Author: Matthew G. Saroff

Skylon Development Continues Apace

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Aspiring space plane manufacturer Skylon is beginning test with their key heat exchanger technology:

UK engineers have begun critical tests on a new engine technology designed to lift a spaceplane into orbit.

………

Its major innovation is the Sabre engine, which can breathe air like a jet at lower speeds but switch to a rocket mode in the high atmosphere.

Reaction Engines Limited (REL) believes the test campaign will prove the readiness of Sabre’s key elements.

This being so, the firm would then approach investors to raise the £250m needed to take the project into the final design phase.

………

Sabre is part jet engine, part rocket engine. It burns hydrogen and oxygen to provide thrust – but in the lower atmosphere this oxygen is taken from the atmosphere.

The approach should save weight and allow Skylon to go straight to orbit without the need for the multiple propellant stages seen in today’s throw-away rockets.

………

But it is a challenging prospect. At high speeds, the Sabre engines must cope with 1,000-degree gases entering their intakes. These need to be cooled prior to being compressed and burnt with the hydrogen.

Reaction Engines’ breakthrough is a module containing arrays of extremely fine piping that can extract the heat and plunge the intake gases to minus 140C in just 1/100th of a second.

Ordinarily, the moisture in the air would be expected to freeze out rapidly, covering the pre-cooler’s pipes in a blanket of frost and compromising their operation.

But the REL team has also devised a means to stop this happening, permitting Sabre to run in jet mode for as long as is needed before making the transition to a booster rocket.

The technology, first mooted in the early 1980s, is using the cryogenic hydrogen to extract oxygen from the air up to about 30,000m, and then convert to onboard oxygen for the rest of the journey.

The heat exchanger is a full size flight representative component so this is significant, but I really don’t see this becoming an actual aircraft without a major government backing.

Some background on Skylon here.

It’s Bank Failure Friday!!!!

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And here they are, ordered, and numbered for the year so far.

  1. Bank of the Eastern Shore, Cambridge, MD
  2. HarVest Bank of Maryland, Gaithersburg, MD
  3. Inter Savings Bank, fsb D/B/A InterBank, fsb, Maple Grove, MD
  4. Plantation Federal Bank, Pawley’s Island, SC
  5. Palm Desert National Bank, Palm Desert, CA

Full FDIC list

Last week, I was noting how much the closure rate had slowed down, and I predicted less than 50 closures this year, and this week we see 5 closures.

Go figure.

So, here is the graph pr0n with last years numbers for comparison (FDIC only):

GPD Growth Slows

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If people are planning on a robust recovery, they will be disappointed:

The economic recovery slowed more than expected early this year, raising fears of a spring slowdown for the third year in a row and giving Republicans a fresh opportunity to criticize President Obama’s policies.

The United States gross domestic product grew at an annual rate of 2.2 percent in the first quarter, down from 3 percent at the end of last year, according to a preliminary report released Friday. It was the first deceleration in a year, but it was not nearly as severe as other setbacks in the last couple of years.

Yeah, it sucks, but not so badly, until Angela Merkel manages to accomplish her goal of blowing up Europe though a misguided push for austerity.

Well, Duh

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Congress just completed a study of torture by the CIA, and they discovered that it didn’t work:

A nearly three-year-long investigation by Senate Intelligence Committee Democrats is expected to find there is little evidence the harsh “enhanced interrogation techniques” the CIA used on high-value prisoners produced counter-terrorism breakthroughs.

People familiar with the inquiry said committee investigators, who have been poring over records from the administration of President George W. Bush, believe they do not substantiate claims by some Bush supporters that the harsh interrogations led to counter-terrorism coups.

The backers of such techniques, which include “water-boarding,” sleep deprivation and other practices critics call torture, maintain they have led to the disruption of major terror plots and the capture of al Qaeda leaders.

One official said investigators found “no evidence” such enhanced interrogations played “any significant role” in the years-long intelligence operations which led to the discovery and killing of Osama bin Laden last May by U.S. Navy SEALs.

Torture has never been about good intelligence.

Torture’s supporters don’t care about what the record shows.

They support torture because it makes them feel like real men.

It’s some sort of sick and twisted perversion.

