Well there’s a sliver of good news for Republicans this week. It looks like the NRDC hippies and Larry David’s wife will no longer be able to keep us from our precious. The Senate voted (86-13) (51-48) today to allow drilling in ANWR. The 1.33 gallons-per-minute dream is still alive! Vroom!!!
Noam Chomsky, the well known critic of US foreign policy and now retired Professor of Linguistics at MIT was recently named the worlds "top public intellectual" by Prospect magazine. I know nothing about his theories on linguistics and only a little about his politics, but it was his politics that got him on this list. The more I read about this guy, the more I wish folks on the left would distance themselves from his critiques. His logic, such as it is, is entirely incongruous with any conception of a moral high ground. I.e., since personal politics boils down to which ideology most reflects your broad ideas of right or wrong, consistency matters. If one truly cares about the plight of oppressed people, one does not flippantly excuse the actions of a despotic/totalitarian regime. This interview from the Guardian, hardly a bastion of conservative journalism, offers a pretty dramatic example of how morally capricious this fellow is.
"on the pogroms of Russia, which none the less Chomsky can't help qualifying as "not very bad, by contemporary standards. In the worst of the major massacres, I think about 49 people were killed."or
"Being smart, he believes, is a function of a plodding, unsexy, application to the facts and "using your intelligence to decide what's right".More profound examples of these basic views online, simply google his name and browse through the results. The most concise and efficient grouping of critiques is can be found on Wikipedia.
This is, of course, what Chomsky has been doing for the last 35 years, and his conclusions remain controversial: that practically every US president since the second world war has been guilty of war crimes; that in the overall context of Cambodian history, the Khmer Rouge weren't as bad as everyone makes out; that during the Bosnian war the "massacre" at Srebrenica was probably overstated. (Chomsky uses quotations marks to undermine things he disagrees with and, in print at least, it can come across less as academic than as witheringly teenage; like, Srebrenica was so not a massacre.)"
While it’s likely that Mary Mapes is just an especially nutty (ex)member of the media establishment I wonder how many Journalists like Mapes rationalize ideologically motivated journalism by comparing themselves to Edward R. Murrow. Is this the security blanket journalists like those at the NYTimes wrap themselves in every time it’s revealed their reporting is less than objective? If this self-indulgent Robin Hood fantasy is what allows ideologues to believe they’re still good journalists, what does this say about Academia? I’m sorry but Edward R. Murrow and Joe McCarthy are hardly the hero and villain liberal mythology (and George Clooney) would like them to be.
So after 2 years of heavy breathing by the media all we get is an indictment of a subject of the probe (Scooter) who testified that they heard about Plame from Tim Russert instead of Cheney -- which in itself is perfectly legal? While I won’t dispute that what Scooter did was obviously very stupid (he of all people should know how and why you don’t perjure oneself), isn’t the real story that the whole basis for the investigation was a joke; that the administration did nothing illegal in their handling of Joe Wilson’s leaks, lies and subsequent editorial? Unfortunately I think the Democrats and their media sycophants will use this indictment as a foothold, however tenuous, to try to argue that the administration started the Iraq war knowingly on false pretenses despite the fact this investigation has essentially proven the opposite.
UPDATE: As usual, Andrew Sullivan needs to take a deep breath and meditate on Occam’s Razor. None of the conspiracy theories over the last 2 years have played out and there’s no reason to expect that any others created by his excitable mind will either.
ONE MORE: Tom Maguire is compiling a list of every reporter that admitted to having knowledge of Valerie Plame prior to the Novak editorial. What does this mean? Probably not as much as it would have a few months ago before Fitzgerald doused any hopes of indictments related to Plame's identity, but it still could make a Libby prosecution much more difficult; forcing Fitz to prove that Journalists didn’t bring up Plame before he did; in effect to prove a negative. At the very least it further demonstrates just how idiotic this whole controversy is.
I just found this article on Drudge, and it's incredibly bizarre.
Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp., Japans top telephone company, says it is developing the technology to perhaps make video games more realistic. But more sinister applications also come to mind.Freaky.
I can envision it being added to militaries' arsenals of so-called "non-lethal" weapons.
A special headset was placed on my cranium by my hosts during a recent demonstration at an NTT research center. It sent a very low voltage electric current from the back of my ears through my head _ either from left to right or right to left, depending on which way the joystick on a remote-control was moved.
I found the experience unnerving and exhausting: I sought to step straight ahead but kept careening from side to side. Those alternating currents literally threw me off.
