Flu and Fubar

I cannot speak for Ilyushin or Tupolev but I do know a little bit about their Western counterparts; Boeing and Airbus.

The last two go to great lengths to build superb airplanes with redundant systems and with everything an operating airline could want; except for one thing. When an airplane is delivered to the airline that bought it, part of its standard equipment is an air-handling plant that can deliver air throughout the airplane equal to or better than that piped into an operating room at the Mayo Clinic.

Part of this system is a complex of tightly-meshed filters with a matrix so small that even the smallest particulate matter is removed. Did you ever try to blow through, say, the wool of a sweater? Pretty easy, huh? Now try to blow through something much finer like a chamois cloth that you use to dry your car. Both are porous and it can be done but it takes a lot more effort.

In order for the airlines to use the manufacturer’s filter equipment it takes a lot more power too which translates into more fuel and more fuel translates into more cost.

As a result most, if not all carriers, “tweak” the system. Some remove the filters altogether and others bypass them. The more “ethical” airlines replace the standard filters with other more porous ones. No wonder, therefore, that all one gets now is a recirculated broth of “cooties”. It may make some people feel good to know that, while they are not getting first-class service or seats they are, at least getting the same air.

And flight attendants live in that atmosphere every day of their working lives. They must have truly awesome palettes of immunities!

Anyway, having just flown back from Texas about 8 days ago after visiting friends, I was not surprised to come down with something. For a day or so, it was just a low-grade sore throat, them Whammo, it hit me. Full blown ‘flu and that’s why you haven’t heard from me in quite a while.

I hope you’ve missed me and I’ve certainly missed you.

When, I could drag my head of the pillow and croak out a request to my doctor’s office for an appointment later that day, I got one. Try doing that in the British National Health Service. And trying doing that when Obamacare is implemented.

It is incredible to me that this sorry saga still goes on and that the politicians still seem to think they can get away with it without lasting repercussions, Take yesterday, as an example.

The oil was burning late in the White House as Obama plotted with Democrat House and Senate members to reconcile their two bills. Politics has been explained as being the art of the possible but this latest expression of the “art” is nothing short of scandalous and is, I suspect, unconstitutional. It is no secret that Obamacare will cost a lot of money in extra taxes. One of those sources was going to be a tax on so-called “Cadillac” health plans. The problem for Obama is that most of these plans are enjoyed by large labor unions and they were mad.

As a result of the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, “right to work” states were recognized. These states, mostly in the South and the West provided a work environment where, say a carpenter or a plumber did not have to join a union. However in the Mid-West and the Northeast they did. So, Obama’s contrived compromise with respect to taxation to fund healthcare is that the benefit package of union members will not be taxed but others will.

Surely, one of the tenets of democracy and liberalism is equality under the law? But now we see a situation where a non-union carpenter in Arizona will be taxed on his health benefit while his equivalent, but a union member will not be.

Actually this madness, which is worthy of Lewis Carroll, demonstrates some interesting things about Obama. For a start, it tells you who is friends are. They are in the Mid-West and the Northeast. They are in the unions. They are in the thug politics of Chicago and Illinois.

But, it also tells you something about the man. He salivates at the thought of standing at the White House signing something, anything about healthcare. Why do you think we don’t have a date yet for the State of the Union message? Because, without some legislation along those lines, he has nothing to talk about.

And it is all about him!


Now it’s time for another dose of TamiFlu!

Michelle, Ma Belle and My Money!!

During last year’s election campaign and even after, Obama promised transparency. Well we got it but not quite in the way the hoi-polloi expected. They thought, because Obama told them, that all pending legislation would be posted on the Internet for all to see for at least 72 hours before any votes were taken.

He also “promised” to have the Obamacare congressional negotiations live on CSPAN. And he didn’t just make that promise once but at least 8 times in 2008 alone. Does Obama think we have no memory or that we cannot search the Web?


Well, I guess he does, because Obama comes from Chicago “thug politics and that’s what he knows.

Brian Lamb, the CEO of CSPAN even wrote a, now well-publicized, letter to the White House but to no avail because the current occupant of that illustrious residence has no more conscience than he does scruples.

