Author: A.T.

But first . . .

I’m sure you’ve seen the news: Manchin, in Reversal, Agrees to Quick Action on Climate and Tax Plan.

It will also lower drug prices.

A very good day.

And now . . .

BASEBALL (Three minutes.)

And you think you have problems!

(Well, I hope you don’t, but watch.  Pretty great.)

THE ANTI-CHRIST?  (One minute.)

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“His followers will wear his symbol on their foreheads*.  They will worship him.”

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And they will have been misled.

They really believe he won the election; that he has a still-secret plan to give them “great health care at a tiny fraction of the cost”; that his calls to Ukraine asking for political dirt and to thrice-recounted Georgia asking for 11,780 votes . . . were “perfect calls.”

Quite a few of them, we are coming to learn, identify as “white Christian nationalists.”  (A must-watch first four minutes.)

And Trump — however unChristlike — is their man.

*Or a couple of inches above.

But first . . .

One week you vote against protecting gay marriage, the next you attend your son’s gay wedding.

Kind of like voting against abortion — unless it’s your daughter who needs one.

(Fortunately, you can afford to send her to a state where the goal is to make abortion safe, legal, and rare.)

Speaking of which . . . Alabama pastor David Barnhart opines:

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“The unborn” are a convenient group of people to advocate for. They never make demands of you; they are morally uncomplicated, unlike the incarcerated, addicted, or the chronically poor; they don’t resent your condescension or complain that you are not politically correct; unlike widows, they don’t ask you to question patriarchy; unlike orphans, they don’t need money, education, or childcare; unlike aliens, they don’t bring all that racial, cultural, and religious baggage that you dislike; they allow you to feel good about yourself without any work at creating or maintaining relationships; and when they are born, you can forget about them, because they cease to be unborn. It’s almost as if, by being born, they have died to you. You can love the unborn and advocate for them without substantially challenging your own wealth, power, or privilege, without re-imagining social structures, apologizing, or making reparations to anyone. They are, in short, the perfect people to love if you want to claim you love Jesus but actually dislike people who breathe.

Prisoners? Immigrants? The sick? The poor? Widows? Orphans? All the groups that are specifically mentioned in the Bible? They all get thrown under the bus for the unborn.

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And now . . .

The Myth Of Putin As World Energy Czar Is Running Out Of Gas.  

What a mess he has made for the world — and his own people.

He got the most votes.

Roger Stone and others (sentenced to 40 months in jail for his latest assault on democracy) — with a huge unintentional assist from egotist Ralph Nader and a partisan Supreme Court — conspired to put someone else in office . . . a really likeable guy named George W. Bush who gave us the right-leaning Court that would later gut the Voting Rights Act; who gave us an inequality-ballooning tax cut for those who needed it least; and who gave us the disastrous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan when that same money could have revitalized our infrastructure.

He even gave us a tax break for buying Hummers.

History would have been so different if Al Gore had been president.

But once the Court ruled on his appeal, he put country first and conceded.*

If you missed these 14 minutes on Sunday’s Meet The Press, watch.

As our warming planet lurches toward misery and potential uninhabitability, it’s a message people of every political persuasion should embrace.

*Only one President in history has refused to leave office peacefully.  On the question of whether or not to indict him, there is now a clear answer.

But first . . .

If you missed Thursday’s hearing, Republican Representative Adam Kinzinger’s four-minute closing statement says it all.

If you have more time, and/or wonder whether Merrick Garland should or will indict (and for what), listen to last night’s Lawrence O’Donnell.  (The advantage of the podcast over the video: almost no ads, which you can skip, and the ability to speed it up, though I found no need to.)

And now . . .

. . . for fellow long-suffering Borealis shareholders . . . or those who have simply watched with amusement (starting here, in the previous century) . . .

. . . I offer this, from WheelTug CEO Isaiah Cox.  (Meet me at the end.)  As you know, WheelTug is majority owned by Borealis.

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WheelTug in Perspective

Some have asked whether WheelTug would be something readily copied by some would-be competitor or another. Indeed, I have the impression that people sometimes think WheelTug’s real competitive advantage is that we dreamed up the idea of electric taxi before anyone else, and that the popularity, when we achieve it, will necessarily bring lots of competitors. And consequently that those competitors merely need the idea in order to effectively compete.

