kscarbel2

The article.............https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/06/23/what-it-takes-to-be-a-real-american-according-to-real-americans/ .

Who's lying about Benghazi? 'Not me!' says Hillary Clinton Associated Press / December 31, 2015 Hillary Clinton insists that if anyone is lying about the aftermath of the 2012 Benghazi terror attacks that left four Americans dead, it's 'not me.' More than three years after the fires inside a U.S. diplomatic compound in the Libyan port city died down, the political heat is intensifying again – with Clinton facing tough questions along her road to the White House. At an editorial board meeting on Wednesday in New Hampshire, Columnist Tom McLaughlin recounted to Clinton the claims of the victims' family members who said she had told them a crude Internet video that mocked the Islamic faith was responsible for inciting the attackers who killed their loved ones. Clinton has denied making any such statement, despite the accounts of four people. One, the father of a slain CIA security contractor, took written notes of her words. 'Somebody is lying,' McLaughlin told her Wednesday. 'Who is it?' 'Not me, that's all I can tell you,' Clinton replied. Political fallout from Benghazi has centered on the question of whether the Obama administration sought to avoid admitting, just eight weeks before the president stood for re-election, that terrorists had attacked an American facility overseas. And Clinton, who ran the State Department at the time, has attracted as much incoming fire as Obama. In her first Capitol Hill testimony about the Benghazi attacks, she tamped down senators' inquiries into the nature of what happened, saying instead that the focus should be on doing 'everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again.' 'We had four dead Americans,' she recalled. 'Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided that they’d they go kill some Americans? What difference, at this point, does it make?' In the early days following the September 11, 2012 attacks, CIA officials scrubbed talking-point guidance prepared for other government officials, removing references to terrorism. Clinton made several public statements referring to the video, titled 'Innocence of Muslims,' suggesting that it sparked unrest in Benghazi the way it had in Cairo and elsewhere in the Arab world. In private correspondence, however, she conceded to family members and foreign leaders what Americans would learn later: The Benghazi compound was assaulted by militant jihadis in an al-Qaeda-linked group, who had pre-planned their attack. On September 14, 2012, she and President Obama attended a ceremony at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, where the bodies of the dead Americans, including Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens, were returned to their families. On that same day, a State Department official in Tripoli, Libya, wrote to Washington to say that 'it is becoming increasingly clear that the series of events in Benghazi was much more terrorist attack than a protest which escalated into violence.' And while the inflammatory video had made waves outside of Libya, the writer added, 'we want to distinguish, not conflate, the events in other countries with this well-planned attack by militant extremists.' But Clinton, still secretary of state, told four different relatives of the fallen that the filmmaker would be held responsible, according to their public statements. Another week would pass before she publicly referred to Benghazi as a terrorist event. Charles Woods, whose son Ty Woods was a Benghazi casualty, said in October that he had written down Clinton's words, verbatim, in his notebook, as she spoke. Reading from it, he recalled what Clinton had told him: 'We are going to have the filmmaker arrested who was responsible for the death of your son.' On Wednesday in New Hampshire, Hillary blurred and blunted questions about who had known what, and when. 'What happened is people were doing the best they could with information that was changing,' she told the editorial board. 'The CIA wrote and approved the talking points that were used. It was also true that from Egypt to Tunisia to Pakistan, the video was the primary spark that was sending people into protesting against our facilities. All of this was happening simultaneously.' Responding more directly to the family members' recollections, Clinton suggested their grief may have clouded their memories. 'I can't recite for you everything that was in a conversation where people were sobbing, where people were distraught, the president and the vice president, we were all making the rounds talking to people, listening to people,' she explained. 'I was in a very difficult position because [as of that moment] we have not yet said two of the four dead were CIA ... This was a part of the fog of war.'

While many European truckmakers have passed into the pages of history (e.g. Roman, DAC, Henschel, Pegaso, Steyr, Unic), KrAZ has worked hard to remain in the game. Tatra as well.

The heart of the matter is, why is our government ignoring/bypassing our immigration laws and procedures? Are these Latin Americans and Muslims better for America than the rest of the immigrant applicants around the world who, following procedure, have been patiently waiting in line for years? The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 granted amnesty to 2.8 million illegal immigrants who were, somehow, living in the United States. 541,000 Social Security numbers were given to illegal immigrants under President Obama’s original 2012 deportation amnesty for "Dreamers". And separately, Obama also wants to grant amnesty and work permits to up to 5 million illegal immigrants who are, somehow, living in the United States. I have a real problem with a government that constantly finds ways to ignore our laws and procedures.

FYI: The evolution of KrAZ cab design, pages 20-24 (http://www.autokraz.com.ua/EN/save/pdf/Steel_Eng5.pdf). KrAZ cabovers, pages 15-17 (http://www.autokraz.com.ua/EN/save/pdf/Steel_Eng4.pdf).

I think Americans are unaccustomed to global market COE design, simply because they never see them. But speaking as someone around them, the MAN TGX is a reasonable looking truck, and certainly far ahead of the US market trucks in terms of cutting edge design. The Western Star 5700 is a truck I'd term as "ugly as sin". No doubt Daimler hired the exterior designer responsible for creating the Griswold's Wagon Queen Family Truckster station wagon in the first Vacation movie. .

