[REUTERS] The National Football League's Rams left behind more than bitterness when the team ditched St. Louis for Los Angeles last month - it left a stadium saddled with about $144 million in debt and maintenance costs. When the Baltimore Colts left it was in the dead of night, after assuring the city they were staying. I don't know what the Saint Louis Browns did when they left to become the Baltimore Orioles. Probably about the same thing the Los Angeles Rams did when they moved to St. Louis.
Taxpayers will now shoulder the remaining payments for the Edward Jones Dome with only the help of revenue from tractor pulls, volleyball tournaments, concerts and the like. That's why we have taxpayers, isn't it?
St. Louis Board of Aldermen President Lewis Reed has asked the NFL to help pay off the stadium, but so far has gotten no response. This is known in trade circles as "the finger."
"The fans are being left holding the bag," Reed said. "I think they should factor that into the total cost of the move." "But... But... My season ticket!"
The leftover debt and maintenance costs are another example of the NFL's negotiating prowess with many cities, sports economists said, and also reflects larger problems with the deal St. Louis struck with the Rams. Tell it to the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/04/2016 00:00 ||
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#1
Instead of getting weepy, the St Louis folks should be getting busy. St Louis is somewhat of shithole - but nowhere near as awful as Detroit, or Baltimore. It might be hard to entice away a Superbowl contender (albeit from a murder record city), but how hard can it be to talk the Lions into relocating.
Or - even "'Dem Bears". Much as they may like Chicago (another murder award winner), the coming financial collapse of the city is sure to drive taxes through the roof.
#3
The citizens voted stadium construction down repeatedly. The democratic voter process was eventually overridden by local pols and taxes were levied for construction.
#4
Detroit and Saint Louis are the foundation of America. Live in St Louis, and traveling for work to Detroit next week. And we ain't makin' web pages or ipads for the ladies, rather radars, alloys, and armor.
#9
NFL owners seem to think they're all entitled to the kind of stadium that top tier teams like Dallas, New England and Denver have. The Chargers's owner wants one too. He wants the City of San Diego to build him one when the city can't even fill it's pot holes or fix it's rusting water mains before they break and create embarrassing sink holes. It's corporate welfare at it's worst. I like watching football on TV but I don't care if these guys have to find a high school that'll let them play on their field.
#12
There's always the Super Fan Self-Tax(tm) in which supporters can individually help finance a new stadium, sort of like Kickstart, but not on the backs of the rest of the community. Why haven't they done that? /rhet question
[KhaleejTimes] A Palestinian poet condemned to death in Saudi Arabia for apostasy has had his sentence reduced to prison time and lashes instead, his lawyer said Tuesday.
Ashraf Fayadh was sentenced to death in November by a court in the southwestern city of Abha. He faced charges including blasphemy, spreading atheism and having illicit relationships with women.
His defense lawyer, Abdulrahman al-Lahim, said in a statement posted online that an Abha court has quashed the death sentence and issued a new appeals verdict of 800 lashes and eight years behind bars. The lashes are to be meted out 50 at a time. Fayadh must also publicly repent and denounce his works in the media, the lawyer said. The attorney said he intends to formally object to the latest ruling. Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings would sympathize.
Posted by: Sven the pelter ||
02/04/2016 00:00 ||
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[THEDAILYBEAST] Britain’s prime minister wanted to use the threat of a referendum on membership in the European Union to extract concessions. But what’s extracted may be the UK.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/04/2016 00:00 ||
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SWEDEN — a nation that hasn’t been in a fight for more than 200 years — has been issued a chilling warning by a top general: expect World War III “within a few years”.
“The global situation we are experiencing and which is also made clear by the strategic decision leads to the conclusion that we could be at war within a few years,” the statement reads. “For us in the army we have to, with all force we can muster, implement the political decisions.”
Major General Anders Brännström made the stark statement in a brochure being distributed among attendees of an armed forces conference next week. General Brännström wrote that increasing tensions in the region had caused a shift in Sweden’s military strategic thinking. No longer is it gearing towards assisting international policing operations. It’s now focused on the “capability of armed battle against a qualified opponent”.
Sweden’s military was now optimising its armed forces for “a threshold effect against military attacks and ultimately defend Sweden”, he said.
Sweden has historically maintained a neutral stance, particularly in both World Wars.
Particularly in WWII, when for some odd reason they didn't join the Allies against Germany. Hmm, I'm sure there was a reason...
In recent years, however, it has been seriously pondering joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) as it strengthens its ties within the European Union.
Russia has reacted strongly to this suggestion — probing Swedish waters with spy submarines and combat jets as a signal of its displeasure.