The technology is called galvanic vestibular stimulation _ essentially, electricity messes with the delicate nerves inside the ear that help maintain balance.
I felt a mysterious, irresistible urge to start walking to the right whenever the researcher turned the switch to the right. I was convinced _ mistakenly _ that this was the only way to maintain my balance.
The phenomenon is painless but dramatic. Your feet start to move before you know it. I could even remote-control myself by taking the switch into my own hands.
Harriet Miers just withdrew her name from consideration for the SCOTUS post. Tell us what you think.
If you haven't yet, you should try playing with Google's new Google Earth program (currently only for PC's). It's freakin' awesome. You can explore any part of the world from almost any height and any angle. I've already "visited" the pyramids, hoover dam, mt. everest, mt. saint helens, the grand canyon, eiffel tower, mt. rushmore (you can actually make out some of the faces), and several other places.
My only complaint is that searching for locations, even popular ones, can often be a pain. It will tell you "Your search returned no results" for some places even if, once you've found it manually, it recognizes the name you originally searched for. I recommend having a second internet window open to use to find the coordinates of the place you want to visit, then find it manually using those--I find it quite entertaining. (FYI: Wikipedia often has the coordinates of famous landmarks).
My favorite "contrarian", Christopher Hitchens, has a very informative/chastening piece on the preconceptions of Iraq's ethnic and religious groups and where they rest politically, check it.
Ever wonder how to piss off an Iraqi? It's relatively simple. Just ask one, no sooner than you have been introduced: "So you're an Iraqi? How absolutely fascinating. Do tell: Are you a Kurd or a Sunni or a Shiite?" This will work every time, just as it's always so polite and so useful to ask a brown-skinned American if he or she is Chicano or, you know … Latina.
...
When it comes to Iraq, one of the most boring and philistine habits of our media is the insistence on using partitionist and segregationist language that most journalists would (I hope) scorn to employ if they were discussing a society they actually knew. It is the same mistake that disfigured the coverage of the Bosnian war, where every consumer of news was made to understand that there was fighting between Serbs, Croats, and "Muslims." There are two apples and one orange in that basket, as any fool should be able to see. Serbian and Croatian are national differences, which track very closely with the distinction between Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic beliefs. Many Muslims are Bosnian, but not all Bosnians are Muslim. And in fact, the Bosnian forces in the late war were those which most repudiated any confessional definition. (And when did you ever hear the media saying that, "Today the Orthodox shelled Sarajevo," or, "Yesterday the Catholics bombarded Mostar"?)
Ever since I saw him on Charlie Rose a couple years ago, I've been terribly impressed with one Lt. General David Patraeus. I stumbled on this post from Tigerhawk a while back, and it addresses many of the worries folks like me have had about how things have proceeded in Iraq. I was reminded of it when reading about the recent voting for Iraq's constitutional referendum. This by no means provides excuse for those who have led poorly, but it does give me hope that there are some terribly competent folks out there doing their damndest to help this process to work and who are showing progress. What follows is copied directly from Tigerhawk's post and is long, but is quite engaging. If you'd prefer not to read it, here's the video (note, I got the realplayer link to work, but didn't have luck with the window's media player file).
In General Petraeus' conception, the Transition Command has five missions:
To "help Iraqis." "We believed what TE Lawrence said: “Do not try to do too much with your own hands. Better the Arabs do it tolerably than that you do it perfectly. It is their war, and you are to help them, not win it for them.”
To "organize" the Iraqi military. The task of building a functioning military and special police force is extremely complex, and the Iraqis are doing it with Coalition and NATO guidance. Iraq is doing its own "recruiting and vetting." We are helping them design the units, which includes the personnel and command structure of each unit from the platoon on up.
The organization of the training of the special Iraqi police had to be particularly original. We have "dramatically shifted" the police training from the Kosovo model. “Iraq is not a 9mm pistol world, it is an AK47 world.”
To equip the Iraqi military.
This is an enormous task. "I cannot overstate how big this mission is." More than 700,000 uniforms, 210,000 sets of body armor, hundreds of thousands of small arms, helmets, hundreds of million of rounds of ammunition, 20,000 vehicles and so forth have been distributed to Iraqi forces.
All these soldiers and equipment have been housed. We have built more than twenty facilities for the Iraqi military, including five large bases that can house an entire division, "each the size of Ft. Drum."
To train the Iraqi military.