KrAZ Trucks Press Release / December 30, 2015 On the eve of the New Year, Ukranian truckmaker KrAZ has introduced an all new vocational chassis to its line-up, the twin-steer 8x4 model 7233С4. This new flagship of the company’s vocational range is targeted at tipper, mining and ready-mix operators. Powered by Euro-5 engines, the 72233C4 can be factory fitted with half-round dump bodies up to 20 cubic meters in size (26.2 cubic yards). The truck has a curb weight of 15.5 metric tons, load capacity of 26 tons and a maximum GVW of 41.5 tons. .

U.S. Truck Safety Regulators Abandon Earlier Proposal Today’s Truckiing / December 30, 2015 Due to the new U.S. highway funding law that recently took effect, the Transportation Department’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) has withdrawn a plan that would have amended haz-mat regulations on the transportation of “flammable liquid material in unprotected external product piping,” known commonly as wetlines, on tanker trucks. The proposal, which dates back to 2011, would have limited the amount of flammable liquid that could be carried in the unprotected loading/unloading wetlines of tankers. PHMSA had contended there was a risk that fuel held in wetlines could spill and ignite in an accident. However, tank carriers argued that the expense of installing pumps to empty the wetlines would far outweigh the benefits, especially given the added risk of explosion from welding retrofit pumps onto tank trailers. “Although PHMSA is withdrawing its rulemaking proposal, the agency will continue to consider methods to improve the safety of transporting flammable liquid by cargo tank motor vehicle,” stated the notice. PHMSA added that it will “continue to analyze current incident data and improve the collection of future incident data to assist in making an informed decision on methods to address this issue further, if warranted.”

U.S. Truck Safety Regulators Abandon Earlier Proposal Today’s Truckiing / December 30, 2015 The U.S. Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has withdrawn a notice of proposed rulemaking that would have required a commercial motor vehicle to display a label attesting that it was compliant with Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) when it was manufactured. The proposal, issued just six months ago, would have required that the decal by applied by the vehicle manufacturer or a U.S. DOT-registered importer. The agency said it walked back the proposal because the comments it received made it apparent the rule would result in a redundant requirement. FMCSA said it ended the rulemaking process because commenters “raised substantive issues which have led the agency to conclude that it would be inappropriate to move forward with a final rule based on the proposal.” The agency noted that the FMVSSs that the decals would have attested to are cross-referenced in the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations (FMCSR) and that “FMCSA has determined that it can most effectively ensure that motor carriers maintain the safety equipment and features provided by the FMVSSs through enforcement of the FMCSRs, making an additional FMVSS certification labeling regulation unnecessary.”

Fleet Owner / December 28, 2015 The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is seeking public comment on the economic impact of its regulations. Required to do so by the Regulatory Flexibility Act, the agency is attempting to identify rules that may have a significant economic impact. NHTSA also is requesting comments on ways to make these regulations easier to read and understand. The focus of this notice is rules that specifically relate to trucks, buses, trailers, as well as passenger cars, multipurpose passenger vehicles, motorcycles, and motor vehicle equipment. The NHTSA will consider: (1) The continued need for the rule; (2) the nature of complaints or comments received from the public; (3) the complexity of the rule; (4) the extent to which the rule overlaps, duplicates, or conflicts with other federal rules or with state or local government rules; (5) the length of time since the rule has been evaluated or the degree to which technology, economic conditions, or other factors have changed in the area affected by the rule. Under the agency’s 10-year review plan, NHTSA reviews one of 10 groups of regulations each year. This year involves sections of 49 CFR 571.201 through 571.212. This includes such Motor Vehicle Safety Standards controlling windshields, door locks and retention, and occupant crash protection. Comments must be received by Docket Management not later than February 22, 2016. Those wishing to comment have multiple ways to do so, including electronically at www.regulations.gov. Use Docket Number NHTSA-2015-0100.

PHMSA pulls wetlines rulemaking Fleet Owner / December 30, 2015 10-year effort blocked by Congress The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) has withdrawn a decade-old rulemaking proposal that would have stopped flammable liquids from being transported in unprotected product piping (generally referred to as “wetlines”) of new and existing cargo tankers. According to the announcement in Wednesday’s Federal Register, the notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) “Hazardous Materials: Safety Requirements for External Product Piping on Cargo Tanks Transporting Flammable Liquids” is being pulled because of a mandate in the new highway bill, the FAST Act. The rule would have required the piping be protected against accident or bottom damages, or designed to be emptied of flammable liquid. PHMSA also issued this proposed requirement to fully address a long-standing National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Safety Recommendation. But the Government Accountability Office (GAO) published a report critical of the methodology and data used to support the rulemaking, and GOA noted that PHMSA's analysis had not adequately addressed the market uncertainty with regard to the technology to be used to address the safety hazard. In comments on the proposal, opponents contended that wetlines are not a safety risk, citing PHMSA's own statistics that the frequency of wetlines incidents is low and the frequency of incidents that lead to injury or death is extremely low. While PHMSA is withdrawing the rulemaking in accordance with the FAST Act, the agency will continue to examine this issue, particularly by monitoring flammable liquid wetlines incidents, “in consideration of any future actions,” the notice states. These likely future actions include “non-regulatory initiatives.”