This is not quite correct. I have met *hundreds* of people who tell me they had the idea of WheelTug! You may recall that in the past we had competitors: L-3 and Crane worked on a competitor. Safran and Honeywell did, too! These are not minor players, and they are not stupid. But they all went for the main wheel at least in part because it has more space. And they all failed. We are the only player in the market today.

As I love recalling, the head of R&D for Airbus, before 2010, put this image up on the screen . . .

. . . and proclaimed: “We at Airbus know how to move planes. We have done it every possible way. We have even moved airplanes with an elephant. And I can tell you, there is no possible way to fit the elephant into the nosewheel.”

And you know, given what was known in the world in 2010 HE WAS RIGHT. That was before we had optimized our motor. It was before we had invented the technologies that made our gear half the size of the comparable gear. It was before we had a clutch solution. We lacked the knowhow, the solutions, the partners, the optimization, the certification pathway.

What we did not lack was a refusal to quit. And the unsupported belief that, despite what Airbus (and countless others) said, it could be done, and it would be done by WheelTug.

Yes, WheelTug would need a lot of “firsts”. The first titanium wheel in the history of commercial aerospace, and the knowledge and knowhow to make it happen (Thanks, ATI and Stirling!).  A gear technology that we designed within WheelTug – and built and tested, time and again until we got it right (thank you, MechEng team!). Incredible work on the electronics suite, thanks to the world-class team at Ultra. And there are all kinds of suppliers we do not trumpet, but also make parts that are unrivalled in the world – the bearing specialists, and the companies that designed custom seals. We have many partners that make parts that we believe could not have been made by anyone else in the world.

Much of our work is not miraculous – it is just hard to do well, and especially hard to do well the first time. We needed – and acquired – incredible partners, from Phixos (software) to Luminator (panels, wheel cap, racks & trays, wiring). The creative problem solving and diligence of Kalco and their deeply-valued machining capabilities. Every one of these companies gambled when they chose to work with us. Wow.

When we pitch to airlines, we explain that WheelTug is a simple retrofit product – which it is, from the customer’s perspective. But in reality, WheelTug is a highly, highly engineered and complex system. There is nothing simple about it, except in the finished product. WheelTug reminds me of the adage that technology that is sufficiently advanced and polished is indistinguishable from magic.

We have built a federation of companies that have worked together to put the elephant in the nosewheel. Now we are all certifying it, and putting it into service. The journey has been a lot harder than we expected – which is why it has taken longer – but we are getting it done. I could not be more proud of what this team has accomplished, and what we are all doing now as we push toward the Entry Into Service.

New entrants simply do not pop up in commercial aerospace in the 21st century. There are too many barriers to entry, information and expertise that does not grow on trees. It takes too long, costs too much, and has numerous pitfalls. Yet now that WheelTug has signed our Launch Customer, we are no longer a “new entrant.” We are known. We have the team, the suppliers, the partners. We have the factory, the comprehensive incoming inspections, quality and logistical systems. The list goes on.

The elephant is in the nosewheel. It does not squeeze in there very easily, I can tell you.  Which illustrates that WheelTug is not only a concept – because thousands of people have had the concept, but it always went nowhere. WheelTug is not only the financial guidance to understand the real value to the industry, from The Twist to time savings, engine savings to emissions. It is not only all the technologies and the value they unlock – which has become 131 issued patents with 50+ pending, plus a host of trade secrets. It is the enormous diligence and hard work of our team, and the team of our partners and
suppliers.

WheelTug is also the investment and patience and support of all of our investors, to whom we are forever grateful. I cannot wait until y’all start cashing the dividend checks, year after year.

We are changing the way aircraft operate on the ground in the most fundamental way since (at least) the dawn of the jet age. And we thank you.

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So listen: this remains a highly speculative investment to be made with money you can truly afford to lose.  (And it trades very thinly, so use “limits” in placing any order to buy or sell.)

Yes, they’ve shown that it really works.

And, yes, because they have their pre-certification agreement with the FAA (and because WheelTug’s failure, like the failure of a tray-table or the entertainment system, would not endanger lives), I think it’s likely they will eventually get certified.

But can they produce systems “at scale” that work reliably?  Will the financing come through to keep moving forward to the day that revenue actually begins to flow?  Will airlines lease the systems for enough to reward us richly?   I have a lot personally invested in the bet that the answers will be yes.

