I was Hoping for Stealthy McStealthface

The USAF has named its new bomber, the B-21, the "Raider" as an homage to the Jimmy Doolittle raids on Japan:

Almost seven months after designating Northrop Grumman’s next-generation stealth aircraft the B-21, U.S. Air Force Secretary Deborah James announced on Sept. 19 that it will be called the Raider, in honor of the Doolittle Raiders who took on the Japanese during World War II.

The name came about through a poll of airmen that ran from March to May, with the winnowing down of potential names to a handful of top submissions. From more than 4,600 entries, the winning name "Raider" was revealed by Lt. Col. (ret.) Richard Cole at the opening of the Air Force Association’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference at National Harbor, Maryland. Cole is one of the last surviving Doolittle Raiders; he was co-pilot in aircraft No. 1.

………

There had been speculation that the Air Force’s B-21 name would honor a World War II aerial bombardment type, such as the B-17 Flying Fortress, B-29 Superfortress, Consolidated B-24 Liberator, North American B-25 Mitchell or Martin B-26 Marauder.
In choosing Raider, the air branch has rejected ghoulish suggestions like "Wraith" or "Spectre" as well as tongue-in-cheek nods to the aircraft’s low-observable profile such as "Stealthy McSteathface" and "Dr. Stealthlove."

It should have been "Stealthy McStealthface".

Also, why the B-21?  What are the 18 aircraft between the B-2 and this?

Huh, It Appears That I Got It Wrong Yesterday

Police have arrested a suspect, one Ahmad Khan Rahami, an immigrant from Afghanistan whose
family came to the United States in 1995 when he was 7:

The man who the police said sowed terror across two states, setting off bombs in Manhattan and on the Jersey Shore and touching off a furious manhunt, was tracked down on Monday morning sleeping in the dank doorway of a neighborhood bar and taken into custody after being wounded in a gun battle with officers.

………

Even as the remarkably swift arrest eased fears across the region, investigators were still in the earliest stages of trying to determine what provoked the attacks, why a street in Chelsea was one of the targets and whether the bomber was aided by others. While investigators have been focused on Mr. Rahami’s actions immediately before and after the bombings, they were also working on Monday to trace his activities and travel in both recent months and years.

One law enforcement official said that the bomb technicians involved in the investigation believed that Mr. Rahami constructed all the devices and that his handiwork raised the possibility that he had received training from someone with experience building improvised explosive devices.

“If you’re working off the premise that the guy made all these devices,” the official said, “then the guy is a pretty good bombmaker. And you don’t get that good on the internet.”

………

Mr. Rahami and his family had traveled periodically to Pakistan, and on one trip, he stayed for nearly a year. A senior law enforcement official said that no evidence had yet been uncovered that he had received military training abroad.

I was figuring a white supremacist/Christian dominionist.

It appears that my first guess was wrong.

Seriously? There is an Opioid Lobby?

Seriously. Pharma has lobbyists whose job is to make sure that over-prescription and addiction continue.

Ka-Ching!

The Associated Press and the Center for Public Integrity teamed up to investigate the influence of pharmaceutical companies on state and federal policies regarding opioids, the powerful painkillers that have claimed the lives of 165,000 people in the U.S. since 2000.

The news agencies tracked proposed laws on the subject and analyzed data on how the companies and their allies deployed lobbyists and contributed to political campaigns.

$880 million in lobbying, over a thousand lobbyists, AstroTurf groups, the whole megilla.

Not enough bullets.

Yaar Maties!

It be Talk Like a Pirate Day!

Linkage

• Seven clues that "Game of Thrones" is really about hazmat shipping (DC Velocity) Am I the only person in the world who doesn't give a f%$# about Game of Thrones?
• Automated trading could work against investors: SEC chief (Reuters) Thank you Captain Obvious.
• Why supply chain managers are psychopaths (Australian Financial Review) I would never has never have guessed this. I would have thought finance or insurance.
• Google's become an obsessive stalker and you can't get a restraining order (The Register) The "Don't be evil" motto is now inoperative.
• Why Do I Suddenly Have To Log In Now To Use The Graphics Card I’ve Had For Years? (Consumerist) Money quote, "Unique user accounts sure are great for one big thing: marketing stuff."
• Lost for 168 years, doomed Northwest Passage ship discovered (Christian Science Monitor) More pieces of the puzzle of the loss of the he HMS Erebus and the HMS Terror.  History geek time.
• The NCAA finally took a worthy stand against discrimination (The Guardian) The NCAA does the right thing, for once, and tells the bigots in North Carolina to go Cheney themselves.
• After 23 years, the Apple II gets another OS update (Ars Technica) If someone still has a working APPLe ][, I want a review of the new OS.
• Money for Nothing(Jacobin) How the world’s richest companies get local governments to hand over millions of dollars in exchange for crappy jobs and empty promises.
•  Pluto Emitting X-Rays Could Be A Big Deal (Digital Trends)Pluto is getting weirder and weirder.
• This is a 3D model of a clitoris – and the start of a sexual revolution (The Guardian) The structure is far larger and more extensive that previously thought.

