How the GAO ruled on the Northrop Grumman JLTV protest

The Government Accountability Office released its decision on the Northrop Grumman JLTV award protest this week.

Full version (.pdf).

The document notably contains effusive praise of the Lockheed Martin effort.

So why did Northrop Grumman fail?

Key graph:

(N)ot only was NG’s proposal rated overall only adequate with moderate risk under the ISM subfactor, but each of its JLTV-A, JLTV-B and JLTV-C configurations was rated high risk for reliability and maintainability (as well as moderate risk for design).

What accounted for the high risk for reliability and maintainability? I hope they're not talking about the diesel-electric drive system, because the Pentagon has since specified that it expects its eventual choice to use that system.

For each configuration element, offerors were required to complete a self-assessment of the level of maturity for each of the above four considerations, assigning one of six levels of maturity for each consideration as listed in solicitation attachment 24 (level 1 being the lowest and level 6 the highest). For example, attachment 24 generally defined the maturity levels for system design maturity as follows: level 1, completed concept system analysis; level 2, completed preliminary design analysis; level 3, completed system physical mock-up; level 4, completed detailed design analysis; level 5, fabricated system demonstrator; and level 6, tested system demonstrator. As another example, the maturity levels for system reliability maturity were generally defined as follows: level 1, reliability management program and failure allocation prediction; level 2, reliability prediction; level 3, reliability design analysis, in which the reliability design prediction is supported by identification of the critical components and physics of failure analysis, fault tree analysis, finite element analysis (FEA), and dynamic and/or static design modeling and simulation have been performed on the identified critical components; level 4, component level testing; level 5, systems integration testing of a system demonstrator; and level 6, system level testing of a system demonstrator to validate the system level reliability. As with design and reliability maturity, attachment 24 indicated that, for both system maintainability and C4I maturity, fabrication of a demonstrator was necessary to achieve level 5 and testing of the demonstrator was necessary to achieve level 6.
(bold emphasis added)

I'm admittedly no expert, but this response from the GAO makes it look like the JLTV evaluation process was poorly designed and executed. Suppose that diesel drive is reliable and you can work up a prototype fairly easily. You meet the basic requirements and you get the reliability of a traditional diesel system. Come up with something new and you take the hit for the difficulty of crafting the prototype as well as for the reliability problems of the new system.

But if the system is eventually expected to be of the latter type (such as a diesel-electric drive) then the reliability displayed by the diesel system is effectively irrelevant.

I sure hope I'm missing something, here.

Market gyrations explained?

Thomas Lifson at American Thinker presents a concise snapshot of Doug Ross' take on stock market behavior in the age of Obama.

President Obama, for his part, asks us not to concern ourselves over market "gyrations."

And if he were with us right now, perhaps the president would suggest that we pay no attention to Ross' charts.

Some are wondering what the president is talking about when he states that the market is getting closer to the point where buying stock is a "good deal." I think The New York Times interprets him correctly (emphasis added):

The president did not offer any specific stock tips, but suggested that he believed the market might be close to its low point.

“Profit and earning ratios are starting to get to the point where buying stocks is a potentially good deal,” Mr. Obama said, “if you’ve got a long-term perspective on it.”

I'm not sure what role he thinks profit and earning ratios have in the big picture, admittedly. Some individual companies continue to perform well and might therefore represent a wise investment.

Granted, every stock market drop can be seen as a step closer to the low point. One doesn't need to be a Barack Obama to figure that one out. But the important thing to an investor remains the return on his investment. We don't yet know that the economy remade with hopenchange will offer investors an attractive option. Nor do we know that U.S. companies can turn profits as they once did under the coming set of policies.

Obama's push toward the secularist state

Bradford Wilcox over at RealClearPolitics sounds a clear trumpet call on one of my pet societal issues:

One unremarked and unintended consequence of Barack Obama’s audacious plans for the expansion of government—especially in health care, education, and the environment—is that the nanny state he is seeking to build will likely crowd out religious institutions in America. In other words, if he succeeds in passing his ambitious agenda, the Obama revolution is likely to lead the United States down the secular path already trod by Europe.

