EckerNet.Com

Ok the big story of the week for me is regards the following newsclip: RAYTHEON WINS IRAQ AIRPORT RECONSTRUCTION CONTRACT: Raytheon won a contract worth as much as $49M to restore air-traffic management systems for seven Iraqi airports, the U.S. defense contractor said on Wednesday. The company will provide lighting, surveillance radars and meteorological equipment for Baghdad’s airport, as well as Basra and Mosul airfields and others. Work has already started and is expected to be completed by the end of the year, spokeswoman Janet Kopec said. The initial award is $10.5M, with options for as much as $38.9M more. Raytheon already provides air traffic systems to the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia. (Reuters) *groan* This comes dangerous close to violating my longstanding policy of not revealing my place of employment, however, I work for one of the companies competing with Raytheon for this contract.  And I was extremely hopefully that we would win it, because I was actually hoping I would get assigned to this project and sent over to Iraq.  Actual city didn’t matter, although I would have preferred Baghdad, with Basra a distant second.  Call me crazy (my boss did), call me suicidal (friends did) or just act surprised (my sister did), but I truly was looking forward to it.  Reasons are varied and ran the spectrum of wanting to take part in a historical moment to feeling I needed to contribute to the situation even if in a very small way. In any event, I found out we lost the contract and was very bummed.  It pretty much ruined my week.

However, one definite bonus regards my schooling for my Masters.  I have to complete a Capstone Project. However, the one I had decided on wasn’t going very well and I was actually a bit frustrated.  However, lately I’ve been putting lots of time in at work on a tool that I learned about in class.  It finally occurred to me to make that my Capstone and I got preliminary approval already.  If it weren’t for the Baghdad thing, I’d be on cloud nine right now. 

In galactic news, Oppurtunity joins Spirit on the surface of Mars.  Spirit is still having problems although it appears it can be fixed in a couple weeks.  In related news, activists everywhere declare a quagmire on Mars, and demand we withdraw our forces immediately from this unilateral action against Mars.

FrontPage Magazine analyzes the French opinion on the US, which essentially boils down to: France has a long history of anti-Americanism, which has now turned into an obsession. Everything negative occurring in the planet, or for that matter even in France, is the fault of the USA. Blame it on America has turned into a national sport. This seems fairly anti-climatic but it contains several interesting (read: humorous) comparisons within.  

Since the election is coming up, alot will be said about what Bush has/hasn’t done.  This article does a good job of summarizing some of that.  Bush has completed 46% of his campaign promises, and I can’t help but notice most of the ones listed as uncompleted are labeled with "Blocked in Congress".   All in all not bad considering he had 9/11 thrust upon him in the infancy of his presidency and has had to deal with the resulting situation.

Also, since the Democrats seem intent on hammering Bush on economics and the deficit, here’s an interesting study: EVERY Democrat Presidential Candidate’s Platform Would Raise, Not Lower, Federal Budget Deficits.  Which is essentially an intro to this policy paper: The Return of Fuzzy Math and Risky Schemes: How Presidential Hopefuls Would Deepen Deficits which analyzes each candidate individually.  Which doesn’t excuse Bush for doing the massive spending he is, but it shows the Dems aren’t any better.  

And because I know it will be brought up over and over, I’d like you all to remember EXACTLY what Bush said in his speech to the UN General Assembly in 2002 and his 2002 State of the Union and his 2003 State of the Union and his 2004 State of the Union.  Next time you say "Yeah but Bush said….." you might want to check if that is actually what he said, or just what people THINK (read: convinced) he said.

Ok that’s enough…I got stuff to do.