Long article about this in Aviation Week. The French government owns sizable chunks of stock in the big French defense firms like Dassault, Thales, and Sagam. Which puts the French in a confusing spot when they are negotiating contracts with the industry. There is pressure on the government to sign contracts generous to the contractors because the extra money will make the government's stock holdings worth more. Which does French tax payers no good at all.
Apparently the French government fears their companies will merge with companies in Germany and Britain, which will make it hard for the French to build up a French built armed force to fight a war with Germany or Britain. So the French use their stock holdings to put a veto on international mergers.
Aviation Week, an industry organ, is all in favor of defense industry mergers, it gives the merged company more pricing power. As in when we merge with all the competitors, we can charge as much as we like, 'cause there is nowhere else to go.
Fortunately the US government doesn't own stock in defense contractors.
Monday, April 22, 2013
Sunday, April 21, 2013
Photobucket needs to shape up.
I only use Photobucket as a work around to some low speed websites that don't handle their own photographs. High speed sites like Facebook allow up to just upload your photos to their site. Low speed web sites don't accept photos. You have to upload your photo somewhere else and post a "link" (long string of characters that serves as the internet address of the photo) into the low speed site. The low speed site doesn't have to supply the storage to hold the all the bits that make up a picture.
The first thing Photobucket did to raise my ire was to move all my photographs with so much as a by your leave. That broke all the links to my older posts on low speed websites, making the pictures go away. Thanks Photobucket. I love you too.
Then you ought to be able to organize your Photobucket, put all the pictures of the cat in a folder named cat, all the pictures of the model railroad in a folder named railroad, and so on. Otherwise you have a huge bucket of photos and you cannot find any of them.
Photobucket offers a truly brain dead organization scheme. You have to move photos one by one. No highlighting of a group of pix. No drag and drop. It takes six mouse clicks per photo to move it. You cannot upload to a folder, all uploads go into your main bucket and have to be moved one by one.
The first thing Photobucket did to raise my ire was to move all my photographs with so much as a by your leave. That broke all the links to my older posts on low speed websites, making the pictures go away. Thanks Photobucket. I love you too.
Then you ought to be able to organize your Photobucket, put all the pictures of the cat in a folder named cat, all the pictures of the model railroad in a folder named railroad, and so on. Otherwise you have a huge bucket of photos and you cannot find any of them.
Photobucket offers a truly brain dead organization scheme. You have to move photos one by one. No highlighting of a group of pix. No drag and drop. It takes six mouse clicks per photo to move it. You cannot upload to a folder, all uploads go into your main bucket and have to be moved one by one.
787 to fly again. FAA approves Boeing mods
I heard this on NPR yesterday. It kinda got lost in all the Boston Marathon Bombers stories, but it is good news for Boeing.
Saturday, April 20, 2013
And we caught the other one, alive
It was 10 PM last night by the time the TV declared Jokhar Tsarnaev "in custody". Even here,130 miles north of Boston, the relief was obvious. Must have been enormously greater in Watertown. The TV showed people dancing in the streets, waving American flags, and singing the national anthem.
Since he was taken alive, we will be able to ask him a few questions. The number one question is how, after living in this country for ten years, getting a top flight education, having friends, winning awards, could he turn on us to maim and murder innocent strangers with bombs. This act is abominable by anyone's standards. Doing it after ten years living among us in Cambridge makes it treacherous as well as horrible.
Was it Islamist propaganda? mental illness? some affront offered him or his family? Influence of some Svengali like religious figure? Just asking him to tell us why ought to be instructive.
Did anyone ever teach the brothers that murdering innocent strangers is horrible? Where does their family stand on murder? Do Cambridge schools teach ethics? I haven't heard any Muslim clerics condemning the bombings yet. Did the brothers attend a mosque? If so, what is taught there?
There are plenty of clerics and websites preaching hate and violence. Freedom of speech means we cannot censor them. But we could identify them, make them known as bad websites and bad people, have the IRS audit them, have the police tail their cars and ticket them, put them on no fly lists, get really difficult about visas and passports, check their immigration status, get difficult about credit ratings and credit cards.
The FBI needs to let us know why they fingered the brothers. Although the brother's drastic resistance to arrest makes them look all kinds of guilty, we need to know that there was good reason to pursue them in the first place. Does FBI have photos of them carrying suspicious packages? Leaving black back packs at the explosion sites? Stashing pressure cookers in public trash cans? If so, let's see them. It is important to convince everyone, at home and abroad, that we got the right guys. The court that counts is the court of public opinion.
I wonder how so many of the Tsarnaev family immigrated from Chechnya. There is mother, father, and three children in Cambridge, an uncle and cousins in Maryland, an aunt in Toronto. That's a lot of family members to get out of Russia, across the Atlantic, and into the US and Canada. Where did the money come from? Did they all get green cards?
At least we made it plain that if you mess with Americans we will get you. We never give up. Took us ten years to get Bin Ladin, but we got him. We got the Tsarnaev brothers inside of a week. Not a bad statement to make to the world.
Since he was taken alive, we will be able to ask him a few questions. The number one question is how, after living in this country for ten years, getting a top flight education, having friends, winning awards, could he turn on us to maim and murder innocent strangers with bombs. This act is abominable by anyone's standards. Doing it after ten years living among us in Cambridge makes it treacherous as well as horrible.
