A salute to Boeing

When Boeing's 737-MAX airliner was introduced some years ago, two fatal crashes marred the company's reputation and allowed its European rival to become the dominant provider of airframes to the world. I was asked if I'd fly on the 737-MAX, and I replied: "Sure, if it's flown by an American pilot" (most of whom are trained by the US military). Today I'd add another possibility: sure, if there's an Israeli plumber on board!

As we learn more about the assault on the Airdubai flight to Tel Aviv, and as the world's media overcomes its reluctance to connect the dots, we find that the Islamist co-pilot attacked the pilot with the crash axe that's required in every cockpit these days. The Indian pilot managed to open the door, allowing passengers and crew to storm the cockpit and subdue his attacker, so the heroic plumber could pull the airliner out of its suicide dive toward the ground. The plane by this time was at an angle of 39 degrees and a speed near Mach 1 -- the speed of sound. The recovery subjected the aircraft to three G's, meaning that it and everyone aboard were suddenly subject to three times their normal weight. But the plane survived except for some damage to the rudder, and two relief pilots aboard were able to fly it for another hour and bring it down to a safe landing in Saudi Arabia.

Some plumber! Some aircraft!

Don't mess with the Israelis!

Evoking memories of Flight 93, the hijacked American plane that crashed in Pennsylvania 25 years ago, brave passengers and crew aboard a Dubai airliner managed to save it and themselves from the same fate. Almost all the passengers were Israelis, including many children and four American dual citizens.

What seems to have happened is that the co-pilot (traditionally the officer in the righthand seat) stabbed the pilot, who fought back and unlocked the cockpit door so that passengers and crew could subdue the officer who was apparently attempting the crash the plane. Several of them were also bloodied. Fortunately, two relief pilots were also aboard and able to take the controls and land the plane safely in Saudi Arabia.

The war that began on October 7 three years ago is still ongoing, and though there are casualties, the Israelis are still winning. God bless them.

Quote/Unquote

"According to the latest estimates from the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), Americans will spend almost 6.9 billion hours complying with IRS tax filing and reporting requirements in 2026. This is equal to 3.32 million full-time workers—more than the population of Chicago and nearly 35 times the workforce the IRS employed in FY 2025—doing nothing but tax return paperwork for a full year.

"If we assume a reasonable hourly wage, the 6.9 billion hours Americans spend complying with the tax code cost the economy roughly $387 billion in lost productivity. In addition, the IRS estimates that Americans spend roughly $157 billion annually out-of-pocket to comply with the tax code. This brings total compliance costs to $544 billion, over 1.7 percent of GDP." (The Wall Street Journal)

Mr Trump gets smart on Greenland

The huge, beautiful, icebound, and thinly populated island to our northeast has been integral to US defense for nearly a century, with a high point during the Second World War and the early years of the Cold War. To his credit, President Trump recognized this, but in his trademark blundering way he succeeded in annoying the Greenlanders, their onetime colonial masters in Denmark, and most of the NATO alliance by proclaiming that we'd simply take it over as an American possession. What he now proposes instead -- to the extent that anyone can suss out what Mr Trump actually intends -- is much smarter and more likely to meet approval in Nuuk, Copenhagen, and Brussels. In short we get to expand our military and economic presence, and nobody in Moscow or Bejing need apply. (For more about our long relationship with the largest island in the world, see my little e-book about Bluie West One)

Remembering 9/11

Twenty-five years ago this morning, I climbed into my favorite Piper Cub -- built in 1946 but kitted out as a WW2 artillery spotter with extra-large windows -- and few northwest on a GPS line toward the little airport where I planned to top off the gas tank for my annual flight around the White Mountains. It was one of those golden days that reward us for having the fortitude to live in New Hampshire.

I was considering a touch-and-go at Wolfeboro, where I'd graduated from high school in 1950, when the little radio in my breast pocket chirped to life: a pilot across the state line in Maine was ready for takeoff. Somebody told him to abort. "I'm already off the ground," he said. "Well, turn back," said the other voice. "There's a national emergency and the airspace is closed."

There being no fuel pump at Wolfeboro, I decided to keep quiet and fly on to Moultonboro. (The Piper Cub was designed before electrics were standard, so my portable radio and plump green earphones were entirely optional.) I landed, gassed up, and secured the Cub to a fence, whereupon a golf cart drove up and I learned that "a 707" had crashed into a skyscraper in New York City, and American airspace was indeed closed until further notice.

Well, the Cub and I did in time get home, and on every 9/11 thereafter until I grounded myself at 80, I flew around the mountains, surfing over the height-of-land on the Kancamagus Highway while raising my middle finger to Osama bin Laden. To the best of my recollection, every one of those days was golden too, as indeed seems to be the case today.

A block of ice in Kyiv

"After the initial invasion [of Ukraine in 2022], a military operation that uses music, painting, and sculpture for "cognitive defense" put a life-sized iron heart in downtown Kyiv. The heart was cut out of a rusting steel plate and encased in a block of ice. Since it was winter, the ice would not melt on its own; only human hands could do that. People gathered around and put their hands on it for as long as they could stand and, person by person, day by day, the Ukrainian people melted the block of ice. I'm not a military man, but I would say that any country capable of thinking like that will be a tough country to defeat." -- Sebastian Junger on Substack

Get your one-dollar coin here, just $1.55!

(Plus shipping, of course...)

Donald Trump glories in breaking norms, most recently the norm that American coins don't show the face of an individual who's still alive. There's another that a dollar should buy a dollar's worth of something or other, though that's a norm that's probably been violated by every president. But the gold-colored President Trump coin can't do that, since it sells for $154.50 per hundred-coin bag, plus $12.95 for standard shipping. That works out to $1.67 each, meaning you experience the inflation of Trump's, Biden's, and Obama's presidencies, plus some of Duba's, all in a single purchase. And if instead you frame the Donbuck and hang it on the wall, it will continue to lose value with every passing year.

A win for Orange Man

A tip of the virtual hat to President Trump for his NASCAR race in Washington DC the other day. Some money was spent, but nobody was hurt, and more than a quarter-million people were entertained at no cost to themselves other than getting there. 250 miles of triple-digit speeds in honor of American's 250th birthday! There have been worse days in the 21st century so far.

(If it wasn't NASCAR, forgive me. I'm not much into auto racing myself.)