Hackers slow the F-35 program

F-35, USAF's newest fighter, is in a limbo between the R&D phase and the "approved-for-mass-production" phase. Small numbers of the aircraft have been built and flown. They have passed some their acceptance tests. Schedule has been slipping, and costs rising.
According to Aviation Week, enemy hackers have broken into contractor's computers and downloaded plans, specs, software, and listened in to on-line video conferences between F-35 project managers. Ouch.
Apparently F-35 avionics software is being rewritten and antennaes are being redesigned after the original designs were compromised by hackers.
Let's hear for Windows and video conferencing.

Words of the Weasel Part 26

Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft. MMRCA for short. We used to call them fighters. The Indian Air Force used this choice bit of jargon to refer to the French Rafale fighters it is going to buy. Rafale has won a lengthy competition, beating out Eurofighter's Tornado, Saab's Gripen, and Boeing's F/A18.
The Indian's don't have fighter pilots, they have MMRCA pilots.
Right.

Ice, thickness there of

Back in the day, my mother was VERY firm about ice. The lake had to be frozen four inches thick, as measured by whacking a hole in it, before we were allowed to skate on it. Four inches was it, no skating until the lake froze four inches thick.
On the radio today, some happy safety freak was claiming the ice ought to be SIX inches thick before walking on it.
So what happened? Has the rise of childhood obesity required and extra two inches of ice to keep fat kids from falling thru the ice? Have the safety freaks chickened out again?

Greece, a Mexican Standoff

You gotta hand it to the Greeks, they got chutzpah. They are so broke that nobody will loan them any more money. They borrowed so much that the lenders don't dare cut the Greeks off, 'cause if they do, all those Greek bonds the lenders hold will dry up and blow away, leaving the lenders as broke as the Greeks. There was a saying "Borrow one dollar and the bank owns you, borrow a million dollars and you own t he bank."
Greece has a E20 billion bond repayment coming up next month. They don't have the cash to pay it off. So the rest of Europe (Germany mostly) is talking about a Greek handout to let the Greeks make their March repayment. But the Europeans want the Greeks to shape up before handing them another E130 billion. The Greeks don't want to shape up, they have riots in the streets every time shape up (cutting back on pensions, salaries, civil servants) is mentioned.
So far, the Greeks have won a significant concession. Greece will only have to redeem it's bonds for what the owner paid for them, not at face value. Needless to say, a lot of folks have been bailing out of Greek bonds by selling them for cheap and taking a loss. The buyers are hoping for a windfall when bonds they bought for some small fraction of face value get redeemed for face value. This latest deal says "Oh no you don't." Beware of Greeks at the negotiating table. The spirit of Odysseus lives on.
Clearly some of the confusion in the Greek bond wheeling and dealing has to do with speculators who want to get rich quick.
The Economist never talks about these messy details, but the Wall St Journal does.

So what does it all mean?

Rick Santorum sweeps all three caucuses yesterday? Can he rise up and beat Romney? Is Newt really dead? Do these caucuses mean anything? What happened to Romney, coming off a solid win in FL?
Which way is up?

Charlie Bass opposes Keystone XL pipeline

According to The Hill, Charlie Bass of New Hampshire was the sole Republican to vote against a House measure to force approval of the Keystone XL pipeline.
WOW. Talk about stabbing your constituents in the back. Charlie, just in case you don't remember, ALL your constituents have to buy heating oil at $4 a gallon. Keystone XL would improve the supply and lower the cost of heating oil. Also the cost of gasoline which everyone needs to get to work (if they still have jobs). You still have a primary election to win, to say nothing of beating Kuster in November, if you survive the primary challenge. I glad I voted for Jennifer Horn over you last time.
The greenie arguments against the pipeline are totally worthless. A pipeline is the most spill proof way to move oil, many times safer than sea going tankers. The oil is going to come in one way or another, if it doesn't come by pipeline, it will come by tanker. That "environmentally sensitive" Sandhills area in Oklahoma (or is it Nebraska?), is just one more stretch of prairie already criss crossed with 25,000 miles of pipeline. One more won't matter. The Canadians will sell to the Chinese if they cannot sell to us. It doesn't make any difference to Gaea if the oil gets burned in China or in the US.

Solidarity of the Sisterhood

Andrea Tantaros of Fox News in a discussion of the Obama decision to force Catholic schools and hospitals to provide birth control pills as part of their health plans. After some heckling from a pro-Obama commentator Andrea said:
"It doesn't really matter, those poor Catholic women are too ignorant/retarded/stupid to use birth control even if was given to them free."
Ohh, Andrea. That's an unkind slam at your own gender. And it's not true. All women, rich or poor, Protestant or Catholic are aware that pregnancy is a life altering event, (to say the least) and they take all kinds of measures to prevent unwanted ones.
Andrea, that remark blew away any respect I might have had for you as a commentator.