So, I thought I’d help out with a little “transparency’ all of my own but, somehow I doubt I’ll be asked to join the White House staff or its press corps.

The first “Lady” receives no official salary as far as I can determine.

In the first year of her husband’s “reign”, she has made a few trips around the World on Air Force One and has shopped in Paris, London and elsewhere. At home she made a brief appearance on the “Food Network” and an briefer one at a Washington DC food bank wearing $500 design sneakers. Well, perhaps that’s what you are supposed wear to go down to the “’hood”. You wear designer “bling” in order to show how far you’ve come,

One thing is for sure, none of the list that follows are doing a good job if their responsibilities include appropriate fashion guidance.

Remember the shorts on the steps of Air Force One?

However, Michelle does retain a personal staff of more than 20 people

The salaries for staffers in the Office of First Lady and the highest paid is Chief of Staff Susan Sher, who gets the top $172,200. Here are the rest::-

140,000
Frye, Jocelyn C.
(DEPUTY ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT AND DIRECTOR OF POLICY AND PROJECTS FOR THE FIRST LADY)


$113,000
Rogers, Desiree G.
(SPECIAL ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT AND WHITE HOUSE SOCIAL SECRETARY)


$102,000J
Johnston, Camille Y.
SPECIAL ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT AND DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS FOR THE FIRST LADY)

Winter, Melissa E.
(SPECIAL ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT AND DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF TO THE FIRST LADY)


$90,000
Medina David S.
(DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF TO THE FIRST LADY)


$84,000
Lelyveld, Catherine M.
(DIRECTOR AND PRESS SECRETARY TO THE FIRST LADY)


$75,000
Starkey, Frances M.
(DIRECTOR OF SCHEDULING AND ADVANCE FOR THE FIRST LADY)


$70,000
Sanders, Trooper
(DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF POLICY AND PROJECTS FOR THE FIRST LADY)


$65,000
Burnough, Erinn J.
(DEPUTY DIRECTOR AND DEPUTY SOCIAL SECRETARY)

Reinstein, Joseph B.
(DEPUTY DIRECTOR AND DEPUTY SOCIAL SECRETARY)


$62,000
Goodman, Jennifer R.
(DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF SCHEDULING AND EVENTS COORDINATOR FOR THE FIRST LADY)


$60,000
Fitts, Alan O.
(DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF ADVANCE AND TRIP DIRECTOR FOR THE FIRST LADY)
Lewis, Dana M.
(SPECIAL ASSISTANT AND PERSONAL AIDE TO THE FIRST LADY)


$52,500
Mustaphi, Semonti M.
(ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR AND DEPUTY PRESS SECRETARY TO THE FIRST LADY)


$50,000
Jarvis, Kristen E.
(SPECIAL ASSISTANT FOR SCHEDULING AND TRAVELING AIDE TO THE FIRST LADY)


$45,000
Lechtenberg, Tyler
(ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR OF CORRESPONDENCE FOR THE FIRST LADY)

Tubman, Samantha (DEPUTY ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR,SOCIAL OFFICE)


$40,000
Boswell, Joseph J.
EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT TO THE CHIEF OF STAFF TO THE FIRST LADY)


$36,000
Armbruster, Sally M.
(STAFF ASSISTANT TO THE SOCIAL SECRETARY)

Bookey, Natalie
(STAFF ASSISTANT)

Jackson, Deilia
DEPUTY ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR OF CORRESPONDENCE FOR THE FIRST LADY)


Now do the math as I did and I came up with more than $1.5 million per year.

Is she getting her money’s worth?

Or, more importantly, are you? Because it’s your money..


Yer gotta love that “Hoax and Chains”

How’s it working for You?

Rule Britannia - The Rest of the Story

I really do try to make my posts as accurate as I can but sometimes I inadvertently get things wrong and such was the case with my submission dated January 6 2010 entitled, “Rule Britannia”.

And it was not only wrong it was also incomplete. As I said at the time I was indebted to a British reader for bringing the matter to my attention and I am indebted now to another Brit for telling the rest of the story.

The thrust of the original post was about a small community in England and their desire to pay respect and homage to the fallen military personnel as the caskets passed through on their journey from RAF Lyneham.

