From Andy Tanenbaum, the Votemaster over at Electoral Vote:
Only in America can a homeless person living in a cardboard box oppose raising taxes on millionaires because he hopes to be a millionaire some day.
The cost of the Iraq war
To date, as of tonight, is $463 billion. (As you read this, it’s more like ###.) There’s really no way to think of this number in any way that makes sense. What got me thinking about it was the Superconducting Super Collider, canceled by the republicans, because it was just insanely expensive at $12 billion. We could have built 38 of them by now. That’s right, 38. Wow. How does this compare, to say, the international space station? The total costs of the space station through 2010 are estimated at $130 billion. So, we could nearly have four ISS’s for the cost of the war… to date. By 2010, if the spending continues as it has today, the war will have earned us another 1.5 ISS’s. These numbers for war cost are on the low side, and doesn’t include any long-term equipment costs.
You can play this game lots of ways. Some sites estimate the cost at $4,100 per US household. Or $3,791 per Iraqi (I don’t know if this number counts the dead ones or not). We’d certainly have been better off just trying to buy Iraq.
I wonder how many folks would still support the war if we gave them the choice of getting a tax refund of $4,100 or going to war. Not that we had/have the money to do either.
Even if you persist in the insane belief that the Iraq war was necessary, or good, can you seriously think that it’s been good enough or necessary enough to justify the cost? Where the hell are the fiscal conservatives?
The Terrorists Have Won
The terrorists have won. They wanted to disrupt our lives, and they’ve succeeded. They did so by helping creating an organization so mind-numbingly stupefying it’s brought the greatest nation on earth to its knees.
I refer, of course, to the TSA.
First we couldn’t take our fingernail clippers onto planes with us, in case we tried to clip the pilots’ nails. Then all of a sudden it was okay again.
Then some would-be terrorists in Britain heard, probably on a movie, that if you mix some chemicals together, you can create an explosive. They performed a trial run using inert liquid in false bottomed containers, just to make sure they could get away with smuggling them onto a plane, before actually checking to make sure it was actually possible to blow up anything that way. They were caught, and the TSA realized they suddenly had a way to make the lives of ordinary citizens much worse.
They discovered that, while they could no longer take away our fingernail clippers, they could do something even more stupefying. They could confiscate our toothpaste. And our shampoo. And our expensive moisturizers.
Then, instead of relenting like they did when it came to clipping the pilots’ toenails, they decided to do something even more maddening. We were allowed to take our toothpaste on board with us but only if it were in a tiny tube enclosed in a one-quart Ziploc bag.
They claim this is for our safety. Why does this insane rule make us safer? It’s classified information!
The truth is that making explosives from liquid is very, very complicated. And nearly impossible to do on a plane.
What’s worse is the TSA already knows this! This is from the TSA’s brand spankin’ new blog:
The preparation of these bombs is very much more complex than tossing together several bottles-worth of formula and lighting it up. In fact, in recent tests, a National Lab was asked to formulate a test mixture and it took several tries using the best equipment and best scientists for it to even ignite. That was with a bomb prepared in advance in a lab setting. A less skilled person attempting to put it together inside a secure area or a plane is not a good bet. You have to have significant uninterrupted time with space and other requirements that are not easily available in a secured area of an airport. It adds complexity to their preferred model and reduces our risk, having the expert make the bomb and give it to someone else to carry aboard. They are well aware of the Richard Reid factor where he could not even ignite a completed bomb. Simple is truly better for them. Also, bomb-makers are easier for us to identify than so-called clean ‘mules.’
So they know it’s insane but they make us jump through these hoops anyway. The “Shoe Bomber” couldn’t manage to ignite his sneakers, but by golly, we’ve all got to walk through the magnetometer barefoot. The best minds in the best laboratories have a hard time creating explosives from liquids, and yet we can’t take a half empty normal size tube of toothpaste on board? Berck solves that problem by taking six little tubes with him in his one-quart plastic bag.