Heavy Duty Trucking / December 30, 2015 In compliance with a provision on the new highway act, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration has withdrawn a notice of proposed rulemaking that would have amended haz-mat regulations on the transportation of “flammable liquid material in unprotected external product piping,” a.k.a. wetlines, on DOT-spec tanker trucks. The withdrawal notice was published in the Federal Register for Dec. 30. The proposal, which dates back to 2011, would have limited the amount of flammable liquid that could be carried in the unprotected loading/unloading wetlines of tankers. PHMSA had contended there was a risk that fuel held in wetlines could spill and ignite in an accident. However, tank carriers argued that the expense of installing pumps to empty the wetlines would far outweigh the benefits, especially given the added risk of explosion from welding retrofit pumps onto tank trailers. According to Gordon Delcambre, Jr., PHMSA public affairs specialist, the notice’s withdrawal was mandated by Congress in the Fixing America's Surface Transportation (FAST) Act highway bill that was signed into law by President Obama earlier this month. “Although PHMSA is withdrawing its rulemaking proposal, the agency will continue to consider methods to improve the safety of transporting flammable liquid by cargo tank motor vehicle,” stated the notice. PHMSA added that it will “continue to analyze current incident data and improve the collection of future incident data to assist in making an informed decision on methods to address this issue further, if warranted.”

Fleet Owner / December 29, 2015 The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has dropped its plans to require interstate carriers to display a label to document a vehicle’s compliance with all applicable Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSSs) in effect as of the date of manufacture. In a notice to be published Wednesday in the Federal Register, FMCSA says it has withdrawn the June 17 Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) because subsequently filed comments “raised substantive issues” that led the agency to conclude “it would be inappropriate to move forward” with a final rule based on the proposal. “Because the FMVSSs critical to the operational safety of CMVs are cross referenced in the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations (FMCSRs), FMCSA has determined that it can most effectively ensure that motor carriers maintain the safety equipment and features provided by the FMVSSs through enforcement of the FMCSRs, making an additional FMVSS certification labeling regulation unnecessary,” the notice reads. Among the objections, commenters (including the American Trucking Assns., the Truckload Carriers Assn., the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Assn., the Truck and Engine Manufacturers Assn., and several carriers) noted that: - The rule would provide no safety benefits - FMVSS markings, particularly on trailers, are subject to damage, over-painting, and loss over the life of the vehicle. No certification marking is permanent - Many of the manufacturers have gone out of business, been purchased, or are overseas; obtaining a replacement certification or letter may not be possible - The proposal does not recognize the issues raised by interlining and other operational patterns; and - The rule would impose significant costs on carriers, which FMCSA has failed to estimate.

Fleet Owner / December 30, 2015 Staff Sgt. David Kirtland with the Louisiana National Guard chronicles the transportation of a 100 ft. long, 27.5 ft. high “controlled-burn chamber” from Oklahoma to Louisiana, where it will be used to safely dispose of 16 million lbs. of artillery propellant.

