I clicked on your link and it led me to a long Google list of entries about jobs created by this aircraft and how feverishly union groups were lobbying to keep the contract going. So? Is that supposed to mean something? People with good jobs write their Congressmen and demand the projects not be de-funded? Imagine that. You don't have to be a Conservative intellectual to figure that out.

In your parallel universe, union factory jobs pay hundreds of grand a year and municipal employees retire with pensions on the same scale, while management bravely struggles and sacrifices to control costs. Don't you think they do a little lobbying and politicking, too?

Unfortunately, that's not the universe I worked in all my life, or anyone I know, which is why I don't bother to open your links. They refer to a parallel reality I am not familiar with, personally. I doubt if I've ever even knowingly met anyone that earned $195,000 a year. I didn't come anywhere close to that in Silly Valley, and I have a cousin who used to be a union bigshot and he never came anywhere close to that. By the way, where did you come up with that figure? What does it mean? Did you really think I was going to spend all day prowling around that website trying to locate it? I have better things to do with my time than checking up on your numbers.

This post started off as an examination of how this defense project is a wasteful boondoggle, and I suggested the reason for that is that it has a constituency of management, labor and government that is determined to prolong it because it is so lucrative for them. Anything wrong with that?

My implied reference to Republican corporate drones is because these are the people who are always lecturing us about government thrift--except, of course, when they're sucking on the government teat. You use it as an excuse to imply that union factory workers have the audacity to earn too much; but what really steams you is that some working class lefty has the nerve to characterize your entrepreneurial heroes and role models as corporate drones. You take that personally. Now do you see why no one opens your links?

You're the one that can't handle it, TB. Otherwise you wouldn't be compelled to endlessly patrolling the Zone desperately trying to stamp out even the slightest deviation from the Party Line. The little Dutch Boy trying to plug all the leaks in the dyke. You preach and lecture and butt in too much for anyone to take you seriously and you obviously have an axe to grind. You're not seeking truth, you're trying to define it.

So don't blame the lefties if your pet jet has gone way over budget. I don't recall any big Liberal or Socialist push to build the ultimate air superiority fighter. This is strictly a Conservative wet dream and business boondoggle. Physician, heal thyself.