I’m Cynical as to the Motives Here

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So, after expressing concerns about the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), the White House has now threatened a veto:

The White House has said that the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), currently before the US House of Representatives, lacks enough privacy protections in its current form and will probably be vetoed if passed.

A statement from the White House Office of Management and Budget said that, while the importance of protecting the national infrastructure from online attacks is paramount, it “strongly opposes” the bill because it lacks proper oversight, could seriously damage individuals’ privacy and hands over responsibility for domestic cybersecurity to the NSA, rather than to a civilian body.

“Legislation should address core critical infrastructure vulnerabilities without sacrificing the fundamental values of privacy and civil liberties for our citizens, especially at a time our Nation is facing challenges to our economic well-being and national security,” the statement reads.

“The Administration looks forward to continuing to engage with the Congress in a bipartisan, bicameral fashion to enact cybersecurity legislation to address these critical issues. However, for the reasons stated herein, if H.R. 3523 were presented to the President, his senior advisors would recommend that he veto the bill.”

Yea! The White House is standing up for privacy.

Or maybe not:

“The Administration strongly opposes H.R. 3523, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, in its current form,” the White House said in a statement released Wednesday afternoon. “H.R. 3523 fails to provide authorities to ensure that the nation’s core critical infrastructure is protected while repealing important provisions of electronic surveillance law without instituting corresponding privacy, confidentiality, and civil liberties safeguards.”

CISPA’s sponsors, House Intelligence Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich., and ranking member Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Md., dismissed the White House statement.

“The basis for the administration’s view is mostly based on the lack of critical infrastructure regulation, something outside of our jurisdiction,” the pair said in a statement released during the House Rules hearing. In addition, the sponsors pointed out that the White House objects to the bill’s current form, which doesn’t contain the latest changes hammered out with civil liberties groups.

(emphasis mine)

Maybe I’m a bit of a cynic, but I’m thinking that their objection is that it does not grant enough power.

If we look at the Obama administration’s prior behavior, their concerns for civil liberties or transparency have always taken a back seat to expanding executive power. (Basically Dick Cheney with abortion support)

Also, as PC Magazine notes, the Obasa administration made exactly the same sort of statements about the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which allows for indefinite detention of American citizens, but decided to sign it anyway.

In any case, the House just called what is likely his bluff, and they passed CISPA and sent it to the Senate.

I’m not optimistic.

White House Statement after break:

CISPAvetostatement

So Not a Surprise

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Michelle Rhee is speaking at a conference of for profit colleges, which, considering their record of taking students’ (actually our, through the student loan program) money without providing any, you know, education:

Republic Report previously reported that former President George W. Bush will be speaking at the annual meeting of APSCU, the leading association of for-profit colleges, on June 22 at the Mandalay Bay Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. For-profit colleges get $32 billion in student aid from your tax dollars every year, but many are marked by deceptive recruiting, low-quality programs, sky-high prices, and high dropout rates.

………

Finally, some really depressing news: APSCU has announced the conference’s “additional speaker,” and it’s former District of Columbia Public Schools chancellor Michelle Rhee, now the CEO of education advocacy group Students First. If you’ve been on the fence about Rhee, not sure if she’s a sincere reformer with real results or a union-busting elitist aimed at replacing public education with charters, private schools, and online learning companies, you may find cause to jump off the fence now. By speaking at the annual meeting of the most cynical group of “educators” ever assembled — Wall-Street owned businesses that enrich their CEOs and ruin students’ lives at taxpayer expense and then hire armies of lobbyists to protect their privileges — Rhee has made her preferences very clear. (It’s always possible that she agreed to speak with the intent of telling the for-profits to clean up their act, but I doubt it.) Rhee staked her career on the concept of shutting down underperforming, bad schools. And now she will address a room full of them.

(emphasis mine)

For this, she will get a 50 grand speakers fee, but Michelle Rhee has always been a fervent devotee of pump and dump education, as evidenced by increasing evidence of her tolerance for fraud to create the illusion of success.

Considering the record of for-profit colleges, they are a perfect match.

Another Shareholder Revolt

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Unfortunately, it was unsuccessful, but the attempt by GE shareholders to exert greater control over management was pretty damn close:

Shareholders in General Electric have come close to winning a vote that would have given them more direct control over the the largest US industrial group by market capitalisation against the wishes of its board.

