Every single combat death and injury sustained by our fighting forces is a deep loss. But those who decry the 4000 military deaths related to the liberation of Iraq as somehow a disproportionate historic disaster do not have much perspective. A Navy vet reader of AT who prefers anonymity has produced a graphic representation to supply some perspective:
Shortly before Hurricane Katrina made landfall on the U.S. Gulf Coast on the morning of Aug. 29, 2005, the chief executive officer of Wal-Mart, Lee Scott, gathered his subordinates and ordered a memorandum sent to every single regional and store manager in the imperiled area.
"A lot of you are going to have to make decisions above your level," was Scott's message to his people. "Make the best decision that you can with the information that's available to you at the time, and above all, do the right thing."
A state appeals court will reconsider last month's controversial decision that said parents who home-school their children must have a teaching credential.
The 2nd District Court of Appeal in Los Angeles granted a rehearing Tuesday, essentially voiding the 3-0 decision until it rules again. The decision will now allow home-schooling organizations that had blasted the decision to weigh in.
Well the boss is suffering from information overload and I've started a new job at my current employer. This means that I'm currently doing my new job and my old job until they get a temp in to take over my old job.
As a result, posting will be light and so the traffic will again go back to zero. To those who do visit, thank you. Hopefully we (boss and I) will be able to get back to posting at least once a day next month.
This could be quite frightening for us as a society. Click a link and go to jail.
Hat tip Instapundit.
The 911 system and the police departments are good. But they cannot protect us from crime happening to us.
A woman called 911 saying someone was breaking into her home, shots were heard and then silence. 911 couldn't save her. A 9MM or .357 magnum could have.
To those who say only police and the military should be allowed guns, please explain how a person will defend themselves in this situation? And you know the bad guys will always have guns if they are willing to pay enough to get them.
The article doesn't say why, but apparently the engines are wearing out faster then the manufacturer said they would. Not good news but at least they found the problem before any aircraft were lost.
Will Boeing please fix this plane and get it flying? Don't turn the Dreamliner into a nightmare please.
The promise of ethanol is fading as the laws of supply and demand are starting to be felt.
Also the law of unintended consequences such as the rise in all food costs because farmers grow more corn which means less wheat, rye, soybean etc. are grown. This causes all grains to increase in price which increases the cost of animal food (chickens, turkeys, cattle, etc all eat corn).
The extra corn being grown is turned into fuel so it also isn't available for food stuff so the food available is shrinking and the cost of food through out the economy is increasing.
So ethanol is contributing to the inflation we are seeing. Is it worth it? That is a question we as a society need to answer.
Interesting . . . . well sort of. Will this become a controversy? We will have to wait and see.
Borders bookstore has basically run out of cash, even though it make money last quarter.
Amazon and Barns & Nobel are likely to be quietly celebrating or rather celebrating behind closed doors at the fall of their rival.
State Sen. Carole Migden has agreed to pay a record $350,000 in fines for 89 violations of state campaign finance laws that include using political funds for personal benefit and failing to disclose what her political committees purchased with credit cards, according to documents released Tuesday.
Sweden may start competing with the US in the area of fighter sales to Norway and other potential JSF customers. Will the US allow that, given much of the technology in the Swedish fighters comes from the US? And if the US doesn't allow Sweden to sell its airplanes against the JSF, what will that do for US-Sweden relations?
Economics can have an important impact on defense policy.
The Air Force will retire the last of the F-117s in Nevada next month.
The plane first flew in 1981 and entered service in 1983. The plane is young compared to our F-15s, F-16s, A-10s, B-52s, AWACs, KC-135 and a contemporary of the KC-10, B-1 and FA-18.
The F-22 is supposed to replace the F-117, but I do not think it can carry the same bomb load.
The AF is retiring the plane early to free up money for more F-22s, F-35s and new tankers.
Now I know I'm getting old when airplanes that were the cutting edge when fielded (I was a Jr in High School in 83) are being retired.
