Update no.552

Update from the Heartland

No.552

9.7.12 – 15.7.12

Blog version:  http://heartlandupdate.blogspot.com/

To all,

The follow-up news items:

1.6.09   -- 02:14:28 [Z] {00:14 [O]; 21:12 [R] EDT, 31.5.09} – Air France Flight 447 [AF447] disappeared over the Atlantic Ocean, enroute from Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, to Paris, France, with 248 souls on board   [U-391]

27.5.11   BEA issued interim report no.2 titled: “Accident to the Airbus A330-203 flight AF 447 on 1st June 2009 – update on investigation” dated: 27 May 2011 [BEA AF447 prelim 1537.pdf]{see 1.6.2009}   [U-493]

The Bureau d’Enquêtes et d’Analyses pour la sécurité de l’aviation civile (BEA), Ministère de l ’Écologie, du Développement durable, des Transports et du Logement, issued their final report regarding the crash of Air France Flight 447 (AF447) enroute across the Atlantic Ocean, from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to Paris, France, at 02:14 [Z] {00:14 [O]}, on 1.June.2009 [391], with a loss of 228 souls.  As you may recall, the French expended enormous resources over a two-year period to locate the wreckage, just east of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, at a depth of 12,800 feet (3,900 meters) – an extraordinary fete by itself.  The BEA issued its preliminary report on 27.May.2011 [493].  Among the findings, the aircraft had been properly maintained with no known or identifiable problems when it took flight, and the crew possessed all the proper licenses, ratings and training for their functional positions.  The aircraft encountered cumulonimbus clusters during penetration of the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) while cruising at FL350 (35,000 feet [10,668 meters]).  Those high altitudes are well outside the normal design and regulatory icing environment, and as we have learned, the meteorological and engineering understanding of upper cloud physics are limited at best.  One BEA finding: “There was an inconsistency between the speeds measured, likely following the blockage of the Pitot probes by ice crystals.”  This condition would be consistent with what we now call ice crystal impaction – a phenomenon associated with high-altitude flight in super-cold air, in vicinity of cumulonimbus cloud structures.  As the BEA noted, the loss of or erroneous airspeed indications in flight are not new or unique to the Airbus A330-200 involved in this accident; they also noted, the crew encountered “a phenomenon that was known but misunderstood by the aviation community at the time of the accident.”  Let us not forget, when this occurred, the airplane was over the mid-Atlantic, at night, in clouds with light to moderate turbulence; they had no external references.  Nonetheless, when the stall warning triggered based on false airspeed signals, the crew rapidly became confused, disorientation, and made gross flight control inputs that took the aircraft into deep stall, well beyond the established or known flight envelope.  The entire sequence took four minutes.  The erroneous airspeed signals lasted less than a minute.  The crew had time to regain control but were never able to do so.  The BEA made 40 recommendations from their investigation.  The most significant from my perspective was the inclusion of a direct Angle of Attack (AOA) indication to the crew.  With an AOA indication, they would have recognized the aircraft was still flying nominally, even with the erroneous airspeed information and false stall warning.  The education of aviators regarding high altitude ice encounters has begun; I presume enhance simulator training has also commenced.  AF447 was an avoidable tragedy, and so we learn and improve, thanks in no small measure to the extraordinary efforts of the BEA and the French government.

“Chinese group to buy Hawker Beechcraft”

by Tracy Alloway in New York

Financial Times

Published: July 10, 2012; 12:01 am

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/6953c2f0-ca0f-11e1-844e-00144feabdc0.html

As noted in the public announcements, Superior Aviation Beijing Co., Ltd., a Beijing-based aerospace manufacturer, has entered into an acquisition relationship with Hawker Beechcraft, the Wichita-based, airplane producer owned by Goldman Sachs Capital Partners and Onex Corporation (the Canadian private equity firm).  A sequence of events supervised by the bankruptcy court could result in a transfer of ownership for US$1.79B.  The Goldman / Onex consortium bought Hawker Beechcraft in 2007 for US$3.3B, loading the company up with debt that could not be sustained in the severe market contraction of the Great Recession.  The deal is not done.  There are numerous hurdles yet to cross, not least of which is Superior’s due diligence, separation of the Defense portion of the company, government approval, and completion of the court supervised protection.  These are indeed interesting times.

“Get Over It! We Are Not All Created Equal”

by Captain Katie Petronio, USMC

Marine Corps Gazette

Published: July 2012

http://www.mca-marines.org/gazette/article/get-over-it-we-are-not-all-created-equal

Captain Petronio is a serving combat engineer officer (MOS 1302), who has served in both Battles for Iraq and Afghanistan during the War on Islamic Fascism.  Many on various military networks, of which I am a member, have touted her opinion regarding the integration of women and homosexuals in the Marine Corps, and implicitly in the military in the main.  Katie offers a cogent argument against allowing women to serve in the combat arms (infantry, artillery and armor) of the Marine Corps because there are differences between the genders, and women are physically incapable of performing at the level of men.  She makes good and valid points; however, I think her argument would have been better if she had advocated for holding the standards of performance.  If women and homosexuals can attain those thresholds of performance, then they pass.  If not, they move on to other specialties that are less physical.  Not all heterosexual men are capable of meeting the standards of performance; they do not belong in the infantry.  I continue to insist, this is not an issue about genitalia, but rather it should be solely about performance.  Further, any attempt to lower standards of performance to accommodate women should be resisted as strongly as possible.  I am in favor of the integration of women and non-heterosexuals, but I am very much against the modification of performance standards for anyone, regardless of any of the social factors.

