Moon of Alabama Brecht quote
June 30, 2009

Five years of Moon of Alabama - Time to close it down

From the MoA About page:

Some time ago, the commenting at Billmon's Whiskey Bar became a bit excessive. Billmon therefore closed the comments at his place on June 29, 2004. The community of commentators was left behind to search for a new place.

Moon Of Alabama was opened as an independent, open forum for members of the Whiskey Bar community.

Bernhard started and still runs the site. ...

Now Bernhard stops the site. The decision to do so was taken six weeks ago and has nothing to do with recent developments in the world or any comment on this blog.

The main reason is financially. If there were a big, generous sponsor I could keep on doing this. Believe it or not, even while this is a small place, keeping it clean and posting on a wide range of issues makes it a full time job. Until recently I could sustain running it because I had reserves and a real job that allowed a lot of flexibility and a nice pay. Both are gone.

I now need to, again, 'get a life'. There are other issues too. Running such a blog is rather isolating. Being so much on the news and developing a bullshit detector as good blogging requires, creates too much distance from real, small issue social life around oneself. Psychologically it is quite a drag down. Read every line of The Daily Palestinian post from bottom to top and you will understand what I am thinking about.

In the total five years MoA got some 4,305,000 pageviews from about 2.1 million visits. Some 133,000 comments were posted and some 4,260 posts were published. Those numbers may sound big, but even with advertisement and small donations it would not be economically viable to run with this format and reach.

As this page view graph shows there were ups and downs but still a nice long-term up trend. A few more years on ... but who knows?


bigger

Thanks to all who came here, read and commented. A special thanks to those who have been around since the very first days. Dan of Steele, Juannie, r'giap, annie ond others come to mind.

In a few days, I will close the comments to this and other threads. I'll arrange something for b real to keep his Africa Comments alive and free of spam. I'll stop reading news.

I may, (may!) produce a CD with the archives of this blog plus the full Billmon archives. Check back in two or three weeks on how, maybe, you can get it.

To all of you, thanks!

And goodbye.

Posted by b on June 30, 2009 at 7:26 UTC | Permalink | Comments (243)

Links June 30 09

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Posted by b on June 30, 2009 at 6:07 UTC | Permalink | Comments (12)

June 29, 2009

The Real Health Care Issue

The Economist has an interesting piece on The benefits, and the costs, of living longer. Part of it is a look at health care:

[A]s a rule of thumb, the bulk of spending on an individual’s health care is concentrated in the last year or two of life, and particularly in the final six months.

This leads, especially in the U.S. to some rather stupid rationing. Ron Beasly at the Newshoggers explains this well with a personal case:

My 86 year old mother is in really good health but had started to be short of breath. They ran some diagnostic tests and discovered she had a bad heart valve. She was referred to a cardiologist who was ready to split her chest open and replace the valve. I asked him several questions:

1. She is in relatively good health now – following the surgery will she ever recover to be as good as she was before? The answer was probably not!
2. I told the doctor that I heard that being on a heart lung machine can have a negative impact on memory and asked him if that was true. The answer was yes, especially in older people.
3. The next question was what will happen if the valve is not replaced? The answer was the shortness of breath may gradually get worse.
4. I asked him if it were his mother would he suggest the surgery? The answer was NO!

The bottom line is they were going to perform a procedure that would cost 50 thousand plus dollars that would have left my mother worse off after the surgery because Medicare would pay for it.

At 63 years of age I cannot get health insurance at any price. I am denied procedures that could keep me alive for another 20 or 30 years while Medicare pays for procedures that add little or even have negative impacts on the health of the patient. That's rationing and foolish.

My father was treated to death in a hospital where he was kept alive for three month with dialysis, which with a clear mind he had earlier rejected, while it was simply obvious that he was slowly dying.

A hospice where he could have died without pain and with good care would have been a tenth of the costs than the therapy to death provided to him. The saved money could have been used to provide better care for younger people.

The society must come to a better sense with the inevitability of death and stop spending money on people who are certain to die soon despite high-cost procedures.

