one thing for sure, it will cost significantly less per plane if it is standard equipment than what it would as an option.

I always assume comments like this are either incompetence, ignorance or arrogance. It is amusing when right-wing-nuts badmouth public servants as being incompetent. This isn't about who understands the most about Boeing aircraft, it's about motivations. The motivations of the FAA and NTSB is the safety of the American public; the motivation of Boeing is PROFIT. This profit bias, whether conscious or unconscious, affects every decision Boeing engineers make. They gambled with shortcuts on this MCAS system in order to make bigger profits and because of people like you, who relinquished Federal regulation responsibilities to Boeing, 336 people have been killed. This hasn't just cost Boeing a bundle, it has very clearly cost our country a significant chunk of whatever remains of our world leadership status. Now even our allies don't trust us to regulate safety requirements on aircraft. How many lives do you think is reasonable for the aircraft industry to sacrifice on the alter of "maximum profit" before the market forces a correction. I guess 336 is a pretty good guess, right?

Maybe now federal regulators will require any safety feature be standard equipment and not optional... ant-lock brakes on automobiles are still not federally required safety features.

This whole 737 MAX issue foreshadows far bigger issues that our country and society must address at some point in this second "Gilded age" which we are currently well into.

Hello: I am glad you are interested in visiting our home. It is a wonderful place. My wife and I have lived in the western Upper Peninsula of Michigan for 40 years. If you plan to come in February or March, the big lakes will either be frozen or partially so, and there will be snow on the ground. Right now, we have 26 inches of snow on the ground and we are expecting another 6-8 inches later on this week. It got down to -20 degrees Fahrenheit two night ago. Lakes Superior and Michigan are very large. It will take a few days to circumnavigate both. In Gogebic County, MI and Vilas County, WI, exist the largest concentration of freshwater lakes in the entire world, and this area of the Upper Peninsula and Northern Wisconsin is a World Reserve for glacial topography. If you decide to come, May-October would be a good time frame from which to choose vacation dates. Please understand that we can have snow in May, and our first snows come in October. From late May until early August, the Upper Peninsula has a lot of biting insects around-- biting horse flies and deer flies, mosquitoes and a tiny biter named a "no-see-um". You will need insect repellent all the time. The insects are the wildlife that are easy to see. We have lots of animals--bobcat, lynx, the occasional cougar (never seen, just caught on trail cam), and various weasels, and the ever present deer, and black bears. Most of the animals are secretive and keep to the woods. The Upper Peninsula is very sparsely populated, with only two population centers of any size--the Houghton/Hancock area and Marquette. There are a lot of places without cellphone reception, alot of iron bearing rocks that mess up a compass, and a lot of dirt roads without road signs. The most rewarding things to do here are silent sports that get you out into the woods and onto the lakes--kayaking, canoeing and hiking. In order to pursue those activities, you need basic back country skills-- orienteering(don't rely on GPS as the database is many times inaccurate), hiking and basic first aid. You need to be somewhat self reliant, as help may not be readily at hand. You can stick to the main roads and see some nice things--the tourist areas around the Straits of Mackinac (St. Ignace and Mackinaw City) and the Keweenaw Peninsula which contains the Keweenaw National Historic Park. The British were at the Straits in the 18th century, and there were Welsh miners in the copper mines of the Keweenaw. My wife and I hope you come, and have a wonderful time.

It is interesting how ignorant people will willingly give their opinion on something they know nothing about.... this is obviously NOT a flintlock weapon.

If it is a rather rare piece, there is a column in Guns & Ammo magazine called the gun room. Take a number of close-up pictures of the shotgun showing all the markings and send them in to Gary James. He will answer in the following month's column. I think this is a way to get a very good estimate of fair market value on a gun without paying a big fee.

Have you ever tried Evan Williams Single Barrel Vintage Bourbon... much cheaper and much better than Jack Daniels.

I don't think this is technically correct. Including the DVD revenues, Saving Private Ryan grossed $525.8 million in 1998... thats $774.2 million in 2016 dollars.

