Getting Back Credibility

From Victor Davis Hanson: Five Green Commandments

Given the disturbing news about the growing green business empire of Gore, Inc., the private jetting by grandees into Copenhagen to harangue us about our incorrect lifestyles, and the expansive estates of prominent green advocates, it seems that the movement is in need of a formal code of conduct to restore the reputation of climate-change advocacy. Here are five simple commandments that all prominent global-warming activists need to embrace after the blowback from Climategate and various disclosures about the big money involved in green advocacy:

(1) No green public advocate shall have personal business interests predicated on climate-change remedies.

(2) No green public advocate shall fly in a private jet.

(3) No green public advocate shall ride in a limousine.

(4) No green public advocate shall live in a mansion.

(5) Every green advocate shall limit transcontinental jet trips to one per year.

I agree with the above with these small amendments.

(1) This should include his immediate family and he/she should be prohibited from working as a Lobbyist or for a PAC for a minimum of 5 years after leaving the Public sector.

(2) This should be modified to state that they have to use only scheduled commercial airline service, NO private OR Government jet travel allowed. Let's call this the 'Nancy Pelosi' rule.

(3) No green public advocate shall ride in any vehicle that is not fully occupied or larger than a Standard size sedan. No SUV's bullet proof or otherwise.

(4) The energy usage of any abode a Green public advocate should occupy shall not exceed the average energy usage of the average American home.

(5) Once again this travel shall be on a scheduled commercial airline.

It's been a bone of mine that the even the High Priest of Climate Change Al Gore looses credibility because of his ostentatious life style. Jetting around to collect his prizes and living in a house that despite being "green" uses more energy per month than the average American uses in a year just makes me think, "well he can't possibly believe in this stuff living like this!" On top of all that he stands to make hundreds of millions of dollars trading CO2 credits. Is this all a scam? How can I tell if the Goracle himself stands to be enriched if only the masses lived like he preaches?

Now with the facts that are coming out of the security lapse at the CRU we see a conspiracy to deceive the public as to the real conditions of the climate. How can we believe in even a daily weather forecast coming out of the East Anglia University, home to metrology research in all of Great Brittan? The lust for continuing grant money and prestige in the scientific community led many not only at the CRU but here at the Goddard unit of NASA and the Penn State University here in Pennsylvania to lie and deceive as well. The result, we can't trust them and especially any predictions they may have for the global climate debacle.

In my Naval Aviation days as a Ground Pounder, my credibility was everything. As an 18 to 21 year old Flight Deck trouble shooter the Crews that flew in the S-3 Hoovers that I worked on depended on me not only doing the job quickly and accurately EVERY TIME but that it was done safely, their lives depended on it. Did I account for all my tools, did I collect all scraps of metal or paper that I may have generated (known as FOD), did I secure the equipment correctly so it would not flop out in flight? These were all things that were assumed when I put my thumb in the air pointed UP. The 4 men who strapped their lives into that aircraft behind my work, interpreted that little symbol as my contract with them: I have done nothing to comprise your safety, give the mission your fullest attention.

We also lived by the axiom of: "One Aw-shi* erased a life time of Atta-boys you may have collected."

The manure out of East Anglia is one huge Aw-shi* and everyone having anything to do with that needs to be outed (on both sides of the Atlantic) and replaced. If the powers that be really believed in this Climate Change is killing the earth, then this is the very first thing they have to do to rebuild the credibility of their argument. Till then, they can all pound sand.

BT: Jimmy T sends.

SN2 on US Soil

Around 2:20PM yesterday the "Boy" returned to Camp Pendleton. It took almost 2-weeks to get from Camp Leatherneck in Afghanistan to San Diego but it happened. He sounded very happy and was hungry for a good ole American burger. Plenty to choose from, I recommended my fav for that part of the country: In Out Burger. They make great shakes there too.

Mother and My Daughter are there with him and no doubt will cater to his culinary needs. We are not sure when he will come home home, but it should be by the end of the year.

I don't believe in all that Santa Clause stuff, flying reindeer and magical elves but if I was to have wished anything for Christmas, well it was delivered safe and sound.

BT: Jimmy T sends.

Suspending Reality for the Sake of Power

The Harry "Legs" Reid and the PresBO are saying that we have to abandon the status quo and adopt the Health Care "Reform" package because things are so dire here in the U.S., health wise. PresBO claims that private insurance premiums will rise "25, 30% or more" and that employers will start to drop coverage altogether because of rising costs. He stated no study or any kind of fact to base this rise but I suspect he is using numbers that a slightly higher than the increase in those premiums that will be forced on us all by adoption of this plan. He also claims that Medicare and Medicaid will bankrupt the U.S. and "eat up the whole budget". This I don't doubt but the Harry Legs plan does not address this either so, WTF!

