Potpourri LXXXIX

Mixed bag this evening, so let's just reach into the inbox and see what colored marbles I dig out.

From the Down Under Defense Expert (DUDE):

• Global warming is amok! Weather is out of control! Uh...unless you're a tornado hunter.


• Um...or a hurricane tracker. Remember when Al Gore, the Smartest Man With a PowerPoint, predicted that all of our weather was going to get worse every year?
• Remember the moral outrage over the Big Three automakers' CEOs taking corporate jets to Washington for their powwow with the president? Well, apparently, it's still okay for members of Congress to use private jets. I'm shocked, shocked...

Rod Coppinger at Flightglobal takes a few shots at the orbital fuel depot idea.

Responses to Darlene the Science Cheerleader have not been particularly polite or pleasant in the land of academia. I find a lot of the comments akin to something you'd read in high school: "brains" getting snippy because "a cheerleader is trying to do what we're supposed to do." These critics have little sense of humor or appreciation for what Dar is trying to do. The fact that she's a Republican probably just makes things worse, at least in the academics' eyes. Too bad. Dar has an audience, and probably a larger one than many of the folks currently sniping at her. It's not just a matter of cute. Positive attitude matters, too, and Dar has it in spades.

From Doc, a cool site on ways to get involved with the space biz.

One sign that I'm a Gen Xer is that I got cubicle toys for my birthday (I am currently 39.99999). Dr. OZMG sent me a sensitivity consultant from The Cubes. The awesomeness is so great it hurts.

After I finish with Europe, my next big vacation might be New Zealand, partially because I can hang out with the DUDE and Mrs. DUDE, partially because that's where they filmed Lord of the Rings, and partially because it's just a beautiful country.

Some idjit who didn't do well with women went nuts and killed three people and then himself in Pittsburgh. Dude, what the heck were you thinking? What were you doing/saying with these women that caused them to reject you? Could it have been that "tense, creepy, might-go-off-and-shoot-people" vibe you were giving off? Losers of the world, get thyselves to church!

The U.S. Navy's Littoral Combat Ship is ready to deploy.

New from Hu: Someone has taken the time to unleash a critical preemptive strike on G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra before it comes out. Why waste the energy? It'll be on DVD within three months anyway.

The Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) detected free oxygen in the Earth's atmosphere, indicating signs of life. Might've made a more intriguing story if it hadn't found life...or intelligent life, anyway.

Lego is cosponsoring a Lunar X Prize contest. Cool!

Oh yeah, and rather than take the word of the media, talk radio, or the blogosphere, check out this link and read for yourself the current healthcare bill before Congress...all 1,000+ pages of it. I read the Clinton healthcare plan, so I guess I'll subject myself to this one as well. Expect a very long blog entry, come the day...

And on that note, I guess I'll sign off. Tomorrow I'll be 40. How the heck did that happen? Never mind...

Sha-ZAAAM!!!

It must be true now because, as my buddy Martin would put it, it's in a real newspaper (in this case, the Washington Post): the CIA says Nancy Pelosi was, Was, WAS informed about the "enhanced interrogation techniques" used on terrorists captured after 9/11. I have no problem with that. It wasn't illegal. HOWEVER, if Pelosi and her fellow members of Congress knew about, and were complicit in, allowing those techniques, then they should share the consequences with the lawyers who might be facing disbarment for offering advice on those techniques. Most of them are lawyers anyway, so that only makes sense, right? Never mind, this isn't about making sense. It's about demonizing and prosecuting Bush-era people for actions which were legal when they were performed. And on that note, good morning to you!

Problems With the People at the Top

One of the advantages of staying out of management for years and years (not just accidentally but by active pursuit) is that I've been able to criticize it with a clear conscience. Because once you're in charge, you can't complain, right? (Reason enough to punish Keith Cowing by making him the NASA Administrator.)

Anyhow, I've been hearing for months now how evil and disgusting it is that corporations have been giving bonuses to CEOs and other high officers in the midst of bad economic times or for making bad economic decisions in good times. I don't know, quite frankly. As a stockholder of several companies, I do write letters, usually when it comes time to fill out my stockholder's ballot. I vote for throwing out the entire board, when it suits me, not that it makes a whole lot of difference. Why do companies reward someone for acting against the company's best interests? I have no clue. That outrages me, too, thank you very much. (But, I hasten to add, I'm an owner. That's my business. If the companies in which I'm a stockholder do not take federal bailout money, it's not the government's or the media's business, either.)

But then where is this same outrage when elected officials try to ram legislation through Congress that is directly against the best interests of the United States? What about amnesty for illegal immigrants? What about spending nearly $800 billion on a spending bill that more Americans do not want? Where is the outrage against the arrogance of power now? Never mind, I forgot. It's Obama, and he can do no wrong.

