Limited Posting for a Bit

We’re in the land of lotus-eaters this week for a conference supporting the book project we previously mentioned.  Busy times with trying to cram three days of stuff into two, so our time, perforce, is limited for posting until we return to Occupied Territory later this week. In the meantime –

some quick thoughts:

• It is bad enough that we have to replicate sardines in a tin on domestic flights – but didn’t the big carriers *cough*UAL*cough* think that maybe w hen they instituted their (censored) baggage charge that maybe the number of carry-ons would exceed the dismally small overhead bins? The result being a prolonged boarding process as excess bags have to be intercepted and checked at the door because the bins are full?  And, if the great unwashed are forced to use the heads at the back of the plane then the hoity-toity should not be allowed to stuff their bags half-way back in steerage…
• Ponder – in 1952 there was a requirement to build an integrated, automated defense warning system with a 99.999% degree of accuracy across the northern tier of North America in some of the most inhospitible climes around.  The last station was built and the system was online barely five years later.  Why isit different today? Yes, a post is in the works.
• Thoughts on the VP’s speech in Munich over the weekend?  Do we see a massive shift of the center of gravity from the London-Washington axis to the Paris-Berlin axis and a subsequent Continental view in the fututre for the Alliance as a result?  Perhaps a review of the Law of Unintended Consequences is required.