The Daily Diatribe is my soap box, if you will. I find myself writing regularly on Internet chat forums and I decided to make my own.

Who am I, you ask? Well, when I figure that out, I'll let you know! My name is Carl Andersen. As for what I've been up to the last 46 years, here's the short version: Grew up in suburban Minneapolis, Minnesota USA in a family of Scandavavian descent not too many generations separated from the old country. I attended public schools where I didn't do much studying and played football and track, but not very well. I later attended the University of Minnesota where I also accelled at avoiding study.

I've spent a total of about seven years serving the people of the United States in the federal government, both in and out of uniform. The rest I'd say I spent most of it as an "Aviation Practitioner" which is a term I use because I'm still not quite sure where I fit in. I just know I belong in aviation and flight training. I've been a flight instructor, helped develop and deliver the first training curriculum for Predator UAV crews, flown cargo, air taxi, airlines a couple times, corporate flight departments, and most recently, weather modification.

Of my 46 years, I've spent almost ten of them in Asia, Thailand mostly, along with Indonesia and China. I spent about six months in Europe (France and Belgium) in the Army in the early 1980's and have lived in South Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, and California along with my native Minnesota. I speak fluent Thai, average Chinese (Mandarin), and I'm still working on English.

I'm interested in economics, particularly the Austrian school, which believes in honest monetary systems, politics as they pertain to the owners manual we received with our country aka The Constitution of the United States, various conspiracies (as they are called by those uncomfortable with seeking truth), and aviation both practical and historical.

My immediate family consists of my wife, Christina, and our two sons, Erik (9) and Nathan (7). Erik after the Viking and Nathan after Nathan Hale. So far both seem to be aptly named.

The idea for The Daily Diatribe was born around 2001 or 2002, when I had just begun my first stint as an Airline Pilot with Mesaba Airlines. Our union, The Airline Pilots Association or “ALPA” was engaged in a protracted labor dispute with airline management. I found myself writing posts on the ALPA online forum translating for my colleagues some of the misinformation the airline management was feeding us. For example, we were being told that the airline was losing money and had to be supported by our “parent” airline, Northwest, in order to survive.

Since we were busy flying mostly full airplanes and being paid less than Metro Transit bus drivers, it was clear there was something the company wasn't telling us. It just didn't make sense. I wrote an article for the Redliner, our local ALPA Magazine, explaining how it was possible to make one very productive company in a group appear to lose money through the bookkeeping magic of “income splitting.” Over time, I began to write regular articles commenting on different aspects of the negotiations and the actions taken by the airline management, and found myself with a small following of readers who started asking me, “When is the next 'diatribe' coming out?”

Please join the forum so we can see together, "What's next?"