Not Everything Old Is New Again

Close on the heels of the last post that described the resurgence of some old technologies like turboprop aircraft and mainframe computers comes some news of things which are just plain getting old. Like America's aerial refueling tanker fleet. The average age of the KC-135 tankers is now 47 years. There are 530 of these planes in the fleet and they are not getting any younger.

WICHITA, Kan. — At the main entrance to McConnell Air Force Base, a stately KC-135 aerial refueling tanker manufactured more than 50 years ago sits on display as a museum piece, a tribute to the aircraft that was built to be a pillar of military strategy in the early years of the Cold War.

But inside the base, the old tanker is hardly a relic. Hundreds of personnel toil every day to keep 39 of the Air Force's 530 Eisenhower-era tankers airborne, a feat of tenacity and ingenuity that baffles even the men and women who manage to keep the planes airworthy three decades after commercial airlines retired such planes.

"The KC-135 is like that first girlfriend or your first car," said Senior Master Sgt. Buddy Gerhardt, a fuel systems repair technician from Berwyn, Ill., who at 33 is at least a decade younger than the tankers he works on. "You might always have a special feeling for that first girlfriend or that first car, but eventually you have to move on."

The Air Force announced last month it had awarded a $35 billion contract to a partnership of Northrop Grumman and the corporate parent of the European-led planemaker Airbus to begin replacing the tanker fleet, whose aircraft now have an average age of 47.

But the long-languishing plan to revamp the fleet will likely be further delayed as the competing bidder and manufacturer of the original fleet, Chicago-based Boeing, filed a complaint this month with the Government Accountability Office.

Defense analysts say Boeing's appeal could set back the manufacture of the new tankers by years. At the same time, members of Congress from Kansas and Washington state—where Boeing has manufacturing plants—are considering introducing legislation that would undo the deal.

Commanders at McConnell declined to comment on the politicking, saying only that they hope to have new tankers at their disposal as soon as possible. Air Force officials say they are confident they can keep up the maintenance of the aircraft for many more years, yet there is a recognition among senior officials and squadron leaders that time is not on the side of the aging aircraft.

"We're a catastrophe away from having the tankers grounded," said Col. James Vechery, commander of the 22nd Air Refueling Wing at McConnell.

I have no doubt that the people who are maintaining these downright elderly aircraft are doing everything in their power to keep the planes aloft. I also have no doubt that they are fighting an uphill battle. The key to keeping old technologies alive is to reinvent them, not to keep trying to keep the old goods alive indefinitely. Congress has screwed around enough on this and has to get this resolved right away. These tankers are a vital part of America's defenses and need replacement. Stop playing politics and get this done.

Turboprop Comeback

The announcements of the death of the turboprop aircraft appear to have been a bit premature. The much-maligned technology is making a comeback in a big way, driven by increasing jet fuel prices. It seems the turboprop is anywhere from 25 to 33% more efficient - and regional carriers are taking note of that.

BRUSSELS, Belgium - As fuel prices soar to record highs and airlines struggle to maintain profitability, the unglamorous but fuel-efficient turboprop regional airliner is making a remarkable comeback.

The revival of the propeller-driven planes — which typically consume a quarter to a third less fuel than equivalent jets — marks a significant new trend in the industry. Until recently, many commuter airlines had been determined to consign the planes to history and convert to all-jet fleets, which offer greater passenger comfort.

Although the latest generation of turboprops has addressed some of the comfort issues by flying above turbulence and providing quieter cabins, analysts say the airlines’ money worries about their bottom line now outweigh any passenger preferences.

This is interesting. Earlier today, I read this piece from the New York Times about another technology that was supposed to be dead and gone by now: the mainframe computer. The story hits on why old technologies sometimes don't die.

Today, mainframe sales are a tiny fraction of the personal computer market. But with the mainframe facing extinction, I.B.M. retooled the technology, cut prices and revamped its strategy. A result is that mainframe technology — hardware, software and services — remains a large and lucrative business for I.B.M., and mainframes are still the back-office engines behind the world’s financial markets and much of global commerce.

