I have one thing to say, thank you Howard Dean.
I’m encouraged.
Author: Matthew G. Saroff
California Gay Marriage Amendment May Also Bans Straight Marriage
Looks like the Talibaptists may have screwed up, bit time:
Should voters approve the measure, Cruz said, offering another potential outcome, it could inadvertently affect traditional marriages. That’s because the amendment would undo only part of the court’s decision — allowing gay couples to marry — but not the rest, which says that same-sex couples cannot be recognized differently than opposite-sex couples, he said.
“If you’ve got those two rules — that you can’t let them marry, but you can’t give different options to gay and straight couples — then one possible outcome, if the amendment were to pass, is that no one could get married in California,” Cruz said.
Oopsie.
Dems Hold Lead in Polls in Alaska
The last time that Alaska was truly competitive for Democrats was shortly after I left, at age 6, in 1968, and now we have polls showing Begich leading Stevens and Berkowitz beating Young, and both the Republicans are incumbents, albeit fantastically corrupt ones.
Mark Begich (51%) – Ted Stevens (44%)
Eathan Berkowitz (58) – Don Young (38%)
I think that the good people of Alaska realize that these guys are an embarrassment.
Economics Update
The big news, though I’m not sure if it’s significant, is that, “The index of pending home resales rose 6.3 percent to 88.2, the highest level in six months.”
We are starting to see bargain hunters, but prices are still falling, and that is at the core of the housing bubble collapse. People are under water, and can’t sell to get out from under.
Review this article on , the price collapse of exurban McMansions. There is still a lot of pain to go, particularly since many of these homes are poorly built.
I wonder how many will end up multi-residential dwellings.
The dollar is down today, which implies further energy price increases and, eventually, higher interest rates.
Oil fell $4.19 today, which is not surprising after Friday’s spike, but retail gasoline prices rose again, to above $4.00/bbl. I filled up on the weekend at $3.93….I never knew that I lived in a low cost gas area.
Finally, Lehman lost $2.8 billion in Q1 of 2008, so this investment banks have a long way down to go.
Announcement at the Apple Conference
I really don’t give a damn. I don’t do high end phones, or Apple computers, so it doesn’t interest me.
No offense intended.
Why Patenting Genes is a Bad Idea
The first reason is that patents are for inventions, not discoveries, but the second reason is because we are allowing private firms to blackmail all of society for something that they did not do.
Patenting species and genes is a development in IP law that needs to be reversed, or billions will face malnutrition as a result.
SEIU Establishes $10M Political Punishment Fund
The Bush Blue Dog Democratic Caucus has spent too much time presenting only lip service to Democratic party goals. This move by the SEIU (scroll down) is a good start on dealing with the guys who forget the people what brung them after the elections:
In a move likely to upset some Democrats, the delegates approved an “accountability plan” in which the union would spend $10 million to pressure or punish political candidates who made pro-worker, pro-union promises, but broke them after being elected.
The union’s leaders cite a primary last February in which the service employees played an instrumental role in defeating Representative Albert Wynn, Democrat of Maryland, because the union thought he was favoring business over workers.
Abu Gonzalez Finally Gets a Job
Someone is finally willing to hire Alberto Gonzalez, U.S. District Judge Layn R. Phillips, who has hired him to assist on a patent case.
Reagan appointee.
Al Franken Gets DFL Party Endorsement for Senate
He got the required 60% on the first ballot. There is still a primary in September, but absent a dead girl/live boy* revelation, he is the nominee.
I guess that this decade is all about him, Al Franken.
Here’s hoping that he kicks that phony Norm Coleman, who is proof of that old adage, “If you can’t fool all of the people all of the time, you should start breeding them for stupidity.”†
*Edwin Edwards, when discovering that he would be facing David Duke in the Louisiana governor’s race, said that the the only way that he would lose were if he were, “caught in bed with a dead girl or a live boy”.
†Dave Sim, in his comic book Cerebus, some time around issue 20.
U.S. opens antitrust investigation into Intel
What took them so long.
Discounts for volume are fine. Discounts for not buying the competitors products, not so good.
B-2 Crash Cause Revealed
The cause, water on the air data sensors, giving the flight control inaccurate data.
There had been a previous incident on Guam when a pilot aborted takeoff, and the solution was to turn on pitot heaters to dry off the sensors, but this was never adopted as a formal part of the checklist.
It was an “underground procedure”.
You know, I would think that on an aircraft that is literally worth its weight in gold, that they would get their maintenance act together just a bit more.
USAF report here.
The video of the crash follows, with the 2nd aircraft being the one that crashed.
The Next Shoe to Drop for Banks
The loans that they made, which are now turning bad, to developers for the construction of subdivisions.