With 5 million shares outstanding, BOREF, at $5 or $6 a share, is valued at $30 million, less than a Hamptons estate and — more to the point — less than a single airplane.  If WheelTug succeeds in cutting ground time by 10 to 20 minutes per flight, short-haul airlines will eventually increase their capacity by 10% or 15% without having to hire a single new crew member — or buying a single new plane.  So ultimately, this technology could “produce” the equivalent of a thousand new planes.

But a lot still has to go right.

As to the 181+ patents Isaiah references, that’s great.  But as ParkerVision has demonstrated — another of our swing-for-the fences bets — it can take a great deal of money and a great many years to enforce a patent, even when completely valid.

Have a great weekend . . . and week.

Watch Kinzinger.  Listen to O’Donnell.  One a conservative.  One a liberal.  Both patriots.

From the Economist:  The Democrats need to wake up and stop pandering to their extremes.  “For the good of America, the governing party urgently needs to take on its own activists.”  Or put another way: the perfect is the enemy of the good.  No one should be thrown under the bus; but in order to make progress for the most vulnerable — not least by taxing billionaires at rates as high as dentists pay — we need to win.

So it may seem odd for me now to post this Fox News debate between the admirably honest, consistent Bernie Sanders and the by-now-truly-pathetic Lindsey Graham.  Yet it’s well worth watching, with these caveats:

(1) I couldn’t find a link to the full debate, so these are six snippets stitched together by David Doel, an eminently well-meaning liberal Canadian;

(2) I agree with most of what Bernie says but only some of what Doel says (so maybe skip his riffs?);

(3) I don’t see Bernie as Joe’s replacement if Joe decides not to run.

Leaving aside his age — 81 this coming September — I think we have a better chance of winning with someone who won’t scare independents and moderate Republicans (who are by now, essentially, moderate Democrats).

If we had such a nominee, my hope is that our outstanding left-wing leaders, like Bernie and Elizabeth — and so many others, less well known — and young climate and gun-safety activists and pop stars and rock stars and preachers and maybe even (who knows?) Ralph F—ing Nader — will help our nominee persuade everyone on the left that the whole world is at stake, so it’s urgently better to win with someone good than to lose with someone perfect.

UKRAINE

From Russia’s to-me-very-odd point of view. What a mess.

TEXAS

Mothers Against Greg Abbott.  What an opportunity.  Millions have already watched this 90-second clip.

BOREF

WheelTug inches forward.

MYM

Fred C.: “Loved your column today.  I still use MYM.  Much better than Quicken and the greatest piece of software I have ever used.  Between that and your book you have meant a lot to me during the years.  Now if you could just tone down the political rhetoric…”

Ken R.: “I was amused by your posting about MYM.  I still use it, running in a program called vDOS.  For what I need it for it works wonderfully still.  I was a little concerned if it was going to run on my new Win-11 computer (it certainly worked under Win-8 and Win-10.)  But I just ported the entire vDOS folder from the old D drive to the new computer’s D drive and didn’t alter anything and the program just worked the same on both computers.  Easy peasy.  Thanks.  Enjoy the select committee hearing upcoming.  I’m about as committed a Democrat as they come (I stayed up all night to listen to Truman win on the radio at age 7); but I just can’t help feeling that the crazies are increasingly in charge and this wonderful experiment in democracy is going to fail despite everything one can do.  I’d love to be proved wrong…after all so much depends on it surviving.”

→ Amen.

TONIGHT

Here’s how to watch.

A long time ago, before Windows, there was DOS.  An equally long time ago, before there was Quicken, there was a software package called Managing Your Money that some of us still use.  Never mind that it was orphaned 28 years ago.

It was so fun cajoling the geniuses who built that program into doing what I wanted it to do.  And yes, I mean you, Jerry Rubin (and you, too, Steve Wagar, Spencer Martin, Jim Russell, Beth McLain, Mike Starkey and several others whose names time has buried too deep in my brain).

Could it print checks?

Yep.

Could it download stock prices directly at the end of each day?

Could it sort your stocks by Symbol, Value, Dollar Gain, Percentage Gain, Annualized Gain, and Purchase Date?

Yep.

Could it estimate your life expectancy, tell you how much life insurance you need, guide you in buying it and give you a place to record all your policies including auto, homeowners, and umbrella?

Yep.

A built-in word processor?  A financial calculator?  A retirement planner?  A button to print out a report for everything your heirs would need, in their grief, upon your demise?  An income tax estimator?  A calendar to keep all your appointments?  A “rolodex” that’s STILL better in some respects than Outlook?

Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep . . . all they ever said was yes.

How about handling “return of capital” distributions?  Hypothetical portfolios?  Stock splits?  A guide to getting out of debt?  Budgeting?  Buy-versus-rent analysis?  Mortgage refinancing?  Rental property analysis?

Yep.

Could it print an amortization schedule?  Adjust it for pre-payments and interest rate payments?  Help you reconcile your checkbook?  Keep track of accounts payable and receivable?  And all your loans, borrowed and lent?

You get the idea.

I long ago switched to Outlook for the PDA functions, but still use MYM for lots of other functions, including the section where it tots up your Net Worth.

I’ll admit it.  I like to keep track.  Over the years, with ups and downs (and now I’m looking at you, PRKR), it has grown.

Each time I, or any MYM user, pressed F6 to update our Net Worth, extracting all our assets and liabilities from elsewhere in the program, it would whir for a few seconds, and then display Your Net Worth, your “debt/equity ratio” and offer some text elaborating on your situation.

It seemed to me this could be a place to have a little fun, which we tried to sprinkle throughout the program, and so I asked the geniuses if we could tack on a sentence or two . . .

. . . following the verbiage about their contingent tax liability . . .

. . . to put their Net Worth into context.

For example:

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If you liquidated everything and converted it to $20 bills, you’d have a stack 32 feet high.

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Or . . .

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You know the expression “If I had a nickel for every time one of you kids left the screen door open?”  If that’s how you accumulated your net wealth, we can assume your kids left the door open 378,219 times.  You better get a door that shuts by itself!  Wait, that’s Managing Your Mosquitos.

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There were lots of these, which appeared more or less at random, with a few programmed to appear rarely (if memory serves). so you never knew for sure you’d seen them all.  (And each year, we tried to add a few new ones.)

I came upon one just now I hadn’t seen in a long time, and that’s what triggered this morning’s self-indulgent nostalgia.  Here it is in full (except not my real numbers):

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We have your tax bracket as 35% from Tax.

Here’s your tax liability on realized gains so far this year: $33,085.15.

Here’s your contingent liability on the net UN-realized gains in your taxable portfolios: $114,222.91.

Taking these into account would make your net worth: $1,414,208.62.

Quick!  Press Alt-D (for “dream on“) and we’ll double it!

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Then, if they did in fact press Alt-D:

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$2,828,417.24!

That was just a test, to see if you were interested.

Now say the magic word and we’ll double it for real.

(Hint: it is a very rare word, you must pronounce it exactly right, and loud enough for us to hear it.)

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Needless to say, no one ever guessed the word; or, if they did, said it loud enough for us to hear.

What relevance has any of this to today?

None.

Basically, I’m just holding my breath until tomorrow night’s hearing.

To kill time, and perhaps help save democracy and the rule of law, I’m dunning assorted friends and passers-by for the DNC.  Have a great day.

But first . . .

CHEAP DRUGS:  My 90 tabs arrived in good order for 25 cents each instead of $23 and reminded me to remind you to save a fortune on prescription drugs.

And now . . .

PAUL LONDON’S LATEST: Inflation terror at the Fed.  (“ The risk is not inflation. The risk is what will happen if Americans can’t afford to borrow to help the economy adapt.”)

BAD SCIENCE:  The President needs to fix this. (“It’s like a horror movie I’m being forced to watch and I can’t close my eyes,” one senior FDA official lamented. “People are getting bad advice and we can’t say anything.”)

Thursday!

Here’s how to watch.

But first . . .

CORRECTION: I said save “Wednesday” for the prime time hearing that will reveal how the former commander-in-chief was (or was not) attempting to rescue Congress from the armed mob he summoned to Washington and incited to overthrow the election.

I meant Thursday.  Sorry.  Senior moment.

Also . . .

THE BEAT GOES ON: Take a 48 -second tour of WheelTug’s chalet overlooking the airfield at this week’s biennial Farnborough Air Show.  WheelTug has been demonstrated to work . . . but we’ve known that for a long time.  Will the company secure adequate financing to complete its FAA certification and then successfully enter into service?  If so, we long-suffering BOREF shareholders should — eventually — be rewarded.  Not to mention the applause we can expect from passengers, airlines, and airports.

But mainly . . .