The mainframe stands as a telling case in the larger story of survivor technologies and markets. The demise of the old technology is confidently predicted, and indeed it may lose ground to the insurgent, as mainframes did to the personal computer. But the old technology or business often finds a sustainable, profitable life. Television, for example, was supposed to kill radio, and movies, for that matter. Cars, trucks and planes spelled the death of railways. A current death-knell forecast is that the Web will kill print media.

What are the common traits of survivor technologies? First, it seems, there is a core technology requirement: there must be some enduring advantage in the old technology that is not entirely supplanted by the new. But beyond that, it is the business decisions that matter most: investing to retool the traditional technology, adopting a new business model and nurturing a support network of loyal customers, industry partners and skilled workers.

It seems that the humble propeller has some enduring advantage after all. Moving people around using less fuel to do so is a business decision. It appears that airlines are getting that fact and acting on it. One wonders if some of the companies that used to produce turboprops are thinking about dusting off the old blueprints and taking another look at the market.

Minnesota Has Some ‘Splaining To Do

There was much screeching and finger-pointing when the Minneapolis bridge collapsed, much of it aimed at the Federal government and the lack of funding for infrastructure. That collapse is a tragedy and should not have happened, mind you. But it appears that the fingers may have been pointed the wrong way entirely. Photos taken in 2003 of the bridge - for a state-sponsored inspection, no less - show deformation of at least two of the gusset plates thought to be the reason for the collapse. Got that? Photos taken four years before the collapse show serious problems in the supports that held the bridge up.

MINNEAPOLIS - Old photos of the Interstate 35W bridge show two steel connecting plates were visibly bent as early as 2003 — four years before the span collapsed into the Mississippi River, killing 13 people.

Minnesota Department of Transportation officials declined to say when the state first knew about the bending in the pieces of steel, called gusset plates.

Two photos, part of a report issued earlier this month by the National Transportation Safety Board, reveal slight bends in gusset plates that hold beams together at two separate connecting points. The plates are in areas believed to be among the first points of failure when the span collapsed.

State officials responsible for the inspection of bridges are not answering phone calls from reporters asking about this. Lawyers representing victims of the bridge collapse are howling mad about the photos. They should be. Someone needs to answer for this and quickly. Both the firm conducting the inspection and the state office overseeing the inspection have real problems here - and will have some very big demands for explanations to answer. I think there is a reason why the phone calls are not being returned. There could well be criminal liability here.

How Clintonesque

Bill Richardson has declared that he is loyal to the Clintons - despite the fact that he just endorsed Barack Obama for president over his former allies.

(CNN) — Facing fire from some fellow Democrats for his decision to endorse Sen. Barack Obama, Gov. Bill Richardson said Sunday he still considers himself loyal to the family that helped make his political career.

"I am very loyal to the Clintons. I served under President Clinton. But I served well. And I served the country well. And he gave me that opportunity," Richardson told "Fox News Sunday."

"But you know … it shouldn't just be Bush, Clinton, Bush, Clinton," he said.

Richardson was secretary of energy under the Clinton administration, a post that helped bring him to national prominence and win the governorship of New Mexico in 2002.

Richardson, who abandoned his presidential bid January 10, endorsed Obama on Friday as the Democratic nominee. He called Sen. Hillary Clinton Thursday to tell her of his decision, Clinton's campaign said.

The Clinton campaign shrugged off the endorsement. "Both candidates have many great endorsers, but the voters, not endorsers, will decide this election, and there are still millions of voters in upcoming contests who want to have their voices heard," Clinton spokesman Jay Carson said.

Richardson was asked Sunday about James Carville's comment that Richardson's Obama endorsement "came right around the anniversary of the day when Judas sold out for 30 pieces of silver." Carville is an adviser to Clinton's presidential campaign and a CNN political analyst.

