Not aimed at you NewK, but I think you guys are looking at this from the wrong perspective. Delta does these things for the FA's to show them they don't need a Union, Ma Delta will take care of them...

Denny

 

Quick reserve question. After SC am I free from duty, i.e. Do I have to answer the phone right away for a LC assignment?

 

300 to 600 to 800. Sounds like the chain of rumors via a pilot rumor mill to me.

 

If your interested I believe there is a "Latest And Greatest" podcast narration of the last 143767 posts narrated by Bill Murray. Well worth the download.

The 600-800 a year number sounds about right b

 

Come on. SD said, "Stay humble."

What is there to be confused about?

Oh, "don't get greedy" when looking at that FA buffet. Eat your sandwich.

 

We could keep that on the low side with some vacation liquidations.

 

WH,

That would be great news. The Compass and Endeavor flows are limited to 25% of their respective lists per year (or something similar) so with an 800 target number plenty would be off the street and preferential interviews.

Scoop

 

That's a big ice cream cone.


February 20, 2007 12:47 PM
Deconstructing the self-licking ice cream cone
Posted by David Postman
Times D.C. reporter Alicia Mundy has a story this morning -- the banner story in the printed paper -- about former Congressman George Nethercutt's lobbying work for with a Spokane firm that he had helped while in office.

The story says:

Nethercutt's relationship with Isothermal is a classic case of what is known in D.C. as the "self-licking ice-cream cone": A lawmaker helps a company win a contract, that company helps the lawmaker stay in office, and on and on it goes.
I had never heard of a "self-licking ice-cream cone." With some Googling and Lexis-Nexising, I find it is a term used in D.C. It doesn't seem to be used widely, and I don't find examples of it as a description of the congressional/lobbying revolving door. It's a clear pejorative, used in some cases to describe the more unsavory elements of the military-industrial complex. It seems to be something with no real purpose, something completely self-serving. I don't read the story to say that about Nethercutt's job, so I'm not sure his is a classic case.

Here are a few definitions:

self-licking ice cream cone n. a process, department, institution, or other thing that offers few benefits and exists primarily to justify or perpetuate its own existence. Also in the form self-licking lollipop.
A phrase not widely used (Google finds a mere 927 references), a "self-licking ice cream cone" is something that is very clever but entirely self serving and essentially useless.
A metaphor to describe an entity that exists only for its own benefit. A quick web search seems to show this phrase is commonly used by policy wonks and pundits to describe government institutions. In his article "The Intelligence Gap: How the digital age left our spies out in the cold"1, Seymour M. Hersh wrote this about the NSA: "One former official described the civilian leadership as 'a self-licking ice-cream cone', with little tolerance for dissent or information it did not wish to hear."
The New Yorker, December 6, 1999, pp. 58-76.

"Self-licking ice cream cone" is the descriptor for a self-fulfilling prophecy as described by the 20th century sociologist Robert K. Merton: "The self-fulfilling prophecy is, in the beginning, a false definition of the situation evoking a new behavior which makes the original false conception come true."
The military-industrial complex is a political economy with a big P and a little E. It's very political in nature. Economic decisions, which should prevail in a normal market system, don't prevail in the Pentagon, or in the military-industrial complex.
So what we have is a system that essentially rewards its senior players. It's a self ... what we call it, we have a term for it, it's a self-licking ice cream cone. We basically take care of ourselves. And that's why we have the metaphor that it's Versailles on the Potomac. It is basically self-referencing.

Apologies to Mr. Robert Kaplan, as I am borrowing the above term from an article he wrote a few years ago following a visit to Afghanistan. When Mr. Kaplan referred to the "self-licking ice cream cone", he was specifically referring to Bagram Air Field, which by that time had become swollen with various Army and Air Force support personnel who seemed to have no real impact on the war effort. They basically existed to justify their own existence.

 

I have heard that the battery life on the PRO was unsat when considering a long haul international flight.

My forecast seniority is also showing negative for the last couple of years. Must be a database error.

 

I just heard it from a captain. Take it or leave IMHO.

Oh, do you have the link? That sounds AWESOME :P

As I have read, Delta mostly does hiring from the inside. I'm new to the airline stats and how they work :/

Exp: PPL w/ Instrument :P

Warthog