How to deactivate a cat:



This mimics how mamma cat carries her kittens. I knew that this worked on kittens, but I had no clue that it worked on adult cats.

Boeing Cannot Design Planes Anymore

As a result of years of layoffs and retirements of staff, Boeing lacked the technical resources to make a credible bid for the new Air Force Trainer:

It seemed so all-American: a U.S. aviation giant unveiling its newest military jet to flashing lights and thumping heavy-metal music. But the sleek twin-tailed T-X — Boeing’s candidate to become the U.S. Air Force’s next pilot trainer — couldn’t have made it to the dolled-up St. Louis hangar without a good deal of international help.

For all its deep aviation heritage, the Chicago company needed a partner on the T-X bid. A decade of engineering layoffs had left the venerable American firm without the workers needed to add the trainer competition to its existing workload, particularly with the Air Force requiring demonstration aircraft with a relatively quick turnaround. It also needed a way to do it more cheaply than past endeavors.

So the maker of the F-15 Eagle and F/A-18 Super Hornet teamed up with Saab — builder of the Gripen 4.5-generation fighter jet — to develop a T-X candidate. And less than three years after the two firms announced their partnership, they have now unveiled their first two aircraft, which are expected to fly by year’s end. That’s pretty fast for an American defense firm.

While officials from neither company would say just what parts of the plane were developed in Europe, Saab is believed to be manufacturing large portions of it. In June, a large Russian cargo plane believed to be carrying sections of the new aircraft flew from Sweden to the U.S.

………

“I’m not saying this thing is doomed. It’s just that I’m uncomfortable with a big disconnect between engineering and design and manufacturing,” said Richard Aboulafia, vice president for analysis at the Virginia-based Teal Group consulting firm. “It adds risk, it gets rid of a core company advantage, and frankly, there are just huge advantages of having designers and manufacturers co-located.”

Aboulafia cited Boeing’s need to lean on its partner for engineering.

“Outsourcing design — that appears to have a lot more complications than benefits,” he said. “It adds risk and it gets rid of a core capability, a core differentiator.”

I would note here that Boeing has outsourced technical expertise on the civil side as well, with many of the stumbles in 787 development coming from the fact that critical engineering expertise was outsourced to, "risk sharing partners."

It is a clear indictment of the McDonnell Douglas MBA style management that Boeing has had for the past few decades.

Boeing can no longer design and build new aircraft.

The Democrats Don't Deserve to Win

It appears that a significant portion of the Democrats in Congress want Hillary Clinton to appoint aged conservatives to the courts.

This appears simply to be an exercise in rank cowardice:

Senate Democrats say Hillary Clinton should ignore pressure from liberals who want her to make a younger, more progressive pick for the Supreme Court than Merrick Garland, President Obama’s nominee.

Democrats facing tough races in the next cycle don’t want Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee, to spend her political capital on a messy fight over the court — and the hot-button social issues under its jurisdiction — during her first 100 days in office.

They also don’t want to have to defend a more liberal pick ahead of a tough reelection cycle in 2018.

Democrats will be defending 25 seats, compared to just eight for Republicans that year, including in states such as North Dakota, Montana, West Virginia and Missouri. All are tough places for the party to win in presidential, let alone midterm, elections.

The Democrats would prefer that Clinton, if she is elected, focus her time and attention on passing legislation they can run on as a major accomplishment, such as an infrastructure investment package.

A senior Senate Democratic aide whose boss faces a competitive reelection in 2018 said, “Not one of those vulnerable Democrats is going to run on the Supreme Court; they can run on an infrastructure bill.”

This is the sort of crap that leads makes voting 3^rd party or staying home a lot more attractive.

They want the next Supreme Court justice to be a guy who would be the oldest justice appointed in 44 years, and someone who is to the right of Scalia on criminal due process.

F%$# these guys.