Tweet
Sunday front page stories:
Pilots’ Lives Defy Glamorous Stereotype
By DAVID M. HALBFINGER, MATTHEW L. WALD and CHRISTOPHER DREW
This article was reported by David M. Halbfinger, Matthew L. Wald and Christopher Drew, and written by Mr. Halbfinger.
Alex Lapointe, a 25-year-old co-pilot for a regional airline, says he routinely lifts off knowing he has gotten less sleep than he needs. And once or twice a week, he says, he sees the captain next to him struggling to stay alert.
Neil A. Weston, also 25, went $100,000 into debt to train for a co-pilot’s job that pays him $25,000 annually. He carries sandwiches in a cooler from his home in Dubuque, Iowa, bought his first uniform for $400, and holds out hope of tripling his salary by moving into the captain’s seat, then up to a major carrier. Assuming, that is, the majors start hiring again.
Capt. Paul Nietz, 58, who recently retired from a regional airline, said his schedule wore him down and cost him three marriages. His workweek typically began with a 2:30 a.m. wake-up in northern Michigan and a 6 a.m. flight to his Chicago home bases. There, he would wait for his first assignment, a noon departure.
By the time he parked his aircraft at the last gate of the night, he was exhausted. But he would be due back at work eight hours and 15 minutes later. “At the very most, if you’re the kind of person that could walk into a hotel room, strip and lay down, you might get four and a half hours of sleep,” he said. “And I was very senior. I was one of the fortunate guys.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/17/ny...ef=todayspaper
We used to read stories like this from Third World Countries. Now We Is One...
From a Theory to a Consensus on Emissions
By JOHN M. BRODER
WASHINGTON — As Congress weighs imposing a mandatory limit on climate-altering gases — an outcome still far from certain — it is likely to turn to a system that sets a government ceiling on total emissions and allows polluting industries to buy and sell permits to meet it.
That approach, known as cap and trade, has been embraced by President Obama, Democratic leaders in Congress, mainstream environmental groups and a growing number of business interests, including energy-consuming industries like autos, steel and aluminum.
But not long ago, many of today’s supporters dismissed the idea of tradable emissions permits as an industry-inspired Republican scheme to avoid the real costs of cutting air pollution. The right answer, they said, was strict government regulation, state-of-the-art technology and a federal tax on every ton of harmful emissions.
How did cap and trade, hatched as an academic theory in obscure economic journals half a century ago, become the policy of choice in the debate over how to slow the heating of the planet? And how did it come to eclipse the idea of simply slapping a tax on energy consumption that befouls the public square or leaves the nation hostage to foreign oil producers?
The answer is not to be found in the study of economics or environmental science, but in the realm where most policy debates are ultimately settled: politics.
Many members of Congress remember the painful political lesson of 1993, when President Bill Clinton proposed a tax on all forms of energy, a plan that went down to defeat and helped take the Democratic majority in Congress down with it a year later.
Cap and trade, by contrast, is almost perfectly designed for the buying and selling of political support through the granting of valuable emissions permits to favor specific industries and even specific Congressional districts. That is precisely what is taking place now in the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/17/us...ef=todayspaper
Does anymore need be said about this FIRE circle jerk.....
And then we have the Human Interest Story, Second Great Depression style:
Even to Save Cash, Don’t Try This Stuff at Home
By SUSAN SAULNY
CHICAGO — Saving money never cost quite so much.
When the toilet in Carol Taddei’s master bathroom began to break down a few months ago, she decided it would be cheaper to buy a new one than pay for repairs. Ever frugal in this dismal economy, Ms. Taddei, a retired paralegal, then took her economizing a step further, figuring she could save even more by installing the new toilet herself.
Initially, things looked good with the flushing and the swishing. That is, until the ceiling collapsed in the room below the new (leaky) toilet. Rushing to get supplies for a repair, Ms. Taddei clipped a pole in her garage. It ripped the bumper off her car, and later, several shelves holding flower pots and garden tools collapsed over her head.
“It just kept getting worse,” Ms. Taddei said, ruefully describing what came out to be a $3,000, three-day renovation at her suburban Minneapolis home, finished by a professional from Mr. Handyman, a home repair service that takes emergency calls.
With the sour economy has come a class of ambitious do-it-yourselfers who are tackling things that, before the days of rampant penny-pinching, might have been left to paid professionals. An unlucky few like Ms. Taddei have learned that being thrifty sometimes comes at a high price and can bring along with it a new scourge of the times: saver’s remorse.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/17/us...ef=todayspaper
But all is not lost. Just when you thought our Washington leadership was hopelessly corrupt, incapable of functioning at any level responsive to the Common Good, we have this bit of foreshadowing:
Conservatives Map Strategies on Court
By CHARLIE SAVAGE
WASHINGTON — If President Obama nominates Judge Diane P. Wood to the Supreme Court, conservatives plan to attack her as an “outspoken” supporter of “abortion, including partial-birth abortion.”
If he nominates Judge Sonia Sotomayor, they plan to accuse her of being “willing to expand constitutional rights beyond the text of the Constitution.”
And if he nominates Kathleen M. Sullivan, a law professor at Stanford, they plan to denounce her as a “prominent supporter of homosexual marriage.”
