Mixed Bag Post

Yes, El Jefe is back in his capital, and has been given a rapturous greeting by his millions of devoted fans, High Patronesses FLINKY and MILO, and anyone else possibly of importance.

Both Heir and his Dad El Jefe agree that camp was fun, El Jefe just wishes he was going. Climbed around on mountains, shot rifles, bows and arrows, and went canoeing, and sundry other stuff. Sleeping accomodations, well, wern't the Ritz, especially at night when it got downright COLD.

Back in town, facing the sad, sad music of work; yet another week with a rent car. (El Jefe's in a couple of, ahem, unfortunate accidents); a busted refrigerator and various other catastrophes. No problems that a trip to a Mexican restaurant and a few very large Margaritas wouldn't solve.

Mixed bag post today. The giant Airbus A380 (capacity of 555 passengers) made its maiden flight at Blagnac, France this morning. El Jefe confesses a certain fascination for this behemoth, largest passenger aircraft ever built, but he is also glad to see that Airbus’s American rival Boeing just booked a $7 billion order for eight B777-200 LR’s, 15 B777-300 ER’s and 27 B787 “Dreamliner” jets.

Boeing’s bet seems to be that the A380, designed to fly hub-to-hub, is too big to be commercially profitable, and that the way to go is with a smaller aircraft, designed to fly to more destinations. Hence, the shorter range “Dreamliner” which can carry 255- 296 passengers. So far, Boeing’s gamble seems to be paying off.

The Republicans in the Senate seem to be prepared to go ahead with their “nuclear option” and change Senate rules to squelch the filibuster for judicial appointments. Stupid, stupid, stupid. The Republicans should, as Dick Morris argues this morning in The Hill – call the Democrats’ bluff and make them really filibuster – complete with endless quorum calls, late night sessions, cots in the cloakrooms, etc.

Once the public sees the Democrats tying-up all public business over some judge in Mississippi, people are likely to see the justice in halting filibusters. But as long as the present pattern of simply conceding when the majority lacks 60 votes continues – without actually pushing the minority to filibuster – it just looks like the Republicans want to cut off debate for their own petty purposes.

Hmmm, today in history. That’s interesting to me, so… In 1812, US troops entered Toronto (then called York) Canada. In 1861, Abraham Lincoln suspended the use of the writ of habeus corpus in several states in the United States. This action was later challenged successfully in the Supreme Court in Ex Parte Merryman. No problem there, though, Lincoln simply ignored the Supreme Court. Other stuff today: in 1941, German troops entered Athens; and in 1822 today was the birthday of the great General and author (but poor President), Ulysses S. “Sam” Grant. Check out Grant's memoirs sometime -- even though my sympathies are with the other side -- I think he wrote a great book.