20 Amazing Photos February 12, 2015February 11, 2015 SIGA This analysis seems to ignore legal fees and operating expenses . . . it costs money to appeal lawsuits and to stay in business . . . but nonetheless reinforces my resolve to hang on. The worst case may be less than a total loss, with the possibility of a fourfold or greater return. BOREF IATA has posted all the slides from last week’s conference — including WheelTug’s “Prezi”. (Just keep clicking the forward arrow. Some pages are static; one shows WheelTug taxiing on a wet snowy runway; one shows how “the Twist” will allow passengers to board and deplane from both the front and rear doors.) REPULICAN GOVERNOR RESTORES DISCRIMINATION Gotta love Sam Brownback for standing up for his principles — slashing K-12 funding, and now overturning the ban on discriminating against gay and lesbian state employees. It’s a Grand Old Party indeed. And may I note that when it comes to presidential politics, his red state is not known solely for Geroge Wallace, as Alabama is (and even he had a change of heart); but, being a Kansan, for the much more decent (if you ask me) Bob Dole and Dwight D. Eisenhower. Not that Kansas is Vermont or California — but really, Governor? Is this action necessary in 2015? 20 AMAZING PHOTOS What a world. (Thanks, yet again, Mel.) Enjoy!
Mississippi: A Ray Of Hope February 11, 2015February 10, 2015 MEASLES AND THE MEDIA I’ve always been a fan of Face The Nation’s Bob Schieffer and once made him laugh. (There’d been some chaos in the stock market and, asked where it was headed next, said, “I haven’t got a clue.” He thought I was kidding.) Mr. Schieffer’s elegant under-two-minute commentary on vaccines this past Sunday is must-viewing. Did you know that the study that set off the whole anti-vaccine movement was not only 100% discredited and retracted, and that its author was barred from the further practice of medicine, but that — and this is the killer detail — he had taken $670,000 to write it from a lawyer who hoped to sue vaccines makers? MISSISSIPPI Friday I posted a letter that called out Repulicans for denying “critical healthcare for over a quarter of a million hard working Tennesseans . . . 800 [of whom] have already died waiting for healthcare expansion.” Now comes this report* of a former two-term Mississippi Republican state senator switching parties, saying: Elected officials should be in the business of helping all Mississippians, not picking out who to hurt . . . The Republican Party leaders’ actions against supporting Medicaid expansion and threatening our local hospitals was the final, deciding factor for me. . . . We see these current [Republican] leaders make excuses for underfunding our schools, we see them refuse to repair and maintain our crumbling roads and bridges . . . In response, the Republican state party chair told the Clarion Ledger: “I guess this begs the question of whether he’s really been a Republican all these years.” As if to say true Republicans do stand for threatening local hospitals, underfunding schools, and refusing to maintain our crumbling infrastructure. And as I argued Friday, as a practical matter, if not in so many words, they do stand for unfortunate things: Allowing our infrastucture to crumble, quadrupling the National Debt under Reagan/Bush, denying a hike in the minimum wage, denying climate science, sending the National Debt soaring again under Bush 43 after Clinton handed him a surplus, handing Obama a $1.5 trillion deficit plus two wars and a global depression it would cost a fortune to avert, repealing Row v. Wade, repealing health care, privatizing Social Security, denying women reproductive rights and gays the right to serve in the military or marry, cutting taxes on the wealthy and the estate tax on billionheirs to zero, fighting consumer protections, fighting environmental regulations, and opposing anything Obama favors, even if it’s something they ardently supported until he did. (Also from Friday: I hate being so partisan. If this were the party of Lincoln or Teddy Roosevelt or Eisenhower — or the moderate Republicans who used to serve in the Senate and House but who’ve been primaried out by defiantly uncompromising right-wingers (“shut it down!”) or else forced back into the moderate closet for fear of being booted out — if this were that party, I’d still vote Democrat most of the time but my life would be entirely different, writing books instead of screeds and seeking people’s help.) Hurray for Senator Tim Johnson of Mississippi. May his example inspire others. *Hat tip: Steve Benen.