The B1 bomber - The under-appreciated workhorse of America’s air wars The Washington Pose / December 30, 2015 The huge swing-wing airplane is nothing if not flexible — canceled, revived, converted from nuclear strike plane to conventional bomber and then to flying arsenal for the GPS-guided bombs on which ground troops fighting for their lives in Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Syria often rely. And if the U.S. Air Force’s supersonic B-1 bomber is one other thing, it’s misunderstood. It’s no secret that the B-1 bomber, officially called the Lancer but known to its four-man crews as the “Bone” (they proudly call themselves “Bone-drivers”), had a troubled early life. Canceled by President Jimmy Carter and revived by successor Ronald Reagan, the B-1 underwent sweeping redesigns before it reached Air Force crews in the mid-1980s — and even then, the revamped airplane suffered a string of high-profile malfunctions and crashes. Not until 1998, three decades after the distinctive swing-wing bomber was first designed, did the B-1 first drop bombs on enemy targets in Iraq. In public forums, the B-1 has often been a punch line. A glowing New York Times feature earlier this month on the B-1’s older, slower brother, the gangly B-52, highlighted the tribulations of the supersonic bomber’s development, comparing it unfavorably to the reliable B-52 of “Dr. Strangelove” fame, which has been in uninterrupted service since the 1950s. And during a Senate hearing last year, Sen. John McCain pushed back hard on Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James’s description of the B-1 as an effective airplane for “close air support,” or the delivery of precision-guided bombs in support of embattled ground troops. “That’s a remarkable statement,” McCain scoffed. “That doesn’t comport with any experience I’ve ever had, nor anyone I know has ever had.” What McCain didn’t seem to be aware of, and what the Times report failed to note, is the long third act of the B-1’s life. Converted in the 1990s from a Soviet-airspace-penetrating nuclear strike plane to a conventional bomber meant to pound the infrastructure and massed formations of an enemy army, the “Bone” converted again in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, into exactly what the Arizona senator found so hard to believe: not just a close air support plane, but, by all accounts, a hugely successful one. One need only watch this video below of a B-1 strike in Afghanistan’s ultra-violent Pech valley, and listen to the profanity-laden commentary of the ground troops doing the filming, to get a sense of the role the big bomber played supporting troops in contact in both Iraq and Afghanistan. In the video, originally uploaded to YouTube by a military spokesperson, troops at a remote firebase watch as three satellite-guided bombs from a B-1 strike mountainside targets almost simultaneously, followed seconds later by a fourth. The soldiers express their elation in not-safe-for-civilian-work terms. By the time of the airstrike depicted in the video, Bone-drivers had been flying their dark gray planes 20,000 feet over Afghanistan for years — since the opening night of the U.S.-led air war in October 2001, when five B-1s flying out of the Indian Ocean outpost of Diego Garcia joined ten B-52s and two B-2 stealth bombers in pummeling the Taliban regime’s few fixed-site targets. One pilot who flew B-1s in the early months of the Afghan war, Jordan Thomas, had been working at the Air Force’s B-1 training school the summer before the September 11 attacks when he fielded what seemed at the time like an odd inquiry from a Congressional staffer. (Part of the B-1 fleet was on the chopping block as a cost-cutting measure, making the bomber a subject of Congressional and media interest.) “This staffer asked whether it was true that the B-1 wasn’t able to fly over high mountains like in Afghanistan, which he’d read somewhere,” Thomas remembered. “I wrote back, ‘We can fly over the mountains of Afghanistan, but why on earth would we?’” Working with fellow Bone-drivers in the skies over those very mountains and back on Diego Garcia, Thomas helped the B-1 crews develop what would become their essential skill in the years ahead: coordinating with ground troops to drop firefight-ending bombs with lethal precision and accuracy. “We were given an opportunity in Afghanistan to prove what the B-1 could do,” Thomas said. The plane’s success aiding the ouster of the Taliban gained it a moment of appreciation, and saved the B-1 fleet from the cuts that defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, a B-1 skeptic, had been pressing before the September 11 attacks. “Maligned B-1 Bomber Now Proving Its Worth,” a Los Angeles Times headline trumpeted two months into the bombing. Day-to-day coverage of the fall 2001 air campaign, though, emphasized the B-52. The B-1 was mentioned only occasionally, even though in fact, B-1s and B-52s were flying roughly equal numbers of missions — and the newer B-1s were actually outpacing their older siblings in numbers of bombs dropped, especially smart bombs. The misrepresentation bothered some of the Bone-drivers on Diego Garcia. Thomas had a theory about what was going on: because the B-52s flew mostly during daylight hours and the B-1s mostly at night, journalists accompanying the Northern Alliance troops on the ground could only see (and photograph) the B-52s, and mistakenly assumed the same planes were carrying out the night bombardments. In the years that followed, the B-1 became a mainstay of close air support and other strike missions over both Afghanistan and Iraq, where a B-1 kicked off the air war in 2003 with a string of bombs meant to kill Saddam Hussein in one of his Baghdad palaces (he wasn’t there). “We are using it in ways never conceived of previously,” secretary of the Air Force James Roche said of the B-1 later that year. Capable of flying in rougher weather than the B-52, cheaper to operate, and capable of carrying more bombs, in 2006 the B-1 displaced the B-52 and became the standard bomber deployed to support ground troops in the two wars, while the older aircraft played the traditional nuclear deterrent role. One unit whose veterans sing the B-1’s praises is the 2nd Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment, which, during 15 months in the Pech and adjoining Afghan valleys in 2007-8, became the most heavily decorated Army battalion of the post-September 11 wars. “Our favorite asset at the company level was the B-1,” said one of the unit’s company commanders, Lou Frketic. “They had more ordnance and longer loiter times, and they delivered ordnance to the desired location without trying to second-guess us with their own optics.” “What I loved about the B-1 was that it had such incredible payload capacity and such incredible time on station,” the battalion’s fire support officer, Jeffrey Pickler, agreed. “We dropped over a million pounds of Air Force bombs, and a lot of that was B-1s.” When insurgents attacked from rock formations high in the mountains, artillery and mortars would respond first, trying to get the enemy to take cover; then bombs from a B-1 or another airplane would smash the militants’ natural bunkers before attack helicopters arrived to pick off survivors. On one of the worst of many bad nights in the battalion’s deployment — Oct. 25, 2007, when a sharp firefight in the Korengal valley left two paratroopers dead and earned one wounded soldier the first Medal of Honor awarded to living recipient since Vietnam — it was a B-1 whose bombs shook the battle-scarred ridge, pounding the escaping insurgents. As with the AC-130 gunship that destroyed an international hospital in Afghanistan this fall, the B-1’s destructive power is a double-edged sword: if it strikes the wrong target, the damage to civilians or friendly forces can be severe. “It was like Judgment Day,” a survivor of an errant 2008 B-1 strike that killed dozens of civilians told Human Right Watch. And in June 2014, a B-1 dropped a bomb on a special operations team in Afghanistan, killing five U.S. soldiers and one Afghan. The latter error was chalked up to a misunderstanding by the bomber’s own crew of how far away the plane’s sensors could detect the ground troops’ identifying infrared strobe lights. When targeting pods with high-tech surveillance cameras were added to B-1s in 2008 (they were also fielded to the B-52), “It transformed the nature of the aircraft,” according to retired Lt. Gen. David Deptula, an airpower advocate who flew both bombers while he was on active duty. Besides dropping bombs — which they could do with greater precision, hopefully helping to cut down on civilian casualties — Bone crews gained the ability able to watch over ground troops’ shoulders for potential threats, supplementing the stressed fleet of Predator and Reaper drones designed for that purpose. The first B-1 crew to drop bombs in America’s latest air campaign over Iraq got the call one day in August 2014. Already on the runway getting ready for a routine mission over Afghanistan, according to an Air Force Times report, the crew plugged in new coordinates and headed for the skies around Baghdad to support Iraqi ground forces. As the U.S.-led bombing campaign against the Islamic State expanded, it became the focus of a full squadron of B-1s, aircraft from which, on 31 occasions during their deployment, “went Winchester,” dropping all the bombs they had on board. Of the missions where Bone-drivers dropped all their bombs, many took place over the northern Syrian city of Kobane. In an air campaign whose slow pace has drawn criticism, the four-month bombardment of Kobane stood out for its punishing tempo, and the B-1 was at the heart of it, dropping bombs at the direction of rear-area U.S. air controllers who relayed strike requests from Kurdish troops on the ground. By the time the Islamic State’s grip on Kobane broke last January, the B-1’s distinctive shape was a familiar sight in the sky above the city. The next B-1 squadron to deploy to the Middle East played a similar role supporting ground offensives by Iraqi troops in Tikrit this spring – “We kill bad people and we break their things, and we’re very good at it,” the squadron’s commander told a South Dakota journalist after the unit’s return home – and yet a third squadron’s B-1s were on hand during last month’s seizure of Sinjar, in between the Islamic State strongholds of Mosul and Raqqa, by Kurdish forces. “We focused first on northern Syria, then northeastern Iraq, then Sinjar,” the currently deployed B-1 squadron’s commander told the Washington Post. (Air Force spokespeople made the officer available on the condition that only his rank, lieutenant colonel, and first name, Joseph, be published.) “We have definitely gone Winchester many times.” The officer’s 37th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron has struck Islamic State command posts, training camps, and oil production facilities, he explained. But the most satisfying missions have been those in direct support of friendly ground troops in both countries, most recently around the embattled Iraqi city of Ramadi. That was where, in a particularly memorable recent mission, Iraqi troops requested that the squadron commander and his crew do something about small boats that Islamic State fighters were using for transport. Watching with their targeting pod, the crew waited until the boats clustered under a bridge, and then destroyed the bridge with satellite-guided bombs. “That was different,” the B-1 squadron commander said. “I never expected to be dropping ordnance on boats.” A single B-1 can drop as many bombs on Syrian and Iraqi targets as 40 attack jets flying off an aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf, noted retired Air Force general Deptula, making the bomber’s importance to the air campaign obvious. “The B-1 carries so much payload, and has so much endurance, its persistence can’t be matched by other platforms” like smaller attack jets and the B-52, he said. “It is both more effective and more efficient.” To Rep. Chris Stewart, a Congressman from Utah who was a Bone-driver before he was a politician and tries to stay up to date on his plane’s wartime employment, the prominent role B-1s play today in the campaign against the Islamic State comes as no surprise — notwithstanding the dismissal of the supersonic bomber in the recent New York Times paean to the B-52. “That article was so 1977,” Stewart joked. “Every airplane goes through a maturing process, but the B-1 has proven itself again and again, and for a long time. It’s the B-1 that’s the backbone of the bomber fleet.”

