Author: Matthew G. Saroff

Obama Just Pissed Me Off

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I have been an involuntary student of conditions on the Autism spectrum by virtue of my son having Aspergers (see here, here, and here), so I have looked at the evidence (see here and here) and it is clear that there is no link.

I’ve also lambasted people who are putting their community and children at risk, because they are stupid and unthinking, which would, of course, include McCain’s claim that there is an explicit link.

Well, now we have Obama saying that the science is not yet settled on Autism and vaccines. While he does so in the context of promising additional funding for early interventions (BTW, Hillary was first on suggesting funding for this), by promoting this junk science, junk science that has sickenes thousands of children in the US every year, he pisses me off.

There are (very small) risks to vaccines, which is why the US government has a vaccine fund, but Autism is not one of them.

The anti-vaccine folks should be treated with nothing but disdain, much like the nut-job Mullahs in Northern Nigeria who sabotaged the polio eradication project because they thought it a secret plan to sterilize them.

Begich Makes It Official, He’s Running Against Stevens in Alaska

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Mark Begich will be running against Ted Stevens.

It’s been pretty much a done deal since February, and considering the fact that Stevens has gone from Uncle Pork to criminal in the voters minds, it’s a reasonable chance for a Dem pickup.

It helps that Begich is Mayor of Anchorage, as he will have an organization there, and around 45% of Alaska’s population live in the city, and around 57% of the population lives in the greater Anchorage metro area.

His campaign site is here.

Congresscritters Missing the Forest for the Trees

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So, Reps. Neil Abercrombie, D-HI, Lynn Westmoreland, R-GA have decided that a Congressional investigation of the college football bowl system is warranted.

They are missing the bigger point, which is that the US taxpayer is funding NCAA Division I sports are not a non profit activity, they are a for profit activity in which a cartel of institutions have conspired to prevent their employees, so-called “student atheletes”, from being paid, and for which alumni donations are tax deductible.

Even Now, Bush and His Evil Minions™ Can Leave Me Dumbstruck

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Every time that I think that the Bush Administration can’t get any more self serving venal and incompetent, they rais the bar.

This time, it’s the worst National Security Adviser ever, shortly to be the worst Secretary of State ever, Condoleeza Rice, who has just basically called Muqtada al-Sadr a c@cks#cker.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice mocked anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr as a coward on Sunday, hours after the radical leader threatened to declare war unless U.S. and Iraqi forces end a military crackdown on his followers.

Rice, in the Iraqi capital to tout security gains and what she calls an emerging political consensus, said al-Sadr is content to issue threats and edicts from the safety of Iran, where he is studying. Al-Sadr heads an unruly militia that was the main target of an Iraqi government assault in the oil-rich city of Basra last month, and his future role as a spoiler is an open question.

“I know he’s sitting in Iran,” Rice said dismissively, when asked about al-Sadr’s latest threat to lift a self-imposed cease-fire with government and U.S. forces. “I guess it’s all-out war for anybody but him,” Rice said. “I guess that’s the message; his followers can go too their deaths and he’s in Iran.”

This from a woman unwilling to announce her visits to Iraq in advance, who spends her whole time in a heavily fortified walled city, and has something like 1000 soldiers, and an equal number of mercenaries protecting her.

Un f#$@ing believable.

Worst President Ever

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GW Bush’s popularity is now has a 28% approve and 69% disapprove ratings, the worst ever.

The previous low was held by Harry Truman in Jan 1952 of 67% disapproval, and no doubt the 28% dead-enders will make comparisons, but the Avignon president is no Harry Truman.

66% of Republicans still approve of his job, once again showing C=MI*, though if they are true to form, they will all pretend to have hated him for most of his term within 18 months of his leaving office.

The pathological need to support the person in charge is a disturbing part of the human makeup.

*Conservatism=Mental Illness

B-2s Back in Air

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B-2 Bombers are flying again after their “safety pause” (let’s not call it a grounding).

Also, according to Aviation Week, while grounded, orders went out for an undisclosed component to be inspected, which is believed to be a part of the flight control system.

It could be an air data sensor, or an actuator, or something in the stabilization augmentation system, or pretty much any sensor or actuator in the flight controls, but my guess (and my record on this sucks just as badly as everything else) is something in the fuel system associated with center of gravity management.

Thielert’s Troubles: Criminal Investigations, and a Cash Crunch

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There are maybe one of two of you out there who recall a couple of posts (here and here) just under a year ago about Thielert, a company that seemed to be on the verge of “great things” with its line of turbocharged diesel commercial aircraft engines.

While the tech might still be first rate, and it does sound so, the company appears to be in serious financial, and possibly legal, trouble.

It appears that the company may be very near insolvency, either through booking non existent orders to puffing up the balance sheet, or through customers who are seriously late in making payments for products that are already shipped.

