Protected Vehicles Inc. keeps plugging

The U.S. manufacturing partner for the Golan MRAP, Protected Vehicles Inc., had gone for so long with no media buzz that I stopped checking on them for a time. PVI had filed for bankruptcy protection nearly a year ago and was purchased in August by Patriarch Partners LLC. PVI announced plans to continue production of its Protector and Beast vehicles. The company has also produced a vehicle it calls the Argus, which looks a bit like a cross between a Golan and a Force Protection Cougar.

If the Argus is not intended to aim for the M-ATV niche, at least broadly, then I'm not sure that the company's product has a market.

clipped from www.protectedvehicles.com

Force Protection earns modest MRAP order from Canada

Force Protection continues to make good on its goal of garnering vehicle contracts from nations other than the US in order to make up for its trouble securing domestic sales.

Force Protection, Inc. today announced that it has received a modification under contract M67854-07-C-5039 for the delivery of 14 of its Buffalo A2 route-clearance vehicles and 34 of its Cougar vehicles to the Canadian Government. The undefinitized contract modification carries a dollar value not to exceed $49.4 million and includes vehicles, spare parts and field support. The vehicles are scheduled for delivery in 2009.
(MarketWatch)

While the numbers aren't exactly impressive, it's enough to offer hope that FPI can stay in the armored vehicle game. By way of comparison, Blackwater recently cut its armored vehicle programs after losing the key first round of the JLTV competition.

An adult Obamaniac's gloating rant

Oops. I'm a week behind with my Blumner bashing.

St. Petersburg editorial columnist Robyn "Blumñata" Blumner's column last week constituted the rant of a Obamaniac, which squeezed a good bit of irony out of the title: "The adults are back in charge."

Even the ramp-up is over the top:

It started as a revolution. Three-million people didn't take to the streets with placards or pitchforks; they took to the Internet with credit cards and pocket change.

Then, democracy won.

Blumner must be referring to Obama's fantastically successful online fund-raising. Fund-raising so effective that it caused Obama to renege on his early pre-campaign promise to seek public financing for his campaign. The adult thing to do, I suppose, is break a commitment if doing so will help one win election. If by "democracy won" Blumner refers to the type of democracy most feared by the framers of the Constitution--government directed by popular whim--then perhaps Blumner is on target. Obama's amazing fund-raising effort combined with a big boost from a mainstream press apparently cut loose from the tradition of objectivity proved a winner with voters and put a notably inexperienced politician in our nation's highest office.

I am brimming with goodwill toward my countrymen who pivoted on this electoral dime and moved us in a new direction. The United States of America has elected a president who is a constitutional scholar, a man of supreme eloquence and sound judgment who also happens to be an African-American.

One might initially take Blumner's goodwill as spread broadly to all her countrymen. But really she's just talking about people who voted Democrat, if her words mean anything. Her goodwill is, in her words, for those "who ... moved us in a new direction," that is, voted for Obama. The rest of us may still receive her ill will vibes.

Now it is time for adults to begin the great cleanup. And on Tuesday, America voted for a public servant with the intelligence, capacity and the will to do the heavy lifting.

One of the big cleanups, for Blumner, probably involves kicking the coalition supports out from under the Iraqi government. A big step forward if that nation sinks again into sectarian strife or allies with Iran or China?

The other big cleanup involves the U.S. economy. Past analysis of Blumner's columns convinces me that she is ignorant of economics. So perhaps she believes what she writes. Obama's policies would worsen the economy, as even he has recognized when he suggested he might delay increasing taxes on the rich. Democrat Charlie Rangel this week (after Blumner submitted her column) supported a tax plan that would lower the tax on capital gains. That represents surprisingly good sense from a modern Democrat, and most likely Blumner won't understand the sense of it. And if Obama signs on with Rangel she will have to reconsider Obama's willingness to engage in heavy lifting. The adult thing, in all probability, is to try to balance the budget by hampering the economy with higher taxes in spite of the present economic difficulties.