The story line the Dem's are pushing are all things that regular people can get behind: Deficit neutral, will not increase the debt, lowers consumers costs and saves Medicare and Medicaid. I think it also cures rainy day.

They want the public to suspend reality for a few moments while they vote and pass this monstrosity along. Their plan to lower the costs to you and me are by providing us "generous" (that was what the PresBO called them, generous" tax credits and outright subsidies. Read that like this, 'Their plan to lower the costs to you and me are by not collecting taxes from us or by giving us money out of the treasury'. Now think about that for a moment. (Jeopardy music goes here!) If you are not collecting taxes, i.e. giving someone a "tax credit" what impact to the debt and the deficit do you think that has? If you are giving people money right out of the treasury where does that come from if the Government is already spending more than they collect? That's why it is called a 'debt'. What from the money tree?

Of course this plan is going to add to the debt and the deficit. You can't give away money or not collect money and it not impact either one! Now multiply that by say 45 million people. And this is a generous number, it was the target that stared this supposed 'crisis' in the first place. I can see that being 100 million people real fast because when someone is throwing money away like this people show up to collect it and the numbers add up very fast, we are talking hundreds of Billions of dollars in giveaways here. So who do they think they are faking out anyway?

Look I am not an award winning economist, nor am I especially trained in how the government works but this is so blatantly obvious that one has to wonder: do they (Harry and PresBO) think we are that gullible or stupid and why are they so blatantly lying to us in the end. They want this reform bill only for what they are giving away to the many 'special interests' that are helping them and for the control of You and Me. That is what they want in the end, control of almost all aspects of our lives, so they can centrally plan our lives.

I thought we beat that whole communist thing you know when the Cold War ended?

BT: Jimmy T sends.

Tanker Wars – Part VI

More, more, more – I love it!!

More whining by NGS regarding the terms and conditions in the draft RFP. Their complaint now is that the Air Force wants it to be a Fixed Price contract. On the one hand I don't blame them; a Fixed Price contract puts all the budget risk on the contractor, on the other it is what is best for the Taxpayer. They have threatened (or renewed their threats) to No-Bid this competition in hopes that Congressmen sympathetic to their cause.

MoreTanker updates.

Since the Air Force is insisting on this being a Fixed Price they are simply asking for "Off the Shelf" or COTS of some kind. In most cases you take it as you see it and go; no added extras, no requirements creep and no fancy bells and whistles from what is offered. That is something hard for the Government to pass on. Our military likes its bells and whistles not the ones that Australia or Italy or Japan have installed (these are customers of the KC-30 for Airbus and two of the customers for the KC-767) so the government sets itself up for cost overruns if it can't keep its hands and feet out of the cookie jar. If they can live with what is offered, absolutely no changes to what is offered, then it is a win for the Taxpayer.

More Air Force obtuseness:

Start-up the NGS/EADS-Airbus Bitching/Moaning/Crying Machine! This little bit about how the Air Force will not (NOT) be making any substantial changes to the Draft RFP in their work up to the release of the Final RFP which is expected in January. So, all them complaints about the Draft looking like procurement for a smaller aircraft will be in the Final. Expect more crying from NGS.

Boeing thinks it can now pass the minimum fuel transfer rate through their Boom. The Boom they are bidding is being used on the KC-767 being delivered to Japan, it would only transfer 900 pounds per minute but the Air Force is demanding 1200 pounds per minute. This greater capacity is required to refuel the C-5 Galaxy aircraft which holds something like 50,000 gallons when its thirsty. So getting the gas into the C-5 is the metric and Boeing was struggling but they claim to have a fix and that their "new" flow rate meets or exceeds this so, good on them. Any more from Boeing, oh yeah.

Boeing had a meeting with Air Force officials to formally complain about the evaluation factors in the Draft RFP which they feel is "unfair". They especially are questioning the fact that there is no benefit for or value attributed to the aircraft with the better fuel-burn-to-fuel-transfer-rate which the smaller KC-767 would presumably have. Maybe it was something that the DOD left out of the RFP re-write but the only ones that really seem upset is the NGS/Airbus team. I think Boeing needed to go through the process of meeting with the Air Force and of course having something to complain about, you know keep up those appearances. Can't have this thing look likes it's in the bag for them.