Notwithstanding the huge size of Saddam's military, even experienced Iraqi officers did not know how to train. For example, they did not train with live ammunition because of shortages, and expressed wonder at American methods for teaching marksmanship. Historically, “the inshallah school of shooting” prevailed. Iraqi soldiers in combat would hold the weapon over their head, shoot wildly until the magazine was empty, and “inshallah -- meaning if God wills it -- you will hit something.”
To mentor Iraqi military and police leaders.
There are 115 Iraqi battalions in combat right now, and every single one of them has a ten man American training team. The American training team teaches the Iraqi officers how to lead and helps coordinate Coalition assistance in logistical matters and combat support. “A huge effort paying enormous dividends.”
So, what's the "bottom line up front?" Iraqi soldiers and special police are “very much in the fight,” as evidenced, “sadly,” by the casualties they have taken in combat, which are at least twice the American.
The most impressive thing about the Iraqi units is how tenacious they have become, notwithstanding early reports that they would cut and run. According to General Patraeus, since the January elections, from which the Iraqi security forces “took an enormous lift that still persists,” the Iraqi forces "have not run from a fight, they have not backed down." This strikes me, by the way, as enormously hopeful for the future of Iraq, the persistence of the counterinsurgency, and the power of democracy to motivate the fight against the war on terror.
More highlights from the Transition Command's work:
Under NATO's auspices, the Iraqi military academy is open with entirely Iraqi instructors. It might have been opened much earlier with foreign instructors, but the Coalition felt that it was important to make it an Iraqi endeavor. General Patraeus noted later that he was very unhappy that this achievement got essentially no coverage in the media given its importance to success in Iraq.
Short- Mid- and Long-Range plans for the future development of the military are in place and being executed, relating to force structure, training, institutions, equipment. This all being done in conjunction with Iraqis.
At any given time, there are more than 3000 Iraqis out of the country training, including 2000 at a police academy in Jordan, and another 200 at an elite training facility “in a neighboring country.” It was obvious that this neighboring country is classified, and we can assume that it isn't Jordan, which he mentioned specifically. Assuming that it isn't Syria or Iran, that leaves Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Since there would be no need to keep a facility in Kuwait secret and since it would be in Turkey's external interest to be seen to be helping NATO (given its pending application to join the EU), my guess is that the secret training facility is in Saudi Arabia, which undoubtedly does not want to be caught collaborating with the United States to kill Sunni guerrillas.
General Patraeus' discussion of metrics was very interesting, but I was only able to capture some of it. He did, however, explain the "readiness levels" that have so bedeviled the discussion of Iraqi preparedness.
There are 105,000 “trained and equipped” Iraqi forces through basic training and in the field under the Ministry of Interior Forces, which covers police, police commandos, highway patrol, dignitary protection, etc. These units are not “fully independent,” but they are getting there.
Ministry of Defense Forces Trained and Equipped 89,000, including the Iraqi Army, Special Operations, Air Force, Navy, and Combat Support.
“These are not people who have just walked across the stage. They are out there and in combat. For example, this number is about 12,000 fewer than the number of police trained, because some of them don’t make it.”
Soldiers are graduating every day. By the October 15 referendum on the constitution (which Patraeus predicted will pass), trained and equipped military and special police will total 200,000, and 300,000 by next summer.
The progress since the summer of 2004, when General Patraeus assumed command, has been considerable. Fifteen months ago, only six battalions of Iraqi army (less than 2,000 men) were in training, and none were "in the fight." Now, 14 battalions are in training, and 74 are operational and in the fight.
A year ago, there were no special police units. Now there are 27 battalions in the fight, and five more serving as border patrol and emergency response. These are all top-down units, none that have failed “like the homegrown Fallujah brigade.”
These units are all classified according to "readiness reports" that are very similar to those used for the American army.
Level 1 is fully independent, “capable of planning and executing operations, and sustaining itself, without coalition support.” This is a very high standard, and because it requires no coalition support in combat, whether logistical or in the form of indirect fire support. As reported this week, only one battalion operates at this level now, but the press accounts did not make clear what a difficult standard this is. Indeed, two other battalions had reached this level but were downgraded because of personnel changes (my sense was that a key officer was transferred).
A significant and growing number of Iraqi units are at Level 2, which is substantially, but not totally, independant. Level 2 units are “in the lead,”, "capable of planning, executing and sustaining counterinsurgency operations with some coalition support." These units are substantially independent, but still need some assistance with logistics and indirect fire support. However, they operate independently for most intents and purposes. Level 2 battalions now “own Haifa Street” in a way that only local units can, and another unit -- the armored battalion -- is policing the airport road. Level 2 units also run Karbala and Najaf security.
