Solving the Navy Math Problem

by | Feb 28, 2024 | Aggregate

The U.S. Navy and Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro are having a serious math problem.  Their challenge appears to be the rule of proportions in regards to their crisis in shipbuilding.  For submarines, it revolves around new construction and maintenance of the existing fleet.  The proper basic throughput calculation for new construction is dependent upon the “as is/to be” state of two facilities: HII/NNS (Huntington Ingalls Industries/Newport News Shipyard) in Virginia and GD/EB (General Dynamics/Electric Boat) in Connecticut.

The Navy’s goal is 2.33 new attack boats/per year; they are receiving 1.3. I.e., they are going backwards in the math.  However, 2.33 does not account for the new Columbia Class Nuclear Ballistic Missile Submarine Production, any other large diameter submarines needed (such as replacements for the four converted Ohio Class Submarines used for SEALS and Tomahawks), nor five Virginia nuclear attack submarines being taken from the inventory and sold to Australia.  Thus, the real, annual throughput of submarines needed is more like 3.2 (that’s my estimate).

The Navy is proposing a “pass” in the Fiscal Year 2025 request where they go down to one (1) attack boat and instead bestow those funds to the amphibious force for a new purchase of a large San Antonio LPD. The Navy amphibious force is in disarray as the Navy ignores the Marine Corps requirements and Army Staff remembers that they had/have a Joint Theater Watercraft support mission. Better to have the Generals and Admirals argue over landing craft than control of the atomic mission.

Since the Navy has lost the art and science and math, I, an Army Colonel will solve this math for the Navy with half my brain tied behind my back (hat tip to Rush):

There, I have solved the Navy’s math problem.  All things being equal, the Navy needs 4.92 shipyards involved in Submarine production to deliver 3.2 submarines a year.  We can round this to an even five shipyards.  The real answer will depend on several factors, but no matter how efficient NNS and EB are, and they are good, something has to change to hit a delivery mark of 3.2 submarines per year which means significant more production acreage.  This same law of proportions can be used to solve the Navy’s submarine maintenance crisis, the growing delays in frigate production, Arleigh Burke Destroyer production, etc.

South Carolina as a starting point

No matter how many O-6s through O-10s and political appointees stare at the Excel spreadsheet of the five-year Navy shipbuilding plan or lecture industry on profits, it’s not going to get better until a disruptive event occurs.  Disruptive can be a good thing like new shipyards, it doesn’t have to be a war, this may prevent a war. This Navy challenge with math is baffling; I don’t know if this math challenge is related to the Navy dropping standards for joining, CRT, DEI, or asbestos.

It is intuitive that additional yards need to be added to the partnering arrangement between HII/NNS and GD/EB where they barge major assemblies to one another. The arrangement is sound and logical, but simply not keeping up with throughput.

The answer is disruptive – as a starting point, add a third yard, close by that can participate in the barging arrangement (I helped load Crowley 4x1s for a season so have an affinity for the barging arrangement).

A logical candidate – resurrect the Charleston, South Carolina Naval Shipyard – at a close by location as a greenfield (i.e. totally fresh start), modern, state of the art facility. Get an Army General to run a Manhattan like effort to do the Civil Engineering in a Government Owned/Contractor Operated facility post haste upriver from the original Charleston Naval Shipyard.

Another new facility in the Gulf Region which is modernizing significantly is Austal in Mobile, Alabama.  They would be an ideal yard for even greater expansion to help in production of the new Constellation Frigate and also other ships.

Washington State along the Columbia River

New production of submarines is currently clustered on the East Coast.  However, new greenfield facilities on the West Coast can be of great assistance in addressing the maintenance throughput on all vessel types as well as new construction of frigates, destroyers, support vessels, and perhaps most importantly, autonomous vessels.  On the West Coast, there are not many options for a new yard without massive Federal eminent domain claims of land and terraforming/backfilling of coastal harbors on a scale not seen recently in America.  A possible site is the Vigor main shipyard in Portland Oregon; however, this facility is relatively boxed in by urban development and has little room for growth.  A new site downriver on the Columbia River, closer to where it meets the Pacific Ocean, makes sense.

Land acquisition, expansion, and outfitting for a close-by satellite yard would be a large undertaking and not helped by the strangulation of regulatory oversight by the Blue regimes dominating at the state and Local level, but the national urgency is a compelling necessity.

There are three places along the Columbia River in Washington State (Congressional District WA-3) that would be ideal for new, state-of-the art shipbuilding, and repair facilities.  These are Chinook, Oneida, and Longview, Washington.  These new facilities, like the Austal facility in Mobile, Alabama could be as automated, and AI enabled as much as possible for maximum efficiency.  All work should be done inside enclosed, climate controlled, 72-degree facilities that provide far greater worker safety, efficiency, and privacy from prying eyes.