* Storm pushes North Pole 50 degrees above normal to melting point The Washington Pose / December 30, 2015 A powerful winter cyclone has driven the North Pole to the freezing point this week, 50 degrees above average for this time of year. From Tuesday evening to Wednesday morning, a mind-boggling pressure drop was recorded in Iceland: 54 millibars in just 18 hours. This triples the criteria for “bomb” cyclogenesis, which meteorologists use to describe a rapidly intensifying mid-latitude storm. A “bomb” cyclone is defined as dropping one millibar per hour for 24 hours. NOAA’s Ocean Prediction Center said the storm’s minimum pressure dropped to 928 millibars around 1 a.m. Eastern time, which likely places it in the top five strongest storms on record in this region. As this storm churns north, it’s forcing warm air into the Arctic Circle. Over the North Sea, sustained winds from the south are blasting at 70 mph, and gusting to well above 100 mph, drawing heat from south to north. Although there are no permanent weather stations at the North Pole (or really anywhere in the Arctic Ocean), we can use weather forecast models, which ingest data from satellites and surrounding surface observations, to estimate conditions at Earth’s most northern location. On Wednesday morning, temperatures over a vast area around North Pole were somewhere between 30 and 35 degrees Fahrenheit, and for at least a brief moment, surpassed the 32-degree threshold at exactly 90 degrees North, according to data from the GFS forecast model. Data from the International Arctic Buoy Programme confirms that temperatures very close to the North Pole surpassed the melting point on Wednesday. Buoy 64760 at a latitude of 87.45 degrees North hit a high temperature of 0.7 degrees Celsius — or 33 degrees Fahrenheit — around 8 a.m. Eastern Time. “Consider the average winter temperature there is around 20 degrees below zero,” says meteorologist Jason Samenow. A temperature around the freezing mark signifies a departure from normal of over 50 degrees, and close to typical mid-summer temperatures in this region. In other words, the area around the North Pole was about as warm as Chicago on Wednesday, and quite a few degrees warmer than much of the Midwest.