I would take issue with Wilcox's suggestion that the consequences of Obama's plans are unremarked. Hugh Hewitt took special note of the limitations on tax deductions for charitable giving last week.

The broader point is spot-on.

The social safety net of government stands in direct competition with religious (and non-religious) charities. Making that safety net an entitlement both robs the the system of much of its free market efficiency and places a strong retarding effect on the support of private charity. Beneficiaries have less reason to contribute back to society in return for the assistance if it constitutes an entitlement. And the American people lose out on personal involvement in rehabilitating their own society. It has become, after all, the government's job.

The big problem, here, is that the government loves no one. Any caring shown by the government is only an extension of the love extended by individuals. Yet this system will systematically train individuals to regard caring for the weakest as a detached responsibility. We pay our taxes. Others worry about the details.

The next step is insidious. The love, albeit detached, can remain in a majority of individuals but once it erodes from those in power the jig is up. The government has been given the power and the alternative providers have closed up shop. Once the government takes down the safety net there won't be much left.

This is bad, folks.

I've been warning my liberal Christian friends about this for years. They want more government involvement to solve social problems, seeing the short term picture without the long term implications.

Jim Geraghty pops the question on the Hugh Hewitt Show (Updated)

"When is it Obama's economy?"

No kidding, I was poised to pose that exact question here yesterday. Jim Geraghty dedicated a portion of Hugh Hewitt's radio show to the issue last night. Unfortunately, I only heard conservatives suggesting that Obama owns the economy right now. I think the answers from liberals and true Obamaniacs would be more interesting. We might see more stuff like a line from this letter sent by Anne Marie Jorgensen to the St. Petersburg Times:

President Obama is in earnest about righting our toppled monument to world power, but he cannot, in just a few months, right all the wrongs that took eight years to establish under the direction of the other political party.

The issue has some depth. After all, it is true that the economy will continue to feature President Bush's handiwork for some time into the following administration--along with features crafted by a Democrat-controlled Congress over the past two years. On the other hand, Obama has a significant influence on the economy even before he takes office based on the things he says and the market's reaction to his words and proposed policies.

One might hedge and refrain from calling this the Obama economy simply because the government hasn't assumed the type of control of the economy that Obama envisions in his plans. And that might take years.

And again on the other hand, making great big plans for change is exactly the sort of thing that makes Wall Street nervous in ways that shrink the value of markets.

That aspect of our picture serves up a harrowing conspiratorialist's view. The pain of going through the reworking of the economy beats down the economy to the point where any kind of stability--even a stability built on a degraded foundation--may result in the appearance of improvement.

Think of it like chemotherapy. The treatment usually degrades the appearance of the patient. Of course, with cancer treatment that effect is understood. In the current case, many are arguing that any difficulties the economy is experiencing are caused by the cancer (Bush).

I think Obama has had economics explained to him to the point that he knows markets abhor uncertainty. If he persists in blaming his predecessor when the markets balk at his policies, then I suggest it fits well with the picture of Obama as the bad type of Wilsonian demagogue. He would, in effect, be deliberately misleading the American people in order to fulfill his vision for the United States.


Update:

The Wall Street Journal had the same question in mind and published a poll on the topic the same day I posted this thread.

I've had trouble locating the full version, but Susan Davis has the skinny.

The poll focuses on the point at which the president is mostly responsible for the state of the economy. That's a slippery definition, in my opinion.