Richardson then promptly took the opportunity to say that Carville's comments came from the gutter. Then he slammed the mentality that Clinton has a right to the presidency. Well, I also question Hillary's sense of entitlement to the job, but it is rather obvious that Richardson learned his skills at loyalty from the same correspondence school that taught the Clinton's their honesty.

Bare Minimum Christianity

[Note:  Hello to all of you in the Crabitat!  It's been awhile since I've posted anything here, but Gaius once said "Whenever you want to post something here…" so I'm back in the clear blue water.]

It has been a little strange to see the attempts to "normalize" the ideas behind folks like Rev. Wright and Trinity Church. The left of center meme has been to act as if views of Wright and Co. are just another Christian denomination, the intellectual and moral equivalent of Methodists or Lutherans. In fact, they have no problem comparing Wright, favorably, to Martin Luther King.

In a sense, it could be argued that this is simply an expression of the liberal adherence to the principle of religious freedom embodied by the First Amendment. In such a view, we are a country populated by a plethora of religious creeds, and as a nation our strength is measured more by our diversity than our uniformity. Thus, if some version of faith strikes you as outlandish, well that is simply the price of admission. Such a view makes some sense until you note the left of center penchant for trashing various forms of evangelicalism at the drop of a hat. So, I don't really think the pass Rev. Wright is getting could be explained away as simple reticence to criticize anyone's religion.

So, what exactly is going on? I would argue that there seems to be modicum of religious ignorance and a lack of theological sophistication on the part of many on the left. Many of the commentariat seem to hold some variation of Christopher Hitchens' belief that all religions are basically a legitimized form of organized crime. They are all frauds, so says this belief system, so how can you make any meaningful distinction between them? After all, there is no such thing as a more sincere con job.

The big problem with this view is the overwhelming majority of Americans believe there is a big difference between being a Catholic or a Lutheran, and being a Branch Davidian or a Ralien. Once you go down the road of saying there are indeed distinctions and judgements that can be legitimately made about different religious groups, it demands a greater basis of knowledge and a certain level of theological sophistication in order to make such judgements.

Now, obviously, Wright's Trinity Church or the Raliens or the Episcopalians, all enjoy equivalent legal protections under the Constitution, but that is not the same as saying they are all morally equivalent. Additionally, one's commitment to the legal protections of the Constitution does not preclude our being able to make moral distinctions between belief systems. As a result, blanket assertions that it is "un-American" to examine or take into account a person's religious thinking are simple nonsense. To undertake such judgements in no way alters the legal protections religious faiths enjoy, which is all that is demanded of us under our system of law. It is un-American to force someone to espouse Lutheran theology. It is in no way un-American to determine the Raliens are a bunch of nutjobs.

So, what kind of judgements can we draw about Rev. Wright and his church built upon the "black liberation theology" of James Cone? For starters, it doesn't seem to be a particularly Christian church. By that, I mean its motivating principles seem to derive less from the life and teaching of Jesus Christ than they do from the writings of Vladimir Lenin and Mao Tse-tung. The language of Wright's church is not that of grace and the love of God for his children on Earth. Instead, a vision of a politicized church built upon a rather clumsy and simplistic transposition of Lenin's essay on "Imperialism" (itself not a model of intellectual brilliance) is put forward in place of the Christian gospel. Where Lenin railed against the exploitation of the un-industrialized nations by the industrialized nations in a statist version of the Marxist idea of class struggle, Wright/Cone offer a vision of racial exploitation that can only be overcome by the "destruction" of the criminal race (i.e. whites.)

If this is what this perspective is politically, what can we say about it as a religion? From a religious perspective the question becomes what sort of claim such a view could have to being called "Christian" at all. (This is assuming that something being "Christian" is not merely a question of self-identification. For example, whatever variation there might be in the definition of "Vegan," you cannot legitimately claim to be a Vegan if you wear leather and eat veal four times a week.)