Level 3, “fighting alongside”: "capable of conducting counterinsurgency operations in conjunction with coalition units." The goal is to get most of these Level 3 units up to Level 2 in the next few months.
So, over 115 Army and special police battalions are in the fight, the majority of which are “fighting alongside.”
The training of the special police is also proceeding well. Iraqi cops are learning basic criminal investigation, internal controls, interviews and interrogations, elections security, counter terrorism, SWAT, dignitary protection.
“Not FBI caliber, don’t let me mislead you, but it is still very useful.”
The general took a number of questions from the audience, three of which were interesting.
The first dealt with the controversial disbanding of the Iraqi army. "What lesson could we learn from the disbanding of the Iraqi army?" Patraeus substantially dodged this question as not having been his call, but left the audience with two impressions. First, that the existing Iraqi army was not very useful: “I do not necessarily accept the idea that we should not have disbanded that Iraqi army. It was bloated with general officers – there were 1100 generals in one province alone, each one of whom expected us to do what they wanted – and it was an army that had not fought.” Second, without saying as much it is fairly clear from his comments that he thinks that we blew the means by which we disbanded the army, particularly in not having a plan to employ its soldiers and officers afterward.
The other interesting question involved the "public relations" war. "Are we losing the PR war to the enemy? What are you doing on the marketing PR front?"
General Patraeus said that they have given the media an enormous amount of information, including countless important metrics for measuring progress, but that it is largely ignored. He observed that the enemy “On many days it is impossible to break through the steady drumbeat of sensational attacks occurring in Baghdad throughout the country. The opening of the new military academy got no coverage at all, even though it was a big event with the whole Iraqi government in attendance."
Patraeus is obviously extremely unhappy with the monomaniacal press coverage.
Finally, Anne-Marie Slaughter asked the Abu Ghraib question – “what can we do, going forward, to acknowledge what we have to acknowledge but also to restore the values that we stand for in others eyes?”
Patraeus said that Abu Ghraib had been very damaging, but that there has been “an enormous change in the detainee operations piece... One of the lessons is that the most important job of a commander or leader is the setting of a tone. That sounds very simplistic, but in combat setting the right tone is hugely important.” I think we have gone back and looked very, very hard the tone we are setting. We have 29 operations lawyers [Good God. - ed.]. Patraeus described a recent "very minor" incident, and "we brought in the lawyers, brought in the imams," to discuss it openly and resolve it. And we are doing things that seem unimportant to us, but which are very meaningful to Iraqis. One of the imams asked us to install clocks in the prison so that the prisoners would know when to pray, so we put in clocks.
“How do we portray our sincere desire to help? It is very challenging, because the other side is enormously skilled in information operations. In Fallujah, by the way, there were two broadcasting stations in addition to the car bomb factories and the arms caches. The enemy is very sophisticated."
Just before dinner this evening I mentioned a phenomena in the Midwest that I've found pretty entertaining. With the exception of my brother, no one at the table had really heard of it, but for us it was only second hand. Karla has told us that on many occasions when she was in high school and working at Subway she heard the word mango or mangoes for what she would consider, a green pepper. As in, "don't put any mangos on it", or "gimme more mangoes." My dad once told me about some neighbors we had who ate Vidalia onions like apples, and I think they also called 'em mangos. Well, I decided I had to do a little research and found this cultural definition or some such from the Dictionary of American Regional English, Harvard University Press, which seems excellent.
2 also mango pepper; pronc-sp mangle: A pepper, esp a green pepper 1. chiefly W Midl See Map1948 WELS Suppl. VA, I was surprised while living in Virginia to see green peppers advertised and sold as " mangoes. 1950 WELS (Large sweet peppers) 2 Infs, WI, Mangoes. c1960 Wilson Coll. csKY, Mango. . . Sweet pepper, bell-pepper. 1964 Gourmet May 2, [Letter:] The use of the term mango for bell pepper . . is not limited to Indiana. I have heard it used in Louisiana and Georgia. We once had an old English gardener up in Vermont many years ago, and he always called the green pepper a mango. Bird and chili peppers are also referred to as mangoes. 1965- 70 DARE (Qu. I22d, . . Peppers—large sweet) 113 Infs, chiefly W Midl, esp sIL, sIN, sOH, Mangoes; IN41, 48, Sweet mangoes; MO39, Mango peppers; MO5, MO27, Mangles; MO4, Tomato peppers—also called the little mangle peppers; (Qu. I22c, . . Peppers—small sweet) 15 Infs, chiefly N Midl, Mangoes; IL85, Small mangoes; OK3, Mango peppers; (Qu. I22b, . . Peppers—large hot) Infs IN76, KS1, PA150, Mangoes; MO6, Mangoes—not so hot nor so small; KS6, KY52, VA28, Mango peppers; IN41, 48, Hot mangoes; (Qu. I22a, . . Peppers—small hot) Infs IL7, MO18, Mango peppers; NJ2, Mangoes. 1970 DARE File KY, sOH, Mango—bell pepper. 1972 NYT Article Letters cnIN, In my home area, green (bell) peppers are called mangos.Then I found this article from the well named, "Food Resource Website". It's considerably more readable.