Aging societies with negative birthrate like most of Europe and Japan will otherwise ruin themselves.

Countries like the U.S., which by a systemic failure provides full health care to elderly while denying it to its younger productive people, will cripple their population.

There are sound reason why health care insurance in the future will have to be public. As the private insurance providers get more sophisticated about their customers (DNA tests etc), they will not take any risky person at all but provide only to those who are expected to pay more in than they will get out. That isn't insurance, in which by definition risk gets distributed unevenly, but robbery.

The U.S. as well as other countries needs universal health-care provided by a public system. But that is not the only issue.

The real central issue in health care and the single most effective way to limit health care cost is to accept death as a natural occurrence and to stop to prolong live it at all costs by medical means.

Unfortunately the discussion about that are still missing.

Posted by b on June 29, 2009 at 18:27 UTC | Permalink | Comments (30)

Africa Comments (6)

For b reals exhaustive coverage of Somalia and other Africa issues.

The previous Africa thread is here.

Posted by b on June 29, 2009 at 12:23 UTC | Permalink | Comments (37)

Juan Cole - Neocon In Liberal Cloth

The original source is not online so I'll take this from Wikipedia:

While lecturing in early 2003 in a University of Michigan course focused on the impending conflict, Cole expressly stated that he thought the US should act to overthrow the Saddam Hussein regime, even though it might lead to unforeseen consequences.

Six years after that disastrous standpoint Cole today publishes a "Guest OpEd" from one of his colleges at University of Michigan at his widely read blog. That "Guest OpEd", from which Cole in no way distances himself, states:

It would be a mistake to think that people like Ahmadinejad are reasonable. It is counter productive to base policy on the untenable premise that he would be amenable to a cost-benefit analysis on the nuclear issue. Time and again he has announced that the nuclear issue is off the table. To believe or hope otherwise would be a profound and resonant error.

The option that is left for the United States is either to effectively support Mousavi’s camp today or risk a military confrontation with Ahmadinejad tomorrow.

Huh?

How could the U.S. "more effectively" help an opposition candidate who lost an election? The U.S. already spends hundreds of millions to achieve "regime change" in Iran. What is more effective? Creating thousands of Nedas? And unless the U.S. does that it needs to bomb Iran and created ten thousands more?

The whole "Guest OpEd" Cole published is a collection of lies and assertions and its conclusion could well have been written by Ariel Sharon, Bibi Netanjahu and other right-wing other slaughterers. 

For publishing that and for his stand on the Iraq war Cole deserves to go to hell.

Posted by b on June 29, 2009 at 10:01 UTC | Permalink | Comments (72)

Links June 29 09

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Posted by b on June 29, 2009 at 6:02 UTC | Permalink | Comments (2)

June 28, 2009

Coup In Honduras

The Honduran president, Manuel Zelaya, was ousted by the army on Sunday after pressing ahead with plans for a referendum that opponents said could lay the groundwork for his eventual re-election, in the first military coup in Central America since the end of the cold war.
...
President Obama said Sunday that he was deeply concerned by the reports from Honduras about the detention and expulsion of the president.
...
Mr. Zelaya, who has the support of labor unions and the poor, is an ally of President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela. During his three years in office, opposition to the president has mounted from the middle class and the wealthy business community who fear that he is planning to introduce Mr. Chávez’s brand of socialist populism into the country, one of Latin America’s poorest.
Honduran President Is Ousted in Coup , NYT, June 28, 2009

---

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras, Jan. 30, 2009 – The commander of U.S. Southern Command arrived here yesterday to reaffirm the United States’ strategic partnership with Honduras and praise the solid bilateral and interagency cooperation that is delivering tangible success.
...
Declaring an “excellent state of cooperation between our two militaries,” [Navy Adm. James G.] Stavridis lauded tremendous progress within Honduras’ 11,000-member military.
...
“The future of national security is the interagency, all working together,” he said.
Stavridis Praises U.S.-Honduran Cooperation in Confronting Mutual Threats, Defense Link

I am confident that readers and commentators here are able to conclude the rest of this tale.

