My Top Ten Resolutions

(Guest-blogged by Popeye the Cat.)

Maybe my bipedaled pets don't believe in making resolutions and bettering themselves as the second-most dominant life form on the planet but that doesn't mean I can't make my own resolutions in the interests of self betterment. So here are my top 10 resolutions for 2012.

10) I will not stick my rectum and admirably large package in Mommy and Daddy's face anymore. There's such a thing as too much of a good thing.

9) I will not follow them into the bathroom every single time for a head and butt scratching. My sense of smell is extremely powerful. Trust me on this.

8) I will not put myself between Mommy and Daddy and their monitors, especially if there's a chance they're ordering food for me online.

7) I will not lick my admirably large package in front of Daddy. I hate it when he gets jealous.

6) I will not lay down on top of Daddy's manuscripts and Mommy's magazines while they're using them. The ink is a bitch to lick off.

5) I will try not to be too finicky in the future, provided my zebra meat is still grilled gently over moon rocks by Japanese ventriloquists.

4) Next Christmas, I will not tear apart everyone's presents in an attempt to get at mine.

3) I will practice more restraint when Daddy gives me catnip. The last time, I put over $100 on his debit card and he was not happy.

2) I will stop pissing in the bathroom closet, on the bedroom floor and on Daddy's tote bag if my litter box isn't cleaned every hour on the hour.

1) Naming me was still an exercise in futility but when they call me from now on, the least I can give them is a contemptuous, bored look.

Aviation - This Thing We Love

CRAZY STUFF!
Despite scarey decompressions, a you-can-not-make-this-up event on a commuter flight to New York, the inexplicable but global trend of attacking pilots with lasers, an elevation of rhetoric in politics and in aviation and some truely appalling carrying-on by air travelers who really should know better (Gerard! Alec! Leisha! what got into you?) aviation was blessed this year with many, many happy landings.


SAFE FLIGHTS!

Let's start with the publication of the International Air Transport Association's new statistics that show commercial aviation around the world has never been safer.

Statistics being slippery, I don't normally tout this kind of thing, but Gunther Matschnigg IATA's safety guru makes the point that this is the continuation of an ongoing decline in air accidents and cites success in getting regulators and airlines to participate in standardized operational audits and sharing of safety information; learning from each other being a key factor in aviation safety.


NEW PLANES!

The Dreamliner in Addis Ababa in December

Two new airplanes took to the skies in 2011, the much redesigned and ever lovely B747 and the B787 Dreamliner, which may have seemed more like fantasy than dream after years of delay actually getting the airplane off the ground.

Capt. Desta Zeru flew the 787 into Addis Ababa

But what the hey? All seemed to be forgiven in Japan when All Nippon Airways' first 787 arrived in October (and was then promptly smashed into a boarding bridge).  Equally enthusiastic crowds greeted the 787's arrival in Addis Ababa in December. Ethiopian Airlines didn't actually take posession of the airplane, but one of their pilots did make history by left-seating it into the continent on its 'round the world tour. 

MERGER MANIA!

British Airways/Iberia, LAN Chile/TAM, Continental/United, Southwest/AirTran all tied the knot in 2011. And while setting up housekeeping together is working more easily for some than for others, take my mother-in-law's advice and remember, good marriages aren't built in a day.  Here are some other kinda love stories that kept the drama up at airports around the globe.

And if that's not enough kissy-kissy for you, the short-lived TV show Pan Am offered sexy story lines and prompted former Pan Am employees to reminisce about the glory days to the delight of many of us.

SWEET DREAMS!
After years and years of mind-numbing talk about pilot flight duty times, the Federal Aviation Administration finally issued a proposed a rule that should provide some needed shut-eye for pilots. Airline pilots anyway. Cargo pilots seem to be left to fend for themselves with the sandman and flight attendants, mechanics and air traffic controllers aren't part of the rule either, so this issue is far from ready to be put to bed.

