Mar 04 2008
LSU Back on line - sick leave round up
Hi Readers. I write to you from my death bed (cough cough)…(sniff hack)…(snort)
OK, not so bad as all that. A pesky cold and some back problems has really kept me low, but I am back to work tomorrow and back to writing tonight.
So while I was resting this weekend, the world, despite my polite request, kept turning, the news kept churning and the fires kept burning.
The big local story was Boeing losing another airplane bid to main rival Airbus. The shock however was that the customer is The US Air Force for its next generation tanker fleet. Now Boeing got severely slapped previously in a bod on the tanker, so this is insult to injury.
The thing is, if Boeing cannot make a competitive product, guess what? They lose sales, and Airbus has proven itself a serious rival for years.
Now, Ken Schram blames Boeing for all its outsourcing. I disagree with him because I think the problem is not in that small facet, but in the larger way that Boeing does business. I worked there for three years and I say, in my opinion, the problems at Boeing are deeply rooted in its arrogance, its top heavy management, its catering to unions and its wasteful business practices.
For instance, requiring new applicants to pass an completely ridiculous diversity screening test is absurd. The test is geared to make you answer that you love working with people of other cultures, and that you wouldn’t dream of not working without them. If however, you answer that you really don’t care, that you work well with anyone, well, you are unsuitable.
While some areas are sleek and modern, others are antiquated, sluggish and inefficient.
The other aspect of this is the shock that our military is now going to be dependent on another country for an essential air resource. I admit, I don’t particularly like the prospect of another country being able to use the contracts as any form of leverage against us. But the fact is that insisting on building it in this country is also playing to a captive audience in some cases, and that encourages the wasteful spending that has plagued the military for decades. Stay tuned for more, but my final word for now is that this should be a wake up call to Boeing. Time to to cowboy up and get competitive.
Prince Harry is still in the news, this time with an ABC anchor under fire for suggesting the Prince is expendable.
Good Morning America” co-host Chris Cuomo joked on Monday’s show that Britain’s Prince Harry “has been over in Afghanistan fighting because he’s expendable.” Fellow host Robin Roberts appeared somewhat shocked by the comment and sputtered, “What did you say?” Cuomo, who was previewing an ABC special on the royals, didn’t back off his assertion and reiterated, “It’s true. The reason that Harry is allowed to be in Afghanistan is because he’s not the heir to the throne. William’s not allowed to be there.”
Now, the fact is that he is both right and wrong.
First of all, Harry is indeed expendable….just as expendable as any other soldier in Her Majesty’s Armed forces. All soldiers are in some sense expendable in that their countries order them to combat knowing they might die. Britain however refuses to shield them to the extent other countries to, so England’s Royals are put at risk along side their subjects.
So, in that sense, yes, he is just another boot on the ground. But. He is also a man serving his country and more deserving of respect then he got in this case. The fact that he chose to serve when he really did not have to, and that he did so knowing he is considered a higher priority target then most men, makes him worthy of much more respect.
Is he a tool? Expendable? Perhaps, depending on how you define it. But I wish every army had a hundred like him.
Final note. If he was really expendable, the Brits would not have pulled him out of Afghanistan after Drudge blabbed.
Last note tonight is a return to Berkeley, where liberal love and tolerance is alive and well, via LGF:
Feel the love…Exit question: Why are so many liberals communist or socialist?
On my list of things to do is to make a mashup of all the times the council members say they respect the marines, but they don’t want them there, and they want them to leave. Should be a fun one. Berkeley=NIMBY
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“Exit question: Why are so many liberals communist or socialist?”
Entry answer: they aren’t. Liberals, that is. They are tyrannical, reactionary, lefist statists with absolutely NO liberal principles or regard for liberty whatsoever. Well, except their own “liberty” to destroy the liberties of others, to tear down, mutilate, denigrate and depricate the god-given rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness that we are all entitled to enjoy.
Of course, there are statists on the Right as well… *sigh* And R.L. Dabney is as correct today as when he spoke in the 19th Centiry,
“Conservatism’s history has been that it demurs to each aggression of the progressive party, and aims to save its credit by a respectable amount of growling, but always acquiesces at last in the innovation. What was the resisted novelty of yesterday is today one of the accepted principles of conservatism; it is now conservative only in affecting to resist the next innovation, which will tomorrow be forced upon its timidity and will be succeeded by some third revolution, to be denounced and then adopted in its turn. American conservatism is merely the shadow that follows Radicalism as it moves forward to perdition. It remains behind it, but never retards it, and always advances near its leader. This pretended salt hath utterly lost its savor: wherewith shall it be salted? Its impotency is not hard to explain. It is worthless because it is the conservatism of expediency only, and not of sturdy principle. It tends to risk nothing serious for the sake of truth.”
And, of course, accepting the Left’s own now-twisted definition of “liberalism” (a liberalism which aims for nothing more or less than destruction of Western Civilization), James Burnham’s comment is a mantra we should pass on to our every contact in the RW, chant our children and grandchildren to sleep with at night, plaster on our bumpers (the modern equivalent of binding the mishna about forehead and on hands–*heh*):
Repeat that mantra every time you hear a NON-LIBERAL modern lefty spout modern liberalism’s talking points:
Repeat that mantra every time you hear a modern (FAKE) “conservative” say something assinine like, we need illegal aliens to “do the jobs Americans won’t do” (thank you very much for the lying meme, President Fifi-lapdog-of-successive-Mexican-presidents Bush):
Oh, but to more directly answer the exit question: So many “fake” “liberals” (statist leftists) are communist/socialist haters of Western Civilization because it is a mindset that embraces lies so very completely. That so many soi dissant “conservative” politicians are simply foot-dragging “progressives” (read: reactionary statists) is because being a statist is all about power, and these power-hungry pols just don’t give a damn about “truth, justice and the American way”…
Each and every one of these statist bastards is a member of that most despicable degradations of humanity: people of the lie. Their worship of themselves has led them to become enemies of The People and made The People (in the model of the Founders) enemies of the state.