In the latest sign of rising shareholder activism in the US, a proposal at GE’s annual meeting in Detroit on Wednesday to allow shareholders to make decisions about the company “by written consent” won the support of some 47.5 per cent of the votes cast.

This would have meant that shareholders would not have had to call a special meeting to push through corporate change. The motion was backed by Institutional Shareholder Services and Glass Lewis, the corporate governance advisory firms.

There was also a significant vote for appointing an independent chairman of the board, which was backed by 22 per cent of the votes cast, although that was lower than the 35 per cent support the proposal won last year.

I think that shareholders are beginning to understand that management will keep them in the dark, and then f%$# them like a drunk school girl if they don’t make changes.

You gotta love the American MBA culture.

I Try to be Tolerant of Other Religions, But………

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I understand that people want to worship their God in their own manner, but the Islamist in Egypt may be taking it a bit too far.

How much too far? How about legalizing necrophilia:

Egypt’s National Council for Women (NCW) has appealed to the Islamist-dominated parliament not to approve two controversial laws on the minimum age of marriage and allowing a husband to have sex with his dead wife within six hours of her death according to a report in an Egyptian newspaper.

The appeal came in a message sent by Dr. Mervat al-Talawi, head of the NCW, to the Egyptian People’s Assembly Speaker, Dr. Saad al-Katatni, addressing the woes of Egyptian women, especially after the popular uprising that toppled president Hosni Mubarak in February 2011.

She was referring to two laws: one that would legalize the marriage of girls starting from the age of 14 and the other that permits a husband to have sex with his dead wife within the six hours following her death.

You know, I can understand wanting to kiss your spouse goodbye, (no tongue, please) but this is completely nuts.

Of more significance, is the fact that they are also trying to remove a woman’s right to an education, and the right for a woman to initiate a divorce.

If it gets any more insane, Egyptian politics will start looking like a Focus on the Family convention.

H/t JR at the Stellar Parthenon BBS.

Yeah, Austerity Works

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The UK is officially back in recession:

When David Cameron became PM, and announced his austerity plans — buying completely into both the confidence fairy and the invisible bond vigilantes — many were the hosannas, from both sides of the Atlantic. Pundits here urged Obama to “do a Cameron”; Cameron and Osborne were the toast of Very Serious People everywhere.

Now Britain is officially in double-dip recession, and has achieved the remarkable feat of doing worse this time around than it did in the 1930s.

Britain is also unique in having chosen the Big Wrong freely, facing neither pressure from bond markets nor conditions imposed by Berlin and Frankfurt.

Yep, the UK is now doing officially doing worse than it did in the great depression.

Why is anyone still listening to the austerity monkeys?

Oh Yeah, There Were Primaries Yesterday

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Actually there were 5, and Romney won them all.

What is interesting however were 2 Congressional races in Pennsylvania:

U.S. Rep. Tim Holden, Pennsylvania’s longest-serving congressman, lost his re-election bid in the Democratic primary, while Rep. Mark Critz beat fellow Democratic incumbent Rep. Jason Altmire in another contest that shook up the state’s House delegation.

Newly-configured congressional district lines put in place by the Republican-controlled state Legislature affected the dynamics in each closely-watched race.

Holden, who was elected to Congress in 1992 and was one of its conservative, so-called Blue Dog Democrats, lost Tuesday to personal injury attorney Matt Cartwright, who spent nearly $400,000 in the race.

Asked to assess his victory, Cartwright said “It’s a combination of things, number one, the redistricting, and number two, my own core political beliefs are a much better fit for the new district.”

The only bad news in these two elections is that Critz and Altmire could not both lose.

Still Critz is a bit less bad than Altmire.

BTW, as an aside, if you are considering supporting Democratic Congressional candidates this cycle, take Howie Klein’s advice, and don’t take a DCCC endorsement for granted, particularly since its head this cycle is former Blue Dog Steve Israel.  (You can see examples of their hacktacular calls at the link)

We need fewer of these right wing pukes in congress, not more, and most of the DCCC’s red to blue targets are faux Dems.

