Air Force Reopens Bidding on Flawed Tanker Contract
By LESLIE WAYNE

The Air Force will reopen the bidding for a multibillion-dollar contract for midair refueling tankers, the defense secretary, Robert Gates, announced on Wednesday.

The decision comes in the wake of a report by the Government Accountability Office that found flaws in the process that initially awarded the contract to a partnership of Northrop Grumman and the European parent of Airbus over a competing bid by Boeing, which filed a protest.

The action reignites the controversy surrounding the largest trans-Atlantic military contract. The Pentagon’s decision will also enter the realm of presidential politics because John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, had long been a critic of Boeing’s initial bid and as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee held a series of hearings that opened the door to the bid made by Northrop and European Aeronautic Defense and Space.

As a result, critics have contended that he has favored a European supplier to an American company for a critical American military contract — an impression not helped by the fact that several of his top campaign advisers had worked as lobbyists for Airbus.

In strictly business terms, with the $35 billion contract having the potential to grow to more than $100 billion, both the Northrop-EADS partnership and Boeing led prominent campaigns on both sides of the Atlantic to land the business. Both European and American politicians entered the fray with statements supporting their own side as part of an intense public relations effort.
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Gus: This reminds me of IBM challenging the Australian government awarding a contract to FACOM (Futjitsu) in the early 1970s for a new super computer (a desktop PC could do the job better now). But then there was millions of dollars at stake. The tender was reopened and won again by FACOM if my memory is not too wonky...

One cannot dismiss the know-how of the Americans. But as some computing expert would tell me, the European programming standard is far superior to that of the US, the only difference is the US marketing machine is overtly too powerful in its ability to sell snake oil.

One can find flaws in any tender. One can find flaws in no tender at all... Many characteristics and parameters are at play, including human factor, bribes and promises. One also never knows of the secret undercurrents and deals made at political level on such large operative contracts.

The European planes may or may not be superior to that of Boeing, but there is a good chance they are. The Europeans have unveiled its new A400 — a mean-looking machine — designed to replace the Hercules class troop and heavy material transport. Boeing got its nose out of joint in a war against Airbus. Airbus already has three A380 flying commercially. Boeing has zilch dreamliners. And falling behind schedule. One has to note the disparity between what the Europeans pay for oil: 2.4 times that of the US. The Europeans have got to be smarter on many fronts to survive — in a climate where the US$ is diving like a petrel.

On other fronts, the US is also losing its grip on "space monopoly"... They did not mind the nutty competition with the Russians as long as the Russians were in second place all the time... Now they have to compete with the Chinese, with the Indians, with the Europeans and the amount of junk that is cluttering the space up there... Even the Iranians have launched a modest long-range missile... The Europeans are creating their own GPS network because they know all too well that for military purposes, parameters transmitted by US GPS network can be altered within seconds and make targeting impossible — only useable if one has the proper "codes" at that time.
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U.S. Finds It's Getting Crowded Out There
Dominance in Space Slips as Other Nations Step Up Efforts

By Marc Kaufman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 9, 2008; A01

China plans to conduct its first spacewalk in October. The European Space Agency is building a roving robot to land on Mars. India recently launched a record 10 satellites into space on a single rocket.

Space, like Earth below, is globalizing. And as it does, America's long-held superiority in exploring, exploiting and commercializing "the final frontier" is slipping away, many experts believe.

Although the United States remains dominant in most space-related fields -- and owns half the military satellites currently orbiting Earth -- experts say the nation's superiority is diminishing, and many other nations are expanding their civilian and commercial space capabilities at a far faster pace.

"We spent many tens of billions of dollars during the Apollo era to purchase a commanding lead in space over all nations on Earth," said NASA Administrator Michael D. Griffin, who said his agency's budget is down by 20 percent in inflation-adjusted terms since 1992.

"We've been living off the fruit of that purchase for 40 years and have not . . . chosen to invest at a level that would preserve that commanding lead."

In a recent in-depth study of international space competitiveness, the technology consulting firm Futron of Bethesda found that the globalizing of space is unfolding more broadly and quickly than most Americans realize. "Systemic and competitive forces threaten U.S. space leadership," company president Joseph Fuller Jr. concluded.

Six separate nations and the European Space Agency are now capable of sending sophisticated satellites and spacecraft into orbit -- and more are on the way. New rockets, satellites and spacecraft are being planned to carry Chinese, Russian, European and Indian astronauts to the moon, to turn Israel into a center for launching minuscule "nanosatellites," and to allow Japan and the Europeans to explore the solar system and beyond with unmanned probes as sophisticated as NASA's.

