Don't Pay the Ransom...

... coz I escaped and I'm alive and semi-well. The post title is an impromptu line delivered over the phone to an unsuspecting TSMP after I'd overstayed my allotted time at the bar one evening in North Bend, Oregon. The lady was not amused, Gentle Reader. But my partners-in-crime at the NCO Club on North Bend Air Force Station were...

Let us begin.

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This blew me away…

The Pentagon’s competition worth up to $35 billion for the new KC‑45 refueling tanker was Boeing’s to lose, and it lost big.

The selection of an Airbus design for its KC-135 replacement will freeze Boeing out of a market long considered to be a monopoly for the only U.S. wide-body manufacturer. Airbus has now soundly penetrated the world’s largest defense market.

The Northrop Grumman/EADS team’s $1.5-billion win Feb. 29 of the KC-X competition was announced after multiple delays; it includes the manufacture of four developmental aircraft. Five options worth $10.6 billion for the first 64 aircraft are included. The total buy of 179 tankers begins with the fifth aircraft to come off the line. It will take more than a decade to complete with buy rates between 12-18 aircraft at a cost of about $3 billion per year.

KC-X is the first iteration of a three-phased approach to replace the Air Force’s fleet of 530 KC-135E/Rs and 59 KC-10s. The next tranche to replace the Air Force’s larger KC-10 tankers, dubbed KC-Y, is not expected until at least 2020, effectively freezing Boeing out of the tanker market for the foreseeable future. One factor attractive to the Air Force was the ability to use fewer KC-45s per mission, according to sources familiar with the evaluation. Air Force officials were focused on providing refueling services to the massive Pacific theater and cargo hauling for humanitarian missions over the Cold War scenarios focused on Europe.

Boeing had the inside track on this procurement and they lost. It pains me to think the USAF will be flying Airbus tankers. I don’t care if Northrop is partnered with EADS and they’re gonna open a production facility in the US… the lion’s share of the money the gub’mint spends on new tankers will still end up in Toulouse. That’s just not right, Gentle Reader.

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In other things aviation…via Lex… some stunning aerial video of a P-51 Mustang, along with a moving story about the plane’s restoration. The Reader’s Digest version: WW II fighter pilot’s grandchildren find and restore their grandfather’s P-51. The original. The very plane he flew in Big Bang Two. Bring Kleenex, and lots of it. But don’t forget… you’re going for the plane, too!

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The sole redeeming feature of my last post was the link to “Stuff White People Like.” I’ve since spent (much more than) a few hours on the blog and am most amused by the comments… which range from the predictable and appropriate “LOL!” to 1,000-word rants from clue-free individuals who simply don’t get it and insist the rest of the world know they don’t get it, too… and all points in between. Then I stumbled upon this op-ed in the LA Times on the site and its origins. You might find it interesting, Gentle Reader. I sure did.

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For the men in the audience… Got a nurse fetish? Well, get thee to Ol’ Blighty, where The Times (UK) revealed that “Nurses: we do seduce our patients.”

THOUSANDS of nurses believe it is justified to break the taboo on having an affair with a patient in their care.

Almost one in 10 nurses think starting a relationship with one of their patients is acceptable while one in six said they knew of a colleague who had a sexual relationship with a patient they were looking after.

{…}

The survey’s findings suggest a significant proportion of Britain’s 400,000 nurses are prepared to run the risk of sanctions – which in extreme cases could entail being struck off – for sleeping with patients. They also reveal that relationships between nurses and patients are not uncommon.

Well, now. Who’d a thunk it, eh? This might be the one and only Good Thing about socialized medicine. YMMV, of course.

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My daughter-in-law Erma (SN1’s wife) forwards the following:

The FBI had an opening for an assassin. After all the background checks, interviews and testing were done, there were 3 finalists; two men and a woman. For the final test, the FBI agents took one of the men to a large metal door and handed him a gun. "We must know that you will follow your instructions no matter what the circumstances."

Inside the room you will find your wife sitting in a chair . . . Kill her!!" The man said, "You can't be serious. I could never shoot my wife." The agent said, "Then you're not the right man for this job. Take your wife and go home."

The second man was given the same instructions. He took the gun and went into the room. All was quiet for about 5 minutes. The man came out with tears in his eyes, "I tried, but I can't kill my wife." The agent said, "You don't have what it takes. Take your wife home."

Finally, it was the woman's turn. She was given the same instructions, to kill her husband. She took the gun and went into the room. Shots were heard, one after another. They heard screaming, crashing, banging on the walls. After a few minutes, all was quiet. The door opened slowly and there stood the woman, wiping the sweat from her brow. "This gun is loaded with blanks" she said. "I had to beat him to death with the chair."

MORAL:
Women are crazy. Don't mess with them.

Ummm… yep. Noted. But I’ve kinda sorta known this for years.

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Today’s Pic: My favorite Frog, first posted yesterday sitting in my dorm room at Yokota AB, Japan and freezing his cute lil buns off on the deck at my home in Fairport, NY (a suburb of Fabulous Ra-cha-cha, NY). Here’s Froggy when he was a Kitchen Frog… in North Bend, Oregon. The year was 1979.

That’s The Second Mrs. Pennington on the phone. We were too poor to afford chairs at the time.