GOOD NEWS FROM BAD TIMES!
There were glimmers of good news emerging from the terrible earthquake and tsunami in Japan in March. Pilot Jim Karsh, who flies frequently into Japan generously kept FLYING LESSONS readers updated in the immediate aftermath. My friend and correspondent, Takeo Aizawa was gracious enough to provide  small details of how aviation was faring in Japan in the weeks that followed. I chose to see these reports as glimmers of hope for a  better tomorrow.

ALL THE BLESSINGS OF FLYING
When I thank God for the blessings of the year just past, I include these personal highlights:

• opportunities to watch airplanes, from the great vantage points at airports or airport hotels in Orlando, Chicago, Copenhagen, Bangkok and Dubai.

Steve Guenard takes me flying in N7995

• My experience flying above Manhattan with acrobatic pilot John Klatt, and touring Utah from a beautifully restored Stearman with Steve Guenard at the controls.

• The magnificent sight of a "pilot's halo"viewed while flying above the clouds on a Lufthansa A340. 

Most of all dear readers, I'm thankful to YOU for making FLYING LESSONS a part of your day and contributing your ideas, critiques and comments to make better this thing we love called flying. Happy New Year.

Profiles in Cravenness

There's an old saying, "Treason is a matter of timing." Same thing goes for statesmanship and patriotism, especially at the beginning of an election cycle.

Much has been made about Obama's "tough stance" on not caving in to the Republicans, especially the ones in the House who found themselves in the absurd position of saying "No" to Obama's stopgap payroll tax cut plan. Republicans saying "No" to tax cuts??? Say it ain't so, Joe McCarthy!

But here's how it really down on the seedier side of the aisle:

While Obama was posturing like the Lion King and publicly calling out the Republicans for what we already knew they are (racist refugees from the DSM IV), the House Republicans realized they'd painted themselves into a corner, Tea Party caucus or no Tea Party caucus. It was a lose-lose situation for the House Repukes, especially since the tax cut measure sailed through the Senate by a pretty wide bipartisan consensus.

So House Speaker John Boehner did what Boehner usually does when he saw his troops tip-toeing off into the sunset of the Great Experiment: Boehner waited until virtually everyone left for their home districts or the nearest golf course, put up the bill under "unanimous consent" (which he should've done in the beginning while everyone was still in town) so that any lone Tea Bagger could do the House's version of the filibuster and oppose it. Naturally, none of them did and Boenher got the bill passed without expending any political capital (or so he thought). When the president signed the bill into law on the 23rd, it was even billed as a Christmas present to the American people! Scrooge caved just like the story goes. Dickens couldn't have penned it better!

Even Alan Grayson, in his latest fundraising email, is hailing this as a great victory for President Obama and the Democratic Party, for standing tall like Bo Svenson or The Rock and just saying, "No!" to the House Republicans who were all too willing to shut the government down just so they themselves could say No to a Democratic President who wanted to extend tax cuts to middle class families for another two months. This, at the very least, enabled unemployed Americans to keep living considerably below the poverty line instead of at the very bottom of the graph.

But even Grayson's usually dead-on cynicism missed the point. Because given his track record these past three years, it's tough to imagine President Barack Chamberlain standing up to the Republican Party in any other but an election year. This is about the most far left Obama will ever allow himself to lean even as the 2012 election year looms closer. Insisting that the House GOP pass a pitifully stopgap measure that will last only until the end of February when the 113th Congress convenes is hardly what a shrewd and perspicacious political observer would call "courageous."

We'll see if this victory will embolden the President to continue taking a firm stand against the congressional GOP just as Obama's every appeasement has emboldened the right side of the aisle to ask for more and more. It was a stalemate in which there were no real winners. The Democrats squeezed a two month payroll tax break out of the Republicans and the Republicans can always say to their lunatic fringe (and they will) that they played ball with the Commie Muslim Kenyan just long enough to keep the money spigots on until Congress reconvenes, see how much we love you out of work folks?