I retired 9 years ago, when I was 60 and a half. One thing I had difficulty with was the transition to being "retired". For almost a year I was in a kind of mental limbo, which is not like me. I did things I would never have done before and wouldn't do now. I would do stupid things where I would get injured and I was in a mentally "weird" state. So one thing I would at least consider is planning for an adjustment period and be careful during that time. I would never have thought this would happen to me, but it did. One thing I did a couple years ago was to take a welding course for 5 and a half months where I got certified in pipe and structural welding, then I bought a nice welding outfit for my garage. My wife and I have no issues financially - - we can afford to do pretty much anything we want to do. We spend a significant amount of time on fitness and managing a high quality diet which takes a lot of time but this is a key factor in health maintenance in order to enjoy retirement. For the last 10 - 15 years before we retired, we set about accumulating stuff that was required for things we wanted to do in retirement. We never seem to have the time to do all the things we want to. We love to go hiking on the many trails in the western U.P. and northern Wisconsin. We like to do a bit of kayaking, photography of course, bicycling, motorcycling, cross country skiing, snow shoeing, feeding the birds, collecting data for CoCoRaHS, plant and tend a garden & flowers, reading and adding to our library, etc. A little over 4 years ago we bought a Wire-haired Vizsla puppy which was clearly a commitment... but she brings with her a great deal of joy and enhances our quality of life. We like to take short day trips in our Corvette or on one of our motorcycles. There are so many beautiful and interesting things to see within 2 - 3 hours of where we live. We don't do "traveling" as we are "traveled out" from the last 15 - 20 years of our working life. My wife and I are best friends and now have the time to just "be together" all the time - - a lot of time just talking on myriad topics. We are not social people, you might say we are reclusive. We don't do any kind of "social media" which we feel is degrading American society. We are heavily invested in our daughter, her husband and our grandson. We help and assist them in any way we can. When I get the time, I really want to learn to fish... well. I've got this big fishing boat that I bought over 12 years ago that sets in the pole building as well as a load of fishing tackle & gear. We really like to eat fish and good fishing lakes are close at hand.

These are the things we have done/are doing in retirement and I absolutely love it. Wouldn't trade it for anything.

Looking southwest across Dinner Lake

Canon PowerShot S95

My wife looks across the lake several times each day, hoping for a photogenic moment. Today, she noticed an unusual glow on the ice near the far shore, and took these photos. We have had unseasonably warm temperatures during the last two weeks. Several times, either from snow melt or water filtering through seepage cracks, the surface of the frozen lake has been inundated with water. The water freezes into a transparent, smooth surface layer. The setting sun was screened from direct view by low clouds but could be clearly seen in the mirror like surface of the lake. We have lived here for 37 years and have never seen this before. Usually by this time there is snow cover.

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I find it interesting that this supposed research fails to acknowledge that many, if not most, coastal cities haul their garbage many miles out to sea in barges and dump it there.

Happy Birthday to all Marines. My hitch was Sept '66 - Jan '76 and at MCRD San Diego every meal was a "feast". I finished up my military career (mostly in Army Special Forces) in 2009.

No.. NO ... No... It's terrible up here. Go to the west coast or the east coast... much better there. This place is getting overrun with tourists.

Rainfall amounts are expressed as inches of rain per hour, or inches of rain for a total rain event or portion thereof. One inch per hour is the lower boundary marker for really paying attention to "heavy rain", and several hours of an inch per hour is cause for serious concern in most places. In deserts, the natural system of dry lake beds and arroyos helps accumulate and store large rainfalls until they percolate into the ground, but also can create their own hazards to humans. The NWS has a nationwide system of gauges, frequently at emergency management centers, sheriff's offices, places like that, where the rain is officially measured and tallied using a standardized rain gauge. We belong to a nationwide voluntary cooperative precipitation measuring organization not affiliated formally with the NWS--CoCoRaHS-- that utilitizes a standard 4 inch diameter clear acrylic rain gauge to collect precipitation--rain in the warm seasons, icy precipitation and snow in the winter. "CoCoRaHS" is an acronym for "Community Collaborative Rain Hail and Snow" and is indicative of what CoCoRaHS is, a voluntary group of people all over North America who take the time each day to record what precipitation did or did not accumulate in the last 24 hours. We do not live in a dryland area, so we are not conversant with all the dryland ins and outs of water measurement. But we do know there are also "acre inches" ad "acre feet" in water measurement in dryland areas, that is a measurement of the depth of water that would cover an acre of land one inch deep, or one foot deep. This may be mostly an irrigation data measurement.

I know that the NWS office in Phoenix has a good online presentation on the American Monsoon. I also know that the National Drought Monitor and National Drought Mitigation Center have good information on water measuring and water issues in the Plains and Southwest.

If you find the idea of CoCoRaHS interesting, the online site can be found at www.cocorahs.org. You can find info on buying rain gauges on the website, and lots of power point presentations on how rain is measured and how the measurements are recorded. The NWS finds CoCoRaHS data to be useful, in fact, they get my data in Marquette NWS as soon as I put it in the database, but it is not "official" NWS data.

What antenna are you getting?

I once heard a comment by a technician about a professional he worked with.... '
"Joe is educated far beyond his intelligence"
Unfortunately, this is too often true.

Engineering and Medical are probably the two most job rich degrees. As far as salary, flexibility in location and job opportunity, I think a degree/certification as a physician's assistant is really hard to beat in this country today.
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