There was a time when I thought my countrymen would never see the true venality of Karl Rovian conservative rule. I thought these pols and their operatives, many of whom made their way into John McCain's campaign, had a winning formula for success, by dividing us on diversionary cultural issues and sliming opponents until something stuck.

But it turns out that irresponsible governance does eventually get its comeuppance. The consequences of the Bush administration's indefatigable efforts to enrich its friends and dismantle protective regulation has finally come crashing down on the rest of us so very hard that it could no longer escape notice.

In spite of a pretty good story in her own newspaper regarding the causes of the economic crisis, Blumner probably does not at all feel that it was irresponsible for the government to encourage the housing bubble that led to the current credit crisis. Adults, I suppose, ignore their own failings in favor of pointing the finger of blame outward.

Lucky for us that waiting in the wings was a man of remarkable qualities. Barack Obama is a historic figure not just because he is the first African-American to win the White House. He is a leader like Winston Churchill and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who has come along just when his nation needed him.

Doubtless Blumner is aware that Churchill was a conservative who opposed Neville Chamberlain's diplomatic dealings (appeasement) with Nazi Germany. Most likely she is not aware that FDR's economic policies probably prolonged the Great Depression, which was ultimately relieved by what might be called "an unnecessary war." The United States could have negotiated deals with both Germany and Japan. Roosevelt's diplomacy was on the cowboy side, informally aiding Germany's enemies in plain view while angering Japan with an embargo of badly needed trade goods. In the language of the modern adult leftist, Roosevelt forced Japan to war with the United States. But that assumes an awareness of history.

Unlike the cynical line of George Bush who claimed to be a "uniter," Obama's message of unity was a defining theme of his campaign.

Willful blindness in action. Obama has coupled his bipartian rhetoric with dishonest and persistent attacks on Republicans. Blumner should visit a fact-checking site some time--one other than the sharply partisan Media Matters. Judging Obama's level of bipartisanship while in office should wait until after he has assumed the office.

Here is a man who stood up to the politics of personal destruction and rose above it by responding in measured tones, then calmly brushing the dirt off his sleeve. Even as they tried to paint him as a socialist and a terrorist sympathizer, he hewed to the higher road.

Blumner could show Dave Barry a thing or two about humor. It's hard not to laugh out loud at this stuff.

At least half the dirt on Obama's sleeve dropped from his own hand as he flung it at others. The "higher road" in this case meant that Obama could allow informal surrogates in the press, such as Blumner, to carry out the dirtiest attacks on his Republican opponent.

In the end, Obama proved that we are one nation. He won a huge mandate by taking more than 50 percent of the vote. He tore down barriers in the Old Confederacy by winning Florida, Virginia and North Carolina.

I wonder if Blumner felt that Bush had won a huge mandate in 2004 by capturing 51 percent of the vote? Somehow I doubt it. It is also doubtful that Obama broke down any barriers in the "Old Confederacy" without extensive icebreaking beforehand. All three states won by Obama are now populated extensively by people who moved from elsewhere. Again, it remains to be seen what Obama will accomplish in terms of racial reconciliation. The sum total through the present moment is probably scarcely above zero. Obama's long term association with Rev. Wright has seen to that.

The impossible was possible. Appealing to America's best aspirations turned out to be the best way to win. He will govern with those same instincts.

I guess we're not counting the lies about Medicare or Obama's repeat of the notion that McCain wanted the war in Iraq to last for an additional 100 years. We don't talk about those instincts. Not during the process of adult gloating, anyway.

"I will listen to you, especially when we disagree," Obama said to those who might worry about his plans for change. This is what thinking people do. They invite opposing views, knowing that they do not have a lock on wisdom.

Obama will be a president of our common values. He is not a man of vendettas and cronyism, who will use his election as an opportunity to grab what he can for narrow interests. Obama will govern with an eye to the future. He will choose investment over quick fixes and sober reflection over reflexive action.

This will be the sea change coming to Washington much more than a shift in political ideology.

