GM is spending money to expand in China

Fox news is yelling about US taxpayer money being used to create jobs in China.  Which is a good reason never to give tax money to private companies.  Not that I like the idea of my tax money going to China, but I don't want to tell an American company not to expand overseas.  There are a lot of customers overseas and we do better when they buy American than when they buy Toyota.  Even if "American" is assembled overseas.  The Japanese  assemble most of the cars they sell here in Kentucky and Tennessee.  They make money doing so.  GM ought to be encouraged to make money assembling cars in China to sell in China, or anywhere else for that matter.
  The real answer to my tax money going to make Cadillac Escalades  in China is not to give my tax money to private companies.  Let the private companies raise money from private investors, or go thru REAL bankruptcy.  Not Obama haircuts of investors and handouts to unions.

Words of the Weasel Part 35

"Passed"  short for "passed away".  Nobody on TV every says "died" anymore.  Notice that even Mr. Hicks, the Benghazi witness, said the ambassador "passed" rather than coming right out with it and saying "died". 
Death is horrible and terrible.  Millenniums of usage have tied some of the horror and terror of death to the word "died".  To avoid using the proper word is to smooth over the death, to make it seem of little importance.  Something that weasels do. 

FBI failed to notify Boston Police says Fox

That wouldn't have done much good.  The Tsarnaev's lived in CAMBRIDGE, not Boston.  FBI could have done some good if they had notified the Cambridge Police that the Russians thought Tamerlan Tsarnaev was a terrorist.  Notifying the Boston police wouldn't have done any good, Boston police have no jurisdiction in Cambridge.  Perhaps the FBI understands the difference between Boston and Cambridge,  Fox news surely doesn't.

Birds of a Feather, flock together

NPR came on the clock radio this morning with a tear jerking piece.  Since the sequester, civil servants have been taking furloughs, not getting raises, having to conserve office supplies, having more work to do and fewer people to do it.  Awful.
  And morale is down.  No raises, and lots of criticism is just crushing the tender egos of the gov'ment workforce.
  And it's all the fault of that nasty sequester.
  And all of the civil servants interviewed for this piece were government union representatives.
  It's just terrible that the civil servants, who enjoy better salaries, benefits, and retirement than ordinary working stiffs, have to forgo a raise.  It's a good thing they have NPR to plead their case to the public.  On the public's nickel no less.

NPR was hitting on all cylinders this morning.  After that plea for the poor down trodden civil servants they launched into an attack on Facebook.  According to NPR, Facebook spend some $10 million (chickenfeed) lobbying Congress on the immigration bill.  Something to do about H1B visa's.  The reporter didn't bother to explain just what Facebook was lobbying for, but she was sure it was evil.  H1B visa's are a deal to let high  tech workers, most often computer programmers, into the US.  US union people are always against H1B 'cause they think it lowers American worker's wages.  US companies are always in favor of more H1B visa's cause good programming talent is hard to come by and bringing it in from overseas gives them a bigger pool to fish in.

Non political that NPR is, very non political.  And government funded.

Jet Tankers in Merrie Old England

The Royal Air Force has an interesting way of doing things.  The are just getting a brand new 14 aircraft fleet of Airbus A330 jet tankers into the RAF.  Or sort of.  The aircraft are owned by a "private" company called AirTanker .  This company is authorized to rent, loan, or lease these shiny new tankers out to other EU countries when they are not needed by the RAF.  For instance just last month, France found itself way short of tankers to support their Mali operation. 
   This sort of thing has been going on long enough for the various EU air forces to define a "Standard C130 Flying Hour" as a unit of account.  One flying hour from an RAF jet tanker will be worth three Standard C130 Flying Hours.  Borrow my nice new A330 tanker for one hour and you owe me three C130 flying hours.
   And the Brits have yet to accomplish some Brit paperwork needed in order to actually refuel in the air.  Each warplane type (F16, Tornado, Grippen, whatever) needs paperwork before air to air refueling can be done.  This has gotta be some kind of Euro job security system.  In USAF all warplanes refueled off the KC-135's, here now and forever.  There was no paperwork to accomplish on a type by type basis. 

Aviation Week criticizes FAA's 787 Lithium battery decision

Aviation Week feels that the 787 should have gone back to nickel cadmium batteries.  Lithium is not an essential technology.  They never did figure out why the batteries burst into flames.  The fixes to the battery itself may or may not work.  Nobody knows.  The fireproof battery box ought to work, but who can be happy with a battery so fire prone to need such?
   Clearly, if Aviation Week had been calling the shots, they would have told Boeing to get rid of the lithium.

Leaf Day at last.

Spring is indeed sprung.  The trees up here at the top of Franconia Notch have turned green.  Took long enough.  In fact, it got so nice and warm I had to break out an electric fan to keep cool as I watched the 6 o'clock TV news.