I Thought Everybody Was Worried About the Bush Deficit

http://bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=arEE1iClqDrk&refer=home

This one deserves to be quoted:

U.S. Pledges Top $7.7 Trillion to Ease Frozen Credit

Nov. 24 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. government is prepared to provide more than $7.76 trillion on behalf of American taxpayers after guaranteeing $306 billion of Citigroup Inc. debt yesterday. The pledges, amounting to half the value of everything produced in the nation last year, are intended to rescue the financial system after the credit markets seized up 15 months ago.
The unprecedented pledge of funds includes $3.18 trillion already tapped by financial institutions in the biggest response to an economic emergency since the New Deal of the 1930s, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The commitment dwarfs the plan approved by lawmakers, the Treasury Department’s $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program. Federal Reserve lending last week was 1,900 times the weekly average for the three years before the crisis.

What other bright ideas will we encouter in the next year? The world wonders.

Socialism Continues on the March

Here's an interesting bit from Investment News: http://www.investmentnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081007/REG/810079894/0/FRONTPAGE

It deserves to be dissected, Bartish style, so here we go:

A wide range of sweeping changes to the 401(k) system were proposed Tuesday at a hearing on how the market crisis has devastated retirement savings plans.

Chief among them was eliminating $80 billion in tax savings for higher-income people enrolled in 401(k) retirement savings plans.

Translation: "This is $80 billion that the government isn't getting because 401(k)s are tax-free. We want it." Wait, the chutzpah gets more brazen.

This was suggested by the chairman of the House Committee on Education and Labor.
“With respect to the 401(k), it appears to be a plan that is not really well-devised for the changes in the market,” Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., said.
“We’ve invested $80 billion into subsidizing this activity,” he said, referring to tax breaks allowed for 401(k) contributions and savings.

"We've invested???" What the heck are these people smoking? The government didn't invest a d@mn thing, individuals did. "Subsidizing" is usually something government does when it gives money to industries or individuals for particular activities. The government can't give this money. It's not theirs, it's yours, if you've got a 401(k).

With savings rates going down, “what do we have to start to think about in Congress of whether or not we want to continue and invest that $80 billion for a policy that is not generating what we … say it should?” Mr. Miller said.

Translation: "We don't think Congress is getting enough money because these investments are tax-free. We need to think of some way to get at that money." Here's a wacky thought: if Congress isn't getting $80 billion that it wanted or expected (and my heart bleeds for them, truly), why don't they cut spending and learn to live within their means like the rest of us?

Congress should let workers trade their 401(k) assets for guaranteed retirement accounts made up of government bonds, suggested Teresa Ghilarducci, an economics professor at The New School for Social Research in New York. When workers collected Social Security, the guaranteed retirement account would pay an inflation-adjusted annuity under her plan.

This is actually pretty hilarious. Remember the ruckus Congress kicked up when Bush suggested that individuals be allowed privatize/invest a small percentage of their Social Security in funds of their own choosing? If I remember the objections correctly, opponents of privatizing Social Security didn't like the notion of the government not controlling all of the money coming into Social Security. And then there was the red herring about potential losses: "Suppose the market goes down, and the person who invested the private part of their Social Security deductions ended up with nothing?"

Now this college professor wants Congress to take your privately invested funds (of your choice) and replace them with a government annuity--what amounts to a Social Security payment--sometime in the future. We're already facing a crisis because millions of people paid into Social Security in the prime of their earning years, only to now face a potentially bankrupt Social Security system. Does anyone truly believe that this bait and switch would work? So what happens if we hand over our funds to the government and those investments increase in value? (And in the long run, they will--we know it, and so does this professor. Otherwise, why would they be so eager to get their hands on them?) The end result here is that government would get profit from your investments and you would have to get by on whatever annuity they're willing to parcel out to you. No, I refuse.

“The way the government now encourages 401(k) plans is to spend $80 billion in tax breaks,” which goes to the highest-income earners, Ms. Ghilarducci said.
That simply results in transferring money from taxed savings accounts to untaxed accounts, she said.
“If we implement automatic [individual retirement accounts] or if we expand the 401(k) system, all we’re doing is adding to this inefficiency,” Ms. Ghilarducci said.

Only Congress would consider tax dollars that they aren't getting "spending." And notice, again, the reference to "higher-income people" and the "highest-income earners." As if people in the middle class don't have 401(k)s. Wrong again. Fifty percent of the American public owns stock, either through 401(k)s, IRAs, direct purchases, or other investment vehicles. That's why the attacks on "the rich" and "big companies" are disingenuous. If big companies are prospering (profiting), 50% of Americans benefit through increased dividends in their 401(k) and pension plans. If large companies are in trouble, as they are now, everyone's future is threatened.