Nino is F%$#ing Nuts

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I mean, of course, Antonin Scalia, who just compared Arizona’s “Papers Please” law to the FBI investigating bank robberies:

The debate surrounding Arizona’s immigration law is a heated one — and on Wednesday, Justice Antonin Scalia added to the strong sentiments swirling in the case. Questioning U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, Scalia asked what’s wrong with states enforcing federal law, adding, “There is a federal law against robbing federal banks. Can it be made a state crime to rob those banks?”

Charlie pierce has concluded that fat Tony is phoning it in, (See also here.) and that he has realized that he’ll never be chief justice, and he’s bored with the court, and he’s just f%$#ing with use.

I’m inclined to agree.

Because they are Whiny Babies

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Brad Delong wonders why Wall Street dislikes Barack Obama so much:

A worker bee at a mainline investment bank told me last fall:

Back in 2008 Wall Street was split 40-60 Obama-McCain. Now it is split 10-90 Obama-Romney.

Why? It is not as though Wall Street has done badly under Obama. Stock prices are up and interest rates are down, so leveraged financial institutions long assets–as Wall Street inevitably is–have done very, very well indeed. The standard bargain that the Democrats offer Wall Street has held. It is:

We will try to tax you (and, given the power of your lobbying operation in Congress, probably fail to do so), but we will give you competent economic management in striking contrast to that offered by the ideologically-blinded wingnuts who are the Republicans.

That has been the bargain that the Democrats have offered Wall Street from the days of Hoover to Bush II, and when Wall Street has had a sense of its own long-run interests, it has taken the Democrats up on it. And it has been happy.
But not this time.

Why not? What is going on? What is there about 50% real increases in equity values over less than 3 1/2 years that is not to like?

For the past 30+ years, these guys have been surrounded by people who treat them like they were Pashas, both in their social circles on Wall Street as well both sides of the partisan divide in Washington, DC, so when Barack Obama  calls them “Wall Street Fat Cats”, their heads explode.

This is despite the fact he, and his sidekick Timmy Geithner, bail them out, and quash prosecutions.

One wonders just how insecure these guys are about their value to society. 

Hmm…come to think of it, this answer was a bit more involved than I intended.

Here’s a hint:  You are all worthless parasites.

Meanwhile in the American Elections

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It looks like Obama’s big donors from 2008 are sitting on their wallets:

President Obama’s re-election campaign is straining to raise the huge sums it is counting on to run against Mitt Romney, with sharp dropoffs in donations from nearly every major industry forcing it to rely more than ever on small contributions and a relative handful of major donors.

From Wall Street to Hollywood, from doctors and lawyers, the traditional big sources of campaign cash are not delivering for the Obama campaign as they did four years ago. The falloff has left his fund-raising totals running behind where they were at the same point in 2008 — though well ahead of Mr. Romney’s — and has induced growing concern among aides and supporters as they confront the prospect that Republicans and their “super PAC” allies will hold a substantial advantage this fall.

With big checks no longer flowing as quickly into his campaign, Mr. Obama is leaning harder on his grass-roots supporters, whose small contributions make up well over half of the money he raised through the end of March, according to reports filed Friday with the Federal Election Commission. And Mr. Obama is asking far more of those large donors still giving, exploiting his joint fund-raising arrangement with the Democratic National Committee to collect five-figure checks from individuals who have already given the maximum $5,000 contribution to his re-election campaign.

“They clearly are feeling the pressure,” said one major Obama fund-raiser, who asked for anonymity to characterize his conversations with campaign officials. “They’re behind where they expected to be. You have to factor in $500 million-plus in Republican super PAC money.”

This is what happens when your message shifts from “Hope and Change” (whatever the F$#@ that means) to “The Guys on the Other Side are Terrifying,” which, while true, (an improvement on the 2008 message in that one respect) is not something that drives people to open up their check books or canvass door to door.

Sarko Comes in 2nd

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This is the first time since the 1950s that a sitting president of France has not gotten the most votes in the 1st round of elections since the founding of the 5th Republic:

French President Nicolas Sarkozy is wooing far-right voters after losing narrowly to his Socialist rival in the presidential election’s first round.

Francois Hollande came top with 28.6% and Mr Sarkozy got 27.1% – the first time a sitting president has lost in the first round.

Third-place Marine Le Pen took the largest share of the vote her far-right National Front has ever won, with 18%.

Referring to her voters, Mr Sarkozy said: “I have heard you.”