The word ‘mango’ is used in some areas to refer to green peppers or stuffed green peppers. Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Missouri are all states that I have received e-mails about grandparents, parents and even current usage of ‘mango’ for green pepper.
Recent information I have come across (thanks in part to an e-mail from website visitor Richard Clark) I believe explains how and why the usage of the word spread along the path it did. Usage of 'mango' for green peppers seems to have originated with coal miners in eastern Pennsylvania (1870s +) - and spread with the mining industries, and then with the miners families as they migrated to new areas and found new jobs.
But why the word 'mango' for green peppers? Many of these coal miners were of Eastern European origin, and it has been suggested that the word may have a Slovak origin.
The English 'dialect' of the Appalachian region with its unique pronunciation, grammar, and word usage is due in large part to the immigration of miners, engineers and others from so many countries coming together in one area and being relatively isolated in the small mining towns.
They came from Russia, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Germany, Scotland, Wales, Greece, Turkey, and Syria to name a few - so the word 'mango' might have been adapted from one of these languages.
Also, in many old cookbooks, 'mango' would sometimes be used to refer to a pickle, especially of melons or cucumber (resembling pickled green mango?)
'Mango' was also a term sometimes used to refer to cantaloupe in many old cookbooks).
So the question is, are there words in any Eastern European languages for melon and/or green peppers that may sound like ‘mango’?
Chef James
In the 1887 Edition of 'The Original White House Cook Book', there is a
recipe for Green Pepper Mangoes.
As follows:
“Select firm, sound, green peppers, and add a few red ones,as they are ornamental and look well upon the table. With a sharp knife remove the top, take out the seed, soak over night in salt water, then fill with chopped cabbage and green tomatoes, seasoned with salt, mustard seed and ground cloves. Sew on the top. Boil vinegar sufficient to cover them, with a cup of brown sugar, and pour over the mangoes. Do this three mornings, then seal.” That is the only recipe I have seen. J.M.
This would fit in with the use of ‘mango’ to refer to a pickle (mentioned above) and also brings in the use of Green Peppers.
Anyone with additional information about ‘mango’ green peppers, please E-mail me: ChefJames@FoodReference.com
I will add any new information here as I receive it. Chef James
8/2/2005
My cousin sent me (the Mango article) and I thought I would respond to the question about "mango" in Slavic languages. Our family originally is from northeastern Pennsylvania and my grandmother used "mango" for "green pepper." We've never been sure why. I can say that at least in Polish, Czech, Slovak and Serbo-Croatian, the word for pepper is some variation on "paprika." Slavic languages have tended to adopt the word "mango," for the mango fruit since historically it has been a non-native, uncommon fruit. In other words, the search for the origin of the use of "mango" continues.
Maybe the hypothesis about chutney is more helpful here. Since mango chutney is a fairly common type of chutney, perhaps it got shortened to "mango" in reference to all things similarly pickled. In addition to people of Eastern European background, late 19th cent. Pennsylvania also had high numbers of immigrants from the British Isles, who may have been familiar with such chutneys. One might think that "chutney" would have been the more logical adoption, but if neither mango nor chutney had any inherent meaning for a speaker of another language, it's reasonable to think that such a mistake could occur. Just a guess. By the way, in case you're wondering, the word for "pickle" in Slavic languages is nothing like "mango" either.
Hope this helps,
Tammy
I remember reading an article about the recall election in Caulleefownya where Arnold’s advisors begged him to respond to constant attacks from Bustamante that were beginning to erode his poll numbers. He responded that “No one wanted to speak first at the Mr. Olympia competitions. Wait for the end, that’s all people will remember”. He had the self-discipline to hold out to the end and won the election – looks like the same thing is happening now. All five of his referendums now appear to be winning which would be the largest political rout of California Democrats in history.
Also, while I’m not the Bush fan I used to be, it is worth noting that his insanely low poll numbers may not be completely by accident. He’s also used the “rope-a-dope” strategy successfully in his last two elections. He knows democrats are unable to DELAY gratification.