A second drydock in the Pacific that can handle a carrier is needed – currently, there is only one and the Navy can’t figure out whether it is safe to use and it needs substantive work to handle a Ford Class aircraft carrier.  The construction of a super-size covered drydock should also be implemented at these new Columbia River facilities.

 Vertical integration with key partners like the PI, Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan

Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro can’t figure out whether he’s Trumpian or Red Brandon.  He provides leadership on ship construction not seen since the Reagan days, then reverts to berating shipbuilders for daring to yield profits.  Maybe he’s been talked to.  He has now departed on a trip to Pacific Partner countries like South Korea and Japan which are world experts in efficient shipbuilding.  He should also visit the re-awakening yard in the Philippines which shows great potential as well as Taiwan that excels at shipbuilding.

The vertically integrated, internationally sourced, “Boeing-like” American final assembly of ships can yield incredible time and cost savings as the Maritime Administration just demonstrated.  The ships are being delivered on time, on budget – and getting little attention.  Might be because it started as a Trump initiative.  Regardless of who gets credit, this is a model for a leap ahead for solving the Navy’s problems while returning America to an era of maritime leadership.  We just need to find the right Army General to run this massive planning and civil engineering exercise for the Navy to help Navy Secretary Del Toro solve the Navy math problem.

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X Users Didn’t Like a Paper’s Tone and Findings, So They Got It Rejected

by | Feb 28, 2024 | Aggregate

This story originally was published by Real Clear Wire

By Ross Pomeroy
Real Clear Wire

At Frontiers in Psychology, it seems that users on X are now part of the peer review process.

On January 4th, the paper “Meta-analysis: On average, undergraduate students’ intelligence is merely average,” was accepted to the journal. That same day, the abstract was published with the notice that the “final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.”

Soon thereafter, the paper went viral, quickly accruing over 54,000 views, wide discussion on X and Reddit, and coverage in popular media (including RCS). It garnered this attention for its intriguing yet simultaneously obvious finding: over the past 80 years, as a far greater proportion of North Americans attended college, the average IQ of college undergraduates dropped from around 120 to 102, just slightly above the average of 100.

As the authors, Bob Uttl, a psychologist and faculty member at Mount Royal University, and his students Victoria Violo and Lacey Gibson, noted, “The decline in students’ IQ is a necessary consequence of increasing educational attainment over the last 80 years. Today, graduating from university is more common than completing high school in the 1940s.” College students no longer come solely from the ranks of the highly intelligent and privileged, they come from all corners of society. Uttl and his colleagues noted that this has implications. For example, academic standards and curricula might have to be adjusted. Moreover, employers can’t assume that applicants with university degrees are more capable or smarter than those without degrees.

A little over a month after Uttl, Violo, and Gibson’s paper was accepted and the abstract published, they were abruptly notified by email that it was rejected. They were apprised that Specialty Chief Editor Eddy Davelaar, a Professor of Psychology and Applied Neuroscience at Birkbeck, University of London, overrode the three peer reviewers who approved the paper and even his own handling editor. His reasons were subsequently forwarded to Uttl and his colleagues.

While Davelaar raised a couple of issues with the paper’s methods, the vast majority of his focus was on its tone. He wrote that the use of the word “merely” in reference to college students’ just-above-average IQ was “demeaning.” He also noted that the authors’ critiques of other scientists’ works “could have been packaged more sensitively.” He also called unfounded the authors’ opinion that the widening participation policies of universities were the cause of undergraduates’ falling IQs.

In emails viewed by RealClearScience, Uttl extensively refuted Davelaar’s issues the same day the paper was rejected (Feb. 6), to which he received no reply from Davelaar or Frontiers for six days. On February 12, Frontiers replied saying that Davelaar’s concerns remained. If they were addressed, “the manuscript could be reconsidered for publication.”

Uttl subsequently published his refutations of Davelaar’s methodological criticisms online. Lending strength to his arguments is that fact that three peer reviewers and even Davelaar’s own handling editor did not find fault with Uttl’s paper.

Davelaar’s problems with the paper’s tone and conclusions were harder to address, because they were his opinions. It seemed strange that an editor’s opinions should supplant those of the paper’s authors. It’s not his paper, after all.

In response to a request for comment, Frontiers stated that an article can be rejected at any stage before official publication. A public relations manager then quoted their editorial process, “…if a manuscript does not meet our editorial criteria and standards for publication, or if peer-review or research integrity concerns are raised by any review participant or reader (abstracts are published online ahead of official publication), the journal’s chief editors and Frontiers’ Chief Executive Editor will investigate these concerns, regardless of peer review or acceptance stage.”

Frontiers added:

The Speciality Chief Editor (SCE) reviewed the paper in line with our clearly stated editorial process when concerns were raised about the abstract, particularly about underlying bias. The SCE assessment concurred with some reviewers’ judgements, identifying substantive flaws in the meta-analysis and bias in the tone of the paper. The authors were given further opportunities to revise the paper in line with reviewer and SCE comments. These requested revisions were not made but once again disputed.