Sweden’s intelligence agency Sapo last year published a report stating that the biggest espionage threat against the country was now Russia.
“We should be aware that we are continuously being exposed to intelligence gathering and campaigns. We also know that areas in our region, the Baltic and increasingly the Arctic, constitute areas of friction between Russia and the West,” General Brännström told another military conference earlier this month.
Russia’s recent bellicose behaviour in Ukraine and threatening posture against the small Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania — once part of the former Soviet Union — has only strengthened Sweden’s interest in joining the western alliance.
A poll late last year put 41 per cent of the population as now in favour of joining NATO, with 39 per cent against. Five years ago, only 23 per cent supported the idea.
Why would NATO want another member that isn't willing to carry its own weight in defending itself? NATO has plenty of members like that already. And we already have enough fighting heavy barbers...
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/04/2016 10:45 ||
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#1
Probably not a great time to be importing large numbers of military age foreigners who hate and despise everything about your western, liberal, socialist, permissive Scandinavian garden.
This'll help the economy, right?
President Barack Obama is about to unveil an ambitious plan for a "21st century clean transportation system." And he hopes to fund it with a tax on oil.
Obama aides told POLITICO that when he releases his final budget request next week, the president will propose more than $300 billion worth of investments over the next decade in mass transit, high-speed rail, self-driving cars, and other transportation approaches designed to reduce carbon emissions and congestion. To pay for it all, Obama will call for a $10 "fee" on every barrel of oil, a surcharge that would be paid by oil companies but would presumably be passed along to consumers.
#2
Obama will call for a $10 "fee" on every barrel of oil, a surcharge that would be paid by oil companies but would presumably be passed along to consumers.
"Presumbably".......whahahhaha. Where the fok else is going to come from ?
The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program, the most expensive military program in the world, is even more broken than previously thought. The jet can't tell old parts from new ones, randomly prevents user logins into the logistics information system, and trying to eject out of it will likely result in serious neck injury and maybe death. A Pentagon office is warning that the plane is being rushed into service.
The Pentagon's office of testing and evaluation on Monday released a report detailing major problems, or "deficiencies" with the aircraft. The report follows the release of a December memo by Michael Gilmore, the Department of Defense's director for Operational Test and Evaluation, or OT&E. The report goes on to question the logic of pushing other governments to purchase large blocks of the aircraft until the issues are fixed.
The Air Force is currently scheduled to announce their version of the plane is ready to begin flying, known as "initial operating capability," in August or December at the latest. That follows the Marines declaring their version flight ready last summer. After that, the next F-35 milestone is the initial operational test & evaluation phase, scheduled for 2017, in which program watchers test of the plane is operationally capable but also effective. That 2017 projection is unrealistic unless the Air Force takes some serious shortcuts in testing, according to the new report.
So what's wrong with the F-35? Below are some of the report's key findings.
The Version That the Marines Are Using Is Very Buggy And I'm sure the other two are just fine.
The Marines rushed to finish testing their version of the aircraft in May of 2015 in order to declare initial operating capability by July. The report describes serious problems with the computer software, (the Block 2B version of the software) in the Marines' F-35 variant. Those software problems include "in fusion, electronic warfare, and weapons employment result[ing] in ambiguous threat displays, limited ability to respond to threats, and a requirement for off-board sources to provide accurate coordinates for precision attack."
After the report came out Monday, Lt. Gen. Chris Bogdan, of the F-35 program executive office, issued a statement to cast the report's findings in a rather more flattering light. "Once again, the annual DOT&E report points out the progress being made by the program," the statement read, as though responding to a different report altogether. "This includes the U.S. Marine Corps declaring Initial Operational Capability (IOC) in July 2015. The USMC declared IOC with Block 2B software because it provides increased initial warfighting capability. Marine F-35s have the necessary weapons to conduct close air support, air interdiction and limited suppression/destruction of enemy air defense missions."
That means that the $90 to $180 million Joint Strike Fighter shares many--if not necessarily all--of the same close air support capabilities as the $18.8 million A-10.
ALIS Is Still Terrible, Perhaps Even Getting Worse
In a 60 Minutes segment, reporter David Martin in 2014 made famous problems with one of the F-35's key computers, the Autonomic Logistics Information System, or ALIS, the internal diagnostic system on the plane that was supposed to keep track of the health of virtually every part. The system was heavily resistant to human overrides. After the segment aired, the Joint Program Office claimed that the override issues had been fixed.
Unfortunately, ALIS's various updates have left many of the old problems intact and added new ones, according to the report. "Each new version of software, while adding some new capability, failed to resolve all the deficiencies identified in earlier releases," it states. Quick! Hire more offshore programmers!