Rep. Robert Andrews, D-N.J., raised the issue of which investment advisers are allowed to offer workers investment advice.
The Department of Labor is considering “loopholes” that would allow advisers to offer “conflicted investment advice if the advisers work for subsidiaries of financial services companies that sell the investments,” he said.

What business is it of Congress who people get advice from? Didn't Congress try to separate investment departments from financial services departments already? What ever became of that?

With American workers facing $2 trillion in losses from retirement plans over the past year and Democrats expected to gain seats in the House and the Senate, actions being contemplated by the committee are an important harbinger of what could come out of Congress next year.

I love the bit about "Democrats expected to gain seats in the House and Senate." It sounds like flat, unemotional, unbiased, "objective" journalism, but it's a flat-out assumption. The elections haven't happened yet. Democrats passed the bailout package, and the bailout hasn't worked. Yes, there will be some backlash against Bush, but what about the Congress that came up with the bill? Certainly there is the possibility of backlash at them, too, right? Wow. What an interesting amount of foolishness for such a short article. Watch your wallets, folks. And your investment portfolios.

Political Chaos Theory

There's this cliché from chaos theory that says, if a butterfly flaps its wings in Japan, a hurricane blows in Florida. Something like that. The point being, in chaotic systems like weather or human societies, small initiating events can have large consequences down the road. Another old lesson from history states that we must guard against our baser selves or bad things can happen to us. Call it karma, call it punishment for sin, call it what you will. Today we have a marvelous illustration of both of these effects, but one needs to go back to the butterfly before getting to the hurricane.

About five years ago, an Executive Vice President at Boeing hired a former civil servant to become a Boeing executive under unethical circumstances.

That same year, Senator John McCain spoke before the Senate on Boeing getting a sweetheart deal from the U.S. Air Force for leasing 100 Boeing KC-767s at inflated prices. These two events cemented--in the minds of Congress, anyway--that Boeing was not to be trusted, and that its business dealings were questionable, to say the least. McCain thus led the charge against giving Boeing a sole-source contract to supply USAF with tankers.

Flash forward four or five years. The U.S. Air Force is once again in need of tankers due to the wear and tear of war operations on much of its airborne tanker fleet, which consists of 40-year-old KC-135 aircraft (the tanker version of the Boeing 707). Because of the bad name Boeing gave itself in 2003, the sole-source option was not available. Instead, the USAF went with a competitive bid. The bidders were Boeing, of course, and a team made up of U.S. company Northrop Grumman and its partner EADS (parent of Airbus Industrie, Boeing's major European competitor in building commercial aircraft). The goal was to shoot for "best value," which in government parlance usually means the lowest bidder. The lowest bid would have addressed both aircraft development and long-term operational costs of the fleet.

Despite some rumblings early on that Northrop-EADS might have gotten short-changed by the process, the point became moot when it turned out that they had won, right? Hardly. The game wasn't over.

Boeing's lobbyists kicked into high gear, claiming that American jobs and security were at risk by going with a European aircraft maker; this, despite the fact that Northrop-EADS plans to build some parts of the aircraft in Alabama, among other places. But never mind that: Boeing decided to wave a disingenuous flag of xenophobia, filed a protest, and got the right people in Congress to start raising hell over jobs in Washington going to Alabama and France. This is nonsense, in my opinion. This is like JFK raising hell about the "missile gap" with the Soviets, only to become president and discover, oops, the gap was on the Russkis' side. If anything, the contest was slanted in Boeing's favor, and they still lost; they should just let it go. What's the French word for chutzpah?

But the butterfly's work is not done yet. Department of Defense procurements--especially large procurements like the tanker deal--are rigidly controlled and rule-bound. Contract bids are evaluated by separate teams of individuals based on technical merit, price, management, and (logistical) support. These folks are often put into locked and guarded rooms without cell phones to ensure honesty during the proceedings. Individuals on the boards must disclose all of their financial dealings prior to the review process, and individuals with connections to the bidding companies must recuse themselves and be removed. In the final analysis, even the end customer (say, the Air Force general commanding the tanker wings) does not have the final say in the matter. All of these processes, while laborious and bureaucratic, are established to prevent corruption and influence-peddling within the procurement system. That's why you don't see legislators on procurement review boards.

However, given the fuss Boeing is likely to kick up, that entire system is about to get chucked out the rear hatch to satisfy the chest pounding egos of some folks on Capitol Hill. "Buy American!" will be the new chant, and future procurement boards are now on notice if they attempt similar buys from EADS or other foreign providers.

Here are some other painful truths: the American aerospace and defense industries have become one and the same. The number of competitors has shrunk (leaving at the top of the heap Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, and Raytheon), leaving only foreign competition. Lockheed is nearly out of the big-airplane business, leaving Boeing and Northrop. And if Northrop doesn't have the chops to make all of the hardware they need, they have to look overseas to find bidding partners. The government procurement system prefers competitive bidding. Depending on the item in question, there is usually a minimum threshold of three bidders required before the government will even allow the competition to go forward. If they can't get three bidders, they'll often scrap the procurement and try a new one with a different scope to ensure that they get three bids.