The fact of the matter is that there will never be another September 11th, at least not when there’s at least one American on board. As soon as someone tries to hijack a plane, every single American on board will jump up and stomp a would-be hijacker to his death. Then they’ll return to their seats, fasten their safety belts, and enjoy the rest of their in-flight movie (provided they shelled out $5 for a pair of crappy headphones). It didn’t take long for us to learn. It only took about half an hour for the passengers on board United Airlines Flight 93 to figure it out and take matters into their own hands.
But instead we are cowed in fear, not that we’ll die in a flaming ball of fire, but that we’ll miss our flight because we forgot a plastic baggie.
Bumbuuumbedeumpuumuumuummmmuum.
My wife is driving off into the snow to straw poll caucus for religious nutjobs that (thankfully) don’t stand a chance. I vaguely considered voting, but caucusing is too much trouble, and as an independent, I’m not welcome in this two-party monopoly anyway.
Things are becoming less and less clear about my job. Folks in the class before the class before ours are still waiting around for sims. The whole thing is pretty much absurd.
I’ve pretty much settled on driving down there on Sunday. I’ve got a few days left to do whatever it is I need to do before I leave. I’m not entirely sure what it is I need to do.
Noooooo!!!!
I just found out I’m going back to ground school. It’s like I’ve been told to repeat the 10th grade.
I’m not really sure I know what’s going on. What I do know is that last week I got an email that consisted entirely of an Excel attachment. I get one of these every week or so, and I open it to see if my name is in it, and it never is. Until last week, when the spreadsheet included these lines:
37395 Nachzen,Berck E 1488 F8 JFK CRJ FO YV IAD CRJ FO 2/11/08
The sum total of the information in there is that I am being transferred from Dulles (IAD) to JFK, and in so doing, would be transferring from Mesa Airlines (YV) to Freedom Airlines (F8). The distinction is technical and appellatory–I’m still working for Mesa Air Group. Assuming that I make it out to JFK as a pilot, I’ll be flying under Delta colors instead of United like I would from IAD. To further muddy the waters, ORD is at the top of my standing bid list, which for all I know, means I could get transferred to Chicago before I’m done with this ground school. The real kicker is that bit on the end there. “2/11/08”. The title of that column is, “Class Date,” and I sent an email Thursday both to the person who sent out this email as well as to the pilot training scheduler to ask if that meant I would actually have to be somewhere on that date. The reason I figured it didn’t really apply to me is that 75% of the folks with that class date on the email are already out there on the line, working in another airplane or in another base.
No one responded, and so I called the person who sent the email this morning. She answered that I would, in fact, be going to class that day. Finally, about an hour ago, I got an email that announced some more specifics of the training. It’ll be in Phoenix (well, actually just south of Phoenix). Since I was there last, Mesa has moved their training operations to, well, Mesa, AZ. The only other real information in the post was what I needed to bring to the training (everything), what I needed to wear (business casual), and when it started, 8am. Lodging information is still TBA. No indication of anything else.
So I responded, asking how long the class is. The answer?
3 weeks.
As far as I can tell, I’ll be going through a complete CRJ systems class… again. In some ways, this isn’t bad, since I’m having a hard time remembering everything I knew the first time around. In other ways, I’ve just been told to repeat a grade, because it’s been too long since I passed it.
3 weeks in Arizona, again. I want to go bang my head against a wall. I’ve been there, done that.
Fortunately, 3 weeks is better than 4. And, it makes me more likely to actually get through and out flying.
Oddly, only 3 other people from my class are listed on the documents concerning this class. It appears to only be those of us who have JFK listed on our bid sheets higher than IAD. The other 12 folks in the class appear to be current Mesa or Air Midwest pilots, who are transferring. So, it’s better than a total new-hire class, but it’s still insane that it’s going to be 3 weeks.
Initial thoughts are that it’s good that I’ll get a forced refresher. I suspect I won’t have a roommate. Also, Jonah has travel benefits and can come visit me on the weekends. I think I’ll drive down there this time. Maybe we’ll drive down together and she’ll fly back.
In any case… sheesh.