Britain's armed forces are sending pilotless "robot" strike aircraft into battle for the first time, allowing controllers sitting at a computer outside Las Vegas to drop guided bombs on the Taliban in Afghanistan.
The "Reaper" unmanned aerial vehicle marks a major watershed for the Royal Air Force and has been rushed into service after senior defence chiefs identified it as a vital weapon in the fight against Taliban insurgents.
Well this blogger thinks so. I hope they are correct.
Hat tip Instapundit.
Today is my 7 year anniversary at work. In that time, the company has gone from being an up and coming independent telecom provider to being part of one of the largest telecoms in the world. Our annual revenue ($700M) is hardly a rounding figure to BT (British Telecom) revenue of $65 Billion.
After graduating from Pepperdine with my MBA, I was looking for a job where I could use what I spent all that money learning. I had sent out my resume and the day I had an interview scheduled with a small company (its profitable) that looks to go public in a few years, the VP of finance offered me a position in the finance side of the business. The timing of the offer was incredible. The VP was leaving for vacation the next day and if he had waited to make the offer when he got back, most likely I would have already given notice in order to taken the position at the other company. As it is, I will continue to work at BT but in the finance area instead of the accounting area.
However, my new job means my time to blog will likely be curtailed. I will have to see, so the boss may have to step up and contribute more or this blog might go semi dormant again.
I should be moving to my new cubical Thurs or Fri and then for the next month work two jobs, my new job and my old job since there is a hiring freeze in place. It will be interesting, especially since March is our company's year end.
Article in the Seattle Times saying the reason Boeing lost the tanker deal is their proposal was inferior to Airbus in all aspects. If Boeing expected to be handed the contract, well they have been given a rude awakening. While I would rather Boeing win then Airbus, I really do want the best contract to win and so far it looks like Airbus' was the best contract.
For convincing many young people that oral sex isn't sex.
Reaping what we sow.
There are a lot of reasons to doubt the wisdom of using ethanol as a fuel to replace gasoline. Eric Peters makes another one saying fires from ethanol has to be fought differently then gasoline fires and forcing the fire departments to get the training and equipment will be too expensive.
That is a straw man argument.
Anytime there is a change in the way transportation is powered (from horse drawn wagon to the
steam engine railroad to the diesel powered truck) there are costs for society bear.
There was a cost when passenger airplanes switched from propeller planes (burning aviation gasoline) to jets (burning kerosene) but we as a society made the switch because the reward for making the switch was worth it.
If burning alcohol as a motor fuel is worth it, the cost of equipping and training the fire departments to fight those fires will be worth it too. Saying we can't use alcohol because of the fire risk is a foolish argument that tries to win by fear not facts and gives the impression the author has other motives (maybe he owns an oil well) to fear ethanol.
Larry Kudlow over at NRO says we must make the dollar king again and make it strong. His argument is the dollar has been falling against the EURO and other currencies and this has lead to an increase in inflation in the US. It has also made imported commodities (read oil) more expensive since the countries that sell oil will demand more dollars to get the same purchasing power when the dollars are converted to their local currencies.
There is a problem with making the dollar king quickly.
You have to make people (foreigners) want dollars by giving them better returns on their investments. That means raising interest rates. Currently the US government is trying to head off a recession by lowering interest rates.
Kudlow says we should do what we did back in 1981-1982 to make the dollar strong. I'm not sure I want to see the government raise interest rates to 18% for US Treasury bonds. That will drive us into a deep recession for sure.
A longer but better way in my opinion is we have to decrease our imports and increase our exports. That means we have to cut spending so our government deficit is less (thanks to the tax rebates the deficit for the current fiscal year is expected to be almost $500 billion instead of about $100 billion). We also need to import less oil. That means drilling in Alaska and off the coast of Florida and California. We also need to promote more manufacturing jobs in the US so we do not have to import as much stuff but can export more. We can do all of this but it will be a slower process then just raising interest rates and will take more political capital. However in the long run it will make the US a stronger place.
If McCain (or Clinton or Obama) want to make the dollar king again, lets hear how they will do it in a way that will strengthen the country instead of hurt it.