And here is that “rest of the story as told to me:-

“We went to Woodstock (nr. Oxford) for Christmas and visited Wootten Bassett. It wasn't a day when a funeral cortège was passing through and it was pouring down with rain (surprise, surprise) but I felt we should do it. It’s a pretty place and the cortèges are actually taking the bodies to the Oxford Coroner at John Radcliffe Hospital who is doing a wonderful job of kicking the Ministry of Defense in the pants. What started as just the local people closing their shops and lining the street as a mark of respect has gradually grown until there are now thousands from all over the country. And they have vowed to keep it up for as long as it takes.

Some Muslim nut-case has now decided to hold a protest march there to commemorate the Muslim dead in Iraq and Iran. Most people (actually everybody) think the Muslims have a perfect right to hold a march in London or anywhere else where there is a large Muslim population (one may not be sympathetic to the marchers but that's democratic freedom) but it is quite inappropriate and deliberately provocative to do so in Wootten Bassett where the vigil is silent and non-jingoistic and meant to give some comfort to the families of the bereaved.

The government has indicated it would ban the march but can only do so if the Oxfordshire Police ask them to and they (the Police) can only do that if they have reason to believe that public disorder would result. The townsfolk of Wootten Bassett feel that the only appropriate response to a Muslim march would be to close their shops, lock themselves indoors and draw their blinds. Violent protest on the street would be exactly what the organizers of the march would want and disrespectful to the dead. They are right and I hope if the march isn't banned, the world's TV follow the lead of the townsfolk and refuse to cover the event and so deny them the publicity they desire.”

As my contributor indicated, a march by a radical UK Islamist group called Islam4UK has been proposed. The said demonstration led by Muslim extremist Anjem Choudary has come under widespread condemnation from British citizens, including other Muslims, politicians, and the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown. Some villagers in Wootton Bassett have stated that they are prepared to barricade the streets if necessary, while some right-wing citizens have said that they will "defend" the village if they feel they need to.

Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.

It's Friday and Quiz Time!

Traditionally Friday is the day for quizzes in school in order that the teacher can go home for the weekend, secure in the knowledge that he or she has done something useful in the previous five days.

So try this link and take this test for yourself:-

http://pewresearch.org/politicalquiz/quiz/index.php

I did ace It, and so I should as the owner of this Blog but I was shocked to learn that I was in the mere 2% that did.

For my overseas readers, you’re welcome to try it as well but be warned that the subject matter concentrates on American issues. If you do, I’d love to hear how you did.

My guess is that most of the overseas folks will do just as well or better than the majority of the American citizens who responded.

If you do try it out, you will be able to see how you fared and please take a look at the “Demographic Breakdown by Question”. But for those who would prefer the Clift Notes version ………..

24% got less than 5 questions right.
Another 30% got less than 8 right.

So 54%, of that which we may assume are potential American voters scored a C grade or lower.


Of course, that fact does start to explain how Obama got elected.

We the People ........

Today, I’m going to tackle two apparently disparate topics but they’re really not.

Let’s start with the Knicker Bomber. After the unsuccessful effort to bring down the Detroit-bound Northwest Airlines flight, the Director of Counter Terrorism, Michael Leitner, was informed. He was skiing at the time and refused to return to his office at the CIA in Langley, Virginia.

Now, with that in mind, let’s look at some numbers because I love numbers and doing so annoys Obama supporters because they “feel” and they “want” and they are “entitled”. But they hate facts.

Since September 11, 2001 there have been 33 terrorist attacks on US soil. During the President George W. Bush years there was an average of 2.5 attacks per year. In the first year of Obama there have been 13. And don’t even bother to ask about the resultant deaths because the 13 at Fort Hood alone far outweigh all the rest.

Could the answer be that under the Bush “rules of engagement” the bad guys knew their chances of success were somewhere between slim and none? But, under Obama we know that those rules have been relaxed and Obama advertised that fact as he went on his world-wide apology tour.

In a "swift and bold" move, Obama decided that ex-inmates of Gitmo who hail from Yemen should not be repatriated to that benighted sand dune. Does Obama know that a dozen Arab nations are just a plane ride away from it? But like many Obama pronouncements, it sounds good superficially but actually achieves nothing.