President Obama’s recent vetoes were unconstitutional. Congress should sue him. Robert Spitzer / The Washington Pose / December 30, 2015 There's a pocket veto, and there's a regular veto. Presidents don't get to combine them. President Obama’s vetoes earlier this month of two bills that would have blocked administration efforts to blunt climate change surprised no one. The vetoes came after Congress passed resolutions that even Republican leaders admitted were largely symbolic — precisely because the GOP lacks the votes to override Obama. By choosing an unorthodox and unnecessary method to exercise his veto, though, Obama may have handed a major victory to the Republicans by providing them with a way to challenge the constitutionality of his action. Here’s how. The Constitution provides the president with two veto options: the regular or return veto, where the president returns the bill to Congress with his objections; and the pocket veto, which kills the bill without returning it to Congress. Presidents like the pocket veto better for the obvious reason that it is absolute, with no possibility of veto override, but the Constitution does not allow presidents to pick and choose the kind of veto they wish to use. The regular veto is unconditional as long as the bill can be returned. But the pocket veto, under the terms of Article I, Section 7, has two conditions for its use: Congress must be adjourned, and bill return must be “prevented.” These two linked conditions in turn acknowledge the existence of adjournments when bill return is possible. In fact, the return veto is actually preferred by the terms of the Constitution, as was the clear intent of the Framers (Founding Fathers). We know this because at the Constitutional Convention, they repeatedly and emphatically rejected a monarchical absolute or non-override veto for the president. The right of Congress to have a final chance at vetoed bills was essential to the checks and balances system they created. Yet the pocket veto is absolute in its effect, because the bill dies without return to Congress, so how is its presence in the Constitution explained? The answer is that the pocket veto was created to prevent Congress from ducking a veto by passing a bill and quickly adjourning to prevent the president from returning the measure. Without the pocket veto, an objectionable bill would simply become law after ten days, whether the president signed it or not. So how can a regular veto be used if Congress is not in session, which it is not, since the first session of the 114th Congress ended Dec. 18? Simple: Each house designates legal agents to receive veto messages and other communications. This routine mechanism has been used thousands of times by Congress for decades during long weekends, vacations and breaks, just as the White House receives bills from Congress on behalf of the president when he is absent or indisposed. Both procedures have met constitutional muster. As the Supreme Court said in 1938, the “Constitution does not define what shall constitute a return of a bill or deny the use of appropriate agencies in effecting the return.” In his two vetoes, Obama issued a so-called “protective return pocket veto,” whereby he announced a pocket veto and titled his veto message “Memorandum of Disapproval” (the name for a pocket veto message). But he then proceeded to return the two bills to Congress — a return veto. The justification for doing so is always the same: to “leave no doubt that the bill is being vetoed.” The problem is that this gambit creates doubt because it combines two mutually exclusive actions: a regular veto and a pocket veto. Even more troubling, the history behind this veto mashup — claiming the exercise of a non-return pocket veto while simultaneously returning the bill to Congress — is a presidential power grab designed to stretch the no-override pocket veto into an absolute veto that could be used whenever Congress is not in session, giving the president the very power the Founders sought to deny the office. This practice traces to former President Gerald Ford’s administration, when the president issued five such dual vetoes. Then-Sen. Edward Kennedy challenged these vetoes in federal district court, where he prevailed. Ford halted the practice and agreed to use a pocket veto only at the end of a two-year session of Congress. Yet the practice was resuscitated by President George H.W. Bush, who claimed to pocket veto two bills that he also returned to Congress. President Bill Clinton did the same thing three times in 2000, and President George W. Bush employed the practice once in 2007. Obama, meanwhile, has used the maneuver five times out of seven total vetoes. The Republicans’ option is clear: Sue the president, arguing that the vetoes were facially unconstitutional because they combined two mutually exclusive procedures, and because Congress had designated legal agents to receive veto messages. Since Obama withheld his signature, the two bills, instead of being vetoed, should have become law without his signature after ten days. It would pain me to see Obama’s laudable efforts to reduce greenhouse gases thwarted*. But it is even more painful to see this constitutional Rube Goldberg veto device persist. Obama could and should have simply exercised the return veto, but he didn’t. It’s time to bring this practice to an end. Maybe it will take a legal victory by the president’s opponents to persuade him.