The challenges going forward will be immense, but serious people who care about good governance are back in charge. It is just what we needed.

For those who cannot see the situation with the same pair of rose-tinted glasses that Blumñata wears, see my post on the likely fortunes of the Obama presidency.

We're probably getting four more years of Jimmy Carter, with an uncooperative Congress, bad economic decisions and inept foreign policy. That is not what we need.

Oshkosh Sandcat in action (video)

I located a video of the Oshkosh Sandcat on YouTube. The action is sedate, for I doubt the vehicle exceeds 15 mph at any given point in the filming, but it does show the Sandcat negotiating some moderately unfriendly terrain.



The vehicle fails to impress at these low speeds, aside from a fairly tight turning radius. Videos of the Force Protection Cheetah and even the Golan MRAP, both moving at a good clip, offer a better impression on behalf of those vehicles.

Mid-month Iraq casualty update, November 2008

An unusual case affects the graph this month. More on that later. First, the graph:


Though I neglected to label it as such, this graph represents the average number of fatalities per day. That figure offers a reasonable mid-month projection of how the month will stack up on the whole. The final figure could drop by as much as half (to 0.3) or potentially rise far over the current estimate if a large number of fatalities occur late in the month.

The general downward trend continues for fatalities. If the average keeps steady at its current level, it will represent the third-best month since the surge began.

MRAP lite is M-ATV

Kris Osborn of DefenseNews reports a Pentagon decision to ramp up the call for a version of the MRAP better suited to off-road use. In other words, a version more useful in Afghanistan.

Navistar scored the first big win in that program earlier this year with an order for its MaxxPro Dash (link shows image of the MaxxPro Plus and MaxxPro Dash side by side). The program has been dubbed "MRAP All-Terrain Vehicles," or M-ATV.

This development suggests a longer development period for the JLTV coinciding with the delay imposed by the Northrop Grumman/Oshkosh and Boeing/Textron protests. Vehicles such as the Force Protection Cheetah, BAE Systems (Armor Holdings) Caiman LT and the Oshkosh Sandcat will remain in play, and companies who succeed in the M-ATV competition will have the opportunity to bolster their chances in the JLTV competition.


On a related note:

BAE Systems has posted a .pdf at its Web site describing the Caiman 4x4. Given the copyright date (2008) and the description of the vehicle's weight ("2/3 the weight of the Caiman"), it seems reasonable to see the vehicle as the CLT despite the absence of that acronym from the document. Page one includes a photo of the the truck.

InsideDefense: Boeing/Textron to file JLTV protest

InsideDefense reports that the Boeing/Textron JLTV partnership has joined Northrop Grumman/Oshkosh in appealing the Army's winnowing process for the development phase of the program.

Both partnerships protesting the Army's decision went with unconventional drive systems. Tim W, an industry insider, provided a useful description of the two systems in a commentary thread some days ago.

The Boeing and Northrop systems were quite different. As I understand it the Boeing vehicle had some sort of hybrid that they described as a parallel/series system. A parallel hybrid is like the Prius where there is a mechanical connection between the engine and wheels and the engine is aided or switched for an electric motor as needed. A series hybrid has an engine running a generator which charges batteries that power a basically electric vehicle. The Millenworks prototype that formed the basis of the Boeing JLTV had I think an engine mechanically running the rear wheels and an electric motor powering the front. This might explain the peculiar and contradictory parallel/series description.

The Northrop/Oshkosh vehicle was not technically a hybrid but a much simpler diesel-electric as used for many years on trains. It is similar to the series hybrid but doesn't have significant batteries and has no silent running ability - the diesel would be constantly running, its generator supplying power directly to the electric motors.
(Sublime Bloviations/Haloscan)

Can the Army shrug these off or is a delay in the JLTV program in the offing?

Clintonian glib, courtesy of Obama

William Jefferson Clinton acquired a well-deserved reputation for expertly parsing his language in order to mislead listeners.

