I think that this is the background of this report of statements by the SecDef and Chairman of the JCS that call the aircraft irrelevant and expensive.
Unfortunately, I think that we will continue to see lobbying about it until definitive orders are given, and officers who lobby against those orders are fired.
Yes, it now appears that there is no segment of the finance industry too opaque to receive aid from the Federal Reserve.
This time, it’s hedge funds that are the recipient of Helicopter Ben’s largesse, being allowed access to the $200 billion Term Asset-backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF).
This is like lending Sweeney Todd money to open a combined barber – butcher school.
So, it now appears that the 24 interior ministry officers arrested for either plotting a coup, or plotting to revive the Baath party have been released.
I believe that Robert Farley’s analysis is spot on.
There never was a coup or a Baath party plot, there was just a power grab by Nouri al Maliki, and when too many people called him out on this, he folded.
Not sure what this means, though it will make the next round of elections in Iraq interesting.
Which generally means that I don’t write about it.
As I have said about She Who Must Not Be Named, and They Who Must Not Be Named:
Absent some sort of political activity, such as endorsements, running for office (PLEASE GOD NO!!), or their attempting to assassinate someone, she will not be mentioned here.
So why am I writing about the arrest of Sherry L. Johnston on drug charges that appear to be associated with possession or distribution of Oxycontin.
Why am I writing about a small time drug bust in the small town of Wasilla, Alaska….Hold it….Wasilla, where Sarah Palin comes from, and Johnston, like the guy, Levi, who knocked up her teenage daughter?
Yes, Sherry L. Johnston is Levi’s mom….And Levi Johnston and and Bristol Palin are still engaged to be married, and her baby is due today, though a quick scan of the ADN web site shows that the birth has not yet been anounced.
So, why am I mentioning it?
Let’s see:
So, yes, this is noteworthy, particularly if your name is Jay Leno, Conan O’Brien, David Letterman, or Jon Stewart.
Mike Connel was Karl Rove’s IT guy, and had been described as the GOP’s, “high IQ Forrest Gump” by lawyers investigating allegations of GOP vote manipulation for his presence at almost every instance of voting irregularities, and now he has been killed in a plane crash. He was the only one on the plane at the time of the crash. (see also here)
He was also a source for the Managing Editor for investigative news at Raw Story.
Before his death, his lawyers alleged that he and his family were threatened by Karl Rove.
How utterly convenient.
One of the basics of law, in the US at least, is that ISPs are viewed as common carriers, which means that, much like phone companies, they are not responsible for activity that takes place on their networks.
Much like the phone company is not responsible for people who, for example, plan a bank robbery over their network, so the ISPs are not responsible if these same people were to do so using email or VOIP.
Well, the good folks at the RIAA* have come up with a way to put an end to this legal arrangement, which has served telecommunications for over 100 years now.
Basically, they have decided to abandon their strategy of suing grandmothers for multimillion dollar lawsuits based on dubious data, and instead, they are asking ISPs to take responsibility for the actions that people take through their networks, and threaten them and disconnect them, based on the same bogus data.:
Instead, the Recording Industry Association of America said it plans to try an approach that relies on the cooperation of Internet-service providers. The trade group said it has hashed out preliminary agreements with major ISPs under which it will send an email to the provider when it finds a provider’s customers making music available online for others to take.
Depending on the agreement, the ISP will either forward the note to customers, or alert customers that they appear to be uploading music illegally, and ask them to stop. If the customers continue the file-sharing, they will get one or two more emails, perhaps accompanied by slower service from the provider. Finally, the ISP may cut off their access altogether.
So, they are getting ISPs to agree to take legal responsibility for this, and exposing these same ISPs to legal jeopardy from their customers when they get this wrong.
This is, as Matthew Yglesias frequently notes, a consequence of a lack of understanding of what IP in general, and copyright in particular are actually about.
The purpose of IP is not about the creation of property, nor the guarantee of profits, its purpose is one of public interest. To quote the pertinent section of the US Constitution:
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.
