbor's Volkswagon Beetle - the self-proclaimed mechaphile went on to sleep with thousands more automobiles and one woman (who we can only assume is his long-term neighbor Sarah, who is very happy that he's found "something that makes him happy").

Now, at the age 62, after driving around with any car or helicopter part that ignited his passion, Smith is ready to give up his slutty ways and become a one-car kind of man. Well, kind of. Although he considers his carfriend Vanilla (a secondhand VW Beetle he's been with for 30 years) his number one, he still has two other cars he sees on the side - Cinnamon and Splash. But Vanilla doesn't seen to mind much. Their relationship is as solid as steel according to Smith.

"When I hold Vanilla in my arms there's a powerful energy that comes from her in response to that . There's something about Vanilla that I can't fully express on an emotional level," Smith said of his carfriend.

[Side note to Yelma-Olympia area morons: Be careful where you park you car and watch yer exhaust hole.]

Ukraine: Hopeless But Not Serious

Spengler is quite down on Ukraine as a viable, independent nation.

There isn't going to be a war over Ukraine. There isn't even going to be a crisis over Ukraine. We will perform our ritual war-dance and excoriate the Evil Emperor, and the result would be the same if we had sung "100 Bottles of Beer on the Wall" on a road trip to Kalamazoo. Worry about something really scary, like Iran.

Ukraine isn't a country: it's a Frankenstein monster composed of pieces of dead empires, stitched together by Stalin. It has never had a government in the Western sense of the term after the collapse of the Soviet Union gave it independence, just the equivalent of the family offices for one predatory oligarch after another-including the "Gas Princess," Yulia Tymoshenko. It has a per capital income of $3,300 per year, about the same as Egypt and Syria, and less than a tenth of the European average. The whole market capitalization of its stock exchange is worth less than the Disney Company. It's a basket case that claims to need $35 billion to survive the next two years. Money talks and bullshit walks. Who wants to ask the American taxpayer for $35 billion for Ukraine, one of the most corrupt economies on earth? How about $5 billion? Secretary of State Kerry is talking about $1 billion in loan guarantees, and the Europeans are talking a similar amount. That's not diplomacy. It's a clown show.

Still even a poor, benighted country deserves its sovereignty. But that doesn't imply that we must or should go to war over it.

And yes it's clown shows all the way down.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:41 PM | Comments (569)
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The picture was taken March 9, but they've only now revealed it.

Jake Tapper's guest says it's the only lead, but it's a logical lead, as the site of the wreckage is about where one would expect the plane to have crashed.

"It's where it's supposed to be," Peter Goelz, a former National Transportation Safety Board managing director, told CNN's Jake Tapper, noting the "great skepticism" about reports the plane had turned around to go back over Malaysia. "I think they've got to get vessels and aircraft there as quickly as humanly possible."

But there are skeptics that these objects are from flight 370:

Clive Irving, a senior editor with Conde Nast Traveler, said that the size of the pieces -- since they are fairly square and big -- "don't conform to anything that's on the plane."

Video at the link. The satellite picture is displayed from 1:57-1:59.

Pic from the Sydney Morning Herald

CBS.com has released the cockpit's last words: "All right, good night."

This Popular Mechanics article discusses how such a large object can just disappear without a trace.

A system that would use satellites to beam an airliner's position and other vital information is not only possible—it's already being used on some planes. In fact, on long-haul routes that fly over the North Pole or the Pacific Ocean, where radar coverage can be iffy, the latest models from Boeing and Airbus are using data link communications to transmit GPS coordinates and status updates.

But the particular Boeing 777-200 flown here didn't have that technology.

The fact that the plane did not offer communications during the presumed tragedy is not notable, it turns out.

"All we know for sure is that a plane went down with no warning or communication from the crew," says Patrick Smith, a pilot for a major airline and the author of Cockpit Confidential. While that would suggest a sudden and dramatic event such as a bomb, Smith cautioned that pilots in an emergency are trained to focus on flying first, with communicating to the ground a lower priority.

I read another article which said a pilot's goals in an emergency were: 1. Aviate 2. Navigate 3. Communicate. Further, an article said that when a plane is far from any tower, communication is not as simple as just picking up a radio and pushing the button; it is often a multi-step process, which might be difficult during a true emergency.

So assuming this was a sudden disaster, it's not strange that the cockpit issued no information to the outside world.

BTW, I've wanted to put up a flight 370 post for days-- but commenters were always ahead of me in the comments! This is the first time I feel like I'm posting something that's reasonably fresh.

About Where It's Supposed To Be: @rdbrewer4 says FoxNews has offered some skepticism on this picture. The debris are only 115 miles from the last known position of the plane. I think he's suggesting that a plane falling from 35,000 feet would move a lot further from its last known position before crashing. He says he doesn't think that drifting on the sea can bridge the gap.

And... If you're the type of person who can't help seeing Omens in things (I pride myself in being a rationalist, but I can't help doing it myself), this news from four days ago will give you your Recommended Daily Allowance of Doom.