IndyMac tried to sell a $540 million loan portfolio, and it was ugly, “Winning bids on many of the loans were, on average, about 60 cents on the dollar, according to people familiar with the matter. But some winning bids were only about 20 cents on the dollar,” and there are a lot more loan packages, where the assets held by the developers are dropping in value, and even if the complete their projects no one wants to buy then.
This is why Office of Thrift Supervision noted that the number of S&Ls at “heightened risk of failure” has gone from12 in March to 17 now.
http://pic60.picturetrail.com/VOL1689/10590113/19633101/320274282.jpg
South Africa and Brazil Enter Joint Development for A-Darter Missile
South Africa has been working on this missile for some time, and the jount development agreement should bring some more resources to the project.
It’s clearly been delayed a bit, as the SAAF has purchased German IRIS-T missiles as an interim fit.
The A-Darter is a short range IR guided air to air missile, and appears rather similar to the British ASRAAM, with no forward wings, though it has thrust vector vanes in the exhaust, implying a bit more agility off the rail:
This would also imply a dual thrust motor, with low thrust in the first second or so, so as to allow for optimum operation of the thrust vector paddles.
First THAAD Battery Activated
I’m not sure how much notice this would ordinarily rate, but I worked on some issues with this, basically laying out some fixed basing concepts for allies who are trusted enough to operate the system.
Not sure who the client nation was.
I laid out THAAD, PAC-3, and Arrow cells.
Dutch to Participate in Initial Operational Test and Evaluation (IOT&E) for F-35
While the parliament has placed conditions, including a meaningful competition with other fighters, with the Gripen N being the primary competitor, I see this as the nail in the coffin for the prospect of buying another fighter…at least until they find that the F-35 is 2.5x more expensive than promised.
They have made a 10% down payment (that likely will be closer to (3-5%) for two JSFs to use in IOT&E, and once that happens, I see the Dutch AF as committed.
Noise and Existing Hangars Loom Large in Norwegian Fighter Competition
Norway is deciding between the upgraded Gripen-N and F-135 for a replacement for its F-16 fleet, and it appears that the F-35 may be significantly larger and noisier than they would like(Paid Subscription Required).
Aircraft noise and politically sensitive basing options may become decisive factors in Norway’s selection process for a new fighter aircraft to replace the country’s Lockheed Martin F-16s.
New information received from the two remaining contenders (Lockheed Martin’s F-35A and Saab’s enhanced Gripen-N) indicates that one (understood to be the F-35) is “significantly more noisy” than the other, senior government and military sources here say.
The information could mean that Norway’s Bodo Main Air Station, located right outside a major population center, gets ruled out as a future operating base if the F-35 is selected. Bodo is one of two active fighter bases in Norway, the other one being Oerland, which is in a sparsely populated area 50 mi. from Trondheim.
….
At Oerland, too, the F-35 appears to have one disadvantage compared to Gripen, which is that the U.S. jet is too bulky to fit inside the hardened aircraft shelters there (those at Bodo are larger). “The question is,” [State Secretary for Defense Espen Barth ]Eide allows, “does that really matter at a time when the trend is to no longer operate out of hardened facilities?”
Given that the F-35 is more than twice the gross weight, and roughly twice the thrust of the Gripen-N, basic physics say that it will be noisier.
U.S. Air Force Looks to Opening Up F-22 Sensors to Pentagon Network
As I’ve said before, the F-22 is a sort of roach motel for data. It collects data from its own sensors and other platforms, but nothing ever leaves, at least not in the current software drop.
It’s a legacy of its Cold War origins, where it was expected to operate in a post apocalyptic sky above a Europe in flames.
Well, it looks like the USAF is finalizing plans on how to rectify this problem (Paid Subscription Required).
They are looking at a number of different technologies to implement their, “IP-based advanced tactical data link (ATDL)”, “Tactical Targeting Network Technology (TTNT) wideband data link”, which transmits to ground stations for relay, the “Multifunction Advanced Data Link (MADL)”, which is more distributed and is slated for use in the F-35.
ATDL looks to be fielded somewhere in the 2014 time frame in any case.
Italy to Sign on Dotted Line for JSF
It looks like Italy will sign a contract for 2 F-35s this month (Paid Subscription Required) as a part of the, “initial operational test and evaluation phases of the JSF program”.
This is no surprise. Italy has always been on board, though some questions remain, specifically it’s mix between conventional and STOVL variants, and whether final checkout prior to delivery will be done in Italy.
France To Defer Second Carrier
Sarkosy has indicated that France is likely to push back procurement of a second carrier by 2-3 years: (Paid Subscription Required) for budget reasons.
Bacically, he’s saying that the decision will be pushed back until 2011-2012, which means that service entry would be delayed until 2017-2018.
Hillary Clinton Suspends Campaign Endorses Barack Obama
Despite what the moron pundits and bloggers who said that she wouldn’t, that’s what she did.