RealClearScience reached out directly to Davelaar for comment, but he has not replied.

Uttl was curious what brought on the sudden rejection of his already accepted paper, so he asked representatives at Frontiers. He was told that “several posts” on X triggered Dr. Davelaar’s review. As readers were only able to view the abstract, and thus weren’t able to assess the authors’ methodology, it seems clear that they complained purely about the authors’ tone and provocative conclusions. Davelaar only found ‘problems’ with Uttl, Violo, and Gibson’s methods afterwards.

Uttl and his co-authors were not apprised of the content of the X posts.

“I think an editor or whoever owes it to us to tell us what the issues are, allows us to respond, before rejection,” he told RCS in an email.

Uttl, Violo, and Gibson have since had their publication fees refunded and have submitted the paper for publication at another journal.

The post X Users Didn’t Like a Paper’s Tone and Findings, So They Got It Rejected appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Closing Arguments in Fani Willis Disqualification and Case Dismissal Hearing Set for FRIDAY

by | Feb 28, 2024 | Aggregate

 Fani Willis screams at attorneys after she is questioned about her love affair with her co-worker Nathan Wade.

Judge Scott McAfee is set to hear closing arguments on Friday in the case to disqualify Soros-funded Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis for having an improper relationship with her appointee as the special prosecutor against Trump and 18 co-defendants in the Georgia RICO indictment and financially benefitting from said relationship.

This hearing also aims to dismiss the indictment completely.

According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis “financially benefited” from a romantic relationship with top Trump prosecutor Nathan Wade.

Earlier this month, Fani Willis and Nathan Wade were subpoenaed to testify at an evidentiary hearing thanks to a lawsuit filed by Trump’s RICO co-defendant Michael Roman.

Judge Scott McAfee previously said Fani Willis may be disqualified from Trump’s RICO case over her improper relationship with top Trump prosecutor Nathan Wade.

The Gateway Pundit reported extensively on the explosive testimony in the previous hearings by Nathan Wade, Fani Willis, and Fani’s ex-Black Panther daddy.

Nathan Wade testified under oath earlier this month that he paid for all the vacations he took with Fani Willis with his business card – and Fani Willis reimbursed him in CASH for expenses.

The Gateway Pundit previously reported on bank statements showing numerous vacation expenses for Fani Willis and himself that he was apparently reimbursed for, including hotels, air travel, flowers, Ubers, and car rentals, as well as $3,172.20 on a cruise suggested she benefitted financially and stole from taxpayers to pay for lavish vacations.

Wade and Willis both testified earlier this month that they started a relationship AFTER he was appointed to lead the Trump election interference case. The two also claimed that they met at Willis’s home no more than ten times, but according to geo-tracking data, Wade likely visited Willis’s home 35 TIMES.

It was also discovered that Wade and Willis exchanged over 2,000 voice calls and almost 12,000 text messages in the 11 months of January to November 2021 before Nathan Wade was hired.

Robin Yearti, who worked in Fani Willis’s office, testified that Fani Willis and Nathan Wade started their relationship in 2019 – before Willis was DA and assigned Nathan Wade as lead prosecutor in the RICO lawfare case against President Trump. They likely perjured themselves in court — a felony!

Nathan Wade’s divorce attorney and former law partner, Terrence Bradley, was back on the stand on Tuesday after previously refusing to answer questions and hiding behind attorney-client privilege. However, Judge Scott McAfee ruled he was not protected by attorney-client privilege and ordered him to testify Tuesday morning.

Watch a replay of Bradley’s full testimony earlier here.

Throughout yesterday’s hearing, Bradley ducked questions from attorneys for Trump and Trump’s co-defendants about when Fani Willis and Nathan Wade’s relationship started. He did not answer the questions, claiming he didn’t know or could not recall any details.

He was sweating bullets on the witness stand as he was grilled with questions he claimed he could not answer.

According to messages he exchanged with Michael Roman’s attorney, Ashleigh Merchant, Wade previously told her that the relationship started long before Fani Willis hired Wade but that they would deny the truth!

It was further revealed that Bradley told Merchant that the two had sex at Fani Willis’ private law office sometime before she even took office and that Nathan Wade even had a garage door opener to Fani Willis’ home.

Even the far-left hacks at NBC know how damning these messages and Bradley’s refusal to answer were for Fani Willis’s side in the disqualification hearing.

NBC Hacks Say Nathan Wade Divorce Attorney was “Clearly an Adverse Witness” in Fani Willis Disqualification Hearing – Greg Bluestein from Atlanta Journal-Constitution Says Disqualification Will be a “DEATH SENTENCE for This Case” (VIDEO)

Judge Scott McAfee is expected to make a decision after the hearing and closing arguments on Friday.

