This is a remarkable statement from a member of the Kuwaiti government.
They are concerned that the US will take unilateral military action against Iran, which would destabilize the region.
This is of particular note because Kuwait is the strongest Arab ally in the region, and firmly Sunni and hostile to Iran.
When you’ve lots Kuwait, you’ve lost everyone.
This was not a lucky shot or roadside bomb…this was a deliberate can extensively planned assault that killed 9 US troops.
They assaulted this base base with a large number of insurgents over a period of hours (see also here).
This sort of large and well organized operation shows a capability that the Taliban has not demonstrated before, and I can’t help but think that this is a prelude to a more ambitious operation.
Here’s am interesting take on the financial health of Citigroup.
The new CEO says that shrinking its $2.2 trillion balance sheet is a priority. By this he means that he wants to minimize potential liabilities, but he neglects to mention an additional $1.1 trillion in entities that are off the balance sheet, in things like trusts, financing vehicles, and CDOs.
The US system needs a major clean up and some sunlight, but companies like Citi resemble vampires, or at least some suffering from severe porphyria.
Showing the light of day to these financial concerns will kill many of them.
So, we now have the official public request.
I think that the immediate result will be a massive increase of violence directed toward the UN peacekeepers, and Chinese vetoes against anything further in the security council.
I suggest that you read it and draw your own conclusions.
As for me, the “residual force” thing gives me the willies.
I’m kind of wondering what took them so long. “Missing too many votes” is a classic Republican attack, and calling McCain AWOL should be effective.
There are now reports that the negotiators have given up on a long term status of forces agreement in Iraq.
It appears that the Iraqis want a time table, and Bush and His Evil Minions™ are unwilling to do that, so they will patch something together short term, and the next president will handle what happens next.
It looks like they are going to fix some things, particularly pre-payment penalties on abusive loans, requiring escrowing taxes, etc.
It’s not much, but it’s a start.
While writing on the impending bailouts of the GSEs he notes that:
The reality is that the U.S. has invested too much – especially in the last eight years – in building its stock of wasteful housing capital (whose effect on the productivity of labor is zero) and has not invested enough in the accumulation of productive physical capital (equipment, machinery, etc.) that leads to an increase in the productivity of labor and increases long run economic growth.
This is exactly the problem.
In fact the problem is more general. Our economy is no longer producing goods and service of value as a means of activity. Instead it is moving towards arbitrage, and at some point, there will be too many balls in the air for it to continue.
For all I know, it may already have happened.
Bush is threatening a veto, but given the current economic and electoral environment, I doubt that it will actually come to that.
Well, the Czechs have signed a deal with the US to install an ABM radar which is clearly directed at least as much at the Russia as at Iran, and they are shocked to discover that there are problems with oil deliveries:
Shipments to Czech oil refineries through the Druzhba pipeline, which ties Siberian fields to the Czech Republic, are declining, the Czech Ministry of Industry and Trade said. It did not say by how much.
You sign off on a policy that is pretty explicitly threaten Russia, and you are surprised when they retaliate?
What planet are you on?
I get occasional readers from France, so I’m wishing both of them a happy Bastille Day!
Cynthia McKinney got the Green Party nomination.
I have had discussions with her constituents, and it’s clear that she is a smaller version of George W. Bush.
She is where she is because of who her daddy was, and her tenure as a member of congress was disastrous. When things needed to be done in the district, regardless of which side the political divide you were on, meeting were scheduled to make sure she could not attend, because she would screw up any consensus and generally throw fits.
I don’t think that this is the year to vote for a 3rd party candidate, but I consider that to be a matter of the reader’s personal conscience, particularly in safe states like Texas or Massachusetts.
However I strongly suggest that voting for this third party candidate is a betrayal of your obligation to cast your vote in a meaningful way.
She was right about distrusting Bush, but a stopped clock is right twice a day.
Check out her record. Talk with her former constituents, and then vote for someone else.
| 12:10 AM |
As I have blogged before, Amity Shlaes is a complete pratt, which explains why this was published in the craptacular Washington Post OP/ED pages.
I have no clue as to her basic level of intellect, she could simply be that stupid, or be paid to say these things, but in either case, the effect is the same, that I would not trust her with any implement sharper than a bowling ball.
In this case, she is offering a full throated defense of Phil Gramm’s calling the US a nation of whiners, because people are worrying about the recession.
She offers a number of defenses:
Wrong when inflation is put in the measure, even the bogus core CPI that is used.
Again, disengenous at best, he said nation of whiners, and Gramm would never miss an opportunity to go after the now Democratic controlled Congress.
Again, losing a home is losing a home, and the increased level of leverage is an artifact increases in the price of a home which have been driven upward by policies to “increase home ownership”. Losing your home is losing your home.
Of course, as a wingnut, I would expect her to ignore that many of these problems came from legislation that was proposed by Gramm, so her ignoring the context, that the architect of the policies that created this crisis is complaining that we are “whining” about the economy, is part of her job description.
So, the GSE’s have now been told that they may avail themselves of the Fed’s discount window, the same thing that has been done for the investment banks.
Additionally, we have the Treasury Department saying that it would increase its line of credit to them, and that they will try to get permission to buy shares in the GSE’s in an emergency from Congress.
Government support has always been implied with the GSEs, it’s why they are government chartered institutions, though this is unfolding sooner, and more quickly than I would have anticipated.
FWIW, it appears to have calmed things on the Asian markets…for now.
Boeing has been working on stopped rotor concept helos, where the rotor is stopped and functions as a wing at high speed, for years, despite the crashes of both of its prototype X-50 canard rotor wing (CRW) demonstrators.
Well, it looks like they folks at Boeing, Mesa* have come up with a a less ambitious take on this concept that has not yet crashed.
It is significantly simplified, dispensing with the tip jet power for the main rotor, and using a conventional tail rotor, and the wings pivot, so as to reduce the amount that they reduce lift during takeoff.
Here we have:
Transition to low speed forward flight.
High speed compound helicopter mode.
Stopped rotor
*Formerly McDonnell Douglas helicopters, formerly Hughes Helicopter. They make the Apache.
The ground test program is largely complete, so P&W will be flying the engine shortly.
To celebrate, the Pratt and Whitney sales team came up with the stupidest promotional film I’ve ever seen for an aviation product, which truth be told, says a lot.
The Russians are now showing their SU-35 Flanker derivative prototype to air force officials and foreign representatives.
Note that, somewhat confusedly, this is the second aircraft designated Su-35.
These changes, along with other weight reductions in the airframe are supposed to, among other things, give supercruise capability, and it is expected to be fitted with some form of phased array radar.
I’m inclined to believe that the supercruise will be meaningful in air to air mode, if just because the aircraft carries so much fuel internally anyway that it will only be carrying 8 or so missiles in that configuration.
I think that the desire for supercruise is what drove them away from canards, likely increased transonic and supersonic drag a bit, though I am not an aerodynamicist.
It’s also has a new fly by wire flight control system, and so I’m a bit surprised that they haven’t reduced the size of the vertical tails a bit to cut down on weight and drag.
It should be an impressive aircraft, and competitive, particularly on price, in the export market.
Pull size pics at link.
It’s too soon to say bad things about him, so I have nothing to say.
Well, the lede here has to be that both China and Russia vetoed sanctions on Zimbabwe. They claim that it is unacceptable “meddling” in the internal affairs of a sovereign nation.
The MDC and ZANU-PF have started negotiations on who negotiations should proceed, which has shades of negotiating on the shape of the table in the 1960s, though with the support of China and Russia (and South Africa which also voted against the sanctions), I rather imagine not much will come of all this.