According to The Economist, the EU has regulations limiting/forbidding subsidies to airports from local/national governments. You have to wonder why. If cities/provinces/countries want to spend taxpayer money on airports, why not? What business is this of the EU?
The urge to get an airport is understandable. No business is going to locate in a place without air service. You need air service to get your salesman out to customers, your customers in to your plant, your servicemen out to customer sites, and overnight air parcel delivery for crucial spare parts. Manchester Regional Airport NH is a good example, a vast network of businesses in New Hampshire depend upon flying out of Manchester. In fact the place had the chutzpah to re name itself Manchester-Boston Regional a little while ago. I don't know just how much taxpayer money went into that airport, but that new exit for the airport we put on I93 last year wasn't cheap.
Anyhow, the urge to get airports is understandable. And I don't see any reason to regulate it.
But, read on. The subsidized airports have lower landing fees, which attracts low cost carriers like RyanAir. The European legacy carriers mostly fly the big airports, and they see the low cost carriers eating into their business, "stealing passengers" from them.
So, the EU regulations are really crony capitalism, the big boys attempting to squash the upstart newcomers.
I'm sure the Obama administration is watching this one.
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
Monday, October 21, 2013
The History Channel and the Crystal Skull
I saw the movie, actually Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull. Fun flick with some good scenes, like Harrison Ford and Shia LeBeouf riding a Harley thru the Yale library reading room. Later they discover an alien crystal skull which becomes a clue that leads them to lost cities and so on. Great movie prop. I had never heard of crystal skulls before and I assumed it was a product of Spielburg's fertile imagination.
So the other night I am channel surfing and on The History Channel I find a "serious" documentary on crystal skulls. Ten of them are known, the show had some pictures, and claimed that one had been scientifically analysed. Groovy.
Of course the show didn't say whether these skulls had been discovered before or after the Spielburg movie. Nor did it say what the "scientific analysis" had discovered. For openers, what was it made of? Quartz? Glass? Calcite? Rock salt? Lucite? The History Channel was less convincing than the Spielburg movie.
So the other night I am channel surfing and on The History Channel I find a "serious" documentary on crystal skulls. Ten of them are known, the show had some pictures, and claimed that one had been scientifically analysed. Groovy.
Of course the show didn't say whether these skulls had been discovered before or after the Spielburg movie. Nor did it say what the "scientific analysis" had discovered. For openers, what was it made of? Quartz? Glass? Calcite? Rock salt? Lucite? The History Channel was less convincing than the Spielburg movie.
Airbus wins Japan Airlines Order
Japan Airlines just signed a deal to buy 31 A350 airliners from Airbus. At $200 million each, this is $12 billon in sales, quite a chunk of change. The A350 is so new it just made it's first test flight this summer and has a year or two of testing and certification before it can be delivered. It's carbon fiber (fiberglass) construction, intended to compete with Boeing's 787. Boeing could have had this sale, if their 787 had not been so late, and if it hadn't had those battery fires. Up until now, Japanese airlines were all Boeing fleets, Boeing and the Japanese industry had numerous joint ventures and cross sales arrangements. Now that JAL has bought Airbus, the other Japanese carriers are expected to follow suit.
Aviation Week credits the Airbus sale to effective work by top Airbus executives, Leahy (no first name given) Head of Sales, and Fabrice Bregier, CEO. They also mention JAL's new chairman, Kazuo Inamori saying that an airline as big as JAL ought to have more than one supplier. Which is true.
Also interesting is the backlog of Airbus A350 and Boeing 787 orders. Although Boeing has 979 orders for 787's, Airbus is running hard with 725 orders for the A350. Each backlog represents about $2 trillion dollars worth of business. Staggering.
Aviation Week credits the Airbus sale to effective work by top Airbus executives, Leahy (no first name given) Head of Sales, and Fabrice Bregier, CEO. They also mention JAL's new chairman, Kazuo Inamori saying that an airline as big as JAL ought to have more than one supplier. Which is true.
Also interesting is the backlog of Airbus A350 and Boeing 787 orders. Although Boeing has 979 orders for 787's, Airbus is running hard with 725 orders for the A350. Each backlog represents about $2 trillion dollars worth of business. Staggering.
Sunday, October 20, 2013
Obamacare computer crashes
Putting up a website that can handle the load of every family in the country is difficult. The way to make it happen is let the contract to a company that has done such a website before. Anyone, except perhaps community organizers should know this.
Apparently Obama didn't know this, and gave the contract to some crony that has no industry rep. And, surprise, surprise, it doesn't work. That's the thing about contracting. You never know if the contractor is competent. But competent or incompetent, the contractor will spend all the money.
They should have given the job to someone like Google, Apple, Yahoo, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook. But they didn't.
Apparently Obama didn't know this, and gave the contract to some crony that has no industry rep. And, surprise, surprise, it doesn't work. That's the thing about contracting. You never know if the contractor is competent. But competent or incompetent, the contractor will spend all the money.