I just stumbled on this article in the NYTimes. It's about international food aid...a little confusing, but pretty interesting I thought.
I grew up being serenaded by benefactors of the Johnson welfare state blaming Reagan for consigning them to starvation and ridiculous TV movies about being homeless and getting no help from the Government. Nothing says spending cuts like a ketchup sandwich. It was glorious. When Bush was elected I dreamed of long nights watching cable news laughing at the strained arguments Democrats would make for why the cut of a certain block grant or entitlement DOOMED!! their favorite victim group. Well we’re now in the 5th year and I haven’t once seen Bush called “heartless” 1/100th as much as Ronnie or even Newt Gingrich. Welfare reform under
The sad thing is that we can’t even wish we voted for the other guy (or party) because they’re even more pathetic. They’re just like that cloying guy that’ll say anything to get in a girls pants (See Stiffler in American Pie/American Wedding). For as good as Andrew Sullivan feels telling conservatives “I told you so” about Bush, at some level he must be relieved that Kerry wasn’t elected. He would have been an utter disaster.
Don’t agree? Watch.
Now I’m just looking forward to 2008. Hopefully we get a do over with McCain (or Condi).
UPDATE: Ugh. This is just nausiating.
The safety issues raised in the following articles are interesting but probably insignificant. The odds of being in a plane crash in either a Boeing or Airbus plane are probably equal to being struck by lightning and being struck by lightning while holding a 3 iron aloft, respectively; both are very unlikely. However what the decision making behind these obvious lapses in design reveal is a recognition of the unusual environment in which Airbus exists. However much corporate welfare Boeing receives it’s still a private enterprise largely subject to the same market forces and liabilities as any other company while Airbus appears to be just another corporation, it's really just an extension of the governments of Spain, Britain, Germany, Austria, Belgium and France. This allows Airbus the luxury to pursue a volume business model (more jobs) and be less concerned by profits and quality. The effects of this strategy have been 2 fold: Airbus has supplanted Boeing as the unit sales leader and troubling patterns of safety system failure are beginning to appear. Most troubling is that the Airlines least likely to afford a top notch service crew seem to have the largest Airbus fleets. USAir/AmericaWest are the recent recipients of Airbus aircraft that were practically given away. Those who support initiatives to move to a government controlled healthcare system and support continued monopoly over K-12 education should keep an eye on Airbus in the years to come. However well meaning, government rarely achieves an adequate representation of society’s interests.
Here’s an article about an Airbus whistle-blower who’s actively being persecuted by the Austrian government for revealing a flaw in the new A380 that could cause a catastrophic loss in cabin pressure:
A year ago, Mangan told European aviation authorities that he believed there were problems with a computer chip on the Airbus A380, the biggest and costliest commercial airliner ever built. The A380 is a double-decked engineering marvel that will carry as many as 800 passengers — double the capacity of Boeing Co.'s 747. It is expected to enter airline service next year.Mangan alleges that flaws in a microprocessor could cause the valves that maintain cabin pressure on the A380 to accidentally open during flight, allowing air to leak out so rapidly that everyone aboard could lose consciousness within seconds.
Most passenger jets have two cabin-pressure valves, with separate motors operating each. Because aircraft makers want redundancy on safety systems, the planes have three motors for each valve, with different chips controlling each motor. The Boeing 777, for example, has cabin-pressure chips made by Motorola Inc., Intel Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. Most jetliners also have a manual override so that the pilot can take control in an emergency. Airbus has acknowledged that its designers faced challenges as they attempted to reduce the A380's weight. Early on, the company elected to go with four outflow valves on the A380, with only one motor on each valve, which is slightly larger than a cabin window. Each motor uses a TTTech controller chip, and there is no manual override system."Just there, I would not be happy," said Chris Lomax, a retired engineer who helped design the cabin-pressurization systems for Boeing's 737 and 747. "If all four valves [on the A380] were driven wide open, it would be nip and tuck for the crew to get their [oxygen] mask on and begin a descent."
Here’s another article detailing 67 incidents simply involving the nose landing gear of Airbus Aircraft since 1989:
The problems with JetBlue Flight 292 marked at least the seventh time that the front landing gear of an Airbus jet has locked at a 90-degree angle, forcing pilots to land commercial airliners under emergency conditions, according to federal records.
The locking of the nose landing gear on Airbus jets is one of several recurring problems with the plane's nose landing gear.A Canadian study issued last year documented 67 incidents of nose-landing-gear failures on Airbus 319, 320 and 321 aircraft worldwide since 1989.