Why YOU Should Consider A Dashcam February 10, 2015February 21, 2015 There is a reason most Russians have dashboard cameras — and reasons you should too. But there is no accounting for the way so many Russians walked away from these accidents. Yikes! BOREF A day after presenting to the IATA conference, described here yesterday, WheelTug’s CEO flew to New York to present at the Cowen “36th Annual Aerospace/Defense Conference & Transport One-on-One Forum” — invited back after debuting there last year. The 15 companies presenting Thursday were Textron (market cap $12 billion), Science Applications International ($2 billion), Allegiant Travel ($3 billion), TYCO ($17 billion), Northrop Grumman ($32 billion), ICF International ($750 million), Vectrus ($300 million), Cytec Industries ($3 billion), Embraer ($6 billion), Booz Allen Hamilton ($4 billion), Spirit Aerosystems ($6 billion), KLX ($4 billion), Harris Corporation ($8 billion), Honeywell ($79 billion) . . . . . . and tiny WheelTug. Which was given a generous introduction as, “something everybody will know about in a few years.” Maybe, maybe not. But it’s nice to think so.
Serious People February 8, 2015 Friday I posted this free 54-minute documentary (Psychics! Faith-healers! Spoon-benders! — all exposed) and asked: “Is there anything more fun than this?” . . . answering that, yes, there would be one thing: backing a 737 out from the gate without a tug and start-stopping down the conga line without having to light the main engines and ride the brakes. There are three proposed approaches to doing this: 1. TaxiBot. You can read all about it and watch videos here. An absolutely brilliant feat of Israeli engineering (according to one of its competitors) — a vehicle with phenomonal capabilities. They’ve built three, one of which is in daily operation on a test basis in Frankfurt, restricted to runway 18 (and operating only between 3am and 5am in the morning, someone told me). It already has approval of the European aviation authority and may get quick FAA approval because it’s not part of the airplane. It clamps on, is controlled by the pilot in a way that feels as though it’s not even there, and disengages when the plane is ready to warm its engines and take off. But from what I understand, it takes a couple of minutes to engage and another couple to disengage; it clutters the airport with another vehicle to worry about as it returns to the gate; and it has no natural customer: airlines don’t usually own and operate their own tugs, so probably would not want to spend $1 million-plus buying each of these only to have them sit idle much of the time for only modest savings . . . and airports have little incentive to buy them. What if you could (in effect) shrink the giant TaxiBot into a little motor in the nosewheel of the plane? That’s the WheelTug solution. 2. EGTS — the Safran/Honeywell solution. Read all about it and watch videos here. The fact that it will weigh about 880 pounds to WheelTug’s 300-pound system is one issue. Another is that it is a bigger decision for customers — no airlines have yet reserved slots, compared with 20 that have reserved 976 WheelTug slots — because installing and removing EGTS is not the relatively trivial matter that it is with WheelTug. EGTS will likely face a more challenging flight certification process because its system is positioned adjacent to the main landing gear, which become extremely hot (and in the rare worst case, catch fire) from application of the brakes (there are no brakes in the nose gear). Having the heat from the EGTS motors alongside the heat from the main landing gear could add to the time it takes the brakes to cool down. And until they do cool down, the plane is stuck at the gate. 3. WheelTug. I’ve been betting on this solution for a long time and so was interested to attend the concluding sessions of IATA’s two-day Aircraft Taxiing Systems Conference in Miami Wednesday and finally meet some of the principals I had previously only seen on video or heard on conference calls. I was encouraged. These are serious people — with serious business partners committing time and resources because they believe the odds of a pay off are good. The CEO, Isaiah Cox, and his brother, Joseph, are razor-sharp smart and entrepreneurially obsessed. And they “present well.” I can’t imagine anyone having a deeper understanding of the