My money is on the second, as two (perhaps all) of the management board have been dismissed by the board of directors.

It’s a pity. It’s nice well developed tech.

Economics Update

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It’s official, we’re in a recession, because Bush is denying that we are in a recession – Apr. 22, 2008.

For more direct evidence of a recession, we have American drivers cutting back on driving and gasoline usage. When Americans stop driving, it means that the recession is here…big time.

In energy, oil broke $119/bbl, $110/bbl now appears to be the new $100/bbl

Across the border, Canadian Central Bank cut rates by 50 basis points, but even so, the Canadian dollar is still above parity with the US dollar, but they are definitely seeing the fallout from the US downturn.

In other currency matters, the dollar weakened to above $1.60:€1.00, though it’s now about $1.5992.

At the beginning of the year, it was $1.48 or so.

In things related to banking and real estate, we have to start with the elephant in the room, that GSEs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are looking increasingly at risk, and a potential bailout would run to over $1 trillion, which might threaten the US government’s AAA rating.

Generally, bank profits are tanking, so it should come as no surprise that banks are retrenching.

Notably, Bank of America will be ending subprime operations, and tightening generally on mortgage standards, which makes it hard to understand why it’s buying Countrywide.

Citi needs more capital, so it’s offerring $6.2 billion in hybrid bonds, at 8.4%, with an A2 rating.

Hybrid bonds are….are….Ummm, a sort of hybrid between preferred stock and bonds…I’m confused, and they are described as “innovative”. I’ll try to get more information, but in the meantime, run away.

Finally, the Fed bailout of banks continues apace, reaching $360 billion with the sale yesterday.

No

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I believe that the Ken Silverstein’s analysis in Harpers Magazine, that “

The only way to reach a political settlement in the Middle East is for an American president to pressure Israel to make concessions.

” is deeply wrong.

Negotiations are an artifact of power, both current and future, and frequently neither side is completely sure of their power, particularly in the future.

By providing the realistic possibility of a deus ex machina, the intervention of the US, EU, and Russia actually make realistic negotiation less likely, because at their core, negotiations are an artifact of power, and by adding an external pressures, you distort the positions held by the principals.

One need only look at the “mediation” performed by Thabo Mbeki in Zimbabwe to see the downside of this.

Because the Palestinians and Israelis expect an external intervention, any, “last best offer” is likely to demand far more than they would otherwise, because both sides expect that a “road map” will favor the Palestinians, so an Israeli keep concessions in their back pocket, because they expect that they will be pushed beyond their final offer, and the Palestinians keep concessions in their back pocket for the same reason.

Certainly, the US (and EU, and Russia) can in some manner or another take upon themselves to act as guarantors of a final status agreement (a peacekeeping/border force, economic aid for an eventual Palestinian state, etc.), but when you have two negotiating that have an expectation of significant external intervention, it interferes with the basic function of negotiations.

I would also note that Carter’s trip comes exactly the wrong time. With 9 months left in the Bush regime, and the rest of the world considering Bush and His Evil Minions™ both disastrously incompetent and bellicose, nothing is going to move, because both sides in this dispute cannot see his successor as being any worse.

Senator, You are a Clueless Jerk, the Not-Lieberman Edition

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It’s not Lieberman, but it should come as no surprise that I am referring to the distinguished gentleman from Delaware, Joseph Biden….What the heck is it with Senators named “Joe”?

A prominent Senate Democrat on Wednesday said federal and local police should use custom software to monitor peer-to-peer networks for illegal activity, and he wants to spend $1 billion in tax dollars to help make that happen.

Of course, you have the obligatory screaming about Child Pr0n and terrorism, but it’s really about donations from the RIAA and the MPAA.

Additionally, the tracking method proposed, using MAC addresses, is fairly easily spoofed.

Moron.

A plea to both campaigns: Please do not select this blithering idiot as your Vice Presidential running mate.

Good Analysis of the Campaign

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Big Media Matt nails it, Hillary Clinton is a long shot, and so she will take some hail Mary’s.

When you consider the fact that Al Gore first raised the Willie Horton issue in 1988, and the shots that Gephardt took at Dean in Iowa, and the comments by Dean that Kerry was using Republican tactics, it’s still pretty mild stuff, but there will be some poo flinging.

That being said, every piece of poo flung by her is less likely to be a story in November, because it’s old news.

US May Prevent Shipments Eurofighter Typhoons to House of Saud

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It appears that the issue here is not technology transfer, but the corruption allegations swirling around the deal that have put the transfer at risk.

The Department of Justice has problems with the roughly $1 billion in “consultancy fees” to Prince Bandar, aka “Bandar Bush”. See here, here, here, here, and here for my earlier thoughts on this.