Posted by b on June 28, 2009 at 19:09 UTC | Permalink | Comments (132)

Iraq After The U.S. Retreat

In two days U.S. troops in Iraq will have left most of the cities as demanded by the Status of Force Agreement (SOFA). Back in April General Odierno sounded reluctant to follow that agreement. But as the Iraqis insisted, Odierno's tone changed. Maliki is hailing the U.S. retreat from the cities as an Iraqi victory.

Next January the Iraqi people will vote on the SOFA agreement. If they reject it, the U.S. troops will have to leave within the next 12 month. If they accept, the troops will stay at least a year longer.

Over the last weeks Iraq experienced a fresh string of bombings. These may well have been initiated by disgruntled Sunni tribes who were bought off by the U.S. during the 'surge' but have now lost that income. They want their share of the oil richness in the very corrupt state. How Maliki will handle these in the short term is difficult to know. In the end he will likely have little choice but to accommodate their demands.

More serious trouble may come up in the north. The autonomous region of Kurdish adopted a new constitution which would include the oil rich province of Kirkuk as well as Nineveh and Diyala. Baghdad certainly can not accept that. I find it difficult to see how this can be resolved in a peaceful way.

All in all Iraq is in a terrible condition and will take years to regain some sense of normality and a functioning state. Without outer interference it will be a bloody and long process. With outer interference this will also be bloody and it will take even longer.

Posted by b on June 28, 2009 at 10:41 UTC | Permalink | Comments (32)

Links June 28 09

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Posted by b on June 28, 2009 at 5:51 UTC | Permalink | Comments (26)

June 27, 2009

More Khobar Towers?

In 1996 a huge bomb exploded in front of the Khobar Towers complex in Khobar, Saudi Arabia. The complex housed U.S. Air Force personnel and the attack killing 19 U.S. airmen and wounded 372.

The political right wing in the U.S. blamed Iran for being behind the attack. When some of the alleged culprits, Saudis and Lebanese 'Hizbollah', were indicted in 2001, the NYT wrote:

United States officials have said they have evidence of Iranian involvement, and at a news conference announcing the indictment, Attorney General John Ashcroft charged that Iranian officials ''inspired, supported and supervised members of Saudi Hezbollah'' in the attack.

The F.B.I. investigated the attack with very reluctant assistance from the Saudis.

Ultimately, American officials said cooperation improved, and the Saudis are believed to have provided much of the evidence that led to the indictments.

The Saudis provided 'evidence' that Iran was involved, but the Clinton administration was not convinced. It asked Iran for help.

The letter was sent after the United States obtained convincing information that Iranian officials were behind the attack. The letter came in the midst of Mr. Clinton's broader efforts to reach out to Mr. Khatami and engage the reformist forces in Iran.

[F.B.I. director Louis] Freeh reportedly concluded that the Clinton administration was not serious about solving the case, and he is said to have waited until Mr. Clinton left office in order to try to bring charges in the matter. The indictment came in Mr. Freeh's last week in office as F.B.I. director.

The main figure who promoted the Saudi 'evidence' was indeed then F.B.I. director Louis Freeh. In March 2009 Freeh was hired by the Saudi Prince Bandar, longterm Saudi ambassador to the U.S., as his legal representative in a bribe case in which Bandar is accused of.taking money for arranging a huge BAE arms deal.

Historian and IPS author Gareth Porter recently investigated the tale. Porter, convincingly to me, proves that the Khobar attack was done by al-Qaeda and the Saudis were pushing to make Iran the culprit as a cover-up of their own involvement and to prevent a U.S.-Iran detente.

Here is his series:

The Saudis provided 'evidence' for Iranian and Lebanese Hizbollah involvement in the Khobar attack on U.S. forces just as the Clinton administration was trying to get warmer with Iran. The attack was likely carried out by some Saudi group, al-Qaeda or something similar. Porter concludes:

The result of Freeh’s blatant pro-Saudi bias was that Osama bin Laden was allowed more years of unhindered freedom in which to plan terrorist actions against the United States. Had Freeh not become an advocate of the interests of the regime whose representative in Washington eventually put him on his payroll, U.S. policy would presumably have been focused like a laser on Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda two years earlier.