The program executive office acknowledges software bugs remain "the program's top technical risks ... There is more work to accomplish in both mission systems software and ALIS before the end of the development program."
Lockouts, Confusion, etc.
What forms do these bugs take and what can they do the plane? Here a few of the more alarming finds:
The F-35 doesn't know its new parts from old parts. The computerized maintenance management System, or CMMS, "incorrectly authorizes older/inappropriate replacement parts."
The F-35 fails to detect if it's been flying too fast or what effect that might have. "The Integrated Exceedance Management System, designed to assess and report whether the aircraft exceeded limitations during flight, failed to function properly."
The plane "randomly prevented user logins" into ALIS. "Sorry Dave, I can't do that."
The plane doesn't know how broken broken parts are: "The maintenance action severity code functionality...designed to automatically assign severity codes to work orders as maintenance personnel create them--did not work correctly." How can I be overdrawn, Dave? I still have checks!
The plane's crews need to phone Lockheed Martin tech support because the plane can't handle the data it needs to process in order to run missions. "Managing data loads associated with mission planning required extensive contractor support." "Here, you talk to it! [Hands phone to F-35]
The F-35 Will Kill You If You Try and Eject From It Sorta like that psycho ex-girlfriend . . . .
Even more terrifying than flying an F-35 is trying to get out of one by ejecting from it.The entire ejector system is incredibly flawed, as Defense News has pointed out previously. OK, first the canopy, then the pilot! OK, I gotta write the ECO to get that programming fixed. I'll do it after I get back from vacation and send it to the offshore programming experts.
Pilots under 136 pounds aren't allowed to fly any F-35 variant. "You said you wanted them to be able to eject, they can eject. You didn't say you wanted them to live."
Pilots under 165 pounds have a 1-in-4 chance of death and 100 percent chance of serious neck injury upon ejecting, according to the testing office. "You said you wanted them to be able to eject and survive, they can eject and survive. You didn't say you wanted them to be able to walk again."
"The testing showed that the ejection seat rotates backwards after ejection. This results in the pilot's neck becoming extended, as the head moves behind the shoulders in a 'chin up' position. When the parachute inflates and begins to extract the pilot from the seat (with great force), a 'whiplash' action occurs. The rotation of the seat and resulting extension of the neck are greater for lighter weight pilots," the report states. Ouch.
It's a lot to fix. Yet the program executive office insisted that they could remain on schedule to reach operational test & evaluation by the end of the summer of 2017. "Although the DOT&E report is factually accurate, it does not fully address program efforts to resolve known technical challenges and schedule risks. It is the F-35 Joint Program Office's responsibility to find developmental issues, resolve them and execute with the time and budget we have been given," Bogdan stated.
Stop Block Buy
Perhaps the most important item on the report's to-do list is to stop pushing the so-called block buy program wherein partner governments agree to buy a larger number of planes up front, in a "block," rather than incrementally. The testing office saw that as a possible recipe for huge numbers of faulty aircraft and bugs becoming harder and more expensive to fix.
Block buy, defense companies like to argue, is one means for pushing down the per unit cost on the incredibly expensive planes, helping the program push out 450 for the United States and partner nations between 2018 and 2020. But the savings realized through block buy might be illusionary, according to the testing office.
"Is it premature to commit to the 'block buy' given that significant discoveries requiring correction before F-35's are used in combat are occurring, and will continue to occur, throughout the remaining developmental and operational testing?" the report asks.
Governments wishing to lock in those savings have to agree to the block buy this year. In light of the new report, they may be asking some similar questions in the months ahead. And it's going to be a bi+ch to give them their money back after they've already spent it on vaporware.
[DAWN] All domestic and international flights of Pakistain International Airlines (PIA) remained cancelled on Wednesday, airport officials said, as the strike resulting from employees' protest against the national carrier's proposed privatisation entered its third day on Thursday.
PIA employees continued their protest outside major airports across the country, which came as the federal government invoked the Essential Services (Maintenance) Act, 1952, in the PIA for six months.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/04/2016 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[KhaleejTimes] A Palestinian poet condemned to death in Saudi Arabia for apostasy has had his sentence reduced to prison time and lashes instead, his lawyer said Tuesday.
[THEDAILYBEAST] Britain’s prime minister wanted to use the threat of a referendum on membership in the European Union to extract concessions. But what’s extracted may be the UK.
The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program, the most expensive military program in the world, is even more broken than previously thought. The jet can't tell old parts from new ones, randomly prevents user logins into the logistics information system, and trying to eject out of it will likely result in serious neck injury and maybe death. A Pentagon office is warning that the plane is being rushed into service.