I don’t see anything happening to Prince Bandar until after January 2009, because of his remarkably close ties to the Bush clan, and truth be told, I don’t see anything beyond embarrassment happening to him until the violent revolution that seems inevitable in the lands of the House of Saud.

Tanker Update

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Here is some interesting scuttlebutt on the tanker challenge.

Two items, one is that the USAF has moved to have the GAO dismiss the challenge in its entirety, which is not unexpected, and the second is that USAF “Red Teamed” the bid process in response to the prior contract, the lease deal which imploded in corruption convictions and jail times for USAF and Boeing officials.

Well, the NorGrum official told me that for a month and a half, the Air Force convened a Red Team of the Army and Navy’s top procurement officers, staffers from Pentagon acquisition chief John Young’s office and Pentagon IG officials at Wright Patterson Air Force base. The team was tasked with poking holes in the contract process to make sure there could be no protest from either side on how the Air Force handled the competition.

I believe this report, because after the first tanker contract came down, and Boeing screwed it up by getting too greedy, which is what got the investigation going in the first place, I could see people from the top to the bottom of the chain of command having, “Don’t f&^% it up this time,” as an imperative

Great MoDo Takedown

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Maybe the best ever, but deconstructing the bitchy bitter and generally stupid woman that is Maureen Dowd is a very rich lode of material.

In any case, Kathy G., who describes herself as “A shrill feminist, bleeding heart liberal, hardcore policy wonk, political junkie, ardent cinephile, and lover of 19th century novels.” does a very good job in explaining what is wrong with MoDo. An excerpt:

But there’s another problem with the opening sentence of the Dowd column. “I’m not bitter.” Oh Maureen — who the hell do you think you’re kidding? The woman positively soaks in bitterness. Marinates in it. It oozes out of her pen and pours into just about every damn word she writes. Her bitterness has utterly corroded her soul. It’s turned her into a twisted freak whose chief pleasure in life seems lie in vicious, barking-mad attacks on the only people capable of ending our long national nightmare — the Democrats. Seriously, if there is any other single person in the media who’s been a more powerful enabler of Republican high crimes and misdemeanors than Modo, I don’t know who it is.

No go read.

And could someone explain to me how the hell she ever got a job as a columnist? Dowd writes about things like health care policy with all the depth of a girl who wants to be in the “in crowd” in high school talks about some lesser being’s choice in shoes at the prom.

Classics in Congressional Oversight of Defense Procurement

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I have no clue why I missed this the first time, but I came across Steve Trimble’s Flight International blog post, and I realized that this is a classic of its kind.

Truth be told, Congressional oversight of defense procurement is not a particularly broad category, but this classic. Keith Olbermann should be notified.

The background: the USAF and Army aviation are both purchasing same cargo aircraft to do transport to austere airfields, the Joint Cargo Aircraft (JCA), and the aircraft selected was the Alenia C-27J.

It’s basically to serve the role as the C-130’s little brother, see pic:

The problem is that their budgets Army is saying that it will cost $30 million a pop, and the USAF is claiming that it will cost $60 million a pop.

Obviously something is very very wrong here. While differences in cost between services can result from differences in how life cycle costs are viewed, with one service looking to assign more of the lifetime costs to the initial purchase price than the other, a difference of 100% simply does not pass the smell test.

There are two obvious reasons that this might happen:

  • That one service is attempting to bring unrelated budget items in the procurement.
  • That one service is attempting to kill or minimize the purchase.

Given that this is a joint program between the USAF and the US Army, my money would be on both. They like bigger planes, and the thought of their sharing a program with the Army must give them the hives.

So Neil Abercrombie (D-HI) notices this discrepency, and decides to ask the USAF acquisition chief, Sue Payton, about this.

In any case, here is the meat of the exchange:

REP. ABERCROMBIE: Ms. Payton, you are right on the edge of getting into the Blues Brothers.

MS. PAYTON: Sorry sir, I don’t mean to be there. I —

REP. ABERCROMBIE: That’s when — when Jake says, Bill, but you lied to us about the band. They lied to me when I was in prison about the band. You haven’t kept the band together. He goes, I never lied to you. I bullsh$#ted you a little bit, but I never lied to you.

MS. PAYTON: Sir, I would never give any misinformation —

REP. ABERCROMBIE: No, you are saying that the Army is doing that.

MS. PAYTON: No, sir. I believe that —

REP. ABERCROMBIE: You are trying to finesse us. You are telling me they’ve got a cost that they know about, but they are not telling us about it, and are trying to pretend their unit cost and given information to us is the same as your unit cost, and they know better.

(Emphasis mine)

Somewhere out there, John Belushi is smiling.

You can see the rest of the exchange here, and Ms. Payton gets the worst of the exchange.