In the aforementioned large aerospace and defense contracting world, the government is going to be lucky if it gets two bids; and given the consolidated American market and the more competitive global market, the odds are pretty good that at least one of the two bids is going to include a company based overseas.

Now I have no doubt that American equipment is still the finest in the world. If it weren't for Boeing, the U.S. trade deficit would be even further in the red. However, as the Big Three auto makers proved in the 1970s, if they're left without competition for too long, their prices go up and their quality goes down simply because they're the only game in town and they get lax. Do we want that, or do we want some competition to keep our folks sharp? And if the competition can't be found here, then we'll have to compete with France, Britain, Germany, or Japan (on matters of defense and national security, Russia and China wouldn't even be in the running because they're on the naughty list; India is still a "maybe" ally). The other alternative is to sole-source everything to one of the Big Three and hope for the best. You might recall all the great press Halliburton has gotten for its sole-source work during the Iraq War.

So we've got a potential long-term procurement crisis on our hands, started off by a lot of butterflies:

• Boeing's bad hiring practices
• John McCain's railing against sole-source contracts for Boeing
• Members of Congress and Senators willing to raise a little nationalistic Cain to score political points
• The Air Force's allegedly botched procurement process
• A potentially deadlocked DoD procurement problem in the future, as review board members start making decisions based on politics rather than cost or technical merit

So what lessons have we learned today, class?

• Behavior matters.
• You can never fully predict the future impacts of your actions.
• Bad situations can be made much, much worse depending on how people react to them.
• What goes around comes around. If Boeing had just behaved themselves, they wouldn't have hired Ms. Druyun improperly, they would still have a tanker leasing deal with the Air Force at reasonable prices, and we wouldn't have a major defense deal going badly in the public media now.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled foolishness.

NSS Wants to Hear from You

I received the following message from George Whitesides yesterday:

Society requests input from members for NSS testimony before Congress

Next Wednesday, May 7, NSS Executive Director George Whitesides [hyperlink mine]will testify before the United States Senate on NASA and the nation's space policies. We would like to solicit your input as a member of the National Space Society for this important testimony. The testimony will be used by Congress as it considers reauthorization of NASA, which is the periodic direction from Congress to NASA on the priorities and programs of the agency. The hearing will be presided over by Florida's senior Senator, Bill Nelson. We would appreciate your comments on the future of the U.S. space program, its importance to the country, and the potential gap in human spaceflight capability, following the retirement of the Space Shuttle. Due to the immediate timeline, we would request that you submit your comments no later than Monday, May 5 [emphasis mine]. You can email your comments directly to George Whitesides at: george@nss.org

Please include the following subject line with your email: "NSS Senate Testimony". All submissions will be read carefully and used as foundational materials for the NSS testimony. We will try to post the comments we receive on the NSS website. Please note in your response if you would prefer to keep your submission private. Thank you
for your visionary support of space, and thank you for your membership in NSS.

Ad Astra!

This is a good opportunity, if you're an NSS member, to get your thoughts out there. Admittedly, I've got a self-interested motive, because I support Constellation in my day job, but more importantly I just believe it's a good thing for the country.

Here's what I sent to George:

• Value of Space Exploration: I sing this song 20 different ways every day. For my own part, I just believe in reaching for greatness, achievement. That must come from effort, from hard work; it means we must have confidence in ourselves, our fellow citizens, and our collective ability to use human intelligence to solve human and technological problems. Space exploration is simply the ultimate expression of that reaching for greatness.
• Strategic Considerations: It has become clear, through the actions of Russia, China, India, and other nations, that space was not simply a one-time "space race" of the Cold War. These nations are pushing the envelope of their individual and collective abilities in space. They see space exploration--not just satellites--as a strategic, critical capability. We would be foolish not to do likewise.
• Implications of, and Solutions to, the Gap: The National Space Society recently sent letters to the ranking members of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees, asking them to increase funding for crew launches to the International Space Station under "Option D" of the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program. The COTS program both encourages this nation's domestic spaceflight capability and reduces our dependency on other nations. If we don't reduce the gap, we run the risk of being held over a barrel if we want to send up our astronauts, or worse, being prevented from sending them at all.
• NASA's Needs for Continuing the VSE: NASA needs a simple but long-term commitment from the nation's elected officials in the form of re-authorization. In reality, it also needs 1 percent of the federal budget. With that 1 percent, we can fund Constellation, and keep our science, aeronautics, and Earth science programs robust.

Let's keep 'em flying. Heck, let's GET 'em flying! Remember: Ares I-X launches in 2009!