Blue Angels Feeling Blue

I think that was announced some time ago.

Welcome to the world of government overspending.

Welcome to the world of a Whining President and his minions, who actually created the Sequestration, and who now don't get their way, and take some real pride in making others wrong, making sure the Main stream media promotes this as "They did it" thing. Let's see how much Foreign aid was send out in the same amount of time, to Egypt and others.. If I remember correctly , he shut down the WHITE HOUSE TOURS, BUT MADE SURE THE EASTER egg hunt went on , because it was a huge Photo and Press op, for no other than........Guess who...

Makes me ashamed to be a US citizen. I'll expect this post to go down soon due to the political incorrectness that will show up!

Then, please leave! Now! I'm ashamed to have you here!

If any of you radical whiners had bothered to look you would see that all this talk about the excesses of Obama are lies, made up by more haters of reality and black people sleeping in the White House.

Bush took vacations, spent money and none of you babies even batted an eye.

LOOK AT THE FACTS, NOT PROPAGANDA PUT FORTH BY HATERS!!!!!!!

Get over yourselves, leave politics out of this forum. It does not belong here and neither do all your lies about the current administration.

Lyn--I think these are the datums that are being used in this argument, as to Bush versus Obama: In three years, the Obama vacation bill totaled $57 million dollars. In eight years, the Bush vacation bill totaled $25 billion. Obama and family has spent much of their time "off Continent", which increases expenses considerably, travel and security wise. Two trips were required to Hawaii, due to Michele and kids going ahead of the President, on the last vacation. So that doubles the cost of the trip. They flew, Bo, the dog, on a separate plane to Martha's Vineyard, on one occasion Michele's trip to Spain was VERY expensive. Malia's birthday trip to Mexico, with 10 or more of her friends, Secret Service, etc. (Oops--Didn't happen , because of Security concerns). On and on. Can't they leave some of that money in the good ole USA? The Bushes spent much of their time in Crawford,Texas, which is much closer, cheaper to fly to, and easier to "defend", security wise. Extrapolating the costs going forward, the Obama' spending rate , by the time he leaves office will be north of $ 140 million, versus the $25 million Bush spent in his 8 years. This may explain some of the criticism of the current President. We haven't even gotten into Biden, Pelosi, Boxer, etc.

You might want to edit this: "the Bush vacation bill totaled $25 billion."

I'll eat crow later ,after I have done proper research. Maybe I've been mislead by the other side.

But the point is, not here.

Levity Mode ON:

Well, I can only wish Congress would take considerably more vacations. The more they are way from the Senate and House floors, the better for all of us. :) :O

Right. I shouldn't get so worked up.

Sorry everyone.

I remember when people were civil to each other, but still disagreed. Barry Goldwater and Tip O'Neill come to mind.

Tough not to get worked up with the current bunch of politicians. Thats why I am a bit surprised this post hasn't gone balistic yet and has not been shut down yet. This topic and our ramblings are NOT engineering oriented.

Thanks Lyn, for the edit. You are correct--Bush was $25 Million, not Billion. I must be taking after these Politicians. What is a few extra zeros after all?

Right, There are two sides to every story.

The truth usually lies somewhere in the middle.

With politicians, the more zeros the merrier. After all, they seem to be a bunch of zeros!

That is just politics.

When I was young I confused that with legislators.

Ah, the age of innocence.

I don't get some of these 'savings'..
Smacks of 'funny money' to me...
The planes are still there right?
The pilots are still there right?
Maintenance crew still there?
Airbase still present... check.
Runway ok...check.
Presumably they will have to do some flying still...?
So where are the massive savings?

It's like these bogus figures we hear that sickness, or an extra bank holiday costs the UK economy 'n' billion pounds...
WALOOB!
Like when there was a petrol (gas) shortage scare, and people were all filling their cars to the brim...
Wow sales went through the roof... yeah but subsequent months it went down, and on average it was flat.

Ooooh, oooh it's a bank holiday, I can't buy a new TV today... oh, I know I'll order it on the internet or buy it tomorrow.

Too many countries run buy people who don't know the price of a loaf of bread, and couldn't count the right change from a fiver.
the rest of 'em are run by dictators and despots.
Don't start me on the financial system that creates nothing except misery, sending electronic debt round and round in circles skimming a bit proffit off every time it passes go and then stopping the music and who ever is holding the debt gets villified by the EU.
Crock of sh*te the lot of it.
Del

Steady on, Del. Don't blow a gasket!