And perhaps the disinterest of the George W. Bush administration’s national security team toward al Qaeda before 9/11 would have been impossible.

The Saudi motive for pointing to Iran as a culprit was to prevent a detente between the U.S. and Iran. Their own involvement and support for the attack is still unknown.

Can we expect some similar event as Obama tries to engage Iran?

Posted by b on June 27, 2009 at 19:48 UTC | Permalink | Comments (7)

An Interesting Detail

A new interesting detail in a fresh NYT piece from Tehran:

The Expediency Council, headed by former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, issued a statement that called the supreme leader’s decision the final word on the election, although it still called on the government to investigate voting complaints “properly and thoroughly.” The group also asked the candidates to cooperate with the government in any probe.

Mr. Rafsanjani, though a consummate insider, has been one of Mr. Ahmadinejad’s strongest critics and one of the most ardent supporters of Mir Hussein Moussavi, Mr. Ahmadinejad’s chief rival in the election. Mr. Rafsanjani’s son had even financed an elaborate system intended to check for voting fraud before the election. But since the vote, the former president has been quiet, and many Iranians were hoping he could broker some compromise behind the scenes.

So there was a "elaborate" and "well financed" system not under government control to check for election fraud. Moisavi had over 40,000 election observers in the field who must have reported to some central entity. Where are its results? What are they? Why were they not released?

If Rafsanjani would have proof for election fraud, why would he not leak it too the public or hand it over to the guardian council? Instead he now agrees with Khamenei on Ahmadinejad's victory.

Of course there are again various conspracy theories one might (and some will) develop around this. For now I will go with the least conspirishy one and assume that, in absence of any proof,  there was no fraud at all.

Posted by b on June 27, 2009 at 17:57 UTC | Permalink | Comments (49)

Links June 27 09

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Posted by b on June 27, 2009 at 5:47 UTC | Permalink | Comments (39)

June 26, 2009

Iran Election Wrap Up

It seems the Iranian election is now officially decided:

"After 10 days of examination, we did not see any major irregularities," Guardians Council spokesman Abbasali Kadkhodai told the state IRNA news agency, rejecting opposition allegations that have brought hundreds of thousands of demonstrators onto the streets.

"We have had no fraud in any presidential election and this one was the cleanest election we have had. I can say with certainty that there was no fraud in this election."

Well - who to believe? Unless we see some real proof of fraud I am content to believe that there was none.

The result is disappointing for the millions who voted for Mousavi and took to the streets in those big demonstrations. Pat Lang predicts:

I think there is likely to be a sine curve of resistance that fluctuates between relative quiet and street action. This will eventually either eliminate this [ruling] clique or cause a massive change in its policies.

I am not so sure. The last days' street action were mostly youth riots that can be seen on and off again in any normal state and with the usual outcome. They are no danger to the government.

Most Iranian people, after thinking through the issue in calm, will probably also wonder about the absence of any proof for fraud. So there is a chance that this really may quiet down. Some changes in Ahmadinejad's policies could help too. It will be interesting to see what modifications he will make in his cabinet.

To prevent a repeat of such protest, Iran should try to make the election process even more transparent. Publishing the local results immediately after the local counts are done by hanging them out at the front of each election place would certainly help to bring more clarity. Then, when the central tally is made and publish together with all local results on a website and in newspapers, everyone can compare and recalculate the totals.

We still do not know how much the whole protest was initiated from the outside. Those $475 million of U.S. government money invested into regime change in Iran certainly had some effects we may never learn about. What is certain is that official 'western' propaganda media like BBC Farsi and Voice of America's Farsi service did their very best to prepare and support the election fraud claims in Iran. In parallel the general 'western' mass media followed that claim to influence the 'western' public mind. Their lockstep has reached an amazing perfection that Hitler's best troops would have been proud of.

