Author: Matthew G. Saroff

Reasons for Massive Nuclear Strike Now Include US Dick Swinging

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The FAS has a has obtained new nuclear strike guidelines developed by the Bush administration:

The 2001 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) and White House guidance issued in response to the terrorist attacks against the United States in September 2001 led to the creation of new nuclear strike options against regional states seeking to acquire weapons of mass destruction, according to a military planning document obtained by the Federation of American Scientists.

It should be noted that this is not about one or two nukes, it’s about a massive nuclear strike on the country targeted.

The creation of a “target base” indicates that the planning went further than simple retaliatory punishment with one or a few weapons, but envisioned actual nuclear warfighting intended to annihilate a wide range of facilities in order to deprive the states the ability to launch and fight with WMD. The new plan formally broadened strategic nuclear targeting from two adversaries (Russia and China) to a total of seven.

The second draft from March 2005 listed five scenarios where use of nuclear weapons might be requested:

  • To counter an adversary intending to use weapons of mass destruction against U.S., multinational, or allies forces or civilian populations;
  • To counter an imminent attack from an adversary’s biological weapons that only effects from nuclear weapons can safely destroy;
  • To attack on adversary installations including weapons of mass destruction, deep, hardened bunkers containing chemical or biological weapons, or the command and control infrastructure required for the adversary to execute a WMD attack against the United States or its friends and allies; [this was probably the “target base” in OPLAN 8044 Revision 03]
  • To counter potentially overwhelming adversary conventional forces;
  • To demonstrate U.S. intent and capability to use nuclear weapons to deter adversary WMD use.

(emphasis mine)
Let’s be clear about this, the last line basically says that we will engage in a massive nuclear first strike as an exercise in dick swinging. Basically, it allows for nuclear strikes to show that we are willing to make nuclear strikes.

If you are not terrified by Bush and his Rapture driven nuclear policies, I want whatever it is that you are smoking.

Hack Allows Apple’s Leopard OS to Run on PCs

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Personally, I’m not interested in Macs, I’m a PC guy, my interest here is that I like to see companies with arrogant restrictions in their licenses get owned,

For those of you who who do care, I’m not so sure how much it would matter that Leopard can be made to run on PCs either. After all, you have the hardware.

In either case, I find this interesting from a purely voyeuristic perspective.

OK, I Was Right, How Did I Do That?

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Remember when I said that “Maybe they know that there is some level of bullsh&% in the figures that they cannot trust.” In response to why the Fed would cut rates when the economy was growing at a brisk 3.9% growth rate? I also noted that the markets felt the same way too. The dow fell something like 350 points.

Well, Barry Ritholtz of
The Big Picture gives us all the specifics on what happened. It appears that a measure of inflation, “the price deflator rose a much less than expected .8% vs expectations of 2%.”

Essentially, this is a measure of inflation, and is used to separate out real growth from inflation. By lowering the price deflator, you count inflation as real growth.

The average of the price index since Q1 2004 to Q2007 was 2.98, ranging froma low of 1.7% to a high of 4.2%. Thus, if the deflator matched consensus, it would have generated a GDP of 1.9%; if it was at its recent 3 year average of 2.98%, GDP would be ~1%.

See the graph, and notice the WTF: point.

This I think, is the difference between an amateur (me) and a professional (Mr. Ritholtz). I knew in my gut that something was off, but a professional can tell where, and how.

Petraeus Plagiarized His Manual

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Should come as no surprise that a man who has spent his entire career as a REMF*, only to be tagged as the next coming of Sargent Alvin York by the wingnuts, plagiarized significant portions of the counter-insurgency manual that he “authored”.

While agree that a military doctrine manual need not be as meticulously footnoted as a PhD thesis, but direct quotes should be marked as such, and any source should be in the bibliography, if just to help people who might want to tweak this later.

India Test-Fires Nuclear Capable Missile

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While we are trying to cut a sweet deal for Westinghouse and the rest of the moribund nuclear power industry, India continues to advance their military nuclear arsenal, this time with a test-fiuring of the Agni-1 missile.

Truth be told, I believe India’s nuclear arsenal to be reasonably secure. The problem is that as they develop this arsenal, Pakistan feels compelled to develop their nuclear arsenal, and I think that the whole of Pakistan is insecure.

Edwards Proposed 2 Year Ban on Direct to Consumer Drug Ads

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I’m not sure if the courts would shoot this one down, the SCOTUS lately has been very much in favor of “commercial speech”, but it could be tied to the expedited drug approval processes used. His point is a valid one though, many of these drugs have, at best, a limited improvement on effectiveness for some people (tests on blood pressure medication found no benefit from the newer drugs.

It is the consumer who pays for these ads, both just covering the costs, and through people demanding new drugs from their doctors when the old drug works as well.

Municipal Wi-Fi and Broadband Bans Overturned in Senate Markup

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There are a number of states in which the pig felching greedheads in the phone companies have managed to make municipal broadband and WI-Fi illegal, and a number of other states where they are trying to.

We have good news, the Senate Commerce Committee has passed a bill out to the floor that overturns these laws with broad bipartisan support.

Bad news is that there is no similar effort right now in the house, so call your congresscritter, and tell them to support the Community Broadband Act.

Waterboard Schumer and Feinstein* for Supporting Mukasey

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Normally, I’d go with something “earthier” but, I’m trying not to be crude.

They are voting to support Mukasey’s Nomination.

With Shcumer, I think that it’s just that he doesn’t want to admit that he’s wrong. As to Feinstein, she always seems to do this. I think that it may come from the fact that when she first (or 2nd, I can’t recall) she ran against some Republican Rich pig, and had to mortgage her house to have enough money to compete.

Her ostensible argument, that this is the best we could possibly expect, while likely true, is also not her real motivation. She’s gone this route way too many times for me to believe.

*Full disclosure, my great grandfather, Harry Goldman, and her grandfather, Sam Goldman were brothers.

Doughy Pantload 0|/n493 (Ownage)

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The Amazon entry for Jonah Goldberg’s book, Liberal Fascism, got hacked:
You can click for the full sized image (not taken by me), but the text reads “Liberal Fascism: The Totalitarian Temptation from When I Got My Advance Until I Finally Hand in the Manuscript in 2011.”

This is particularly amusing because even among the nepotism blessed children of the original Neocons, Goldberg is an embarrassment.