Yeah.. I'm stressed out.
Bleedin' Nissan Micra, it's been sitting since January (battery taken out and charged once I realised it had gone flat).
So... yesterday I took out the plugs, turned it over until I could smell petrol. Re-fitted everything fired it up, ran it 10 yards back and forth.
Took out the battery and left it on charge overnight.
This morning the "intellikey"* system won't let me turn the bleedin' ignition!

Del

*Probably the greatest ever misnomer.

Here's a stupid idea....

Since the Blue Angels will be training anyway, open the training exercises to the public.

Or as a replacement, maybe let the public watch the president golf.

That would work for me. When I was Active in the US Navy, their home was Pensacola, FL and their winter home was NAF El Centro. And they would go out and fly twice a day 5 days a week. A great opportunity for people visiting those areas and would bring the tourist dollars to those communities.

Their shows are a thing to see and they really show off what our Naval Aviators can do. I watched them fly both the A-4's and F/A-18's, it seemed like they could do a bit more with the A-4.

I can see the reasons for not doing the shows though, the first budget cut is your PR stuff. Can you imagine the cost of the crew (probably over 100) for a week in New York City or San Francisco? Not to mention the advance party that will be there an additional week. The freebies and swag that are given to the VIPs.

Not only that, but the pilots are (or used to be) some of the best in the air. And they would be better utilized defending our own Airspace.

Hmmm, do you think the Thunderbirds are going to close their shows? The Air Force is mainly PR anyway...

Well, the fact that they are continuing to train, pretty much gives away the idea that this is a political stunt. The public isn't going to care about sequesters, unless they see things that they like, impacted...WH tours, national parks, airport transportation, Blue Angels. It's almost like a pattern.

I don't care what they do. We vacation on the beach close to here, and I get some really cool, (free), shows, every summer.

I've found that a good policy, is to not depend on government for anything that makes you happy at all, and they can't take it away from you.

The only "Bad " thing I have been aware of at a Blue Angel show, was a picture I saw a few years ago, of a low pass over San Francisco Bay, at over Mach 1. The resultant picture showed the moment he broke the sound barrier ( Air/ moisture displacement fore to aft--Must have been a heck of a camera.) The Jet did not have much altitude , as the boom also disturbed the water in the Bay. He (They) caught hell as the Sonic boom blew out lots of windows on boats in the marinas below....

That must have been cool.

This was a bad day. But, I have to say, watching the Blue Angels just fills me with awe and pride. It sucks that they are being used in a political ploy. I don't know who's behind it, and I don't care...it's all the same %#$&ing government as far as I'm concerned.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9oKZizry0I

I really wish people would stop using the term "budget cuts".

It's a fractional decrease in new spending next year. It's hard not to cuss. I can't begin to describe my lack of respect for our ruling elite.

http://news.yahoo.com/dozens-air-shows-cancel-without-military-jets-165945925.html

A little perspective:

http://redalertpolitics.com/2013/04/04/white-house-to-host-concert-for-hollywoods-elite-despite-sequester-budget-cuts/

I really wish people would stop using the term "budget cuts".

Well, it all has to do with political and media spin.

And with this slowing down of spending, which is basically $85 billion,

And what its called cuts, it's my opinion that there was an overreaction of continued campaigning of detrimental catastrophe if this happens. Now that it happened and the sun is still rising, some political idealist with the huge investment of campaigning they did, has to create some type of hardship because now reality is sinking in and replacing political agendas that it is not that bad of a thing to rein in spending.

Or another way of putting it...

Using extortion tactics to raise taxes and increase spending. Hit them where it hurts, and they will comply.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/04/25/extortion_in_the_skies_118121.html

Well, since it was put that if the senate or congress for that matter didn't put out a budget, they wouldn't get paid

So, it looks like all they have to do is $#it in a bucket, slap a label on it and submit it as a budget and that will meet the criterion as a budget.

This is what we can expect from our politicians.

In somewhat related news...

http://news.yahoo.com/army-says-no-more-tanks-congress-insists-115422396.html

It's like politicans feel that they have to spend to make themselves look like they are working.

We're living in La La land.

Without the "la-las"!