Preparing to oppose the confirmation of Mr. Obama’s eventual choice to succeed Justice David H. Souter, who is retiring, conservative groups are working together to stockpile ammunition. Ten memorandums summarizing their research, obtained by The New York Times, provide a window onto how they hope to frame the coming debate.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/17/us...ef=todayspaper
So the Republi-Crat chimpanzees will be filling the MSM with this level of discourse, while EJ's level of analysis posted this week will be as if never written.
Life in the Rotten Apple at the Bottom of the Barrel
Alex Lapointe, a 25-year-old co-pilot for a regional airline, says he routinely lifts off knowing he has gotten less sleep than he needs. And once or twice a week, he says, he sees the captain next to him struggling to stay alert.
Neil A. Weston, also 25, went $100,000 into debt to train for a co-pilot’s job that pays him $25,000 annually. He carries sandwiches in a cooler from his home in Dubuque, Iowa, bought his first uniform for $400, and holds out hope of tripling his salary by moving into the captain’s seat, then up to a major carrier. Assuming, that is, the majors start hiring again.
Capt. Paul Nietz, 58, who recently retired from a regional airline, said his schedule wore him down and cost him three marriages. His workweek typically began with a 2:30 a.m. wake-up in northern Michigan and a 6 a.m. flight to his Chicago home bases. There, he would wait for his first assignment, a noon departure.
By the time he parked his aircraft at the last gate of the night, he was exhausted. But he would be due back at work eight hours and 15 minutes later. “At the very most, if you’re the kind of person that could walk into a hotel room, strip and lay down, you might get four and a half hours of sleep,” he said. “And I was very senior. I was one of the fortunate guys.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/17/ny...ef=todayspaper
We used to read stories like this from Third World Countries. Now We Is One...
That approach, known as cap and trade, has been embraced by President Obama, Democratic leaders in Congress, mainstream environmental groups and a growing number of business interests, including energy-consuming industries like autos, steel and aluminum.
But not long ago, many of today’s supporters dismissed the idea of tradable emissions permits as an industry-inspired Republican scheme to avoid the real costs of cutting air pollution. The right answer, they said, was strict government regulation, state-of-the-art technology and a federal tax on every ton of harmful emissions.
How did cap and trade, hatched as an academic theory in obscure economic journals half a century ago, become the policy of choice in the debate over how to slow the heating of the planet? And how did it come to eclipse the idea of simply slapping a tax on energy consumption that befouls the public square or leaves the nation hostage to foreign oil producers?
The answer is not to be found in the study of economics or environmental science, but in the realm where most policy debates are ultimately settled: politics.
Many members of Congress remember the painful political lesson of 1993, when President Bill Clinton proposed a tax on all forms of energy, a plan that went down to defeat and helped take the Democratic majority in Congress down with it a year later.
Cap and trade, by contrast, is almost perfectly designed for the buying and selling of political support through the granting of valuable emissions permits to favor specific industries and even specific Congressional districts. That is precisely what is taking place now in the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/17/us...ef=todayspaper
Does anymore need be said about this FIRE circle jerk.....
And then we have the Human Interest Story, Second Great Depression style:
When the toilet in Carol Taddei’s master bathroom began to break down a few months ago, she decided it would be cheaper to buy a new one than pay for repairs. Ever frugal in this dismal economy, Ms. Taddei, a retired paralegal, then took her economizing a step further, figuring she could save even more by installing the new toilet herself.
Initially, things looked good with the flushing and the swishing. That is, until the ceiling collapsed in the room below the new (leaky) toilet. Rushing to get supplies for a repair, Ms. Taddei clipped a pole in her garage. It ripped the bumper off her car, and later, several shelves holding flower pots and garden tools collapsed over her head.
“It just kept getting worse,” Ms. Taddei said, ruefully describing what came out to be a $3,000, three-day renovation at her suburban Minneapolis home, finished by a professional from Mr. Handyman, a home repair service that takes emergency calls.
With the sour economy has come a class of ambitious do-it-yourselfers who are tackling things that, before the days of rampant penny-pinching, might have been left to paid professionals. An unlucky few like Ms. Taddei have learned that being thrifty sometimes comes at a high price and can bring along with it a new scourge of the times: saver’s remorse.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/17/us...ef=todayspaper
But all is not lost. Just when you thought our Washington leadership was hopelessly corrupt, incapable of functioning at any level responsive to the Common Good, we have this bit of foreshadowing:
If he nominates Judge Sonia Sotomayor, they plan to accuse her of being “willing to expand constitutional rights beyond the text of the Constitution.”
And if he nominates Kathleen M. Sullivan, a law professor at Stanford, they plan to denounce her as a “prominent supporter of homosexual marriage.”
Preparing to oppose the confirmation of Mr. Obama’s eventual choice to succeed Justice David H. Souter, who is retiring, conservative groups are working together to stockpile ammunition. Ten memorandums summarizing their research, obtained by The New York Times, provide a window onto how they hope to frame the coming debate.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/17/us...ef=todayspaper
So the Republi-Crat chimpanzees will be filling the MSM with this level of discourse, while EJ's level of analysis posted this week will be as if never written.
Life in the Rotten Apple at the Bottom of the Barrel
The airline doesn't make him live in another state. That's his choice. Blames the loss of three marriages on the job. Yeah right. Sorry buddy, the laws of supply and demand in the labor force apply to pilots too. I'd like a job as Bikini model inspector, but I understand the pay sucks. 
Comment