A pretty good sign of media bias

Granted it involves a mere two major newspapers and editorial positions, but Power Line provides the details that end up with this capper:

So the (New York) Times, like the Star Tribune, is in favor of the filibuster when the Democrats are in the minority in the Senate, but opposed to it when the Republicans are in the minority. That's an easily understandable position. It would be nice if these papers, and hundreds of others like them, would come out and say--just one time before they sink beneath the waters of Chapter 11--that they are shills for the Democratic Party, and their editorials are paraphrases of faxes they get from the Democratic National Committee. Would that really be so painful? After all, it's not as though they're fooling anyone.

Indeed, the drift in principle is rather difficult to understand minus a significant ideological bias.

MRAP photos

I stumbled across a nice selection of JLTV and MRAP-related photos. Included:

Force Protection Cougar
General Dynamics RG-31
Navistar FTTS
Lockheed Martin JLTV (actually another FTTS, as "Anon" pointed out in the comments)

Some of the pics are very common on the 'Net, such as one of the Cougar during a blast test and another of an RG-31 after an IED attack. Some of the others were new to me.

Frank Tipler on free market science and global warming dogma

I just read a column by Frank J. Tipler that applies free market dynamics to the practice of science, and gets in a few comments on global warming dogmas at the same time.

Just a taste; click the "read more" link at the bottom to get the whole thing.

The trillion-dollar plus porkapalooza Wreak-America Bill just passed by Congress will throw a huge amount of money into scientific research. This will be a good thing for certain scientists, but a very, very bad thing for science.
(read more at Pajamas Media)

I think perhaps Tipler overstates the case with his expectation that state-run science will only confirm what the state wants to confirm. Even government gets its share of loose cannons.

The parallel between the environment needed for healthy science and that for free speech seems to leap from Tipler's column very convincingly, however.

BusinessWire publishes photos of BAE M-ATVs

Click the link above the photo below to access the image of the Caiman-based model. The image I clipped was supposedly based on the RG model, but it seems to borrow some of its looks from the Valanx. The Valanx, of course, was the JLTV model produced jointly by BAE Systems and Navistar. The window design is the most striking similarity. Lose a window in service and there is only one replacement part. All the windows share the same shape.

clipped from www.businesswire.com

Update:
The link through the Clipmarks border doesn't seem to work, so try this one to access both BusinessWire photos.

StrategyPage examines MRAP drawbacks

The list of problems is large, and include poor off-road performance, difficulty maneuvering along narrow village and city streets, high fuel consumption, too high (exposing turret gunners getting snagged by wires, often electrical ones, and more prone to tip over), and poor internal design (for example, the drivers seat is too cramped for a soldier wearing armor).
(read more at StrategyPage)

The story goes on to mention methods used to get around some of the drawbacks, and returns to the oft-mentioned prediction scenario that the bulk of our MRAPs will be sold to other countries and NGOs after we're done with them.

I think that's probably right.

Talking Points Memo bollixes the Jindal "during Katrina" thing

The leftward hemiblogosphere is suffering something of a domino effect of disinformation regarding a factoid in Bobby Jindal's rebuttal to President Obama's ~SOTU speech.

Talking Points Memo was instrumental in signaling the downfall of the sky. I'll show how they went awry.

The relevant portion of Jindal's speech:

During Katrina, I visited Sheriff Harry Lee, a Democrat and a good friend of mine. When I walked into his makeshift office, I'd never seen him so angry. He was yelling into the phone: "Well, I'm the Sheriff and if you don't like it you can come and arrest me!" I asked him: "Sheriff, what's got you so mad?" He told me that he had put out a call for volunteers to come with their boats to rescue people who were trapped on their rooftops by the floodwaters. The boats were all lined up ready to go, when some bureaucrat showed up and told them they couldn't go out on the water unless they had proof of insurance and registration. I told him, "Sheriff, that's ridiculous." And before I knew it, he was yelling into the phone: "Congressman Jindal is here, and he says you can come and arrest him too!" Harry just told the boaters to ignore the bureaucrats and go start rescuing people.
(CNN.com)

The folks at TPM think that Jindal may well have been dishonest with the above.