They should have given the job to someone like Google, Apple, Yahoo, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook. But they didn't.
Main Stream Media, do we care?
Everyone agrees,. the mainstream media is in the tank for Obama and the Democrats. But really? Sure, the NY Times , the WashPost, the traditional TV networks, the AP, and a lot of others are Democratic house organs. But, Fox News, the Wall St Journal, talk radio, and the blogosphere are Obama hostile. Fox News owns the airwaves (cable waves now-a-days), The Journal is distributed coast to coast and outsells the NY Times by 4:1. Rush Limbaugh still has a huge listener base. The blogosphere is rising in influence and importance. Obama was railing against "lobbyists and bloggers" just the other day. As a blogger I'm flattered to get a mention, and scared that Obama may sick the IRS (or worse) on me.
The Democrats have mass, but the Republicans hold the quality edge.
The Democrats have mass, but the Republicans hold the quality edge.
Saturday, October 19, 2013
Congressional rules
We can all agree that Congress isn't getting anywhere these days. They cannot even vote appropriations to run the government.
Each House conducts business under an ancient, complicated, and little understood set of rules. In the house it is so bad that before each bill is voted on, they hold a separate vote on the rules to be used this time. That is rediculous, the rules ought to be the same everytime. The Senate conducts votes to decide whether a super majority is needed this time. Most of the votes taken are "procedural" votes, not votes on business. For every real vote cast to pass or reject a bill, they do dozens of "procedural" votes (nothing votes).
All this rules and procedure business serves to disguise what's really happening from the citizens. A day of motions and procedural votes and the real voter has no idea whether his rep is doing good or doing evil, or doing anything. It's gotten so bad my TV cable provider doesn't bother to carry C-span anymore. And nobody misses it.
At this rate, the Congress critters have escaped from voter control. They can do all sorts of things that the voters disapprove of (like shutdown) and the voter cannot figure out where his rep stood on any issue. Come election time, there is no voting record for the citizen to consult to decide if congressman So-and-So ought to be re elected.
So, let's clear the smoke and mirrors away. Here are my rules.
1. No procedural votes. Each bill gets one up or down vote. That's it.
2. No riders. A rider is a low speed bill that gets attached to a high speed bill. Pass the high speed bill and the rider passes. It's like hitching a ride on a freight train. No more. Your low speed bill needs to get votes on it own merits, no drafting.
3. Every bill treats ONE thing, that thing being in the title of the bill. No kitchen sink bills.
4. Every bill much be printed (ink on paper) and distributed to the press, the public and the Congress one week before a vote may be taken. No amendments, no extra pork rations, no nothing between printing and voting.
5. Every member gets to speak, once, on every bill. House members get five minutes plus what ever extra time the Speaker will grant them. Senators get one hour, no more.
6. Every member is entitled to file as many bills as he likes, and they all must come to the floor for a vote.
Each House conducts business under an ancient, complicated, and little understood set of rules. In the house it is so bad that before each bill is voted on, they hold a separate vote on the rules to be used this time. That is rediculous, the rules ought to be the same everytime. The Senate conducts votes to decide whether a super majority is needed this time. Most of the votes taken are "procedural" votes, not votes on business. For every real vote cast to pass or reject a bill, they do dozens of "procedural" votes (nothing votes).
All this rules and procedure business serves to disguise what's really happening from the citizens. A day of motions and procedural votes and the real voter has no idea whether his rep is doing good or doing evil, or doing anything. It's gotten so bad my TV cable provider doesn't bother to carry C-span anymore. And nobody misses it.
At this rate, the Congress critters have escaped from voter control. They can do all sorts of things that the voters disapprove of (like shutdown) and the voter cannot figure out where his rep stood on any issue. Come election time, there is no voting record for the citizen to consult to decide if congressman So-and-So ought to be re elected.
So, let's clear the smoke and mirrors away. Here are my rules.
1. No procedural votes. Each bill gets one up or down vote. That's it.
2. No riders. A rider is a low speed bill that gets attached to a high speed bill. Pass the high speed bill and the rider passes. It's like hitching a ride on a freight train. No more. Your low speed bill needs to get votes on it own merits, no drafting.
3. Every bill treats ONE thing, that thing being in the title of the bill. No kitchen sink bills.
4. Every bill much be printed (ink on paper) and distributed to the press, the public and the Congress one week before a vote may be taken. No amendments, no extra pork rations, no nothing between printing and voting.
5. Every member gets to speak, once, on every bill. House members get five minutes plus what ever extra time the Speaker will grant them. Senators get one hour, no more.
6. Every member is entitled to file as many bills as he likes, and they all must come to the floor for a vote.
Internet Problems? Selective outage?
Cannot contact some favorite websites, Instapundit and Photobucket for two. Other sites are up and running. Is this a selective internet outage? NSA shutting down some enemies? Sites down for weekend maintenance?
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