At any point in time, there are millions of people around the world who have been waiting in line from one to five years to legally immigrate to the United States. And yet due to a law that borders on being childish in nature, thousands of Cubans are now flooding into the United States, like the alleged Muslim “refugees”, cutting in line ahead of other people around the world. The ridiculous US policy of automatically granting Cubans express green cards should cease immediately. If they want to live in the United States and subjugate to the American way of life, then they can demonstrate some American-like ethics by getting in line for a green card like every other immigrant applicant around the globe. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 40,000 Cubans given expedited green cards, thousands more coming The Guardian / December 30, 2015 A massive airlift of refugees will begin in Central America next week after regional countries agreed to help thousands of stranded Cubans who have been driven by the threat of normalised relations to migrate to the United States. Fears that talks between Washington and Havana may soon curtail favourable US migration policies have prompted the biggest rush from the Caribbean island since the “raft exodus” of 1994. More than 40,000 Cubans have entered the US this year, almost double the number in 2014. Many more are stranded, after travelling via Ecuador, which offered visa-free entry for Cuban arrivals, and then being blocked on their overland route north at the Nicaraguan border. Since 15 November, the government in Managua, which is an ally of the Cuban president, Raúl Castro, has denied entry to the refugees. About 6,000 Cubans have been stuck in Costa Rica and Panama for the past six weeks, prompting concerns from the International Red Cross and other aid groups. Jim Batres, the national director of the Red Cross in Costa Rica said the plan was “light at the end of the tunnel”, but “may not be a complete solution to the problems we have here”. “There are still many questions. We know that 40,000 Cubans entered Ecuador, but so far only 7,000 are here in Costa Rica. What will happen to the rest? How long will the airlift take? What will happen to people who can’t afford it? This situation could continue for one, two or three months.” Last Sunday, Pope Francis, called on regional governments “to find a quick solution to this humanitarian drama”. That appeared to have been achieved on Tuesday, when seven member nations of the Central American Integration System – not including Nicaragua – agreed to arrange flights for the refugees to El Salvador. From there, they are expected to travel by bus through Guatemala and Mexico to the United States. The Costa Rican foreign minister, Manuel González, said the plan, which begins with a pilot flight next week, was “entirely exceptional” and would only apply to Cubans who currently reside in the country. Many questions remain unanswered, particularly regarding financing the plan and the role of the US in the agreement. González suggested refugees would have to pay their own way, but many are unlikely to have sufficient funds for a flight. The details have been left deliberately sketchy to avoid further inflaming regional tensions and resentment among other Latinos who would like to migrate to the US but do not enjoy the same preferential conditions as Cubans. Since 1966, the US has allowed Cuban visitors to become legal residents within a year of setting foot on US soil, as part of the old cold war strategy to destabilise the Castro government. In the wake of recent diplomatic breakthroughs, however, many fear this policy could soon come to an end. With salaries in the US dozens of times higher than those in Cuba, the economic incentive to leave before a possible tightening of the rules is enormous. The Cuban minister of foreign relations, Bruno Rodríguez, urged a quick solution to the plight of the refugees stranded in Costa Rica, which he blamed on Washington. “I strongly believe that the politicisation of US migration policy toward Cuba must change, and must stop encouraging illegal, unsafe and disorderly migration,” he told the national assembly. Costa Rica’s President Luis Guillermo Solís has also reportedly complained that countries on the Cuban migrants’ route are “victims” of US immigration policy. The extent to which the US will be part of the solution remains unclear. Although it was not one of the seven countries – Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica, Panama and Mexico – that agreed on the airlift plan, it is likely to have been closely consulted. US Congress members Kay Granger and Henry Cuellar visited Cuban refugee centres in Costa Rica on Tuesday and joined the US ambassador, Stafford Fitzgerald Haney, and the Costa Rican envoy in Washington at a meeting to discuss the crisis (Apparently, the term "crisis" can now be casually applied to almost any situation nowadays) . The host government said it was not planning to ask the US for financial or technical aid. However, private donations from the US have already begun. Another recent visitor to Costa Rica is Felix Roque, mayor of the New Jersey town of West New York, who told local reporters he had donated a six-figure sum to the refugees.

That HVAC system was developed by Signet Systems*. Later in the late 1980s, Mack Trucks switched to Red Dot, but the HVAC system design in the R/RD/DM and MH remained largely the same. * FYI: Signet Systems was acquired by Modine Manufacturing in 1995. The former Mack Trucks had two radiator suppliers, Modine and G&O. G&O Manufacturing was acquired by Transpro in 1970. In 2005, Modine bought the G&O unit and renamed it Modine Jackson Inc.

MAZ Trucks Press Release / December 29, 2015 MAZ Trucks held a press-conference at the Minsk Automobile Plant on December 22, 2015 to announce the participation of the MAZ-Sport Team in the 2016 Dakar rally. 2016 marks the fifth time that the MAZ-Sport Team will participate in the Dakar rally. The MAZ-Sport Team headed out to South America on December 24. MAZ Trucks will have three trucks at the race – two main crews and a “fast technical” truck for immediate assistance during the stages. The truckmaker’s reputation will be defended by three crews: Crew no. 507: driver – Sergey Vyazovich; navigator– Pavel Garanin; mechanic – Andrey Zhigulin. Crew no. 512: driver – Alexander Vasilevski; navigator – Valery Kozlowski; mechanic – Anton Zaporoschenko. Crew no 541: driver – Vladimir Vasilevski; navigator – Dmitry Vihrenko; mechanic – Aleksey Neverovich. The specially prepared MAZ race trucks are already in Argentina. The Belarus-based MAZ team is staking its success on speed, experience, strategy and advanced truck engineering. The 2016 Dakar rally will take place in two countries – Argentina and Bolivia. The start of the race will take place on January, 3 in Buenos–Aires and the finish will be in Rosario on January, 16, 2016. 59 truck category race participants will drive 9385 kilometers (5,832 miles) over some of the toughest conditions on earth. .