In my opinion, it seems unlikely that the political goals advocated by the Wright/Cone ideology can be squared with the bare minimum requirements of religious Christianity. In fact, the Wright/Cone vision requires the direct repudiation of the teachings of Christ. For example, whatever Christianity is it must allow for "Christians" of any race or ethnicity. For Wright/Cone only blacks can be "true" Christians. Christianity has always been built around the idea that Jesus Christ came not as a political revolutionary promising liberation for a specific people only, as many messianic Jews had been expecting for generations, but was instead sent for all mankind. But for Wright/Cone the only legitimate work of God is for the benefit of blacks and blacks alone. Such a view represents not just an "unusual interpretation" of Christianity, but a direct repudiation of it.

There are a lot of differences between Christian denominations concerning the idea of the sacraments, the nature and role of clergy, the importance of church authority, the nature of grace, the nature of sin, the status of Mary, the teaching role of the Bible, and hundreds of others subjects. However, such differences do not touch upon the most basic and fundamental roots of what it means to be a Christian. Christ asked us to recognize that whenever two are more are gathered in his name he is there as well. He did not say he would only be present when two or more of the "correct" ethnicity were gathered. Any church that implies this is so will have a hard time upholding any claim to Christian-ness.

For the non-Christian all of this must seem like much ado about nothing. But even an ardent agnostic can legitimately look at the dodgy political ideology masquerading as religious belief in Barrack Obama's church and ask probing questions about it. If we are not allowed to ask the difficult questions including those touching upon the intersection of faith and politics, in a mistaken belief that it is "bad form,"  how can we ever know what Obama believes about anything?

Cross Posted at my home blog, The Iconic Midwest

FNP-9 First Tryout

I posted about getting this yesterday. I took it out today to give it a try. 200 rounds through it with no problems whatsoever. Because of the light weight, the precieved recoil is a bit higher than with my Taurus PT-92, but not uncomfortable. The gun is highly accurate but it does bounce a bit more than the PT-92. This isn't really a problem however and didn't take much getting used to. Very fun to shoot. I had also taken this pistol out to the range and put 100 rounds through it:

This one is scary accurate. My wife shot both and like the big PT-1911 better than the FN. When I got home, I cleaned the PT-1911 first, which took about forever. The Taurus version of the venerable John Browning 1911 design is faithful to the original and breaks down in the same fashion. So you have various bits and pieces of gun laying about everywhere when you get it apart. There are lots and lots of nooks and crannies to clean. Then I took apart the FN. After taking it down - the easiest takedown I have ever seen - there were four pieces. Barrel, spring/guide assembly, slide and body. No pins, no loose parts. The flat recoil spring is captive on the guide. That is a beautifully designed handgun. John Browning would be very proud of what FN has done in the almost 100 years since he rolled out the 1911.

The Silence Of The Hams

Daniel Henninger notes the extraordinary silence that has greeted David Mamet's self-described escape from brain dead liberalism. Well, silence from the American left and especially from the denizens of Hollyweird.

The American playwright David Mamet wrote a piece for the Village Voice last week titled, "Why I Am No Longer a 'Brain-Dead Liberal.'" Mr. Mamet, whose characters famously use the f-word as a rhythmic device (I think of it now as the "Mamet-word"), didn't himself mince words on his transition. He was riding with his wife one day, listening to National Public Radio: "I felt my facial muscles tightening, and the words beginning to form in my mind: 'Shut the [Mamet-word] up.'" Been known to happen.

Toward the end of the essay, he names names: "I began reading not only the economics of Thomas Sowell (our greatest contemporary philosopher) but Milton Friedman, Paul Johnson, and Shelby Steele, and a host of conservative writers, and found that I agreed with them: a free-market understanding of the world meshes more perfectly with my experience than that idealistic vision I called liberalism."

This of course is an outrage against polite American wisdom. Isn't Paul Krugman supposed to be our greatest living philosopher? One would have thought that David Mamet saying bye-bye to liberalism would have launched sputterings everywhere. But not a word.

As I think Groucho Marx once said, either no one reads the Village Voice anymore or my watch has stopped.