Was it Islamist propaganda? mental illness? some affront offered him or his family? Influence of some Svengali like religious figure? Just asking him to tell us why ought to be instructive.
Did anyone ever teach the brothers that murdering innocent strangers is horrible? Where does their family stand on murder? Do Cambridge schools teach ethics? I haven't heard any Muslim clerics condemning the bombings yet. Did the brothers attend a mosque? If so, what is taught there?
There are plenty of clerics and websites preaching hate and violence. Freedom of speech means we cannot censor them. But we could identify them, make them known as bad websites and bad people, have the IRS audit them, have the police tail their cars and ticket them, put them on no fly lists, get really difficult about visas and passports, check their immigration status, get difficult about credit ratings and credit cards.
The FBI needs to let us know why they fingered the brothers. Although the brother's drastic resistance to arrest makes them look all kinds of guilty, we need to know that there was good reason to pursue them in the first place. Does FBI have photos of them carrying suspicious packages? Leaving black back packs at the explosion sites? Stashing pressure cookers in public trash cans? If so, let's see them. It is important to convince everyone, at home and abroad, that we got the right guys. The court that counts is the court of public opinion.
I wonder how so many of the Tsarnaev family immigrated from Chechnya. There is mother, father, and three children in Cambridge, an uncle and cousins in Maryland, an aunt in Toronto. That's a lot of family members to get out of Russia, across the Atlantic, and into the US and Canada. Where did the money come from? Did they all get green cards?
At least we made it plain that if you mess with Americans we will get you. We never give up. Took us ten years to get Bin Ladin, but we got him. We got the Tsarnaev brothers inside of a week. Not a bad statement to make to the world.
Friday, April 19, 2013
One down, one yet to catch
TV news has been solid with Boston Marathon bombers. Something broke loose last night, Suspects #1 and # 2 decided to knock over a Cambridge 7-11. This put the cops onto them. A car chase ended in Watertown and a shootout with police. The older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, died of gunshot wounds and/or bomb explosions. The younger brother, Johar Tsarnaev, escaped somehow and is still at large. The cops are turning Boston upside down looking for him. They have turned off the MBTA, Amtrak, and put roadblocks up everywhere. Everything is closed. Nobody is going to work.
The TV has been interviewing neighbors and classmates. The younger brother graduated from Cambridge Rindge and Latin school (top ranked Cambridge public high school) Classmates have expressed shock and surprise to learn of his involvement. They all recall Johar Tsarnaev as well liked, lot of friends, honor student, athlete of the year, in short, a successful high school career.
Neighbors describe the Tsarnaev family as Muslim, from Chechnya in Russia, but they have been living in the US for 6, maybe 10 years, a long time to carry an old world grudge against anyone or anything.
I lived in Cambridge for a long time, and I know most of the places making it into this story. WMUR Channel 9's TV crew is set up in front of Webster Auto Body on Webster Ave Cambridge. I bought a used car radio from them many years ago. They dropped a hostage off at a gas station on Memorial drive. I commuted on Mem Drive for years, there are two gas stations, a Shell by the BU bridge and another one under a new high rise down close to Western Ave. I have bought gas at both of them over the years. Wounded were taken to Mt Auburn hospital which I know fairly well. Strange to hear these familiar places coming out in the dramatic news coverage.
The TV has been interviewing neighbors and classmates. The younger brother graduated from Cambridge Rindge and Latin school (top ranked Cambridge public high school) Classmates have expressed shock and surprise to learn of his involvement. They all recall Johar Tsarnaev as well liked, lot of friends, honor student, athlete of the year, in short, a successful high school career.
Neighbors describe the Tsarnaev family as Muslim, from Chechnya in Russia, but they have been living in the US for 6, maybe 10 years, a long time to carry an old world grudge against anyone or anything.
I lived in Cambridge for a long time, and I know most of the places making it into this story. WMUR Channel 9's TV crew is set up in front of Webster Auto Body on Webster Ave Cambridge. I bought a used car radio from them many years ago. They dropped a hostage off at a gas station on Memorial drive. I commuted on Mem Drive for years, there are two gas stations, a Shell by the BU bridge and another one under a new high rise down close to Western Ave. I have bought gas at both of them over the years. Wounded were taken to Mt Auburn hospital which I know fairly well. Strange to hear these familiar places coming out in the dramatic news coverage.
New Immigration Bill 844 pages long
And that's one VERY good reason not to pass it. 844 pages of obfustication means the law will allow just about anything. If I have 844 pages to look in, I can find words to cover anything I want to do. Long and wordy laws grant bureaucrats freedom to do as they please.
The "gang of eight" should be told to boil it down to no more than ten pages, single spaced. Then at least we would know what we are getting into.
The "gang of eight" should be told to boil it down to no more than ten pages, single spaced. Then at least we would know what we are getting into.
Thursday, April 18, 2013
Anger Management
We had a Fox News anchor interviewing a shrink about the Boston Marathon bombing. The shrink and the anchor agreed that there is a good deal of anger in Boston, and presumably in the rest of the country. Yeah, they got that right. Then the anchor seemed to draw back and worried that such anger might get out of hand and lead to something bad.
I don't worry about that. A good old fashioned lynching might be just the right thing for that scum. We could do it right in front of Fanuel Hall. On live TV.
I don't worry about that. A good old fashioned lynching might be just the right thing for that scum. We could do it right in front of Fanuel Hall. On live TV.
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