The unimportant news thread

[Ghost of Baron Scarpia]

Barenboim is a bully, apparently...

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/26/arts/music/daniel-barenboim-conductor-bullying-berlin.html?action=click&module=Features&pgtype=Homepage

No sexual harassment, that's a relief.

Are there any nice conductors?

[Ken B]

Billy Jean is not my lover — too old

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/02/leaving-neverland-michael-jacksons-depravity/

[Ghost of Baron Scarpia]

Turns out Netanyahu is both a war criminal and an ordinary criminal.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/28/middleeast/israel-benjamin-netanyahu-indictment-intl/index.html

[Ken B]

Canada has just had its biggest political scandal in a generation, and probably longer. Our Prime Minister and his henchman tried to suborn the Attorney General at the behest of a large company with close ties to his party.

The former AG, Jody Wilson-Raybould, testified today. She was devastating. Brava!

Quote of the week:

the grinning legatee who taints the Prime Minister's office

Here is one link https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/furey-the-unbearable-lightness-of-justin-trudeau

[Ken B]

When trees commit hate crimes. https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/state/south-carolina/article226928484.html

[Todd]

Who is James Hart Stern? Black Man Who Leads Neo-Nazi Group Vows to Eradicate Them

[Ghost of Baron Scarpia]

What am I reading? Justin Trudeau is in the middle of an ethical crisis, with ministers resigning in protest and widespread calls for his resignation? When Trump and Trudeau stood side by side, we assumed Trump would the one endangered by ethics investigations. Maybe just that the Canadians cling to the quaint and outdated notion of government ethics.

[Karl Henning]

Heck, I even remember when Republicans seemed to care about ethics

[Florestan]

What am I reading? Justin Trudeau is in the middle of an ethical crisis, with ministers resigning in protest and widespread calls for his resignation?

Why wonder? What else could you expect from the guy who unabashedly and unqualifyingly (is this a word?) praised Fidel Castro? 

[North Star]

Well, the Finnish prime minister just asked the President for the government to resign, after it was clear to him that, after 4 years of trying to disregard the constitutional and health care committees' requirements for the massive reform bills to make it possible to pass them as laws, the reforms wouldn't happen before the elections - the parliament is soon going on a break before the parliamentary elections on April 14. The government has been very economically liberal, with tax cuts to the wealthy and businesses, and pressuring labor organizations to negotiate for lower salaries, taking holiday pays away from municipal workers (when Finnish economy was suffering from lack of demand because of global economy and the Russia sanctions, it was an amazing idea to redistribute money in the country away from those who spend more..), and attempting to privatize the crap out of the health care and everything else.

The most recent polls for the government parties have been showing a support of 33%. Frankly, this should have happened in 2017 when the second largest party True Finns changed the party leadership, as Soini was stepping down as party chairman while in office as the minister of foreign affairs, leading to a more openly racist party leadership, which the prime minister said he couldn't work with, and this was "solved" by the ministers from the party resigning from the party, and forming a new one with no political future, while staying in the government.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-finland-government/finlands-government-to-resign-after-healthcare-reform-fails-idUSKCN1QP0R6?il=0

[Ken B]

No Downy, no peace! https://mobile.twitter.com/JonHaidt/status/1105522000590704640

[Ghost of Baron Scarpia]

This article contains some definite information about the Boeing 737 Max issues.

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/failed-certification-faa-missed-safety-issues-in-the-737-max-system-implicated-in-the-lion-air-crash/?fbclid=IwAR08vsHS_-dp4elLGqw7b43Lp9xkpRIUMohRvIIFv3gsk_Bln1BO86CdezA

First of all, it was not caused by autopilot, it was caused by the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) which is always on and is supposed to make the plane feel like a conventional 737. The MCAS has the authority to move the horizontal stabilizer (the horizontal fin at the back of the plane) and is based on a single angle of attack sensor. In the safety analysis delivered to the FAA it is specified to have the ability to move the horizontal stabilizer by 0.6 degrees. At the last minute Boeing increased this to 2.5 degrees without notifying the FAA. The full range of the horizontal stabilizer is 6 degrees. When the pilot tries to override the MCAS by flipping a switch and pulling back the stick the MCAS can re-enable itself and reset its adjustment range. So every time the pilot tries to override the MCAS gets a wider range of adjustment and more authority to push the nose down. The Pilots of the Lion air flight tried to disable the MCAS 21 times and it ended up with the horizontal stabilizer pegged at the end of its range, full down.