Keep an eye on Barack Obama. Religion writer Cathleen Falsani recently published the full transcript of an interview she originally had published in The Chicago Sun-Times:

FALSANI
Do you still attend Trinity?

OBAMA:
Yep. Every week. 11 oclock service.

Ever been there? Good service.

I actually wrote a book called Dreams from My Father, it's kind of a meditation on race. There's a whole chapter on the church in that, and my first visits to Trinity.

The interview was conducted in 2004. As noted at CNS News, this account appears to contradict statements Obama made to Newsweek while trying to distance himself from the controversial Rev. Wright.

Apparently Ed Laskey noticed the descrepancy right away, even without the entire interview being published.

This latest Obama spin does not square with a more honest portrayal he himself gave in a 2004 interview where he stated that he "regularly attended weekly services at Wright's Trinity United Church of Christ" and indicated that had been his regular schedule since joining the church 16 years before (1988). He did not indicate any scheduling problems or absences back in 2004, no scapegoating of his daughter. Now he has to deal with Pastor Wright controversy and he just dreams up a different history-and Newsweek helps him along.

He is shameless-and Newsweek is increasingly becoming so. Does the magazine even bother fact-checking?

What? And risk harming "The One"?

Obama the bipartisan?

The St. Petersburg Times wonders if president-elect Barack Obama can keep his promise of bipartisanship.

He didn't exactly promise bipartisanship, did he?

(P)artisan posturing is so ingrained in the capital's culture that Obama faces a huge challenge to overcome it.

The 24-hour news cycle and blogosphere are fueled by smash-mouth politics. President Bush and the Democrats who run Congress made their own promises about bipartisanship but rarely practiced what they preached. And spoiling the other guy's plans has become an end in itself.

Bush's record is, I think, better than the Times suggests given his efforts to encourage bipartisan legislation such as "No Child Left Behind" (co-sponsored by Ted Kennedy), McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform and the Medicare drug benefit program. Add to that the rare exercise of the Bush veto pen. But it's fair to point out that Bush has also been at odds with Congress on a number of issues (and not surprising since Congress is at odds with itself on a variety of issues). Yet even in those instances Bush has tended to encourage compromise.

But this is really about Obama.

Yet there are signs that Obama could tame the partisanship.

That one caught me by surprise. "Like what?" I thought in reply.

He has shown a willingness to work with Republicans in the U.S. Senate and in the Illinois Senate, and to entertain dissenting views.

Bush was notable for his record of aisle-crossing in Texas, where admittedly the average Democrat is not like the average Washington Democrat. Entertaining dissenting views means nothing unless you find a compromise position. Otherwise it does not lead to taming partisanship but rather an additional source of frustration for the other side, like a delicious cherry Pop-Tart kept tantalizingly close but ever out of your reach.

He has built a career as a consensus builder.

When? Where? Places? Names? Consensi?

When he became the first African-American editor of the Harvard Law Review, he angered liberal black friends by promoting conservatives to top jobs.

I'm sure that's very laudable, but at the same time wouldn't Obama have created the potential for a lawsuit if he had promoted employees based on ideology rather than according to qualifications? Not that a law student would allow such a thing to cross his mind, of course.

Writers Wes Allison and Bill Adair (yes, the PolitiFact guy) say Obama could overcome challenges to his promise of bipartisanship, and that Obama needs to pick a few Republicans for key positions in his administration. And then pick his fights.

Unlike 1992, when Bill Clinton was intent on reinventing health care, or 2004, when President Bush was intent on creating private accounts for Social Security, the items at the top of Obama's agenda aren't polarizing in and of themselves.

Americans may disagree with how to address them, but there's little disagreement they need addressing: bringing the war in Iraq to some sensible conclusion, promoting energy independence and, first of all, stabilizing the housing market and restoring confidence in the U.S. economy.

"(B)ringing the war in Iraq to some sensible conclusion"? That's already been largely accomplished by his predecessor in office. It's easily done if Obama relaxes his push to get troops out of Iraq because of the now-absent civil war. He can follow the advice of his generals and provide logistic support for Iraqi security forces until they are ready to stand entirely on their own. And if he does that he will anger the fringe of his own party.

