Flight 990

: I rely on God. About 17 years ago an Egyptian commercial plane flight 990 crashed in the Atlantic off shore of the east coast. Since it was a long flight it had two flight crews. Both pilots and co-pilots were Egyptian and the co-pilot of the second crew was Gameel Al-Batouti. Egypt investigated the crash and attributed it to mechanical failure. The US felt it was a suicide by Gameel Al-Batouti. The second crew was flying the plane and the Captain went to the lavatory leaving Al-Batouti in the cockpit alone. The voice recorder was found and the last two plus minutes recorded the following. 30 seconds after the Captain left the cockpit leaving Al-Batouti alone the auto pilot was disengaged and Al-Batouti said, in Arabic, I rely on God. The cockpit voice recorder (CVR) recorded the captain excusing himself to go to the lavatory, followed thirty seconds later by the first officer saying in Egyptian Arabic "Tawkalt ala Allah," which translates to "I rely on God." A minute later, the autopilot was disengaged, immediately followed by the first officer again saying, "I rely on God." Three seconds later, the throttles for both engines were reduced to idle, and both elevators were moved three degrees nose down. The first officer repeated "I rely on God" seven more times before the captain suddenly asked repeatedly, "What's happening, what's happening?" The flight data recorder reflected that the elevators then moved into a split condition, with the left elevator up and the right elevator down, a condition which is expected to result when the two control columns are subjected to at least 50 pounds (23 kgf) of opposing force.[1] At this point, both engines were shut down by moving the start levers from run to cutoff. The captain asked, "What is this? What is this? Did you shut the engines?" The captain is then recorded as saying "get away in the engines" (this is the literal translation that appears in the NTSB transcript), followed by "shut the engines". The first officer replies "It's shut". The final recorded words are the captain repeatedly stating, "Pull with me" but the FDR data indicated that the elevator surfaces remained in a split condition (with the left surface commanding nose up and the right surface commanding nose down) until the FDR and CVR stopped recording. There were no other aircraft in the area. There was no indication that an explosion occurred on board. The engines operated normally for the entire flight until they were shut down. From the presence of a western debris field about 1,200 feet (370 m) from the eastern debris field, the NTSB concluded that the left engine and some small pieces of wreckage separated from the aircraft before water impact. Egypt maintains to this day that it was a mechanical failure. It takes so long for the investigation to be complete that people lose interest and this was the case with this flight. This will likely be the case with the more recent crash of an Egyptian plane.

China

China’s GDP ran about $1,000 per year per person after WW 2 up until 1980 and then it started to rise and by 1990 it was $2,000 and in 2000 it was $4,000. Over the next ten years is doubled once again to $8,000. While China maintained its communist government the economy was drastically changed in 1980. It opened the door to the free market economy and this resulted in the greatest migration of people out of poverty in the history of the world. Hundreds of millions of people who just a few years ago lived in areas with no electricity, no indoor plumbing and barely surviving on a few bowls of rice now live in areas where they have shelter and lights and food. There are still many who live in poverty but the overall change in the economy is mind boggling. The down side is the air pollution but the people will gladly make that deal.

Visa's

A number of people in the news, including Donald Trump have expressed concern over Syrian refugees coming into the country without documentation. I believe they should be more concerned about those who have documentation. I say that because ISIS has captured the government printing press and can make Visa’s and distribute them to their allies. Refugees with Visa’s would be the first people I would check.

White vote

The experts say that Trump has to get 35% of the Hispanic vote to win. They base this on Bush getting 40%, McCain getting 32% and Romney getting 27%. There are 25 million eligible Hispanic voters so if Trump gets 20% he will be 3.75 million votes short. On the other hand there are 152 million eligible white voters and 60 million of them did not vote last time around. If Trump gets 7% of them to vote he will offset the Hispanic vote. Trump spent the past 6 months saying ridiculous things in order to get media attention and it worked. Now he will spend the next 6 months saying things that are designed to contrast himself with Clinton. Soon all the hurt feelings from other Republicans will subside and slowly the never Trump people will come around. Then the final tally will depend on the difference between the Hispanic vote and the white voters who normally stay home.

Clinton presidency

Insiders are now reporting that big time Republican supporters are backing Clinton. She is seen by them as the pro-business candidate. Will this mean that Sanders supporters will vote for Trump. If the middle and lower income people vote will they turn away from the establishment and line up behind Trump. This has got to be the most interesting presidential campaign of my lifetime. Clinton is now viewed as stronger on defense and cozier with Wall Street than Trump. Trump is also moving the Republican Party away from its standard positions on social issues such as abortion and gay rights. Many people who have always voted for a particular party now find themselves in a dilemma. The black vote is the only block that seems to be carved in stone. The young are turning away from Clinton and even women are showing some hesitancy in lining up behind Clinton. Clinton will likely win the presidency but both parties will have been changed in important ways and I see this as a good thing. It appears that Clinton may be a third Bush term as opposed to a third Obama term but either way it means an expansion of the federal government.

Campaign contributions

Sanders is coming after Clinton because of speeches she gave to the big banks and her defense is that she never changed a vote because of the money she received for these speeches. This may satisfy most voters but not those who watch the inner workings of congress. One outstanding example happened during the Savings and Loans scandals of the 80’s. Recall that many S and L’s were in the process of going broke and the government wanted to shut them down but the money in the fund used to protect consumers from losses was running out and congress was needed to approve more funds. There were many S and L owners who were big donors to a number of senators and one of these was a man name Keating. He owned many S & L’s now called banks and made large donations to five senators who were in control of the fund used to protect consumers. Keating was making a lot of money keeping these failing banks open so he didn’t want the congress to approve more funds since they could then shut down the banks that were losing money. When the meeting came to approve the additional funds, five senators showed up at the meeting and while they did not say a word everyone knew they were there to postpone any action. The committee decided not to approve the needed funds and these banks stayed active for another year during which time the cost to pay off the losses to protect the consumers increased from 200 billion to 500 billion. These five senators just by their presence allowed this to happen and they can say that they never said a word to the committee. One of these five senators was John McCain and he later admitted that it was a mistake for him to attend that meeting. To prove that a politician allowed campaign contributions to affect governance is almost impossible but only a naïve person would believe that these donations are made for altruistic reasons.

Free money

People often wonder what happened to lottery winners but there is another group of winners that is rarely mentioned and those are the 480 members of the Shakopee Mdewakanton Tribe in Minnesota. Prior to building a casino on their land these people lived a meager life living mostly in broken down mobile homes with meager incomes. Now that Mystic Lake is booming each of these 480 receives $84,000 per month gambling proceeds. The Shakopee keep modest homes on the reservation, but nearly every driveway sports at least one luxury car. Tribal members usually have multiple homes and have been known to take vacation for months at a time. Many choose to take up expensive hobbies. They are big game hunters and breeders of thoroughbred horses. All of the children attend private schools. Members of the tribe are 99.5% unemployed and the long term question is what will their children do? Will they be deprived of the good feelings that come from earning your own way, the famous work ethic. The good education they are getting in the private schools should help them get jobs but will they want to work.