It's still possible that Obama will continue to eyeball the GOP. But even if he does throughout 2012, how do we know that this so-called populist position isn't just basic election year political gamesmanship? And how do we know the GOP won't pull their same old bullshit, with the same old results, when the fight begins over a longer payroll tax cut that will put more of their political capital on the line?

All in Bulk - Mass Photos Part II...

Gaddafi’s daughter Aisha claims inquiry into her father's killing

Muammar Gaddafi's daughter Aisha’s lawyer has written to the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to inquire for an investigation into the executing of her father and brother.

According to the letter that Gaddafi and his son Mutassim were "killed in the most terrible fashion with their bodies then displayed and grotesquely exploited in totally insolence of Islamic law."

"The pictures of this savagery were telecasted throughout the world, causing my client brutal emotional disturbance," said the letter from Nick Kaufman, the Israeli lawyer appointed by the Qaddafi's daughter. 

"To date, neither Ms Gaddafi nor any member of her family has been verified, by your office, of the opening of an inquiry into the conditions surrounding the ruthless killings," the letter said.

Gaddafi and his Mutassim were arrested in their home town of Sirte in October, two months after activists captured the capital Tripoli and put Libya's longtime ruler and his relatives to flight.

They were murdered soon after their arrest while in the detention of rebels loyal to the country's new control, in conditions that have not been completely illustrated.

Gaddafi's daughter Aisha escaped along with her other family members to neighboring country Algeria in August.

The ICC, based in the Hague, prior this year issued detention orders for the dictator, his son Saif al-Islam, and the former Libyan intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi, for offenses against the Libyan people.

In the letter, Aisha Gaddafi's lawyer requested if the ICC prosecutor's office was inspecting the murders of her father and brother, and if it was taking measures to ensure the Libyan authorities themselves were inquiring the matter.

The letter also demanded whether the ICC was examining what reports said at the time was a NATO air attack on Gaddafi's group instants before he was detained.

Is your office inspecting the air strike purportedly carried out by NATO forces facilitating to conclude whether individual criminal responsibility should be allocated for an illegal military assault?" the letter asked.

Have a Happy, Healthy and Safe New Year!!

Dear Readers;

I am leaving town this morning to travel to lovely Tyler Texas to take the Girls of Law to see their grandparents.  We will be back tomorrow evening.

I will try to post later but if I do not here's wishing you and yours a very happy and healthy New Year!

Regards,

Man o' Law

Slump 'to re-visit' to Europe, Economists say

A considerable majority of foremost economists interviewed by the BBC believe decline will come back to Europe next year.

One fifth said the Eurozone would not survive in its present 17-member outline, whilst the greater part put the option of a eurozone fragmented at 30%-40%.

The survey also revealed that most economists anticipate UK interest rates to remain at 0.5% during the next year.

It was accomplished among 34 UK and European economists who frequently advise the Bank of England.

Of the 27 who replied, 25 predict slump for Europe next year.

Growth in Europe has sluggish in current months as the eurozone debt emergency has enforced governments to restraint in spending and has destabilized trust in the international financial markets.

The eurozone economy grew by 0.2% between July and September, whilst the 27 economies of the European Union grew jointly by 0.3%.

Politicians have tried to solve the disaster, as well as a contract to counterfeit closer ties between EU members, but markets have yet to be persuaded the ways they have adopted are adequate.

The longer the debt catastrophe crashes on, the more probably Europe will come back to decline, economists believe.

Expansion in the UK during the 3^rd quarter was 0.6%. However, enlargement in the last three months was horizontal.

The CBI business group said that 2012 could be the start of a more well-off future if the "pain" of deficit decline passed quickly.

 In his New Year message, the CBI's John Cridland said the eurozone disaster posed a "major threat" to the UK economy, because 40% of UK exports were sold there.