terrain than these two. I already knew this. But sitting next to me was a guy who turned out to be one of WheelTug’s “introducers,” Walt Klein, with — according to the resume I found on-line — “32 years of operational experience, primarily in leadership positions. Accountable for budgets of $573M and for ensuring the reliability of a 450+ aircraft commercial airline fleet. . . . Improved engine turn times over 55%; from 100 to <45 days (CF-34 engines); reduced costs 30% and improved quality 20% (various products). Typical tools: Six Sigma and Theory of Constraints. Improved fleet dispatch reliability from 97.25 to 97.48 in one year and reduced flight exceptions by 15% in two. Engineered the largest fleet interior modification in Delta’s history in support of new brand initiatives and international expansion.” My point in cutting and pasting all that: this strikes me as a serious person. Another gentleman I got to meet: Jan Vana, leading WheelTug’s development and marketing efforts in Europe. I found this at Bloomberg.com: “Mr. Vana served as an Executive Director of Strategic Planning & Development Division of CSA Czech Airlines from December 10, 2003 to April 30, 2006. Previously, he served as Commercial Director of ABS Jets, the largest business jet provider in Eastern Europe. . . . He served as a Jet Pilot in the Czechoslovak Air Force, and later, he served in the Czech Republic’s Ministry of Defence, including as Vice-Minister of Defence, responsible for reform of the Czech Armed Forces and their integration into NATO and the EU. Mr. Vana served as the Representative of the Czech Republic at NATO. . . .” Another gracious, really smart, serious person. And do you know what he did? When he joined WheelTug a few years ago, he took a job working as a wing man at the Prague Airport for three months — the country’s former vice minister of defense was one of the guys with red plastic ear muffs — because he believed that to do his job right, he had to understand at the most granular level exactly how airport ramp operations work in real life. It reminded me of the way, in the early days of Revlon, when no one had ever heard of him and he had not a pot to piss in, Charles Revson would test nail polish on his own nails to know his product better than anyone else. None of this makes WheelTug (and thus Borealis) a sure thing, as I keep cautioning. Make this bet only with money you can truly afford to lose. But the fact that the International Air Transport Association would even have such a conference I find encouraging. (The conference concluded with what seemed to be a general agreement to meet again in a year or less.) Participants included airlines, airports, and representatives of Boeing and Airbus. Boeing’s rep said they believe the main landing gear are the right place to put the motors — where Safran/Honeywell is putting them — because that’s where the weight is concentrated. If there’s little weight on the nose wheel, the worry is that — especially on wet or icy tarmacs — WheelTug won’t gain enough traction to pull the plane. WheelTug says its tests have shown that in almost all conditions there is enough traction; and that in conditions where there’s not, you’d just taxi the old fashioned way. Another criticism is that WheelTug’s maximum speed, at least at first, would be 10 miles an hour. EGTS and TaxiBot go twice as fast. The company argues that for much of ground operations you don’t need to go faster, but that, in any event, most of the savings available to airlines will come close to the gate: Not having to wait for a tug. Not having to board and deplane passengers from just the front door. Not having to lose a few minutes each morning at airports with noise curfews. And all those savings can be captured without exceeding 10 mph. The world seems to be moving toward a better way for planes to taxi. If it happens, it will be very good for passengers and airports and — for those that adopt it early — airlines. (Once they’re all on board with this, fare competition would likely force most of the savings through to customers.) If it happens with WheelTug, it should be very good for shareholders in its grandarent, Borealis, currently valued at $45 million, one-sixth this lovely Cezanne. It remains the best lottery ticket I’ve ever seen. But lottery tickets [understatementON] are not sure things [understatementOFF].
