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The MV-22 Osprey programme has survived so many fatal crashes and attempts to kill it in congress that perhaps it should be renamed the MV-22 ‘Rasputin’. Yet still it continues, though I see that one of the two MV-22s flown from the US to Farnborough a couple days ago had to divert to Iceland because of engine difficulties. Yet every time I look at the amazing disc loading on those things, I wonder how the hell they intend to use them? Given that when hovering the downwash has been known to knock people off their feet and send fast moving debris flying in all directions, how is this kite going to replace the CH-46E and CH-53D? An aircraft designed for unprepared LZ special operations that has to hover high to avoid downwash related problems and which cannot auto-rotate if damaged fills me with grave foreboding. Although the range and speed are very impressive, I wonder if this aircraft will not just be too hot and too inflexible for practical operations at the current state of technology. July 19th, 2006 | 28 comments - (Comments are closed)
 There is a very interesting editorial in the Arab Times that takes the view that Hezbollah is a blight on Lebanon. Moreover the writer, Arab Times chief editor Ahmed Al-Jarallah, clearly dislikes the fact that it is the Lebanese people, not Syria and Iran, who are paying the price for Hezbollah’s lethal antics. He is none too flattering about the Lebanese government either.
Read the whole thing for a very clear Arab opinion of where the blame should lie for the ongoing horror… and it is not Israel. July 19th, 2006 | 21 comments - (Comments are closed)
The man who brought us the ultimate tough private eye, Mike Hammer, has died at the age of 88. I quite liked Mickey Spillane’s hard-boiled fiction, though goodness knows it never pretended to be Henry James or Proust (and was all the better for it, probably). Bob Bidinotto has a nice article saying farewell to the old fella. Here is a report over at Bloomberg. I am sure Hammer is laughing over a large bourbon somewhere before going out to tangle with treacherous dames and cut down the bad guys. July 18th, 2006 | 4 comments - (Comments are closed)
As I write this, I am reading a Reuters report saying that Britain could have the highest temperatures in recorded history later this week – possibly up to 39 degrees Celsius as warm air from Continental Europe moves north. Phew. Whatever the cause for a run of hot summers in recent years, there is no doubt now that working in Britain during the summer months would be a lot less pleasant were it not for the invention of air-conditioning. Mind you, it seems that Britain still has not quite figured out how to manage AC systems properly. In my time working in London, the systems have been frequently unreliable although my modern office in London’s Docklands is excellent. London’s Tube does not have it (the excuse I hear is that the tunnels are not large enough for the technology to work efficiently). Even so, the use of air conditioning seems to be spreading, although I don’t have reliable statistics to hand but just personal experience over a decade or more of going to different offices in town. Here is a story about how a hospital in Belfast is supposedly the first major building to use AC. (Belfast?) July 18th, 2006 | 18 comments - (Comments are closed)
That is to ask, who actually foots the bill for business taxes? It is much easier for a politician to raise taxes on businesses, which do not vote and are constantly portrayed as the villains by our virulently ignorant press, than on individuals. But we learn, from todays (subscription-only) Wall Street Journal Political Diary, that it is not so simple::
Taxes have to come from somewhere. Businesses will pass costs on to those with the least bargaining power. Businesses have to choose between holding down wages, charging customers more (hard to do, in a competitive market), paying capital less (very hard to do, in the brutally competitive capital markets), and cutting capital re-investment (not smart if you want to be in business in three years). In the absence of an extremely tight labor market, keeping wages down is the path of least resistance. July 18th, 2006 | 13 comments - (Comments are closed)
but still a good one:
July 18th, 2006 | 11 comments - (Comments are closed)
Lebanese Political Journal makes for grim reading. It is all well and good to wish for the destruction of Hezbollah (as indeed I do) but that does not reduce the sadness I feel when I read personal accounts of the cost to ordinary Lebanese people. If only there was some other way but I cannot see what that would be. My fear is that the aftermath of this will kill off the modern secular state Lebanon is struggling to become. The anger of the Lebanese people under the bombs who do not support Hezbollah is understandable but that does not change the fact Hezbollah exists as a state-with-a-state and that it attacks Israel and is dedicated to its destruction. Until there is a Lebanese solution to the ‘problem’ of Hezbollah, Israeli interventions are inevitable. Unfortunately I am unsure Israel has exercised sufficient discrimination to keep this as a war between Israel and Hezbollah rather than Israel and everyone in Lebanon. People in Lebanon have ample reason to distrust Israeli good will or promises but then Israel knows all too well what Hezbollah has in mind for it and until the Islamo-fascists and their sponsors are taken out of the equasion it is hard to see how anything will improve. July 18th, 2006 | 39 comments - (Comments are closed)
The government is now proscribing two successor organisations of Al-Mujahiroun. These are Al-Ghurabaa and the Saved Sect, two cloaks for the continued radicalisation and recruitment of Muslims on British soil. However, they are not being banned because they pose a threat to our security, but for the glorification of terror.
One can oppose this ban on utilitarian grounds: the individuals who organise these groups will merely band together and continue their activities under a different guise. If the symbols or pickets are written in Urdu or Arabic, what policeman or member of the public could ever understand the acts that they were glorifying. Such a placard may as well state “Ronaldo forever”. The practicality of this ban is in grave doubt. At best, there is a slender chance that it may hinder the recruitment of those we should fear most: white Muslims who can walk unhindered and cause the greatest headache for the security services But utilitarian arguments trade on the ground that the prohibitionists choose to stand upon. No matter how much we may oppose the precepts of these two groups, proscription is wrong. Liberty includes allowing the supporters of terrorist acts to stand up and air their views for all to witness. If they are not linked to acts of violence, and do not step beyond the boundaries of our traditional laws on incitement, who are we to gag and silence those we do not wish to hear. Security is not bought by stopping your ears or allowing the state to stop them for you. You cannot rely upon your own vigilance in identifying those who pose a threat to you, once the state has silenced them and you. July 18th, 2006 | 4 comments - (Comments are closed)
The New American Century is beginning to prove trying. I have remarked here before about the spreading fondness of governments for extraterritoriality, and the cartelisation of states. The global War on Drugs of the last century has been almost entirely driven by the US, but has operated through state cartels. Non-Americans can hold themselves and their countrymen to blame for going along with the moralistic folly. Now, however, the US is starting to apply its laws in ways that purport to apply in the rest of the world, and to reach into other states and impose those laws on their residents, their citizens, who would have had every reason to believe they were entitled to live according to local custom. I suspect that this is partly a phenomenon of power, that any other state with the power to do so would be similarly tempted. But the US, a state founded on the principle of limited self-governance, should know better. Unfortunately limited self-governance looks more and more tainted with unlimited self-righteousness. As with the War on Drugs, so with the War on Terror – “the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.” Last week we had the NatWest three: charged with a ‘crime’ against a British bank in Britain that neither the bank itself nor the normally trigger-happy FSA and Serious Fraud Office had taken any interest in, yet extradited to Texas – “transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences.” This week the chief executive of an internet gambling firm listed on the London Stock Exchange is arrested air-side on ‘racketeering’ charges on his way to Costa Rica The basis appears to be that some Americans choose to gamble online, and for their immorality someone must be punished – that the person is a foreigner operating entirely legally according to the foreign jurisdiction he does business in does not bother the feds, who “subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws.”. Something is askew when the US federal government purports to operate such an extraterritorial jurisdiction over a Briton, but will not touch gambling in the Native American territories on the fiction that they are independent.. try putting anything but tobacco in your peace-pipe, and see how far being in an Indian Nation exempts you from the mission of government. You probably will not get that far. Nor have I seen signs of a civil war being levied against Nevada and New Jersey. US forces will happily bomb obscure Peruvian and Afghan drug fields over enormous logistical difficulty, and without regard for (foreign) casualties (“…plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people”). Meanwhile Las Vegas – a large, well illuminated target close to several major air-bases is mysteriously still standing. Forget several property for a moment. To insure any of the rights we have against a global tyranny, we need de facto several jurisdiction: separate and equal station among the powers of the earth. The state does have a value, folks. But we forget at our peril that the key one is to defend us against other states. If they club together against their peoples, or subordinate their power to other states, then states might as well not exist. The limiting cases are places like Congo where neighbouring powers prey at will on the population. This should mean something:
But I do not think it does, much. Even Britain, notionally a Great Power, scarcely pretends to assert its power for the protection of its own people’s interests. There has to be somewhere to run or all the world ends enslaved to a monopoly of power. Let us have some diversity. Disunited nations would be a good thing. What will it take to get nations to declare their independence of the international system? July 18th, 2006 | 28 comments - (Comments are closed)
The Farnborough Air Show is on near London this week. In the commercial jet market, things have changed dramatically since the Paris Air show last year. A year ago Airbus had their first flying displays of their very large new A380 airliner, and for the fifth year in a row Airbus received more orders for airliners than did Boeing. Through a combination of more modern aircraft, more modern production lines and (perhaps) state subsidies, Airbus has come from a distant position in the market to market leadership. However, this year Airbus fallen to a distant second in the market, having received only 117 orders this year to Boeing’s 480. The A380 is behind schedule, the first airlines to receive it will be getting it six months late, and Airbus has scarcely received an order for it in the last couple of years. (Total orders are presently for 159). Boeong has received orders for 400 of its new mid-market 787 aircraft (and orders for Airbus’ A330 and smaller A340 variants have dried up completely) and is also significantly ahead of Airbus in the upper mid-market segment containing Airbus’ A340-600 aircraft and Boeing’s 777-300. Airbus’ British shareholder BAe Systems would like to sell its minority stake in Airbus, and therefore recently commissioned N. M. Rothschild to provide a valuation of the stake. The resulting valuation (€2.75bn) was dramatically less than the (€4bn) BAe Systems had anticipated. The short term reasons for this turnaround are fairly obvious. The dollar has weakened significantly compared to the euro. While Airbus has hedged its currency exposure on existing orders and these will therefore still be profitable, it lacks this advantage going forward on new orders. While Boeing’s production methods were outdated five years ago, its logistical systems have been dramatically improved since, and in terms of production it once again can compete. The A380 delay is certainly a short term factor, but most aircraft programs feature a delay like this at some point. But these are only the short term reasons. There are more long term reasons, but the financial press seems to have failed to put the whole story together. → Continue reading: Airbus misses a paradigm shift July 17th, 2006 | 34 comments - (Comments are closed)
I think Tory leader, windmill pioneer and attendee of uber-Chav celebrity bashes, David Cameron, might want to take a break from the social whirl and read this about the much-derided U.S. tax cuts of 2003:
Britain’s Conservatives believed – at least during the 1980s when a certain Nigel Lawson was Chancellor – that cuts to marginal tax rates could actually generate more, not less revenue for the State, as well as being a good thing in its own right for widening economic liberty and reducing the bite taken out of the pockets of the citizenry. Now, I know that some libertarian purists out there might actually be suspicious about a measure that would raise more revenues, even if it is a good thing for individual taxpayers. I say let purity be damned. we know that politicians are not motivated much by supposed abstract concerns about the balance between the individual and the State these days, but the practical benefits of cutting tax rates should still resonate with our political classes. The Laffer Curve still operates, at least if you accept the WSJ article. Even current Chancellor Gordon Brown might wake up to the sort of facts that the Wall Street Journal is on about. It would be nice to think that the Tories would seize on such data, make a fuss, point out the benefits of flattening the tax code, simplifying it and cutting rates. Instead, unless I am missing out here, is silence. Maybe the implosion of the current government means the opposition can afford to slump in the hammock during the back end of summer and wait. But it would be nice to think that they could be a tad more ambitious. Only a tad – I would not want our Dave to break into a sweat or anything. July 17th, 2006 | 7 comments - (Comments are closed)
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