Tatra Trucks Press Release / December 29, 2015 In 2016, Tatra Trucks will celebrate its 30th year participating in the legendary Dakar Rally. The Tatra Buggyra race team is taking part with two specially prepared Tatra race trucks. Cheer with us, place a bet and win a participation in Buggyra Camp with a Tatra race truck ride! We have prepared a special website (www.tatradakar.com) where you can find up-to-date information about the Tatra Buggyra race team, as well as an introduction to Tatra race trucks. Cheer with us and take part in our competition! Visit www.tatradakar.com, fill out a form with placing your bet on the Tatra Buggyra race team, and win a participation in Buggyra Camp where you can get behind the wheel of a Tata race truck. Follow us also at Facebook, Twitter and Instagram!

Tatra Trucks Press Release / December 29, 2015 Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year .

Fleet Owner / December 29, 2015 Ken-Tool has announced three new tools (http://www.kentool.com/index.php/new-products/air-brake-slack-adjusters) to make the task of adjusting drum air brake linkage to remove dangerous slack on trucks and trailers an easier task. The tools, made in the U.S.A., fit Bendix, Haldex and Meritor air braking systems. “They are ideal for a trucker’s on-the-road tool box, and truck/trailer service centers,” says Ken-Tool. “The tools, one for each brake manufacturer’s design, feature the use of durable tool-grade steel, a convenient, offset reversible ratchet design. The tools are available separately.” The two-piece Meritor Automatic Slack Adjuster Set (pn 33200) features a 5/16” double square ratchet and a tool to secure the brake shaft from turning during tightening/loosening of the adjustment nut (with heavy-duty molded resin handles), each tool weighs 10.4 oz. (0.3 kg), is 12 in. (31 cm) long, and priced at $70.95 (US) MSRP for the set. The Haldex Slack Adjuster Tool (pn 33205) uses a 7/16” double offset square ratchet, weighs 10.4 oz. (0.3 kg), is 14.5 in. (37 cm) long, and priced at $33.99 (US) MSRP. The Bendix Slack Adjuster Tool (pn 33206) uses a 9/16” double offset square ratchet, weighs 1.0 lb. (0. 5 kg), is 14.5 in. (37 cm) long, and priced at $51.50 (US) MSRP. The Haldex and Bendix tools each have extra-long handles for improved leverage, with comfortable, slip resistant vinyl hand grips. To reverse direction on the Bendix and Haldex tools, the technician turns the tool over.

Here's a World War 2 Dodge WC63 from which Legacy built this custom 6x6. Though only built as a 4x4 (1951-1968), the second generation Dodge military model M37 and civilian model WM300 represented perfection.

CNN / December 26, 2015 An Arizona ISIS supporter has been indicted on charges of arming and training the men who tried to attack a Prophet Mohammed cartoon contest in Texas earlier this year. He sought to use pipe bombs to target last season's Super Bowl. A new indictment against Abdul Malik Abdul Kareem (aka Decarus Thomas) also accuses him of providing material support to the global terror network by accessing -- with the help of a cohort -- an ISIS document listing the names and addresses of U.S. service members. Kareem had earlier been indicted of providing arms and guidance to the two men, Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi, who were killed on May 3 attempting to attack the cartoon contest. The indictment handed down on Wednesday provided more detail on Kareem's alleged willingness to pursue violent jihad in the name of ISIS and his influence on his co-conspirators. Simpson and Soofi were shot dead by a police traffic officer who was part of the security at the Curtis Culwell Center in Garland, Texas, a Dallas suburb, the day of the Muhammad Art Exhibit and Contest. That officer was wounded but survived the assault, for which ISIS claimed responsibility. The trio began conspiring to support ISIS sometime around June 2014. Their target list included military bases, U.S. service members, shopping malls, Super Bowl XLIX in Glendale, Arizona, and the cartoon contest. The men traveled to remote desert areas near Phoenix for target practice during the first half of 2015. The indictment also accuses Kareem of transporting firearms and ammunition across state lines. Kareem faked having been struck by a car and attempted to make an insurance claim based in his injuries in order to raise money for attacks. In addition to providing arms to Simpson and Soofi, Kareem hosted the two men and others at his home to discuss the attack on the cartoon contest. For months, the trio and other men watched videos "depicting jihadist violence and apparent wartime footage in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East" as well "torture and executions" by ISIS members. "While watching the videos, Kareem exhorted and encouraged Simpson and Soofi to engage in violent activity in the United States to support ISIS and impose retribution for United States military actions in the Middle East," the indictment said. From December to May 2014, Kareem and others allegedly attempted to acquire pipe bombs and inquired about what type of explosives would be needed to create maximum damage at venues such as the mall at Westgate and nearby University of Phoenix Stadium, where the Super Bowl was to be played on February 1, the indictment said. On March 20, Simpson accessed an ISIS list of the home addresses of U.S. military personnel. A handwritten note found later in an apartment shared by Simpson and Sofi had the name and address of an Arizona service member targeted by ISIS. Simpson, Soofi and others also scouted military installations for planned attacks. Kareem, who was arrested last June, was charged on Wednesday with conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, interstate transportation of firearms with intent to commit a felony, making false statements and other crimes. An indictment earlier this year charged him with conspiracy and weapons charges in connection with the attack in Garland. .