More Amazement: BOREF and Tennessee February 6, 2015February 5, 2015 RANDI Tom: “I’d never heard of the Amazing Randi before Tuesday’s post but found this free 54-minute documentary.” ☞ Psychics! Faith-healers! Spoon-benders! All exposed. Is there anything more fun than this? Yes, there would be one thing: Backing a fully loaded commercial jet out from the gate without a tug and inching it along the conga line without having to light the main engines. BOREF A friend attended Tuesday’s session of IATA’s “Aircraft Taxiing Systems Conference” — the fact that the International Air Transport Association would even have such a conference I find encouraging — and I attended Wednesday afternoon’s session and met the CEO and some of his key colleagues. The saga continues. Own shares of WheelTug grandparent Borealis only with money you can truly afford to lose. (And be sure to place “limit” orders; the stock is very thinly traded.) It remains the best lottery ticket I’ve ever seen. But [understatement ON] lottery tickets are not sure things [understatementOFF]. I plan to write a bit more about this tomorrow or over the weekend. TENNESSEE Tennessee Democratic Party Chair Mary Mancini: Yesterday was a truly a low point in our state’s history. With one vote in a senate committee, seven Republican senators made a decision to shut the door to critical healthcare for over a quarter of a million hard working Tennesseans. [. . .] But those seven Republican senators didn’t act in a vacuum. The end of Insure Tennessee is a direct result in the failure of leadership by Republican leaders Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey and Speaker Beth Harwell. It was their failure to lead, their failure to have the courage to stand up to right wing extremists, and their failure to serve 6.5 million Tennesseans that lead to 7 Republican senators making the terrible decision that will devastate the lives of 250,000 Tennesseans for years to come. Those seven Republican senators showed that they have absolutely no compassion for the 800 Tennesseans who have already died waiting for healthcare expansion. Those seven Republican senators showed that they have absolutely no fiscal sense by rejecting the one billion dollars in federal funds that Tennessee would have already received with healthcare expansion. Those seven Republican senator showed that Governor Haslam was wrong when he told our President that Republicans could be trusted to care for “the least of these”. Tennessee’s Republican legislators have shown they are unwilling to put people first and that they are incapable of running our state. Democratic Senator Jeff Yarbro, who stood up for Tennesseans by voting for Insure Tennessee in the committee, pointed out the simple fact that Republicans who deny hardworking Tennesseans the healthcare they need are themselves on government funded healthcare. House Leader Craig Fitzhugh said, “It does matter who governs.” Congressman Steve Cohen said the vote was “Foolish, foolish, foolish. Sad, sad, sad. Sick, sick, sick,” and Congressman Jim Cooper said, “Tennesseans will die and hospitals will close as a result of a cruel state legislature. Rarely in state history have we seen such a devastating lack of leadership.” As Democrats, we will keep fighting for all Tennesseans, even when tea party extremists celebrate Insure Tennessee’s defeat. Tell me again what the Republican Party stands for? Allowing our infrastucture to crumble, quadrupling the National Debt under Reagan/Bush, denying a hike in the minimum wage, sending the National Debt soaring again under Bush 43 after Clinton handed him a surplus, handing Obama a $1.5 trillion deficit plus two wars and a global depression it would cost a fortune to avert, repealing Row v Wade, repealing health care, privatizing Social Security, denying women the right to make their own reproductive health care decisions and gays the right to serve in the military or marry, cutting the tax on billionheirs to zero, fighting consumer protections and environmental regulation, and opposing anything Obama favors, even if it’s something they ardently supported until he did. A Grand Old Party indeed. I hate being so partisan. If this were the party of Lincoln or Teddy Roosevelt or Eisenhower — or the moderate Republicans who used to serve in the Senate and House but who’ve been primaried out by defiantly uncompromising right-wingers (“shut it down!”) or else forced back into the moderate closet for fear of being challenged in a well-funded primary and losing their jobs — if this were that party, I’d still vote Democrat most of the time but my life would be entirely different, writing books instead of screeds and seeking people’s help. Have a great weekend!
The New Limits February 5, 2015February 5, 2015 Jim Burt: “Plus ca change . . . In 1941, while Congress was holding hearings on whether to renew the peacetime draft and extend the service of the first year’s draftees, who had only been brought in for twelve months of training, there was a gathering of Republican congressmen at the Army-Navy Club in Washington at which Army Chief of Staff George C. Marshall spoke strongly and eloquently in favor of the renewal and extension. As you will find in Joseph Persico’s Roosevelt’s Centurions at p. 7, “One balky congressman told Marshall, ‘You put the case very well, but I will be damned if I am going to go along with Mr. Roosevelt.’ The usually unflappable Marshall exploded: ‘You are going to let plain hatred of the personality dictate to you to do something that you realize is very harmful to the interest of the country!’” The bill passed by one vote. If it had not, less than six months before the Pearl Harbor attack two-thirds of the Army’s enlisted men and three-quarters of its officers would have had to be released from service. One party in Congress is still reflexively opposing anything a sitting president endorses, even when they agree with him. Some things just don’t appear to change.” And some things do — like the cap on federal campaign contributions, which rise with inflation each cycle. The F.E.C. has just issued the new limits, and you’ll be delighted to know you can now give any candidate for federal office — House, Senate, or Presidency — $2,700 for his or her primary contest, up from $2,600 (even if he or she is running unopposed) and $2,700 for the general, so $5,400 in all. And you may now give national party committees $33,400 each year instead of $32,400. (And, by the way? It would thrill me if you did.) If you think this is just a tad obscene, I agree. But hang on — it gets ever so much worse. Until the Bush Supreme Court handed the Republicans a decision last year called McCutcheon, the most you or I or the Koch brothers could give to federal candidates and committees over the two-year federal election cycle was $123,200. If your spouse did likewise: $246,400. That, too, would have been adjusted for inflation this week, except that with its McCutcheon decision the Court removed the aggregate limit. Then, as a condition for not shutting down the government before they left town for Christmas a few weeks ago, the Republicans made another change. To each of each political party’s three national committees they added two additional, triple-size ($100,200) buckets — one for building operations, one for potential recounts — and, in the case of the DNC and RNC, a third triple-size bucket for the party conventions. So now — ours being a nation of “one man, one vote” democracy where everyone has an equal say — here’s what each of us can give over the current 2015-2016 cycle: $5,400 to each of 535 House and Senate candidates and a presidential candidate or two: $2.9 million . . . plus $334,000 to the DNC’s or RNC’s three buckets each year, $668,000 for the cycle . . . plus $233,800 each to the DSCC and DCCC or RSCC and RCCC buckets each year, $935,000 for the cycle . . . plus $10,000 a year to the federal accounts of each of the 50 state parties, $1 million for the cycle . . . plus $5,000 a year to each of an unlimited number of federal PACs, like the NRA’s PAC or the Sierra Club’s PAC or any given Congressman’s PAC, which for the sake of argument let’s arbitrarily call another $100,000. So: $5.6 million. If your spouse did likewise, $11.2 million. You or I might have trouble finding $5.6 million or $11.2 million this cycle but to the Koch brothers or Sheldon Adelson it’s chump change, leaving them lots of room to give much more: to thousands of state legislative candidates, to candidates for governor and secretary of state, to the national governors’ committees (the DGA and RGA), to the non-federal accounts of state parties, to so-called “dark money” committees for “independent expenditures” — and more. The Koch brothers and their friends have publicly committed $889 million to win the White House and make further legislative gains in 2016. If they succeed, they will also have bought the Supreme Court for the next two or three decades. I’m not entirely comfortable with this.
Of Metronomes And Measles February 4, 2015February 3, 2015 ELLEN It’s hard marching to your own drummer — behold these metronomes. (Four minutes but you can skip ahead.) They fall into line. Even for a metronome, it seems. there’s pressure to conform. Ellen DeGeneres is having none of it. Which by now, I guess, is not such a big deal. But back in 1987? When she was first on the cover of Time (“Yep, I’m Gay”)? That took courage. In this under-three-minute clip she responds to a pastor who doesn’t care what the courts say: civil marriage should be reserved only for opposite-sex couples. To which the pastor — somewhat dazzled that she’s made him so famous — responds here. It’s quite loving and constructive until near the end, when the music starts to play, and — making no distinction between the civil marriage rights the courts have upheld and the religious marriage rites on which they would not presume to rule — he lumps same-sex marriage in with polygamy, incest, bestiality, and necrophilia. (And seems to think that allowing gays to marry will promote promiscuity and thus spread disease.) Allow marriage, he says, and the floodgates will open. Yet in liberal Massachusetts, which has had marriage equality for more than a decade, has anyone noticed calls for legalizing polygamy? Or marrying beasts or corpses? I’ve missed that flood. MEASLES Jim Burt: “There have been a lot of headlines and much hand-wringing in the media in recent days concerning the vaccination of children and parents’ ‘rights’ to refuse vaccinations on behalf of their children. The anti-science party’s elected representatives and officials have, in some cases, taken the position that this falls within an area in which parents’ convictions should be considered, and some have even singled out religious convictions as a valid basis for declining vaccination for children. This is arguably consistent with the propensity of the anti-science party to support the rights of major corporations to pollute the air and water of persons downwind and downstream from their facilities, since in both cases the result is to permit a threat to public health and safety in deference to keeping the heavy hand of government out of the lives (and businesses) of some people. I wonder how those same people would react to someone in their neighborhood allowing his property to deteriorate so that it became a mosquito hatchery and rat nursery in an area known to be subject to endemic plague, West Nile virus, malaria, yellow fever, and encephalitis – all of which, incidentally, can breed in the Cotton Belt. Children – I speak as the proud grandfather of five – are mobile cesspools of infection to start with, but vaccination can at least prevent the transmission of some of the nastier diseases, such as mumps, measles, and chicken pox, all of which can have long-term detrimental consequences. There is no real difference between allowing one’s neighbor to operate a mosquito hatchery and allowing her children to be ambulatory fever swamps.”