EADS-Airbus can at least feel good about taking $247 million US taxpayer dollars back across the Atlantic with their win of their second LUH contract with the US Army. They are going to be building 45 more UH-72A Light helicopters for delivery in 2010. The Lakota aircraft are built in Columbus Mississippi and are used by the Army and the National Guard domestically for training, troop transport and medic-vac missions that UH-60 Blackhawks would otherwise be doing. The Lakota's free up the Blackhawks for use in the more unfriendly places of the world. This 45 aircraft order brings to 178 total UH-72's that have been ordered by the US Army of an expected 345 so EADS-Airbus is doing good here in the US. They also sold 6 of these aircraft to the US Navy Test Pilot school and expect to bid on the Army's Armed Scout helicopter competition using this same basic airframe, adding some sharp teeth to an otherwise good looking airframe.

Where-Oh-Where will all this take us, I don't know but I love the blog fodder it generates!!

BT: Jimmy T sends.

Thanks to: Alert 5 and the Boeing Tanker Blog

Look Out Below!

From the "It was just a matter of Time" category, the Libyan convicted murder and terrorist aka "The Lockerbie Bomber" has gone missing. Released from a life prison term in Scotland on 'humanitarian' grounds because he was supposed to die in three months of cancer that was back in August. I guess cancer did not get the job done. Well, no reflection on that great Medical Service there in Great Brittan but who did not see this coming?

My guess is he is out on a Jihad Vacation. Just following the burning wreckage and you will note his handiwork.

Is it too much to ask that convicted mass murders were given NO humanitarian consideration, they have no idea what it means anyway!!

BT: Jimmy T sends.

That wasn’t so Hard Afterall

The Dreamliner flew for the first time yesterday, almost 2-years late but it flew. Video here. The test crew of 2, spent a little over 3 hours dogging weather (yeah, I think Seattle is a great place for this too) and had to cut short the overall flight by an hour. But the test regime has commenced.

The aircraft looks great, the wing sweep while flying is amazing and lends some kind of visual affect that maybe you realize that you are flying. Pretty neat I think.

Boeing expects to have 6 aircraft doing test flights over the next 9 months in order to gain an FAA Type Certification next year. First deliver to an actual cash paying customer, All Nippon Airways is scheduled for the last quarter of next year. Can't come soon enough, Boeing had the chance to bury Airbus in this concept and commercial sector but screwed that pooch. Airbus is producing its XWB A350 in a direct response to the huge market for this size of aircraft. Boeing has sold about 850 of the 787 and is fast setting up a second final assembly facility in Charleston South Carolina to keep more customers for jumping ship to the Airbus. Good on them, can't happen soon enough for me.

BT: Jimmy T sends.

Dem’s Eat their Own

They will stop at nothing to get Government Control of the Health Care system and proof is this story here from the Weekly Standard Blog: "Dem's Threaten Nelson in Pursuit of 60". That is 60 votes and the Nelson here is Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson who is opposed to the current form of Obamacare as writ by Harry "Legs" Reid. Ben Nelson is against Taxpayer monies going to pay for Abortions which the Harry "Legs" bill provides.

So, how do you get Nelson to go along, well you send Rahm 'Dead Fish' Emanuel out with his kneecapping bat to deliver the message: Vote with the rest of the Democrats or loose Offutt Air Force Base. That's right, the Administration and their brain-dead supporters in the Democrat caucus will put Offutt on the BRAC list killing some 10,000 jobs in Nebraska. Of course, most of those jobs are military and those jobs would simply move, but the economic impact to the greater Omaha area.

That's how it goes, either you go along with the Democrat agenda or well, they will find a way to get your vote. Look what they did for Mary Landrieu of Louisiana; they bought her for $300 million dollars. Look how they brow beat Joe Lieberman, they even went after his wife to get him to come around, and he has.

On this issue the Democrats are really more than happy to eat their own. After some nibbling on Lieberman he is now in favor of and will most likely vote for the Obamacare bill, no word yet on Ben Nelson. My suspicion is that later today we will see a press release from the White House stating that there had been no threats or harassment of Ben Nelson and then later Ben himself will step before a microphone and announce he has seen the light and will now be voting for the Obamacare Bill, thereby saving his home state the thousands of jobs so dependent on Offutt.

That's how they do it, go along or we break out the bats. And for what? Control of the entire health care industry of this country, control of You and Me.

Hat Tip to Weasel Zippers.

BT: Jimmy T sends.