Can the 737 MAX be salvaged?

These past days, Boeing’s top boss, Dennis Muilenburg, has been in the hot seat, and when asked by a victim’s parent to resign, he answered by saying that he had not been raised to give up that easily.

The problem is that, he and his board of directors, are either totally devious or woefully incompetent, but should certainly not be allowed to stay at the helm of the company. The same could also be said about the FAA’s folks that were more than lax with the MAX certification process.

At the same time, there is still no firm date in sight as to when the “software problem” will be “fixed”, and if this were to be enough, would passengers in their right mind fool enough to fly in that seemingly cursed airplane.

My guess is that, in the end, Boeing will have little choice but swallow very hard, take back these planes that were sold or are still on order, perhaps retrofit them into regular 737s if it can be done, and start developing the airplane it should have created in the first place instead of the failed MAX version…

Is the US Army going to the dogs ?

Like most, I had heard about Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, but the man never had the notoriety of Osama bin Laden, so when Trump announced his capture, I paid attention and listened to the whole, wild press conference.

What struck me most is when he said: “You know, these people are very smart.  They’re not into the use of cellphones anymore.  They’re not — they’re very technically brilliant.  You know, they use the Internet better than almost anybody in the world, perhaps other than Donald Trump.  But they use the Internet incredibly well.” This part was priceless. It just great to know that Trump is the man who can resolve any online issues.

Of course, there was the dog part, in which Trump said: “look, nobody was even hurt.  Our K-9, as they call — I call it a dog, a beautiful dog, a talented dog — was injured and brought back.  But we had no soldier injured.”

This makes me think that the best asset we might have in our military might be our canine units. Just think about it, we could start making some serious budget savings if we suddenly replaced the unaffordable F-35 with a herd of dogs and, just like for the Mexican wall, we’d ask the people from Park City to ship their dog surplus free of charge to the Army!

The American healthcare mess

Last night, I was watching a news show on Swiss TV, explaining how Switzerland’s market-based healthcare system (very similar to the United States’) is ruining working people with no end in sight and how badly healthcare needs to be regulated in order to contain greed surging from all places.

Price regulation is not just needed for insurance companies (that probably should go away) and big pharma, but also from hospitals, physicians, specialists and all folks who contribute to the spiraling health care costs.

Once more, it would be good to address the causes of a massive societal problem instead of its more striking symptoms, and this healing process should begin much sooner than what politicians think, but let’s not start dreaming...

A new ski racing season…

This weekend, I woke up early to watch both second runs of the men’s and women’s GS in Sölden, Austria and enjoyed it a great deal.

Spring conditions in October is a new concept in skiing, but we may have to get used to it in a very near future.

At any rate, I enjoyed the victory of Alice Robinson and was pleased to see a return of Mathieu Faivre in form and what is quite ironical is that the ex-lovebirds, Shiffrin and Faivre, both finished second of the season’s opener.

Do you see just like me a mere coincidence or is there more to it?

Discovering St. George, Utah

For a long time, our son and daughter in law have been saying wonderful things about the are of St. George in Southern, Utah.

We weren't too convinced, simply because we had not spent any time there and only saw the place as another town between Salt Lake City and Las Vegas. A weekend spent in that region has completely changed our mindset about the place.

Now, we can appreciate their infatuation for the place, its picturesque red rock canyon and it desert atmosphere just four and a half hour from Park City.

We’ll be back!

Three generations…

The Tour of St. George is a road bike race available in a variety of lengths.

First there’s the 35 mile version (56 km), then a stretched 50 mile (80 km) and finally for the fearless, there’s a full100 mile (161 km). We decided to align the 3 generations that our family counts in the 35 mile course, by including Finn (11 years old), his Dad (40), and the Grandpa (yeah, that’s me at a mature 71).

Even though St. George is located in the far southern corner of Utah, it was freezing, this morning, at the 8 am start time, just a measly 43 degree F (6 degree Celsius), but we managed to overcome that grueling hurdle and worked together as a strong and efficient team.

What's remarkable is that Finn finished 1st in his age group (up to 14) and that we all made it, together, to the finish line. What's next? Fifty miles in 2020?

Bannon, the Puppet Master

As a follow up to my previous blog, I took the time to watch the “Zero-Tolerance” show from PBS, that details how deftly Trump was installed at the helm of the United States by a nefarious trio made of Steve Bannon, Jeff Sessions and Steve Miller.

Bannon, was in fact the architect of the entire scheme under the guise of a new Nationalist dogma hinged around immigration and trade, and how he happened to pick Trump, a providential candidate, with “lots of flaws” as he admits, that has pretty much become Bannon’s puppet.

In fact, the film shows that Bannon “used” both Sessions and Miller in installing them in key positions to advance his agenda, secure Trump in place and also demonstrates that “businessman”

The documentary also shows that Trump was in fact totally clueless when it came to the business of leading the country.

Yet, this was okay, as long as Steve Bannon could excel at the art of manipulating the egocentric man who believed he was fully in charge.

Whether I like it or not, Bannon isn’t just a “Big Mouth”, but he’s also an effective Machiavellian.