UNPRECEDENTED:  Robert Hubbell this past Friday (thanks, Lev):

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. . . As we head into the weekend, I expect a spate of doomsday articles copycatting the NYTimes front-page treatment of its most recent polling about the midterms with Sienna College. I won’t go into detail because I think the poll is essentially an excuse for journalists to write about their pet theories on the current state of politics.

Anyone who fails to see that this moment is unlike any in the last hundred years must look up from their smartphone and spreadsheets to engage in a few moments of reflection. The January 6th hearings are extraordinary. The [abortion] ruling in Dobbs is extraordinary. The confluence of the “concealed carry” ruling in Bruen with mass killings in Buffalo, Uvalde, and Highland Park is extraordinary. The dissolution of the separation of church and state in Bremerton is extraordinary. The effort of GOP legislators to turn women into fugitives is extraordinary.

Any journalist who ignores those facts to write a story that views the midterms through the lens of gas prices and Joe Biden’s favorability ratings is incurious, lazy, and in the wrong profession. We are living in a moment like no other in the last century. Journalists ignore that truth at their peril.

To be clear, I am not saying we are guaranteed to win in 2022 and 2024. We are not. But let’s at least acknowledge that the American people are not unidimensional cogs whose political thinking starts and ends with “Gas prices high, vote for Republican.” Please give us a little more credit than that.

So, as always, I urge you to focus on the task at hand and avoid excessive worry about headlines crafted to maximize clicks. Your work is real; headlines are information for consideration, nothing more, nothing less. Stay strong, get some rest over the weekend, and show up Monday morning ready for duty!

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Have you joined your local chapter of the League of Women Voters?  Joined Field Team 6? Joined Vote Forward? Done all you can to fund the early organizing effort that is our best chance of saving democracy and moving the nation forward toward better times?

Have a great week.

Save Thursday!

Watch.

Let’s hope it’s young men and women like this guy who are the future of our country . . .

. . . not the Steve Bannons and Rudy Giulianis to whom some, like the former president, look for sound advice.

The Reverend Warnocks not the Herschel Walkers.

The Mallory McMorrows, of Michigan, not these guys.

Have a great weekend.

Set aside Thursday night for what promises to be the most historic hearing of all: What the commander-in-chief was doing for three hours while his nation’s Capitol was under attack.

By a mob he had called to Washington, knew to be armed, and incited to overthrow the election.

Yesterday I offered the case for prosecuting everybody who aided and abetted Trump — but not Trump himself.

Today, the counterpoint (thanks, Steve P.), posted after Tuesday’s hearing:

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Was this finally enough for Merrick Garland?

. . . In his public testimony before the House Jan. 6 committee, retired judge Michael Luttig, who served as Vice President Pence’s legal adviser, warned that “a stake was driven through the heart of American democracy on Jan. 6, 2021, and our democracy today is on a knife’s edge.” . . .

. . .

. . . In all likelihood there will be blood, violence and mayhem if Trump and his confederates are (at last) prosecuted for their high crimes. But the alternative is simply unacceptable. Not to prosecute Trump and his co-conspirators would mean that right-wing political terrorism (which, in practice, means fascism) and those who wield it are holding American democracy hostage.

In that scenario, every future election — national, state or local — could potentially be subject to the threat of violence from Republicans and the larger neofascist movement. In such a country, the events of Jan. 6 and the surrounding coup attempt, including the threat of martial law, could no longer be understood as extraordinary or aberrant. They would become the norm.

American democracy is on the verge of collapse because of repeated attacks by the Republican-fascists and the larger right-wing movement. Not to prosecute and punish Trump and his confederates for their acts of terrorism would mark one more big win in their war on democracy, the rule of law and the Constitution. If Merrick Garland is afraid to prosecute Donald Trump for fear of violence or some other reason, he should be asked to resign by Joe Biden and then replaced by someone who is willing to do what is necessary and required to protect American democracy and the rule of law.

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It is a must-read piece.

And so scary that I’m not sure it doesn’t itself — even if unintentionally — argue for yesterday’s view: That everyone else should be prosecuted, but not the Putin-Mussolini-wannabe.  (Who kept a book of Hitler’s speeches by his bedside.)

Shamed, yes; but not martyred.

Whatever your view (which I welcome) I think we can all agree on this much:

It is not a trivial decision.

Have you joined your local chapter of the League of Women Voters?  Joined Field Team 6? Joined Vote Forward? Done all you can to fund the early organizing effort that is our best chance of saving democracy and moving the nation forward toward better times?