Promoting energy independence? Obama's plan frowns on nuclear power, clean coal, and development of domestic oil and gas reserves. What's left? Wind? Solar? An investment in an engine that propel a vehicle at a rate of 100 mpg? Tire inflation? The keystone of the Obama plan seems to be conservation. Free ourselves from foreign dependence by using less, and if that damages the economy--shhhhhhh. Not so loud.

And the number one priority, according to the Times? Stabilize the housing market and restore confidence in the U.S. economy. Newflash: The housing market is pretty much stabilized, in terms of value. New houses won't get any cheaper, and that will largely sustain the value of existing homes. The problem with credit remains. If you can't get a mortgage, you're not likely to buy a house. The credit problem, we hope, was addressed reasonably well. The remaining problem, assuming the availability of credit, is the business climate.

For Obama, that may be a huge problem. Many of Obama's policies will make things more difficult for business. He plans to mandate employee health coverage for all businesses above a certain size (as yet undetermined unless he's just keeping it a secret), raise tax rates on capital gains, raise the top marginal income tax rate and raise the payroll tax on income over $200,000. Those policies are not business-friendly, for they increase costs and shrink available capital. If Obama keeps his campaign promises then he probably can't address the biggest problem successfully.

In fact, Obama will probably end up pinning his hopes on something else entirely--something that has some chance of success. And his choice will determine very quickly the degree of bipartisanship we'll see from this president. He will receive great pressure from the hard left to make good on his most left-leaning apparent promises. Conservative congressional Democrats--and there are a good number who ran on conservative issues in 2006--will fight him on those issues if he aligns with the hard left.

Obama is likely to find himself in the same trap that President Jimmy Carter encountered in 1976. Running as an outsider/reformer, one can easily make an enemy of his own party. Perhaps Obama can learn from Carter's mistakes, but it won't be easy unless he strays from the lines drawn by his campaign rhetoric.

If Obama can avoid one of the shortest honeymoon periods of any president, then he will have a chance at presidential greatness.

No offense to the new president, but I'm expecting the short honeymoon. Obama's choices will determine whether he starts getting hit hard first from the right or to the left. He will need to choose brilliantly to preserve any appearance of bipartisanship while also avoiding the Carter trap.


***

I doubt I'll have time to create it, but I had in my mind earlier this week a polital cartoon featuring Obama seated sidesaddle on a Democratic donkey version of the push-me-pull-you. The rider would be saying "Giddyup!" while both heads of the creature labeled "Unified Government" look him askance. This president will have a difficult time of it.

The GOP strategy for next year

My reflexes are a bit slow on this one.

On Monday night, Michael Medved spent a portion of his radio program talking about ways the GOP might improve its election prospects. He mentioned things like encouraging marriage because married folks tended to vote for McCain (52 percent, if I remember correctly).

I hope he's kidding, since Medved usually provides excellent arguments.

There's pretty much one way to win elections. Convince people that your party will do the sorts of things they want done in office. Now, that might appear to feed into Medved's argument, since the GOP has a somewhat friendlier view of traditional marriage (the type that dominates the married demographic), but support from that demographic is fluid. Suppose, for example, that three percent of the U.S. population is homosexual, homosexual marriages are legally recognized and all three percent get married. Abracadabra, the demographic shifts.

It isn't marriage per se that results in an electoral edge for the GOP among marrieds. It is the ideology more likely associated with marriage, at least for now.

So, the GOP strategy is simple to identify and challenging to implement: Identify the (conservative) actions that our center-right nation is after and then communicate that to the electorate. Hand in hand with that, educate people as to why voting themselves into the pockets of the rich is ultimately a bad idea. The latter is a traditional key appeal of the Democratic Party, and the work of educating people will be difficult. Our educational system and our entertainment industry tend to reinforce socialistic thinking. Both are huge influences.