A slew of shockingly weak data from China and Japan has led to a sharp sell-off in Asian stock markets and the biggest one-day crash in iron ore prices since the Lehman crisis, calling into question the strength of the global recovery.

The Shanghai Composite index of stocks fell below the key level of 2,000 after investors reacted with shock to an 18pc slump in Chinese exports in February and to signs that credit is wilting again. Iron ore fell 8.3pc.

Fresh loans in ChinaÂ’s shadow banking system evaporated to almost nothing from $160bn in January, suggesting the clampdown on the $8 trillion sector is biting hard.
“It seems that rising default risk has started to erode Chinese investors’ confidence,” said Wei Yao, from Societe Generale. “Together with continued regulatory tightening on banks’ off-balance-sheet activity, we are certain this slowing credit trend has further to go and will inflict real pain on the economy.”

And Open Thread.

Posted by: Ace at 03:37 PM | Comments (423)
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Why hasn't this hashtag taken off?

Sowell calls the left's relentless attack on high-performing charter schools a "war on minorities." Indeed, it is. Some people in the left's coalition have more pull than others. The teachers unions have a great deal of pull; minority children, not much at all.

And so the #WarOnPoorChildren continues.

If anyone wanted to pick a time and place where the political left's avowed concern for minorities was definitively exposed as a fraud, it would be now -- and the place would be New York City, where far left Mayor Bill de Blasio has launched an attack on charter schools, cutting their funding, among other things.

These schools have given thousands of low income minority children their only shot at a decent education, which often means their only shot at a decent life. Last year 82 percent of the students at a charter school called Success Academy passed city-wide mathematics exams, compared to 30 percent of the students in the city as a whole.

Why would anybody who has any concern at all about minority young people -- or even common decency -- want to destroy what progress has already been made?

One big reason, of course, is the teachers' union, one of Mayor de Blasio's biggest supporters. But it may be more than that. For many of the true believers on the left, their ideology overrides any concern about the actual fate of flesh-and-blood human beings.

Something similar happened on the west coast last year. The American Indian Model Schools in Oakland have been ranked among the top schools in the nation, based on their students' test scores. This is, again, a special achievement for minority students who need all the help they can get.

But, last spring, the California State Board of Education announced plans to shut this school down!

Why? The excuse given was that there had been suspicious financial dealings by the former -- repeat, former -- head of the institution. If this was the real reason, then all they had to do was indict the former head and let a court decide if he was guilty or innocent.

There was no reason to make anyone else suffer, much less the students. But the education establishment's decision was to refuse to let the school open last fall. Fortunately a court stopped this hasty shut-down.

Sowell goes on to note that Obama has joined the #WarOnPoorChildren at the federal level, cutting DC's voucher program, and having the DoJ attempt to block Louisiana's attempt to expand charter schools.

Posted by: Ace at 02:54 PM | Comments (204)
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And therefore, impliedly, a legal nullity, to be undone at Russia's whim.

According to Dzhemilev, Putin also said that it was debatable as to whether UkraineÂ’s independence from the Soviet Union, acquired in 1991, was even legal.

Dzhemilev is a Crimean Tartar leader. He'd called Putin to advise him that the upcoming referendum on Crimea's re-annexation by Russia might violate treaty guarantees of Ukraine's sovereignty.

Putin seems to be taking the position that Ukraine has no legal sovereignty to violate.

Thanks to @slublog.

Meanwhile, a Kiev legislator has said Ukraine must go nuclear to preserve its freedom.

Ukraine may have to arm itself with nuclear weapons if the United States and other world powers refuse to enforce a security pact that obligates them to reverse the Moscow-backed takeover of Crimea, a member of the Ukraine parliament told USA TODAY.

The United States, Great Britain and Russia agreed in a pact "to assure Ukraine's territorial integrity" in return for Ukraine giving up a nuclear arsenal it inherited from the Soviet Union after declaring independence in 1991, said Pavlo Rizanenko, a member of the Ukrainian parliament.

"We gave up nuclear weapons because of this agreement," said Rizanenko, a member of the Udar Party headed by Vitali Klitschko, a candidate for president. "Now there's a strong sentiment in Ukraine that we made a big mistake."

Yes, but it seems a bit late for that.

Even NPR is asking if it would have been better if Ukraine had kept its nukes-- and not been pressured to turn them over to Russia, based upon a false promise by the UK and US to defend its borders.

Posted by: Ace at 02:00 PM | Comments (294)
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Kimmel is doing shows from Austin in connection with SXSW.

He gets an Austin welcome -- that is, he gets jeered and booed -- but his proposal to partly decriminalize (or defelonize) minor marijuana possession of course gets them on board.

Asked if he jogs with a gun, he says he does interviews with one.

He also notes he's considering running for president. Asked why he'd run again, given his failed 2012 run, he says "America is a great place for second chances. Let's just leave it at that."

BTW, what's up with the Executive Chair Dominance Play? Perry's taller than Kimmel, but their respective chairs make Perry a full head shorter than Kimmel.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 01:23 PM | Comments (235)
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