Mcafee is a recently appointed Fulton County Superior Court judge who previously served under Fani Willis at the District Attorney’s office. Hopefully, he makes the correct and just decision and disqualifies his former employer and corrupt District Attorney, Fani Willis, from her sloppy political witchhunt against President Trump. He should also have Fani Willis and Nathan Wade jailed for lying to the court.

ABC News reports,

Judge Scott McAfee said that he plans to hear arguments from the parties on Friday about the case for Willis’ disqualification so he can try to make a ruling.

“At this point, I need to start hearing the arguments and the law and what we’ve heard so far. If I think I’m able to reach a ruling based on that, I will,” McAfee said.

He added that the parties could push to continue presenting evidence if needed.

“The intention is that we’re still sticking with the argument,” McAfee said. “But the parties are free to address some of these issues that have been brought up, post-hearing, if they’d like to.”

The Gateway Pundit will continue to provide updates on this bombshell Motion to Disqualify Fani Willis and the fate of the Georgia indictment against Trump and 18 co-defendants.

The post Closing Arguments in Fani Willis Disqualification and Case Dismissal Hearing Set for FRIDAY appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Rep. Lauren Boebert’s 18-Year-Old Son Arrested, Faces Over 20 Charges Linked to Alleged Vehicle Trespass and Thefts

by | Feb 28, 2024 | Aggregate

 Tyler Jay Boebert (Source: Rifle Police Department)

Tyler Boebert, the 18-year-old son of U.S. Representative Lauren Boebert (R-CO), was arrested on Tuesday as part of an investigation into a series of alleged property thefts and vehicle trespasses, according to local authorities.

The Rifle Police Department detailed the arrest on their Facebook page, revealing that the young Boebert faces multiple charges.

“On February 27, 2024, at approximately 2:30 p.m., officers with the Rifle Police Department arrested Tyler Jay Boebert, 18. The arrest comes after a recent string of vehicle trespass and property thefts in Rifle,” the statement read.

The charges presented against Tyler are severe, including four felony counts of Criminal Possession of Identification Documents pertaining to multiple victims, one felony count of Conspiracy to Commit a Felony, alongside over 15 additional misdemeanor and petty offenses.

The Garfield County Jail confirmed that Tyler Boebert is currently being held on 22 possible charges, predominantly misdemeanors.

As of Wednesday morning, he was listed as a current inmate without any bond information being made available, according to CBS News.

Rep. Lauren Boebert issued a heartfelt statement regarding her son’s arrest, saying, “I love my son Tyler, who has been through some very difficult, public challenges for a young man and the subject of attention that he didn’t ask for. It breaks my heart to see my child struggling and, in this situation, especially when he has been provided multiple opportunities to get his life on track.”

She further emphasized the importance of personal accountability, noting that, “as an adult and father, Tyler will take responsibility for his actions and should be held accountable for poor decisions just like any other citizen.” Previously, her office had shared the news that Tyler had become a father himself in June 2023.

This arrest adds to the series of legal issues confronting the Boebert family.

According to CBS, Lauren Boebert’s ex-husband, Jayson Boebert, was involved in legal proceedings concerning two separate altercations. Additionally, this month, Rep. Boebert obtained a temporary restraining order against Jayson following allegations of threats and unauthorized home entry.

The congresswoman also encountered controversy last year when she was escorted out of a Denver theater during a “Beetlejuice” show for disruptive behavior, an incident she later apologized for.

“The past few days have been difficult and humbling, and I’m truly sorry for the unwanted attention my Sunday evening in Denver has brought to the community. While none of my actions or words as a private citizen that night were intended to be malicious or meant to cause harm, the reality is they did and I regret that,” Boebert said in a statement at the time.

“There’s no perfect blueprint for going through a public and difficult divorce, which over the past few months has made for a challenging personal time for me and my entire family. I’ve tried to handle it with strength and grace as best I can, but I simply fell short of my values on Sunday. That’s unacceptable and I’m sorry.

“Whether it was the excitement of seeing a much-anticipated production or the natural anxiety of being in a new environment, I genuinely did not recall vaping that evening when I discussed the night’s events with my campaign team while confirming my enthusiasm for the musical. Regardless of my belief, it’s clear now that was not accurate; it was not my or my campaign’s intention to mislead, but we do understand the nature of how this looks. We know we will have to work to earn your trust back and it may not happen overnight, but we will do it.

“I’m deeply thankful to those in the 3rd District who have defended me and reached out this week and offered grace and support when I needed it the most. I’ve learned some humbling lessons these past few days but I vow moving forward, I will make you proud,” she concluded.

The post Rep. Lauren Boebert’s 18-Year-Old Son Arrested, Faces Over 20 Charges Linked to Alleged Vehicle Trespass and Thefts appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.