That one of the language's greatest living playwrights would say this in our hyperventilated political times was news worth noting in most of the English-speaking world. Commentaries appeared the past week in England, Canada and Australia. But there's been nary a peep about Mr. Mamet going over the wall in what some call the Mainstream Media.

Could there be a reason for the silence? Well, the left could be distracted, as Henninger points out, by the clash of the titans in the Democratic race. But there may be even more at play - and more to worry about:

Still a thought: If David Mamet says he can't take it anymore, can others be far behind? Were I a Democratic Party strategist, out on the frontier of voter sentiment, my thought would be: This is not good for Democrats. David Mamet's mind is a tuning fork of regular-guy sentiment. He's the one who wrote "Glengarry Glen Ross." He says he's been a reliable liberal all his life. All of a sudden, the party sounds off-key. What if other guys are starting to think this? What if, after Barack's charisma gets stripped away, all you're left with is "universal health care" and Hillary's blind ambition? Come November, you could be [Mamet-worded].

Do read it all, it is a delightful take on the wonderfully written article Mamet published. (If you have not read the Mamet piece, you really should.) Could other lifelong, self-defined liberals also be coming around to the idea the autonomy of the individual is more important than the collectivist ideals of the current Democratic party? Wouldn't that be fun to watch? Maybe we'll get to watch a few of the hams from Hollywood start singing a different tune.

The Next Obama Scandal?

The Times of London hints that there may be yet another scandal coming at Barack Obama, again triggered by one of his political allies and mentors. It is not really Obama so much as it is the unsavory company he keeps. In this case, Illinois power broker state Senator Emil Jones.

Obama has often described Jones as a key political mentor whose patronage was crucial to his early success in a state long dominated by near-feudal party political machines. Jones, 71, describes himself as Obama’s “godfather” and once said: “He feels like a son to me.”

Like the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, the outspoken pastor of Obama’s Chicago church, and like Tony Rezko, the millionaire fundraiser and former friend of Obama who is on trial for corruption, Jones is in danger of becoming a hindrance to his protégé’s presidential ambitions.

For almost a year Jones has used his position as leader of the state senate to block anticorruption legislation passed unanimously by the state’s lower house. He has also become embroiled in ethical controversies concerning his wife’s job and his stepson’s business.

None of them is linked to Obama, but the Democratic contender can ill afford another scandal related to his former Chicago allies. Despite his electrifying speech on race last week, the opinion polls make worrying reading for the senator and his aides. Hillary Clinton appears to be regaining lost ground and John McCain, the Arizona senator who has sewn up the Republican nomination, has edged ahead of his warring rivals.

Illinois has a long and colorful (if that is the right word) history of political corruption. I remember talking to one utility executive who said that in order to get a meeting with Illinois politicians it was necessary to bring cash or one would not even get in the front door. It is more than a little hard to believe that Obama was never aware of the crooked politics in that state. The company a politician keeps can cause genuine damage. Now, is the Clinton campaign trying mightily to get stories like this into the media? I would not be at all surprised. Does that change Obama's problem? Not in the least.

Not A Peep Out Of You!

The Washington Post ran its second annual peep show this year. No, nothing off color. It is a contest for people to create art with marshmallow peeps.

A bounty of mallow rained down on us this Lenten season. The Peeps came not like locusts but like meteors of great ambition and, yes, some arts-and-crafts psychosis. More than 800 entries choked the Sunday Source's inbox for the second annual Peeps Diorama Contest. Our cup runneth over. Thank you.

There was the usual — several "Give Peeps a Chance" and "Village Peeple" dioramas, as well as a bunch encouraging Peeple to vote (well-meaning, yes, but we're tired of the campaigns) — but most were either clever or sensational, or some twisted combination of both.

They have an amusing slideshow of some of the entries. There are a few clunkers in there, but on average, they are very funny. There are some very clever and talented peeple out there. Ones with entirely too much time on their hands. Something light and amusing to start out with on Easter Sunday. Enjoy.