Every time a conservative resists increasing funding on some additional social program (God help them if they’d actually cut), Democrats reliably trot out the underclass and play their ace card; “What about the children?” Whatever currency this bit of rhetorical manipulation has left will quickly disappear as stories like this percolate out of New Orleans.
Here’s an amazing article (also courtesy of Mickey Kaus) detailing how unions (and their liberal politician allies) are making the children of inner cities poor and stupid.
ROBERT THOMPSON wanted to give away $200 million to help children escape some of America's worst public schools. But for three years the successful businessman turned education philanthropist suffered the wrath of Michigan's Democratic establishment for his politically incorrect charter-school proposal. Then finally in August, Thompson found an ally willing to accept his charity. The nonprofit Skillman Foundation will join him in creating the first of 15 planned charter high schools in Detroit. The schools' goal is a "90/90 system"--that is, a graduation rate of 90 percent (up from the city's current 50 percent) and a college admission rate of 90 percent.
Officials reacted to Thompson's proffered $200 million not with gratitude but with rage. The Michigan Federation of Teachers urged a walkout, declaring a school holiday so that union members could march on the state capitol in protest of charter schools. State Democrats cowered before the union, while Detroit's politicians bristled at a white suburbanite's "meddling" in the city's affairs. Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick--whose own children attended a charter school--responded to Thompson's offer by saying, with a dismissive wave of the hand, "Let us make the rules, and if he can't abide by the rules . . "
Says Thompson, "We thought if we tried to do good things, people would appreciate it. I guess we were naive." Shunned and saddened, Thompson withdrew his offer in October 2003.
Yet he persevered. "I thought, How can you change the world a little bit?" he says. "You can't let those kids down. You've got to figure out how to do this."
The breakthrough came in March 2005, when he received a call from another rich businessman with a passion for Detroit's poor: ex-Pistons basketball star Dave Bing.
Bing's color was a powerful political asset for Thompson, and together they approached the Skillman Foundation, a black-run nonprofit that has long worked with Detroit's public schools. Even so, Bing and Skillman came under immediate fire from Detroit liberals.
A group named the Call 'Em Out Coalition gave Bing a "Sambo Sell-Out Award" at its annual dinner for partnering with a white businessman. The award was bestowed by Democratic City Council member Sharon McPhail. And the Detroit Federation of Teachers expressed its displeasure with Skillman by threatening to end its cooperation with the foundation on other city school projects.
Drudge has his little siren up. Looks like Delay is going to be indicted and it says he may have to step down from his leadership position.
Mikey Kaus from Slate has a terrific response to Matthew Yglesias's contention that [Kaus is paraphrasing here], "by attacking the Davis-Bacon Act, I'm guilty of pursuing good policy. Instead, "progressive" Democrats should be pursuing not-so-good policies that nurture powerful pro-Democratic interests."
The two most interesting reasons are:
5) "Historically," as Yglesias notes, unions have selflessly helped Democrats solve a number of national problems (Social Security, medical care for the elderly, civil rights, worker safety, unemployment insurance). Unfortunately, what's left are the national problems where this New Deal pairing didn't work because unions actively stand in the way of solutions. Two of these problems, in particular, are among our biggest: a) Unionized teachers stand in the way of the educational changes that might ameliorate our twin education crises (inner city disaster and suburban mediocrity). And b) unions stand in the way of the best solution to the welfare problem (and hence the NewOrleans-style underclass problem, and hence the persistent-poverty problem), namely public jobs programs. Unions have always disliked public jobs programs because public jobs workers threaten to perform work that municipal unions and construction unions now perform for far more money (thanks, in part, to the Davis-Bacon Act). In my ideal of liberal activism, we make sure everyone who wants a job has a job. Then we worry about making those jobs pay $40 an hour rather than $8 an hour. Unions have always (quite rationally) preferred to increase their members' wages even if that means keeping unemployed workers on the dole. That's why FDR had to break a strike to keep the WPA going. Yglesias argues Democrats won't "be able to advance a sustained anti-poverty agenda" with weakened unions. I'd argue that they won't be able to do that without rolling a few unions.
6) The best way to raise wages at the bottom, we've discovered, is not to increase union power. It's to run a hot economy with a tight labor market like the one we had in the late 90s--when unions continued to decline but low-wage workers and African-Americans made huge strides. (Low inflation helped achieve that prosperous economy and preserved those gains--unlike in the 70s, when still-powerful, oligopolistic unions were the mainspring of a wage-price spiral.) Yglesias says it's "absurd" to fight poverty without unions, but the most effective program to fight working poverty that we've discovered is the Earned Income Tax Credit, which has little to do with unionism and will survive unionism's inevitable withering. So will minimum wage laws.