This week has been bad for Iran's international image in the 'west', but overtime the public will forget the issue. Therefore the people who want to attack Iran are preparing a new campaign. Lang again:

The war parties in the US and Israel have taken up a new propaganda theme. They are now saying that a "military coup" by the IRGC and other "radicals" has taken place and that the resulting regime is no longer under the influence and control of the Shia 'ulema. The new theme insists that the new "coup junta" symbolically headed by Khamenei is even more dangerous and more likely to rashly use nuclear weapons as an expression of their lunacy.

This is an obvious attempt to twist the situation in the best agitprop tradition for the purpose of obtaining American popular consensus for war against Iran.

Ahmadinajad is a fool and he will undoubtedly play into the hands of the propagandists.

Lang knows the neocons, but I am not so sure about his judgment about Ahmadinejad. Ahmedinejad is first and foremost a smart politician. Iran has term limits and he can not be reelected as president.  He now has no pressing need to keep up the vote winning rhetoric he used over the last years. I expect him to now take a much calmer and more realist rhetoric approach towards international issues.

MoA has seen a lot of comments on the Iran election issue. I am really proud of all your comments even when, in the heat of the discussions, some drifted too much towards personal accusations. The various threads and discussion certainly gave room for everyone to look at every side of the issue. What counts in the end are facts. Opinions can be derived from those. In my personal view Arnold Evans' conclusion is very fact based and his opinion will likely survive historic scrutiny.

To the people of Iran: I wish the very best for you. I hope your wounds, partly deepend by outer interference, will heal fast. Stay proud and confident in your abilities and independence.

Posted by b on June 26, 2009 at 16:24 UTC | Permalink | Comments (138)

Jackson

In your opinion, what was his best piece?

To me it was Dirty Diana:

RIP

Posted by b on June 26, 2009 at 11:38 UTC | Permalink | Comments (29)

Links June 26 09

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Posted by b on June 26, 2009 at 6:28 UTC | Permalink | Comments (16)

June 25, 2009

Lenin's Red State Tomb

Lenin, the proprietor of the well visited British Lenin's Tomb blog, sometimes has some useful leftist thoughts and activism posts. He is on my blogroll for that reason. Lenin's real name, advertised at his own side, is Richard Seymour. He wrote a book :

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, a number of prominent thinkers on the Left found themselves increasingly aligned with their ideological opposites. Over the last decade, many of these thinkers have become close to Washington; forceful supporters of the War on Terror, they help frame arguments for policymakers and provide the moral and intellectual justification for Western military intervention across the globe. From Kanan Makiya, one of the chief architects of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq, to Bernard Henri-Levy’s advocacy of “humanitarian” intervention, The Liberal Defence of Murder traces the journey of these figures from left to right and explores their critical role in the creation of the new American empire.

Lenin's book  The Liberal Defence of Murder seems to be about the travels of the neo-cons from the pseudo left to the militaristic right.

Today Lenin writes:

The attempt to drown the protests in rivers of blood have reportedly led to a "massacre" in Baharestan Square, outside the Iranian majles, today. Tens of thousands of basiji reportedly surrounded hundreds of protesters in this small square, and battered them, then opened fire on them. It's not just basiji - multiple reports indicate that young men without uniforms were given batons and let loose. How much of this is true is obviously impossible to tell, but given that dozens have been killed so far, the worst would not be surprising.
...

Okay - pretty energetic - now let's check Lenin's evidence.

The first link in Lenin's post is to a video that shows no violence at all but some 50 (stupid because they have no tactical advantage) young people advancing towards an equally strong line of riot police. In the background some teargas pops can be heard and some smoke is seen.There is no blood or violence in it at all.

The second Lenin link is to a Guardian live blog where a search finds these two 'blood' and 'massacre' items:

2.50pm: There are more disturbing reports on Twitter of injuries in Bahareston Square. One usually reliable source says it is like a war zone with blood everywhere and many nursing broken bones.
...
4.08pm: CNN just interviewed someone who was at Baharestan Square. She tells of a massacre and a massive assault by policemen. The witness was hysterical and speaking very fast.

Blood everywhere - via Twitter ... and an anonymous hysterical 'massacre' telephone account via 'someone' on CNN ...