Mr. Cridland further said that the undecided recovery and the enduring debt crisis were severe tokens of the required to rebalance UK's economy away from domestic and government debt.

NASCAR’s Kasey Kahne apologizes for ‘nasty’ breastfeeding tweet

Race car driver Kasey Kahne has been forced to apologize for Twitter posts about his disgust at seeing a woman breastfeeding in a supermarket.

The apology, on Kahne’s Facebook page, came around 6 p.m. Wednesday, hours after his first tweets and after he’d brushed off the outrage with this post:

“Glad everyone had a good Christmas! Thanks for all the feedback.”

A few hours before his apology, racing-team sponsors Great Clips, a hair-salon chain, had posted its own mea culpa to two women Kahne had attacked online: “Our apologies for this. Please know that response was uncalled for & does not reflect our organization.”

Kahne, who finished the year fourth in the NASCAR standings, also apologized in a Twitter post to one of the woman whom he’d called “a dumb bitch” after she objected to his breastfeeding comments.

The 31-year-old said on Facebook: “I apologize. It was in no way my intention to offend any mother who chooses to breastfeed her child, or, for that matter, anyone who supports breast feeding children.

“In all honestly, I was surprised by what I saw in a grocery store. I shared that reaction with my fans on Twitter. It obviously wasn’t the correct approach, and, after reading your feedback, I now have a better understanding of why my posts upset some of you.”

Thousands of people on his site left comments, many supporting the popular driver, who earned $4.7 million this year.

But on Twitter and on other sites that picked up the story, criticism was strong.

“You’re being horribly sexist, Kasey Kahne, and your misogyny is really unattractive considering the number of female NASCAR fans,” blogger Sarah Wendell wrote on her site, Smart Bitches, Trashy Books.

Kahne had originally tweeted: “Just walking through supermarket. See a mom breastfeeding little kid. Took second look because I was obviously seeing things. I wasn’t!”

A minute later, he wrote: “One boob put away one boob hanging!!! #nasty” and then “I don’t feel like shopping any more or eating.”

Kahne deleted the second post quickly but not before it had been reported and the outrage started to build.

Egypt - Very Rare Photo Collection...

UK Ministry of Defence named “Explosion's victims”

The Ministry of Defence has named two servicemen who killed subsequently in a blast in Afghanistan.

Tom Jennings, 29, Royal Marine Captain killed when his van was caught in the explosion , south of Kabul last Thursday.

RAF Squadron Leader Anthony Downing was took off back to the UK but died in hospital on Friday from wounds sustained in the blast.

The number of UK workers died in Afghanistan since military operations there started in 2001 stands at 393.

The Ministry of Defense explained Capt Jennings as "a genuine leader, noble in his proficient approach serving those who were his liability".

"Committed and modest, he was an exemplary Royal Marine with an enthusiastic sense of humor even when faced with hardships. Even as working with the Afghan forces that he joined, he displayed understanding and a broad cultural considerate that made sure he was extremely valued by the Afghans over and above his Royal Marine brothers," it said.

"He was dedicated to his wife and their two young sons whose loss cannot be depicted in words. The Royal Marines have lost a brother, they have lost their world."

Prior this week, Prime Minister David Cameron pointed out he was planning a phased pulling out of troops from Afghanistan.

Some 500 are scheduled to be withdrawal next year, with more likely to follow in 2013.

Reefer truck busted

Something else getting "extradited" here from Mexico.

CBP finds 'reefer truck' full of marijuana

By Lynn Brezosky - Express-News

BROWNSVILLE — Customs officers in Pharr seized more than a ton of marijuana from a “utility reefer trailer” in the cargo lot of an international bridge, Customs and Border Protection said Wednesday.

The seizure occurred Friday, after officers at the Pharr-Reynosa International Bridge referred a refrigerated (“reefer” in CBP parlance) tractor-trailer for further inspection.

Officers found 423 packages of alleged marijuana with a total weight of 2,465 pounds.

The rest of the story: