If Ain't Boeing, I Am.... Going.

WTF, people, WTF. The company which once was a flagship of innovation and high quality is reduced to this? Seattle Times reports:

Last spring, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) managers approved removing a key feature of the 787 Dreamliner wing that aimed to protect it in the event of a lightning strike. Boeing’s design change, which reduces costs for the company and its airline customers, sped through despite firm objections raised by the agency’s own technical experts, who saw an increased risk of an explosion in the fuel tank inside the wing. That clash will come under scrutiny Wednesday as FAA Administrator Steve Dickson appears before a House committee examining the agency’s regulatory performance in the wake of the two Boeing 737 MAX crashes.

This is what happens when one allows MBAs to run a company--they will sure drive it into the ground. They surely did so with American economy as a whole. Cutting costs in aerospace means only one thing--people WILL die because of it. But as long as fat corporate cats are happy, who cares, right? I am NOT flying on B-787, period. Good ol' reliable B-747 and 777 only. 

FAA Administrator Dickson wrote to the committee on Friday insisting that “the design change had no unsafe features” and that the 787s produced since the removal of the copper foil from the wing skin are “currently safe to operate.” Still, in October, perhaps in response to the mounting criticism of its oversight role, the FAA seemed to take a step back. In a letter to Boeing, the agency’s airplane certification unit said the “cumulative effect of multiple issues” affecting the 787’s lightning protection — including the deliberate design changes, a sequence of Boeing manufacturing errors and the discovery that some lightning protection features proved inadequate in practice — raised concerns that the risk from a lightning strike is greater than the regulations allow.

You have got to be kidding me. In the last several years, the United States as a whole becomes increasingly reminiscent of a train flying off the rails on the flimsy bridge down into the river, with pieces and bits flying off in the process. One non-stop train wreck. Every single institution of the country seems to be in an implosion mode. 

Afghan War, which initially, after 9/11, I strongly supported understanding that the nest of Jihadists was there, turned into some kind of circus:

Bob Crowley, a retired Army colonel who served as a counterinsurgency adviser in Afghanistan in 2013 and 2014, told government interviewers that at military headquarters in Kabul, “bad news was often stifled” because “the truth was rarely welcome.” “There was more freedom to share bad news if it was small—we’re running over kids with our MRAPs [armored vehicles] —because those things could be changed with policy directives,” he said. “But when we tried to air larger strategic concerns about the willingness, capacity or corruption of the Afghan government, it was clear it wasn’t welcome.” Military officials would create color-coded charts proclaiming their positive achievements, devoting an “inordinate amount of resources” to the endeavor, said John Garofano, a Naval War College strategist who advised Marines in Helmand province in 2011. “They had a really expensive machine that would print the really large pieces of paper like in a print shop,” he said. “There would be a caveat that these are not actually scientific figures, or this is not a scientific process behind this.” But it didn’t matter that the process wasn’t scientific, because no one bothered to question the numbers behind the charts anyway.

The funniest part in all that: unlike the US in 1980s during Soviet War in Afghanistan, Russia actually supported US operations there. All for naught, Russia will have to deal with this mess one way or another. And how else one is supposed to react to all this, when even such damning, and correct, conclusions barely make a dent in another BS of "impeachment" unfolding in a front of our eyes. 

After 18 years, encompassing three presidential administrations from both parties, no one has been held accountable for the vast U.S. taxpayer dollars—not to mention, blood, sweat, and tears—wasted on an exercise for a purpose that even the principle players seem unable to identify. These papers show a clear attempt to mislead and deceive the American people about the extent of the administrative and bureaucratic waste and incompetence that was occurring. What these interviews reveal is mind-blowing; that no one has been unaccountable is criminal.

Will anyone, ever get to be held responsible? If not, then the country is done. America's last test is the "impeachment" saga--if no one gets an indictment and spends the rest of their lives behind bars for treason, there will be nothing to fall back in the remnants of once proud Republic. It will be over because the system ceases to operate. What comes after is a whole other story altogether. 

Go To 0.25 Of Normal Speed.

On Youtube for this clip from Russian MoD. Can you see the missile? I don't, no matter how I played with it:

In accordance to  Russian MoD Kalibr missile covered 250 kilometers in 137 seconds before hitting the target in the Crimean Peninsula. This is Mach=5.5 land attack missile. Are we yet again in "Revelation Mode"? Let's wait and see, but this Zvezda article (in Russian) has this funny phrase: Initially, when missile accelerates, supersonic fighters which follow it are practically equal (meaning following) with it (c). And then, and then... I guess this was THE message. Make your own conclusions. Many people already did.

 

Why Russia Is A Clear And Present Danger to The US-III

Because, in accordance to Senate's Committee on Foreign Relations, Russia is a sponsor of terrorism (in Russian). So you see, it is clear now:

The US Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved a bill recognizing Russia as a “sponsor of terrorism." This was announced by the director of public relations and press of the chairman of the committee Susanne Ress. According to her, the initiative "obliges the Secretary of State to determine whether the Russian Federation should be considered a country - the sponsor of terrorism." In addition, the document is about declaring armed groups in eastern Ukraine to be foreign terrorist organizations. Now the project will be considered by the Senate in full force. If the document is adopted, the head of the Department of State must submit a decision to the legislator within 90 days. The list of states sponsoring terrorism is compiled by the US Foreign Office. Currently, it includes Iran, North Korea, Syria and Sudan. 

It is all Russia, Russia, Russia. Remember 9/11? Russia. Tzarnaev brothers turning Boston in one huge mayhem? Russia. Russia failed to inform FBI and CIA for 201st time about these terrorists, thus sponsoring them bombing Boston Marathon. But jokes aside. Russian-American relations are ruined for decades to come and we have to really face this reality. The Cold War 2.0 is in a full swing and it is dangerous. But it is obvious that Russia will not be slow with response and will nominate the United States as a sponsor of terrorism and that will have some serious consequences for the United States. But this whole thing with terrorism sponsorship merely confirms my idea that the United States is in a full desperation mode and is losing it. Just read this opening statement from the Chair of this Committee :

“But I must also caution the Administration and my Congressional colleagues about focusing our strategy on sanctions. Sanctions are not a strategy for dealing with Russia, they are simply a tool. While U.S. financial preeminence makes sanctions an easy and somewhat effective tool, I have serious concerns about the consequences of their overuse, particularly in the absence of a larger strategy. More sanctions don’t make us tougher on Russia. “And I’m concerned about the rush to sanction in the absence of concrete policy goals. The NordStream 2 bill from Senators Cruz and Shaheen was a targeted sanctions bill with a clear policy goal in mind. But more general sanctions actions, when not connected to specific goals, can be counterproductive. And sanctions not done in coordination with our European allies, who are far closer to Russia in both distance and connectivity, is a dangerous action that can undermine our alliances. “In some cases, when insufficiently vetted, sanctions have even inadvertently helped advance Putin’s goals of economic consolidation and reinvigoration of Russian industry. These cannot be the outcomes we want. I assume these are outcomes we actually oppose.

Now, you do understand that the United States is non-agreement capable and is run by lunatics. Russia is run, I must say it openly, by one of the greatest global statesmen of this century and that is why Russia has no illusions on who is in charge of the asylum. For crazies any normalcy is a clear and present danger.

Real Economies.

A superb demonstrator, and a "predictor" of the size of REAL economy globally through real tangible indicator--electricity generation. It gives a good framework and order of magnitude of what each nation is capable of and it explains why Russia is realistically 5th or 4th economy globally. 

Here is another video of an enormous significance, from yesterday: 

Here you can see the assembly of first MS-21 which starts test-flying with PD-14 engine in the nearest future. Well, that, plus Russia finishing final tests of GTD-110M, which is first fully Russian gas-turbine of very large (between 110 to 500 MWT) power (in Russian). That means one thing: bye-bye, Siemens (and GE as a very remote second). The serial production of GTD-110M starts in 2020. Meanwhile this shows that modern Russia, especially when one accounts for energy-saving technologies, in terms of electricity production begins to surpass that of the...Soviet Union.

But that brings me to the point of getting into a very "dangerous" field of the actual standard of living. Sergei Brekotin of Aftershock News went there (in Russian) yesterday:

But I have my own, down to earth, observations which I will share on the account of actual living standard in Russia and in the West, especially the United States. I'll give you a hint: Russia's ownership of personal automobiles grew tremendously, plus enormous number of Russians OWN some real estate which doesn't need to be mortgaged and paid off. And, you can easily buy antibiotics over counter which spares you visit to a doctor, which, most of the time, is free anyway. I'll elaborate on that later.    

Yvonne Lorenzo Interviewed Me.

About a couple of weeks or so ago. You can read Yvonne's excellent work at The Saker's Blog: 

The (Real) Revolution in Military Affairs: An Interview with Andrei Martyanov by Yvonne Lorenzo

In fact, it is more than interview, Yvonne provides her very own, including personal, excellent input and it is, certainly, worth reading not because of my thoughts only, but Yvonne's too.

And This Is The News Exactly How?

Nothing to see here, folks. Move along, move along:

US officials have been lying to the American people about US failures in Afghanistan, where the US military has been fighting its longest armed conflict in US history, a collection of confidential documents obtained by the Washington Post revealed. Over the past 18 years of war, US officials have repeatedly insisted that the US is making progress in Afghanistan, but over 2,000 pages of notes from interviews with more than 400 people who had a direct role in the war in Afghanistan have revealed the truth about the conflict — that data was altered and facts were twisted to present a positive picture when the reality in country was far from it, The Post reports. John Sopko, head of the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), the agency that conducted the interviews, told The Post that the documents clearly show "the American people have constantly been lied to." The documents obtained by The Post show that the US and its allies and partners had no clear mission, the US does not have a sufficient understanding of Afghanistan, and the US has wasted massive amounts of money trying to stabilize the still unstable country. "We didn't know what we were doing," Douglas Lute, a retired Army three-star general who oversaw the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, told interviewers in 2015. "What are we trying to do here? We didn't have the foggiest notion of what we were undertaking,"

There is one teeny-weeny "detail" here. The number of KIAs, same as in Iraq, is given only for regular military. There are, of course, those so called "contractors", who, if to believe reports by 2015 accounted for another around 2000 KIAs. Plus, lest we forget purely civilian contractors. As the news-piece continues:

"If the American people knew the magnitude of this dysfunction ... 2,400 lives lost," he added. Since the start of the war in 2001, the US has sent more than 775,000 troops to Afghanistan. Around 2,400 service members have been killed, and more than 20,000 have been wounded. Furthermore, the US is estimated to have spent roughly $1 trillion on the conflict. "What did we get for this $1 trillion effort? Was it worth $1 trillion?" Jeffrey Eggers, a retired Navy SEAL who served both Bush and Obama as a White House staffer, asked, according to The Post.

So, at this stage, one must ask the question--what are they thinking in D.C.? It is especially scandalous against the background of Russia having to clean up the mess left by the United States in Afghanistan, with all fruits of Afghan "democracy", such as Taliban and ISIS, and other "progressive" Jihadist movements having plans for Middle Asia. That means Russia. One, of course, can wax geopolitical and conclude that the United States has The Great Game plans of  "containing" Russia by means of disturbing her "soft Asian underbelly". Well, sure, but not at the price of own humiliating defeat. The game is worth playing only when one gets some benefits. What benefits, exactly, did the United States reap from its longest war in history? So, the abused, as you may have guessed by now by political "scientists", and false argument of this Great Game simply doesn't fly, even if to imagine that some nominally American Transnational Corp will decide to do business in minerals-rich Afghanistan and will be ready to payoff Afghan conflicting tribal interests. Good luck with that. 

Of course, Afghanistan lies perilously close to China's BRI routes....

 

And Afghanistan seems like a nice bridgehead from which to destabilize weak links in this route, especially Tajikistan. Can they have such plans in D.C.? Observing the "level" of Geo-strategic "thinking" in Washington, one can totally conceive that such a delusion is being exercised. But that is where Russian 201st Military Base may turn itself into something much more substantial, granted Tajikistan wants to survive, but that is another issue altogether. Considering the fact that the United States is ungovernable and is mired in lost wars trying to postpone inevitable, as one observer noted about Syria "withdrawal" :

So to recap, we have a withdrawal that isn’t a withdrawal. We have an ostensibly antiwar left that’s too busy ferreting out the Russian spies in its Peloton supply chains to actually accomplish anything useful. We have a shiny, rebranded, “pro-working class” right that refuses to heed the foreign policy wishes of its newest constituents. We have a president who looks less like a commander-in-chief than a Tom and Jerry character falling down an endless set of stairs. And we have a national debt of $23 trillion and counting. Gold stars all around.

Couldn't have said better myself. 

How I Spent My Vacations.

Not Friday, but still--daddy takes son to his "work" and shows what it is. This is how preventive measures and cure against Snow-Flaking and Social Justice Warriorism work. No translation necessary;)) 

Armor-piercing, load! Fire (Shoot--Vystrel)! Toxic masculinity all over the place--that's the way to do it. Feels good. The kid will be all right while growing to become a man. .