And before we leave the subject of terrorism, Mayor Bloomberg of New York City has demanded that the Federal Government pick up the $200 Million per year tab to hold this sham trial. Can you imagine what a feast a defending lawyer is going to make of Obama and Holder's promise that conviction is certain?

Okay, now let’s look at the other topic, namely Healthcare.

On at least 8 separate occasions, while on the campaign trail, Obama promised to show the Healthcare debate on CSPAN. Well now the White House has said a loud and definite “No”. I’m pretty certain that Obama will try to reconcile the disparity by claiming that he would like to see his promises come to pass but that the Speaker, Ms. Pelosi, would not play along. Don’t you love “weasel words”?

Now where’s the common thread?

The American people have shown overwhelmingly that they want nothing to do with Obamacare. The American people expect the president to keep them safe. President Bush did and Obama hasn’t..

So the common thread is the American people; but Obama and his people believe that they are smarter and, therefore, they know better.

Not !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But they overlook one thing. When the global financial system threatened to go into "meltdown" last year, mobs around the world demanded that their governments do more and save them. In this country though, people demonstrated at the Tea Parties that they wanted their Government to do less.

Let Freedom Ring!

Rule Britannia!

I am a very lucky Blogger.

Because I get ideas from all over the world about subjects.

Try this one from the UK.

The caskets of slain British heroes coming home from the war in Afghanistan are flown into an Royal Air Force base called “Brize Norton”.

From there the caskets are driven to the nearest railroad station. On the way they go through a village called Wootten Bassett. It has become a tradition for the citizens of that community to salute their honorable war dead and so the whole village turns out to line the main street. They stand in silence and they have the Union Jack on prominent display.

So far so good, right?

These people are grieving on the one hand while at the same time they are so proud of their fallen heroes who willingly sacrificed all.

Muslims in Britain are protesting that the “demonstrations” are racist and are filing suit to stop them.

I don’t know if these Muslims would claim to be Radical or not.

But I do know, that there are only two sects of Islam.

They can choose to be Radical or they can choose to be Quiescent.

This must surely be the shortest post I’ve ever written, but I had to do it..

Dignity: Thy Name is not Obama!

I know I should have written this much closer to the New Year but I was away and so my look-back has to be done now. And I know it's long but so is his list of transgessions.

One would think that dignity is an easily understood concept, an equally easily understood word, and to retain one’s dignity an easy thing to do, as it is a self-determined activity.

Will someone please explain this to our fearless, Ivy League over-educated, leader?

Photo-ops at the Delaware Air Force base at the return home of an American warrior who did not survive his last battle.

Michelle in scruffy shorts descending the steps of Air Force One.

Brazen million dollar shopping trips by ‘the family’ in Paris and London.

Flying Chicago pizza chefs to Washington for the weekly gigs at the White House

Refusing to meet with your Afghanistan theater general until this refusal becomes public knowledge.

Taking a very public and humiliating trip to the Olympics meeting with your begging bowl to benefit your Chicago cronies.

Apologizing for America on every stage internationally upon which you land.

Constant vicious and untrue trashing of your predecessor.

Ridiculing Nancy Reagan.

Making fun of the Special Olympics.

Blowing off the international celebration of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Giving the Queen of England (a former ally of the United States) a disrespectful pat on the back (no bowing to her).

Dissing the Cambridge police in favor of your arrogant black friend.

Appearing shirtless on magazine covers.

Observed carrying reading material for a flight which consisted solely of a magazine on which you were the cover story.

Vast overuse of the word ‘I’ in all public speaking.

Actually bowing, as President of the United States of America, to a Middle Eastern potentate, the Japanese Emperor and the Communist leader of China.

Speaking out on everything authoritatively with an astounding ignorance of history, especially this nation’s.

Insultingly ignoring a dinner invitation from the French President, (a former ally of the United States).

I could go on but you get my drift ...........

The man does not know what dignity is but he does understand arrogance and narcicism. Well, he may not understand them. Perhaps they are too close because they are the very essence of Obama.

It also demonstrates that this person has no clue what it means to be the President of the United States of America.