Six Amazing Minutes February 3, 2015February 2, 2015 RANDI Friday, I noted that the Amazing Randi is retiring and offered a link to this amazing photo and the accompanying New York Times profile. I can’t wait for “An Honest Liar” come to the US and have already pre-ordered my copy. Watch the trailer! (Two minutes.) But also watch the completely different 2-minute video embedded in the New York Times piece. And these two minutes, where Penn & Teller credit Randi with creating their partnership. (Teller, he don’t say much.) If you’ve been with me for a while, you may recall that I described 15 years ago how Randi and I had once used our combined mental powers to cause a stationary Bic pen to fall off my desk from a distance of ten feet away. And how to astound bartenders all over town. ART AND CRAFT Meanwhile, when IMDB saw I was scoping out “An Honest Liar,” its algorithm volunteered that I might like “Art and Craft,” about an art forger. Judging from the trailer, I almost surely will, and you may, too. (Should either of us not have 90 minutes to watch the whole thing, we’ll probably get 80% of it from the trailer.)
Getting Your Money’s Worth From PBS February 2, 2015February 1, 2015 Two clips . . . on inequality, the threat of deflation, and more: RAPPING ABOUT INEQUALITY IN CHINA . . . IN CHINA How cool is this young American macroeconomic rap sensation in China? My pal Paul Solman reports for the PBS Newshour. The question in China is the same as here: how do we better deal with economic inequality? Whatever happened to an economy where anyone who worked hard could secure a place in the middle class? (We could have that again: stop blocking a higher minimum wage; stop trying to kill collective bargaining; stop blocking our terribly overdue infrastructure revitalization that should be funded largely by a slightly more progressive income tax and/or a carbon tax.) RAPPING ABOUT INEQUALITY HERE (AND OTHER STUFF) . . . LARRY SUMMERS Larry Summers’ shares his macroeconomic view with Charlie Rose. He wasn’t the most deft when, as President of Harvard, he expressed his views on women’s innate aptitude for science. (He had just been trying to provoke discussion, I think he later explained.) But he’s one of the world’s sharpest economic minds — and his heart is in the right place. His current thinking yours for 18 minutes without your having to spend $30,000 to attend Davos.
SUPERBOWL SPECIAL ALERT!!! February 1, 2015 Posting a day early because this new sports betting app costs nothing (you bet no actual money) yet awards prizes every day (actual money!) and I know the guy behind it — it’s not a scam — and I know that 27 million people play fantasy football (I saw that on CBS Sunday Morning this morning) and I know that millions more watch other sports, too, and once every year or two I try to post something here that’s sports-related even though I am still not certain how the scoring works. It’s three points instead of two if they get the pigskin through the hoop from far enough away, but not if the goalie manages to block it and he’s the only one who can use his hands — right? And then the winning team jumps over the net? Here’s the website. The FAQ (which I now can’t find) is fun but does not address the most obvious question: how will it make money? My friend explained: “It’s free. The non-Super Bowl daily prizes are now between $500 and $1000. Super Bowl is a special day — there are usually 5 different games, today just one with 5 kinds of bets. (If you tap the ball there is an article about the game/bet for those who don’t know.) The revenue model is that some small percentage of players will play a money game at Daily Lineup which is another slightly more complicated sports game (you are asked after you place your free bets if you want to play Daily Lineup). Believe it or not, there is a fantasy sports exception in the gambling law that exempts sports-betting for games of skill. Betting on the outcome of a game is still illegal (but since Daily Bracket is free we can do it).” Have fun tonight. Go, Packers!