(emphasis mine)
Or, as Yglesias puts it:
But boosting album sales is not a legitimate public policy objective. Nor is boosting record company profits. Nor, even tough musicians themselves are a much more sympathetic claimant than record company shareholders, is boosting musician incomes. The purpose of intellectual property law is to protect the interests of consumers. I’ve never seen anybody attempt to argue that people aren’t forming new bands or recording new songs anymore. Nor have I seen anybody attempt to argue that it’s more difficult today to find new music to listen to than it was ten or twenty years ago. In fact, the reverse is the case. The very trends toward digitization and file-copying have made music much more widely available than it was in the past.
Of course, the folks always trot out this graph showing declining album sales, but, as the other Matthew notes, selling albums is not the business of the US government.
Additionally, this is not a graph of album sales, but a graph of album shipments, and the record companies have improved inventory system over the past decade, using software to predict sales, so they ship fewer albums to stores, and get fewer returns.
As if we did not already know that they were lying sacks of sh%$, they are attempting to use new efficiencies in distribution to create the illusion that “pirates” are “destroying their industry”.
*And by, “good folks at the RIAA,” I mean, “bunch of mindless jerks who’ll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes.”
Basically, the Dutch government is disputing the amount of kickbacks that are supposed to accrue to it over JSF production.
This is not illegal, or necessarily corrupt, the money is going back to the taxpayer, not an individual politician, but as part of the industrial arrangement, the Dutch government gets profit sharing, hence my earlier comment about their being paid to buy the fighter, and they are now saying that the concerns manufacturing JSF components owe them about €300 million, so they are taking them to court.
In a real way, it’s yet another indicator of how screwed defense procurement has become. It’s like dope dealers fighting over their percentages.
Needless to say this represents a significant upgrade to Iran’s air defense capabilities:
One of the world’s most advanced air defense missiles, the S-300PMU1 Favorit (SA-20 Gargoyle), is designed to protect fixed sites against missile and air attacks. The system uses wheeled transporters for mobility. The Favorit system fires the 48H6E2 interceptor missile, updated with improved guidance algorithms, an improved warhead and enhanced ECCM capabilities. The system detects targets at ranges of up to 300 km and can handle up to 100 simultaneous tracks. Up to 36 interceptor missiles can engage targets simultaneously. Aircraft targets can be engaged between 3 and 200 km, and missiles can be intercepted at ranges of 5 – 40 km, and from 30 to 90,000 feet in altitude.
Against a stealthy target you could figure an engagement range in the 15 km range, based on the engagement distance being proportional to the 4th route of RCS, which means that they are not particularly effective for area defense, but for point defense of a specific target (nuclear facility) it could complicate the attack.
First a report of sale, now a report of delivery, in the space of a week and it looks like some are going to the Syrians too, though it appears to be a fixed installation geared toward protecting a Russian naval base at Tartous, and it is unclear as to whether the operators would be Russian or Syrian.
The 11,000 hp turboprop intended for the EADS A400M transport, and the flight by the C-130 testbed aircraft is well over a year late.
The aircraft flew a bit of an hour, and flight envelope expansion is hoped to proceed briskly….Though I would not put any money on that.
Well this has epic FAIL written all over it:
According to a solicitation released earlier this week by the coalition headquarters at Bagram Airfield, the military is looking for a contractor to run something called the “Armed Contractor Oversight Directorate.” The work statement says the new office will be responsible for tracking private security companies (PSCs) — and keeping tabs on how often they resort to force.
If our army is so hollow that we need to hire mercenaries to supervise mercenaries…
Just so you know, that sound that you hear is Franz Kafka turning over in his grave.
¼ scale remote control WWII tank replicas, complete with rotating turrets and elevating guns. They can actually pull a car on level ground.
I’d prefer a Panther or T-34 to the Tiger II shown, but that’s just me.
I won’t get it though….With all the options they top out at £10,000.
Obviously, it’s from the vendor, and as such should be viewed as fluff, but it’s eye catching fluff.
Which is why, to no one’s surprise, the Dutch have decided that the JSF best suits their needs.