It seems like if this angle of attack sensor, a little fin sticking out of the side of the plane, fails that's it. The plane and all aboard are lost. It is unrecoverable.
[Actually not quite true. I just read that in a previous Lion Air flight the MCAS system went berserk but there were three pilots on the flight deck instead of two and the extra, off duty, pilot was able to figure out how to disable the MCAS system before the plane hit terrain.]

Oh, and the FAA was rushing approval of the 737 Max because Boeing felt urgency to get it out quickly, to compete with an Airbus aircraft. The FAA had inadequate staffing and offloaded safety analysis to Boeing.

This is what happens when the government abrogates its oversight responsibility.

Now, someone explain to me why the CEO of Boeing isn't guilty of about 350 counts of criminally negligent homicide.

[Jo498]

Morally he might as well be. (Or one could also claim that some governmental institution that neglected its oversight responsibility is guilty.) Legally, it's usually more complicated. And you should also think about the Boeing stockholders. And the employees. Sometimes one needs to take little risk for profit, employment and the advancement of civilization.

[André]

If heads don't roll on that one, I don't know what is needed... 

[Ghost of Baron Scarpia]

Morally he might as well be. (Or one could also claim that some governmental institution that neglected its oversight responsibility is guilty.) Legally, it's usually more complicated. And you should also think about the Boeing stockholders. And the employees. Sometimes one needs to take little risk for profit, employment and the advancement of civilization.

Clearly the person who decided to put the fox in charge of the hen house is culpable, but that doesn't exonerate the fox.

Now I've just read that a warning light that indicates the angle of attack sensors are not working correctly (they don't agree) is an expensive option.

I remember telling people that if I am to have a self-driving car it should be made by Boeing, not Apple. I've revised that opinion.

[Ken B]

I am reluctant to draw conclusions from an anonymously sourced article, especially this soon, but the red flag if true is the approval given to a "hazardous " warning based on a single sensor, because the rules about dependence on a single source are clear, long-standing, and impossible to miss inadvertently. There would have been a conscious, deliberate decision to ignore a basic safety regulation. It's one thing to have mistaken professional judgment, quite another to flout basic rules.

[Ghost of Baron Scarpia]

The so called "yield curve inversion" occurred today. (Long term federal debt is going for a lower interest rate than short term debt.) This has been highly correlated with the onset of a recession. The rational is that the long term interest rate is indicative of confidence in long term growth of the economy.

[LKB]

Regarding the recent accidents involving the 737 variant, l would also caution against hasty judgement and invite readers to (re-) acquaint themselves with the DC-10 accident at O'hare, American Airlines flight 191, which happened years ago.

From Wikipedia:

" The National Transportation Safety Board(NTSB) officials discovered that a maintenance procedure was the cause of the accident. American Airlines mechanics had removed the engine and its pylon as a unit, rather than removing the engine from the pylon, then removing the pylon from the wing, as recommended by McDonnell Douglas. The faulty procedure was done using a forklift, which resulted in inadvertent structural damage. It was subsequently discovered that this short-cut procedure, believed to save many man-hours on maintenance, was being used by three major airlines, although McDonnell Douglas had advised against it.[76]In November 1979, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) fined American Airlines $500,000 and Continental Airlines $100,000 for using this incorrect maintenance procedure.[76][78] "

Within hours ( If not minutes ) of this accident becoming public knowledge, widespread condemnations of the DC-10 and McDonnell Douglas had begun, which turned out to be largely unjustified as regarding this incident.

It may well turn out that Boeing are culpable in these accidents, but the disaster at O'hare serves as a reminder not to be hasty in our conclusions.

LKB

[Ghost of Baron Scarpia]

I think the people whose job it is to investigate these incidents are being appropriately cautious. So cautious that second brand new plane went down under identical circumstances just a few months later, even though this model plane has only recently been introduced and there are relatively few in service.

As to our speculations on this web site, they are for entertainment value. We have no obligation to due diligence.

[Ghost of Baron Scarpia]

The treasury department imposes sanctions on North Korea, and the next day Trump announces that he has lifted them. The reason given, he likes the murderous dictator of North Korea.

This seems normal now.