News from the economic front:

-- The People’s Republic of China (PRC) reported exports rose 11.3% in June from a year earlier, down from May’s 15.3% pace.  Imports increased 6.3% from a year earlier, half of May’s 12.7% and well below expectations.  The PRC achieved a trade surplus of US$31.7B, the country’s biggest surplus in more than three years.

-- Peregrine Chief Operating Officer Russell Wasendorf, Jr., filed for Chapter 7 liquidation of the brokerage firm Peregrine Financial Group Inc.  Wasendorf’s father and Peregrine’s Chief Executive Officer and Founder Russell Wasendorf Sr. admitted to law enforcement authorities that he embezzled “millions of dollars” and forged bank statements for “nearly twenty years,” according to court documents.

-- The Wall Street Journal reported J.P. Morgan Chase plans to reclaim millions of dollars in stock from executives at the center of the derivative trading debacle, while Chief Executive Officer James Dimon indicated the bank’s losses may double to more than US$7B before the dust settles.

-- Documents obtained by the Washington Post show that then President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York Timothy F. Geithner (now, Secretary of the Treasury) eMail’ed Governor of the Bank of England Sir Mervyn King on 1.June.2008, offering six recommendations to reform the London InterBank Offered Rate (LIBOR) – a critical global interest rate.  Now, with at least the indirect linkage of Treasury Secretary Geithner to the expanding LIBOR scandal, all bets are off on how far or deep this is going to go.  The infamous 16 involved, international banks are:

·      Barclays [UK] – the only bank to admit wrongdoing, so far

·      Bank of America [U.S.]

·      Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ (BTMU) [Japan]

·      Citibank [U.S.]

·      Credit Suisse [Switzerland]

·      Deutsche Bank [Germany]

·      Lloyds TSB [UK]

·      HSBC [UK] {formerly: Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Ltd}

·      HBOS [UK] {formerly: Bank of Scotland, owned by Lloyds Banking Group}

·      JPMorgan Chase [U.S.]

·      Rabobank [Netherlands]

·      RBC {Royal Bank of Canada} [Canada]

·      Royal Bank of Scotland [UK]

·      UBS [Switzerland]

·      West LB [Germany]

·      Norinchuckin [Japan]

Hmmm!  Where have I seen some of those bank names before?  That word “reputable” continues to rattle around in my little pea-brain.

-- The PRC’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) slowed to 7.6% year-over-year in 2Q2012, the lowest level since early 2009.  The PRC is feeling the effects of the European economic situation, stagnant real estate investment, and the inability of domestic consumption to pick up the slack. 

Comments and contributions from Update no.551:

“Must confess your health care issue is a mystery to me. Having had free health care since what 1947 here in the U/K we look upon a health system where your countrymen fall outside of a national care system as frankly archaic or mediaeval. Just what do your poor do when they become ill? Just give up and die? We do get snippets of this debate over here but is poorly understood by us Brits. Yes we have all paid into the system, all our working lives but it's worth it. My own case of a replacement hip at £12000 (at no cost to me) underlines that argument. Why are your people so scared of a free national health service?”

My reply:

Peter,

            First, to your opening premise, nothing is free.  The British people pay for health care in the collective via taxes.  As long as folks are happy with taxes, all is right with the World.  Please recall, I lived and worked in England and Italy for two years each, so I’m keenly aware of the offerings of which you speak.

            You asked a series of questions.  I shall render my opinions, for what they’re worth.

            “Just what do your poor do when they become ill?”  Rather than the poor, who are surely included, I shall broaden your query to include all uninsured.  Others in this forum who fit within this broadened category may wish to add their comments.  Typically, uninsured do not receive routine prophylactic health care.  They often grunt through it, self-medicate with over-the-counter items, or wait until it becomes serious, then attend a local Emergency Room (ER), where doctors bound by the Hippocratic Oath, treat them even though little attempt is made to gain compensation for their treatment.  If a condition becomes elective rather than life-saving, they suffer until it becomes life-saving.  With pain, they often self-medicate with over-the-counter analgesics or illegal drugs.

            “Just give up and die?”  A rhetorical query, I presume; no response necessary.

            “Why are your people so scared of a free national health service?”  Answer, in one word = government.  This Grand Republic has a long, unbroken, storied, and venerable history of distrust of government that can be traced back to the days of King James I, John Milton, John Locke, and of course our last common monarch, King George III.  You have but to read the Declaration to feel the point.  The abuses of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and President Richard Nixon amplified that distrust in our generation.  Many of my countrymen believe to their soul that government is already too big, too intrusive into our private affairs, and thus taxes are too high to pay for all that overbearing government.  The current struggle regarding specifically the individual mandate is just the beginning of what portends to be a long public debate.  There is much more to the story, but this shall suffice for now.