You’d have to be an idiot to not know that it was a done deal. After as Bill Sweetman notes, the Dutch were using PowerPoint slides lifted directly from Lockheed-Martin as a part of their evaluation.
The good Mr. Sweetman also notes that there were numerous errors int he comparison, and they all cut in favor of the JSF.
When one looks at the industrial offsets to Holland, it’s pretty clear that there is more money flowing in than flowing out.
As such, it would have been insane to expect any other result.
Boeing has announced that it’s Hummingbird drone has has successfully changed the final drive ratio of its transmission in flight, which will allow two rotor speed settings, one being about ½ of the other.
It turns out that slower rotational speeds work better at hover and low speeds, but limit forward speed, because of retreating blade stall, and most helos therefore operate as a compromise. (The A160T set its record in slow rotor mode).
All in all, this program is moving along at a blindingly fast pace, with US special forces already making purchases of the diminutive helicopter.
Boeing’s PR is here.
Well, I guess any landing that you can walk away from…..
On the theory that if it bleeds, it leads, the lead story here is the shooting of the commander of the Zimbabwe Air Force known to be a close ally of Mugabe, in an apparent assassination attempt.
I would be unsurprised if there were more of this.
I am also unsurprised at the African Union’s decision to ratchet up measures against Mugabe and the ZANU-PF. There is a lot of, “There but for the grace of God, go I,” in what has been going on there.
In any case, some things stay the same, like Thabo Mbeki still working for power sharing, and never once laying an ounce of blame on either Mugabe or the ZANU-PF.
I have no clue why anyone in their right mind would treat him with anything but contempt.
Mugabe is attempting to put forward his false “unity government”, by publishing a the government law (it’s a parliamentary thing), though the MDC majority in parliament has no intention of ever taking taking it to the floor.
The same can be said for Mugabe’s “asking” Tsvangirai to allow himself to be sworn in as PM.
Under the current power sharing arrangement, both mean nothing.
In any case Mugabe is now suggesting that there be new elections, which would be even heavier on the violence than the prior ones no doubt.
Anyone who thinks that he will negotiate in good faith, need only look at the speech that he gave to the ZANU-PF annual conference, where he said, “Zimbabwe is mine.”
The only way we will see reform from him is if the sanctions against him are severe enough to coerce his agreement.
One sign that Mugabe is looking to step up the violence is that he is now claiming that the opposition is sponsoring a guerrilla war against him.
The idea of the state security forces of Zimbabwe being unleashed with the fig leaf of a counter-insurgency campaign is appalling.
It is thus no surprise that the MDC is threatening to leave unity talks, which I think is an attempt to get Mugabe to stop disappearing opposition leaders.
Finally, it appears that the cholera epidemic is getting worse.
Well, at the time that I am typing this, Franken lead over Coleman is in excess of 250.
So, when the votes go against you, what do you do, you go to court, claiming that the votes were counted twice, only the Coleman campaign has a twist: what they are claiming would not only throw out some votes, but would reset the counter on the precincts in question, all of which are Franken precincts, my guess, back to election night tallies.
In the meantime, another of Coleman’s moves, reinstating some challenges that he had previously withdrawn, has netted Franken 3 votes…..Karma, neh?
Well, we now have an Iraqi judge stating that he was beaten, and both Sunni and Shia clerics are calling for his release.
It appears that there is increasing support at all levels of Iraqi society for his “Shoe d’Etat”, and while I still don’t rate his survival chance high, but I think that his chances of getting out of this breathing are getting better.
So now, the least watched channel in the history of cable has decided to follow Bloomberg’s lead and sue the Federal Reserve for more information on who is getting their bailout money.
Truth be told, I think that I published this just for the picture.
Well, it looks like the right wing is going batsh%$ insane about Rick Warren giving the prayer at the convention too.
Debbie Schlussel (no link directly to her, she makes Michell Malkin look like Mother Theresa) is freaking out claiming that Rick Warren is a Syrian sympathiser, and she actually posts a picture of him getting or giving an an award from/to Bashir al Assad:
What’s next? Is this guy going to be caught on tape discussing a bribe with Blago?