Lenin's third link, to a different Guardian piece, has this 'massacre":

One woman told CNN that hundreds of unidentified men armed with clubs had emerged from a mosque to confront the protesters.

"They beat a woman so savagely that she was drenched in blood and her husband fainted. They were beating people like hell. It was a massacre," she said.

Yes, it is the same anonymous CNN caller as in the second link. Now that's confirmation!

Lenin's fourth link is to the Daily Mail,.one of those totally unreliable and lying British tabloids. But still the Daily Mail page Lenin links to says just simply nothing about "tenth of thousands of basiji" or "opening fire" at all. Where did Lenin get those fantasies from?

Now from less breathless accounts than Lenin's I gather that yesterday some 200+ people tried to demonstrate at the Baharestan/Parliament Square and that the small not licensed demonstration was send home by the typical means any police force on this planet uses in such cases. Up to now, 24 hours later, there is not one confirmed report that any shots were fired at all, that "rivers of blood" flew or that anything like a "massacre" happened there.

But starting from that linking fast of hearsay the very "leftist" Lenin criticizes the "left" and proclaims:

The bloodless lack of enthusiasm for what is manifestly a democratic movement in some of the commentary reflects not anti-imperialist sensibilities so much as political timidity.
The key here is universality: these protesters are no different from those who have been beaten or killed in Genoa, in London, in LA, in Athens, and everywhere that the state is challenged by a democratic movement and responds in this way. Their case for solidarity is not diminished by the fact that they live in a society that has been threatened by imperialism. On the contrary, it means we ought to redouble our efforts.

Sure - we certainly need more enthusiasm for a 'manifestly democratic movement' that wants one non-secular pseudo-democrat authoritarian, Mousavi, to replace another non-secular pseudo-democrat authoritarian, Ahmadinejad,  to redirect the oil-money flow from the Iranian military aligned faction, Khamenei, to the more theocratic aligned one, Rafsanjani.

Unfortunately Lenin does not offer at all what efforts he thinks should be redoubled. More protests in London? Walk outs in New York? Strikes in Berlin? But I am sure he is able double or triple his own. A copy of his post to Red State or the Freeper site would do just that.

And maybe he should reread and reflect on his book?

Posted by b on June 25, 2009 at 20:17 UTC | Permalink | Comments (61)

Merkel Stands Besides Demonstrators - "in Iran"

Key Western powers urged Iran's leaders anew to ease up on the protesters and review the disputed election results.

"We stand beside you," German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in remarks directed to "all in Iran who seek to demonstrate peacefully."
Iran reform leader says he won't end his challenge

Notice that Merkel said "in Iran". She did not say "everywhere". She did not say "in Germany".

Last weekend in Berlin:

After a public referendum Tempelhof, the famous air-bridge airport in Berlin closed down last year. The buildings are now empty and the four square kilometer airfield is no longer in use. Business interests supported by Merkel's party want to reopen the airport, in the middle of the city, with public money but for private use only. Other plans, currently not fundable, include new public housing and a public park.

On Saturday 2,000 young people held a peaceful demonstration for an immediate opening of the empty and unused outdoor airfield space for public use. When they tried to rush the fence that encloses the airfield, 1,500 policemen attacked and used water-cannons, batons and teargas to disperse the demonstrators. A policeman in civil cloth threw one of the demonstrators on the ground. When other people rushed to help the policeman in civil cloth drew his weapon and threatened to shot them. In total 102 demonstrators were detained, many more got hurt. 

But sure, Merkel is really concerned. She stands beside people who seek to demonstrate. "In Iran".

All these pictures are from the event at Tempelhof.