George Washington embodied dignity, not just on the part of the man, but also of the nation he represented. He was also responsible for establishing the precedent of the dignity of the office of President of the United States, to which every President since that greatest of men has attempted to adhere. That is, until this most recent character, who has neither respect for the office of President nor for the nation he was tragically elected to lead.

George Washington would find both of these aspects of our current President to be stunning and inexplicable developments, but what would make him most furious (and George Washington did have a temper, though he worked hard to control it), would be the utter disregard -- no, the actual contempt -- this 11-month holder of the office obviously feels and clearly demonstrates towards the American people.

The will of the people, sovereign in this republic, was almost sacred to George Washington and the other Founders -- it was the whole point of the exercise, one that had never before taken place in the annals of history. We actually weren’t supposed to end up in 2009 in an increasingly tyrannical rule run by socialists just over 220 years later.

The sacrosanct documents that the Founders risked their lives to create were meant to be the guarantee ensuring the perpetuity of the freedoms they fought so hard to achieve. This achievement was to have been made, for the first time in history, for the people of this republic.

Obama and his appointed under-the-radar-elite ruling group (the Czars) pay no attention to these documents, nor do they pay attention to the will of the people. This group consists, of: let’s see, we have the charming Chavez admiring FCC czar, Mark Lloyd; the lovely self-proclaimed activist pederast, Kevin Jennings, as our ‘safe schools’ czar; John Holdren, our brilliant science czar, who is an able advocate of forced abortions and sterilization of women (as the great Dave Barry would say, I am not making this up), and so many more of the like that it stuns the 21st Century mind, much less that of George Washington.

I doubt even Bill Clinton could envision this crowd in the White House, much less the 18th century visionary George Washington. Notwithstanding all the other decisions this President has made -- bankrupting our nation, perhaps forever; taking over our automobile industries; trying Islamic terrorists in a civilian court on our precious soil; attempting to destroy our national economy by signing on to completely bogus ‘climate change’ agreements and to annihilating our magnificent health care system in order to pay off his union and corporate supporters and to control every aspect of our lives -- these appointments alone, none of which had or has American popular support, nor Congressional approval, should provide adequate proof that Obama has nothing but contempt for the people of this nation.

Obama’s appointees are not in their positions to help the citizens of the United States of America; they are there to implement their agenda, to do it as brutally and as rapidly as possible while doing it as far under the radar of public attention as they can.

Since there are more of us than there are of them, every once in a while they have to pay lip service to the fact of America’s greatness. It is disturbing and humorous at the same time how excruciatingly uncomfortable this makes them and their leader; witness the most recent speech of our great orator-in-chief at West Point. It was positively painful for him to have to say good things about the country he is meant to be leading, but is, more accurately, destroying.

At this point in our national decline, it is largely thanks to the new media in this nation, who exemplify the modern equivalent of the courageous soldiers of the Revolutionary War in their refusal to go down without a fight, that these America haters and their activities have been and are continuing to be revealed.

The 18th century fighters for freedom, (as exemplified in their beloved general), put all personal concerns aside to fight for the possibility of living as free men.

They left behind their families, abandoned their farms, gave up their livelihoods, with no guarantees, all too often for no pay, not enough food, little ammunition, and all for the intangible hope of freedom.

To embark upon our current fight for freedom should be an easier task for us. Our 18th century predecessors did not know what it was like to be free men and wouldn’t until they had delivered themselves from the yoke of Imperial tyranny.

We, as Americans, have known what it is to be free for over 220 years, and we are, under this president, beginning to wake up to the nightmare of tyrannical statist control, which is succeeding in taking over increasingly numerous aspects of our lives.

This at first surreptitious and now brazen theft of our freedoms is unacceptable to the American spirit, and we know full well that the restoration of our freedoms is worth fighting for. I guess the radical left thinks that because of their mistaken and temporary ascendancy to governmental leadership in America, we are just going to hand over our nation and our freedom to them. “We won,” they keep telling us.

If they think that this easy relinquishing of our freedoms is going to happen, they haven’t studied the history of this nation and its people.

George Washington was an exacting commander in chief, as he was a president.

He would demand no less from us that we recapture our dignity as a nation, and as a people.

God Bless America and a Happy New Year!