(T)here are several pieces of evidence that suggest this just didn't happen. Nothing, to be sure, that definitively proves the story was made up. But more than enough to declare it highly suspicious.

On with the evidence.

First, Jindal's story has Lee railing against the red-tape in the midst of the crisis. But Lee, the sheriff of Jefferson Parish in suburban New Orleans, told CNN he didn't find out about the license and registration issue until about seven days after the incident.

Good point, but we don't know whether the problem is the timing or the inclusion of the detail about license and registration. Not based on this evidence, anyway.

The rest of the case is farmed out to "Daily Kos diarist xgz" and paraphrased by Zachary Roth of TMP Muckraker.

According to numerous reports, Harry Lee did not leave the affected area of New Orleans during the crisis. But there is no reported evidence of Jindal having set foot in the area during the period when people were still stranded on roofs -- which, based on a review of news stories from the time, was only until September 3 at the very latest. Indeed, the evidence strongly suggests he did not...

The supposed evidence consists of the fact that Jindal was out of the country when Katrina hit, plus the author's inability to find evidence that Jindal was on the ground in or near New Orleans during Katrina's immediate aftermath. The appeal to silence does not make for a strong suggestion unless the evidence is exhaustive. This author doesn't give us that. He lists only a search of Lexis Nexis as the basis for his findings. As though newspapers and magazines compile a satisfactory historical record.

One might end up overlooking something like this:

Jindal surveyed the room for a few minutes. Then he saw Blanco and the others pause to look at a television in the corner—it was footage from another press conference they’d had the previous day, broadcasting on CNN. The politicians all stood around, watching themselves on the screen.

Jindal turned to his chief of staff, and said, “Let’s go.”

They climbed into a Ford Excursion and took off looking for what they could do to help. They started with Harry Lee, the infamous Sheriff of Jefferson Parish.
(Ben Domenech, posted at Red State in 2007)

So far I've only found reports of a press conference involving the major players for Tuesday, Aug. 30. TPM mentions that as one of two Katrina press conferences on its Katrina time line page. If it is the same press conference, then that places Jindal with Sheriff Lee near New Orleans on Wednesday, Aug 31, two days following the storm. And that time line seems to agree closely with what Sheriff Lee reported in person:

The day after, Bobby was in my office saying "What do you need?" And it wasn't, it wasn't phone calls, he was in my office ...

Lee's account doesn't match perfectly, of course. His account seems to imply that Jindal was in his office on Tuesday instead of Wednesday. I think it's most likely he misspoke, perhaps because of a faulty history in his own mind.

Back to TPM:

Schedule issues aside, it's also noticeable that Jindal has talked or written several times before about the problems of excessive red tape during Katrina, but has never told this story.

Apparently he has:


By the measure many left wing bloggers (along with Keith Olbermann) have used to judge Jindal, that makes TPM liars.

TPM goes on to add another dust mote to the weight of evidence by citing another opportunity that Jindal missed in recounting the boat anecdote.

Then comes the summary:

As we said, none of this settles the question definitively. But it certainly raises a whole lot of questions about Jindal's tale. Those questions were enough for MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, in a short segment last night on the controversy, to conclude that the story is "apparently not true."

And here's a realistic summary: It is normal for accounts of the same events to differ in detail, even to the point of discrepancy. Jindal may have supplied the detail about the reason FEMA discouraged the boat flotilla based on subsequent knowledge. Lee may have been wrong about the specific day that Jindal reached his office, depending on what he counted as "the day after." The gist of the story, that federal government beaurocracy (among other things) hindered getting aid to New Orleans, remains intact. The supposition that Jindal aggrandized himself by making it appear that Lee had not already sent the boats in prior to their meeting seems like nitpicking, given Jindal's aforementioned message.

TPM thinks this should cause more outrage on the right? Puh-lease. TPM's coverage of this non-story is the greater outrage, hands down.