            One last word, a good litmus for any American social debate might be, where does government properly belong at the public-private threshold?  Health care is seen as a very private matter, and Americans are rightfully obsessed by the camel and tent proverb.

Comment to the Blog:

“Your notion that Congress would give up pork barrel projects because the economy crashed was indeed naïve. I refer you again to the book Willful Blindness by Margaret Heffernan.

“Your foil in the discussion of PPACA (I prefer the easier-to-remember term Obamacare) is difficult to follow and fails to support his points. I gather the gist of his argument to be that sick people cause their own illnesses and in his “true free market” that exists only in his mind that would mean that they should die if they cannot or do not buy insurance of their own volition. My personal opinion of him is that he probably needs care for his mental condition. He seems to take the idea of government-supported health care as an attack on him personally. His first major fallacy is that the government would be controlling the health care directly. They would simply penalize those who do not do business with some health-care-insurance organization and set minimum standards for those organizations. Most of the rest of his argument eludes me. One thing both you and he might need to recognize is that those who can go to a doctor’s office tend not to clog emergency rooms. That change in itself would be a serious cost savings of insuring those not currently insured. Another would come from catching illnesses earlier in their courses, when treatment is usually easier, cheaper, and more successful.

“The many-named ‘death with dignity’ issue has a very long discussion ahead before it can become a workable option. Your correspondent’s assumption that he would not care to live if he needed an electric wheelchair and a great deal of medicine is not the result that others have found, as evidenced by the numbers of them riding buses and handicapped transit. (That also affects his position against health care, by the way.)

“You and others discuss ‘death with dignity’ as if it were only a legal issue, but fail to discuss one legal and one medical issue that concern me. The first is how to determine what is a true free choice, given the stress of terminal illness not only on the patient but on family, friends and other heirs. Each of these people influences the patient and has self-interest as well as many other emotional issues at the time the decision is made. My other issue is the fallibility of doctors, who play a key part in your and others’ arguments. According to family legend, my grandmother Ross was pronounced terminal eight times and outlived seven of the doctors who so stated. Whether the number was that high or not, certainly many people have outlived terminal prognoses. This stays in my mind tonight partly because of a friend whose kidney surgery was botched and who, during the same process, has been told she has a cyst on her left ovary, then told it is on her right ovary. Such incidents are not particularly unusual among my family and friends, and I myself came close to death due to a simple mistake in a minor surgery. Let us not rely on doctors without really serious checks and balances. They are only human.

“Finally, the use of a ‘dialectical process’ (or anything) in preference over the benefits of studying real experience is itself a path to lunacy. Your other correspondent provides an example of that.”

My response to the Blog:

Calvin,

            Re: pork barrel.  As you say, I am hopelessly naïve, expecting representatives and senators to embrace the higher ideals of this Grand Republic in deference to the corruption of pork barrel politics.  Silly me.

            Re: PPACA.  Conversely, I refuse to use the more popular, politically-charged moniker.  I believe we both recognize the reduced demand on Emergency Room treatment for other than emergency injuries or ailments, even if it was not explicitly stated.  As I have written in other fora, the central, underlying issue is an inherent distrust of government, it seems to me.

            Re: “Death with Dignity.”  Perhaps you misunderstood.  That particular correspondent was simply conveying his personal opinion, which each of us is entitled to do.  I have no objections to such personal positions [well, other than asking a friend to dispatch him, which by current and future law would be murder], as long as they do not attempt to impose their wishes, beliefs, morals, or whatnot on me.  Today, society denies me the right to Death with Dignity by MY choice, no one else’s.  I respectfully submit that society’s only right is to ensure I am not being coerced, pressured, or otherwise imposed upon by anyone else.  Beyond that, it should be my choice.

            Re: legal & medical.  The most immediate obstacle to Death with Dignity is legal, i.e., unless the law becomes more tolerant or permissive, the medical aspect is moot (we don’t get to that point).  This is probably not the proper venue, nonetheless, there are established procedures to ascertain and document “true free choice” – some are impartial, i.e., based on medical facts, while others are expressions of choice by the individual.  I do not know the details of Grandma Ross’s diagnoses or prognoses, but presumably she never expressed a desire to end her suffering.  Without the latter personal expression, the rest of the qualifications are likewise moot.  Yes, there is always uncertainty within the medical arts, however, the individual remains key.  Just because someone tells me I am dying does not mean I will believe him.  I would look for other signs to help me convince myself.  Further, qualifying for and having the right to use Death with Dignity at the appropriate time does not mean I will use it.  I just want it available should the need arise.  The procedures are well defined and experience has shown on fractional usage and no detectible abuse.  The key remains the individual – not doctors, nor family, nor lawyers, nor anyone else.  Death with Dignity must be an individual choice.

            Re: “dialectical process.”  No comment.

Cheers,

Cap

My very best wishes to all.  Take care of yourselves and each other.

Cheers,

Cap                 :-)