Posted by b on June 25, 2009 at 15:54 UTC | Permalink | Comments (21)

Links June 25 09

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Posted by b on June 25, 2009 at 5:58 UTC | Permalink | Comments (32)

June 24, 2009

Boeing's Very Bad Day

Not one of my usual themes for MoA but anyway:

Boeing announced today that it will delay the first flight of its new 787 Dreamliner. The reason is - again - a weakness in the 'wing box.' This is the crucial part of the plane where the wings connect to the fuselage and where the weight of the plane's body is transferred onto the wings. The 787 is the first major commercial plane ever to use a wing-box that is:

  • totally manufactured out of non-metal composite material ('baked' carbon-fibers).
  • manufactured by someone else than that plane's construction lead. (Boeing outsourced the wing box manufacturing to Mitsubishi Industries and Fuji Industries in Japan.)

The sales argument for the 787 is less weight and thereby less fuel consumption than competing planes. The sales/marketing demand led to efforts to decrease the material thickness of elements of the already lightweight composite wing box.

Apart from the difficult cultural communications between the individual partners of a highly complex part of a plane the composite material stuff is problematic for other reasons too. We pretty well know how various metals behave under stress. Humanity has used metals for thousands of years. With composites things are different. While metal bends before braking, composites tend to break with few warning signs before doing so. We have yet to find the right formulas and parameters to model composites through virtual computer load tests

Airbus (disclosure: I worked for them as IT consultant until recently) screwed up with the A380 development because of different IT CAD systems in Toulouse and Hamburg, its two main engineering sites. Hamburg engineers constructed electrical wiring that was impossible to fit into the structural body Toulouse had constructed and for other system parts it was just vice versa. That was an expensive mistake made because of incompatible data models but still those mistakes were never crucial to the basic plane layout and structure.

Boeing has a bigger problem. They planed and sold a plane (An amazing total of 863 options even while the first one has yet to take off) that is likely structural unsound or will need so much additional 'stiffening' that it will be non-competitive in weight and fuel consumption. Boeing now will add, again, metal stiffeners to the wing box or wings, i.e. additional aluminum structures that can carry the forces the composites as planned before obviously can not. This of course will increase the weight and lessen the fuel efficiency of the 787. The retraction of orders and the penalties to be payed for still pending orders but delayed delivery will be very severe.

Today Boeing got hit from three sides. At last weeks Paris air show the Boeing CEO emphasized that the first 787 flight would be on target with the already four times moved schedule. Today Boeing had to retract that and moved the schedule again. Also today a GAO report showed that the military Boeing V-22 Osprey did not at all perform to the announced parameters and a Congress man asked the Pentagon to stop new orders for the system. Additionally the Pentagon today officially shut down the Future Combat System, a multibillion racket that Boeing as lead contractor had hoped to feast on.

Meanwhile Airbus just delivered the first plane from its new A320 assembly line in China. That move will help to sell the plane there and will transfer some manufacturing knowledge to China. But the essential engineering and production knowledge will still be kept in Europe. To assemble is not to create.

Meanwhile Boeing's attempt to offshore a central construction and production piece to Japan is not going well at all.

I wonder how significant this may be in the long term.

Posted by b on June 24, 2009 at 19:32 UTC | Permalink | Comments (13)

Iran Lost The Propaganda War

Der Spiegel once was a somewhat lefty German weekly magazine. Recently it turned into a propaganda tool of the right. It has quite an influence, its sold circulation is over one million each week.

The increase of such quite ridiculous but effective propaganda like the above is the direct consequence of Mousavi's challenge of the state of Iran. He declared himself the winner in the election even before the vote count began. When the results were announced he alleged massive fraud without presenting any convincing evidence.

That again triggered big demonstrations of people who believed his allegations. When these non-rebellions turned into violent youth riots the state of Iran, like any other state on this planet would have done, asserted itself and suppressed them.

This again was a real gift for anti-Iran propagandists and their work will hurt Iran's image in the 'west' for a long time. When Iran's leaders are openly associated with bin-Laden in major publications Iran has lost the propaganda war.

I will not be surprised to see Mousavi punished for the obvious damage he has done to his country. But that would again only play right into the hand of the propagandists. Maybe he should be send off to some small town in the counryside where he can learn how the people living there really think. Give him a stern advice not to talk to the media and let him paint more pictures.

Posted by b on June 24, 2009 at 16:42 UTC | Permalink | Comments (302)

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