Hello all, I've just added two new links under the Friends section. One is Garrett Bucks' blog, who is currently in Sweden on a Fulbright scholarship. The other is Ian Miller's, who is doing the Peace Corps in Vanuatu. Enjoy their antics with mind-enhacing roots and Swedish pop stars.
Bonus Bonus!: NYTimes discovers that continuing the Howell Raines tradition of alienating half their national audience isn’t a good business plan.
The New York Times Co. said Tuesday it would cut about 500 jobs, or about 4 percent of its work force, as part of an ongoing effort to reduce costs. The reductions come atop another 200 jobs that were cut earlier this year.
Arthur O. Sulzberger, Jr. tries to explain the Times’ decline on the economy:
"We regret that we will see many of our colleagues leave the Company; it is a painful process for all of us. We have been tested many times in our 154-year history as we are being tested now.
Given the continued financial challenges and the cloudy economic outlook for the remainder of the year, we believe it is prudent and necessary to initiate this additional reduction. We will be working through the bargaining issues with our unions and will observe all contractual obligations, including severance where applicable. The Company plans to manage the staff reductions in such a way that we continue to provide our readers, users, listeners and viewers with journalism of the highest quality and that our operations function smoothly on a day-to-day basis. This will help ensure that we achieve our long-term strategic goals.”
But Gannett, owner of over 300 newspapers including USA Today, is doing just fine. Unless making money isn’t one of Sulzburger’s strategic goals he better wean his editors off of advocacy journalism real quick.
*Ask me about how the Sulzburger family stripped the New York Times Co. shareholders of all meaningful voting rights therefore removing the last barrier of oversight capabile of keeping the once great grey lady from slipping into liberal crapulence. Do it! Do it!
BONUS: The ombudsman for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting believes NPR programming is extremely biased and that the resulting alienation this has caused is producing an audience that is completely counter to the populist objectives of the CPB’s founding charter; wefare media for the wealthy.
"Like many metropolitan areas, Washington has multiple NPR and PBS outlets. One evening this summer, Boaz was listening to public radio when a commentary by liberal former Labor Secretary Robert Reich was aired. Boaz switched to another NPR station, only to hear the views of liberal commentator Daniel Schorr. "That's not just liberal bias," Boaz says, "it is a liberal roadblock."
PBS President and CEO Pat Mitchell assured the Senate subcommittee that "our viewers and our supporters reflect and mirror very closely the demographic make-up of our communities." Potential advertisers are told instead of a 2003 Mediamark poll commissioned by NPR. Compared to the general public, NPR listeners are 152 percent more likely to own a home valued at $500,000 or more; 194 percent more likely to travel to France; and 326 percent more likely to read the "New Yorker."
I really, really despise(d) Paul Krugman, but I know this already has been talked to death elsewhere so I’ll be brief. I’m just amazed that the ombudsman of the NYTimes has come out publicly stating that the left’s best known economist is a serial liar. Better still -- despite knowing of Krugman’s deceptions, the editorial staff of the paper has apparently decided not to enforce its own editorial policies.
An Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times who makes an error "is expected to promptly correct it in the column." That's the established policy of Gail Collins, editor of the editorial page. Her written policy encourages "a uniform approach, with the correction made at the bottom of the piece."
The following refers to a recent column in which he misrepresented findings of the media panel regarding the outcome of the 2000 election, and then lied about them again in his correction of the first column.
All Mr. Krugman has offered so far is a faux correction. Each Op-Ed columnist has a page in nytimes.com that includes his or her past columns and biographical information. Mr. Krugman has been allowed to post a note on his page that acknowledges his initial error, but doesn't explain that his initial correction of that error was also wrong. Since it hasn't been officially published, that posting doesn't cause the correction to be appended to any of the relevant columns.
If the problem is that Mr. Krugman doesn't want to give up precious space in his column for a correction, there are alternatives. Perhaps some space could be found elsewhere on the Op-Ed page so that readers—especially those using electronic versions of his pieces -- could get the accurate information they deserve.
A bottom-line question: Does a corrections policy not enforced damage The Times's credibility more than having no policy at all?
So now having been officially reviled by his own paper, I don’t think anyone can argue he has any meaningful credibility anymore. He’s done.
Now I can focus on Robert Reich…