“There was this crisis vote that doubled from one election to another – an answer must be given to this crisis vote,” he said.

So, “President Bling-Bling” is going to go right-wing populist racist in the hopes of getting nearly all of Marine Le Pen’s National Front knuckle draggers, because the neither the Left Front and the Democratic Movement voters are receptive to a xenophobic message.

I don’t think that it’s going to work, because Sarkozy is clearly Angela Merkel’s toady in European politics, and the defacto German hegemony in the Euro Zone is something that French populists of both the left and right cannot abide.

About all Sarkozy has going for him is that he’s more stylish than the rather colorless Hollande, but it will be a long shot for him on the May 6 runoff.

Sarkosy knows this, which is why he is trying to up the number of debates between the two finalsts to 3 from the usual 1.

Austerity Isn’t Working for Qnyone

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The 2nd most obnoxious people in Europe in their support of the magical austerity fairy are the Dutch, and now their coalition government has collapsed over their own austerity plans:

More uncertainty loomed for the euro zone on Saturday after the prime minister of the Netherlands, Mark Rutte, said he expected new elections to take place following the collapse of talks on new austerity measures.

The announcement is unwelcome news for Europe’s single currency zone, particularly because the Netherlands is one of just four countries using the euro currency that have maintained a coveted AAA credit rating.

………

The Dutch government has taken a tough line on bailouts for Greece and given strong support to Germany’s efforts to force through a new pact on fiscal responsibility in the euro zone.

But the country’s domestic politics have been plunged into crisis because targets for the budget deficit, laid down by the European Union, were missed.

On Saturday it became clear that a package of measures that had been under negotiation for several weeks, intended to save about 14 billion euros, or $18 billion, would not be supported by the Freedom Party, led by Geert Wilders, a populist right-wing and anti-Islam campaigner. The proposal included spending curbs and tax increases.

If 90% of politics is economics, then the right wing populist parties springing forth throughout Europe have a bright future, because, as much as it pains me, they are right on the economics of the situation.

Of course, the far left parties are largely correct on this too, but the mainstream parties are completely clueless.

Hell of a choice.

The Manchin-Lieberman Axis In The Senate

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So called Democrat Joe Manchin is refusing to endorse Barack Obama for president, and rather unsurprisingly, so is Joe Lieberman.

Actually, it is a bit of a surprise.  I would have expected Lieberman to endorse the Republican again.

But the West Virginia Senate election is a big priority of the DSCC, which is why I won’t give to the DSCC.

Whatever money I have to contribute goes to real Democrats.

It Won’t Happen, It Makes Too Much Sense

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In consideration of the current budget trends the US Air Force is looking at smaller and simpler single purpose satellites:

Smaller, simpler satellite designs could begin making their way into service for mainstream U.S. Air Force missions in the middle of the next decade, a shift that would break with a longtime tradition of building large, expensive spacecraft for the Pentagon.

This shift from complex and expensive satellites could come about because Gen. William Shelton, Air Force Space Command chief, and other military leaders are embracing the concept of “disaggregation,” or separating capabilities once resident on a single platform onto multiple systems. It could simplify satellite design and create what Shelton calls a “targeting problem” for an adversary looking to cripple U.S. space-based services, by expanding the number of satellites in a constellation.

If disaggregation materializes, it could underpin a shift for major constellations—military satellite communications, missile warning, precision timing and navigation, weather and space situational awareness. While it could prompt an end—or at least slow procurement—of today’s satellites, the strategy could also be an opportunity for an industry facing reduced government spending to keep design teams intact.

Two possible near-term opportunities could be Shelton’s interest in using a smaller, simpler approach for both the next-generation space situational awareness (SSA) and weather spacecraft.

The advantages are:

  • You can develop and field satellites more quickly.
  • If a contractor really screws the pooch in terms of performance, schedule, or cost, it’s small enough to cancel.
  • You can have real competition, or perhaps competitive dual sourcing between vendors.
  • The resulting network would be a much more tolerant to a failure of a single satellite.

The downside is that the contractors who make this stuff will have less of an opportunity to over-promise and under-deliver, generating the necessary profits to employ retired generals as high priced consultants.

All things considered, I consider this initiative doomed because of this, but I’m a cynic.