While the United States has been making incremental progress in space, its global rivals have been taking the giant steps that once defined NASA:
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Gus: On another front, "climate change" may still appear distant for Sydneysiders experiencing the Pope and the coldest days in years. Funny that... Through a series of exchange via jet streams, low pressure system and convection, Antarctica is losing some of its latent cold and gaining heat. This is not new, but there is time now at which the total temperature package has heat gain rather than balance out between summer and winter — despite bitter cold experienced in some of its part. Presently California has heat above average and wildfire to boot. Water has gone scarce in many places in the US, our own Murray Darling system is drying up (don't need to tell you that but farmers were already warning of major problems back in 1949. Some of us, green spruikers, were warning of the degradation during the 1970s and the 1980s). Most scientists predict warmer and dryer conditions and more heat-waves. Sometimes I feel that the US has been lucky to experience tornadoes — dissipating energy — like they did so far this year, otherwise the differential in the atmosphere could "accumulate" and lead to a greater massive hurricanes by end of Summer, in the west Atlantic crossing through Florida and the Gulf of Mexico...
But the US is not prepared to do the hard yards on global warming. The Europeans have done quite a lot in comparison and Germany leads. Russia has also done quite good but starting from where they were, it was not too hard to improve. China is doing far better than the US on renewable energies, should we believe their figures...

And Bushit still wants to plant his umbraging umbrella at the doorstep of Russia. Niet...

Many happy days... Things are a-change-in' — fast. And as Gus Leonisky always says: flaws are necessary for the universe to exist...

Bush to G8: 'Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter'

After rejecting global climate-change targets, George Bush's parting shot to the G8 summit

By Andrew Grice, Political Editor in Hokkaido
Thursday, 10 July 2008

President George Bush signed off with a defiant farewell over his refusal to accept global climate change targets at his last G8 summit.

As he prepared to fly out from Japan, he told his fellow leaders: "Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter."

President Bush made the private joke in the summit's closing session, senior sources said yesterday. His remarks were taken as a two-fingered salute from the President from Texas who is wedded to the oil industry.

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... and this fellow was Howard's best buddy on bullwinkling!!!!... see toon above...

Fareed Zakaria, thanks for joining us.

FAREED ZAKARIA, AUTHOR AND JOURNALIST: It's my pleasure. Thankyou for having me.

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: "The rise of the rest": it's a nicely evocative phrase. Who are they? Who's the rest?

FAREED ZAKARIA: Well, it really is everyone. I mean, what I was struck by when I was looking at this subject, I thought to myself, "Well, of course it's the rise of Asia", we know about that. But then I'd go to Latin America and see Brazil was booming, Mexico was doing better than it had ever done, Costa Rica was doing well, the Dominican Republic is growing at eight per cent, for Heaven's sake. And then I'd go to Africa and I learned last year Africa had 30 countries that grew at over four per cent. That's about two thirds of the continent. So, in a real sense, you have growth taking place around the world: 2006, 2007, 124 countries around the world grew at four per cent a year or more. And I think this is so dramatically different from any period in human history before to have the majority of the world's countries doing well, that I couldn't think of any better way to describe it than to say "the rise of the rest", meaning, really, the rest of the world.

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Good one... 

Air Force Reopens Bidding on Flawed Tanker Contract
By LESLIE WAYNE

The Air Force will reopen the bidding for a multibillion-dollar contract for midair refueling tankers, the defense secretary, Robert Gates, announced on Wednesday.

The decision comes in the wake of a report by the Government Accountability Office that found flaws in the process that initially awarded the contract to a partnership of Northrop Grumman and the European parent of Airbus over a competing bid by Boeing, which filed a protest.

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Now Northrop Grumman is not happy by Boeing's action and explains why:

Questions Boeing has not answered

1. Northrop Grumman's proposal was judged superior by the U.S. Air Force in four out of the five criteria including: Mission Capability, Past Performance, Cost/Price, and Integrated Aerial Refueling Assessment. How can Boeing say its proposal should have been selected?

2. Boeing was publicly quoted being in favor of the U.S. Air Force procurement process until the award was announced. Why didn't Boeing raise its concerns prior to the announcement?

3. Can Boeing document the estimated 44,000 jobs that would be created within United States if they had been chosen? On Northrop Grumman's website, there is list of the suppliers and the 48,000 jobs supported. What evidence does Boeing have that U.S. jobs would disappear overseas?

4. Has Boeing identified exactly what military technologies related to the KC-45 will move offshore?

5. Boeing actually considered its 777 as a Tanker but thought it was not practical. Why?

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The U.S. Air Force chose the best team for the tanker

The tanker decision was based on an open and transparent process and the best team won. The USAF ranked each bid on five criteria and Northrop Grumman won on four out of the five and tied in one category. Both sides praised the USAF for the fairness of the competition before the award was announced. Both sides agreed that this was the most rigorous acquisition process in the Department of Defense's history.