Author: Matthew G. Saroff

Because if You Try Them In Federal Court, They Will Just

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Plead guilty and cooperate with authorities and provide intelligence:

Terror suspect Najibullah Zazi, an immigrant from Afghanistan who was living in Denver, has admitted he planned to try to set off explosives to kill Americans, most likely in New York.

He also pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit murder in a foreign country and providing material support to a terrorist organization.

His guilty plea may mean even more for the war on terror, since it appears Mr. Zazi has agreed to cooperate with federal officials.

Should have waterboarded him, that would have shut him up.

Someone Needs to Go to Jail for a Very Long Time

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Photo H/t boing boing

And I don’t mean a sysop.

The Lower Merion School District has issued laptops to its high school students, and someone has been activating the webcams to spy on children.

This came to a head, when Harriton High School Assistant Principal Lindy Matsko confronted sophomore Blake Robbins about his suspicious consumption of Mike & Ike candies, they look like pills.

What’s more that Mr. Robbins experience appears not to be unique:

If the allegations of spying prove to be true, Blake may not be the only victim. Other students claim they’ve seen their webcam go live while off school grounds and worry they’ve been spied on too.

“Occasionally a green light would go on, on your computer which would kind of give you the feeling that somebody’s watching you,” Harriton High School student Drew Scheier told NBC Philadelphia Thursday.

Subpoenas have been issued by the US Attorney, and the FBI is investigating the matter as a potential criminal act.

If anyone activated those cameras, there was a possibility that the children who had them might have been in front of the camera, and that they might have been a state of undress, which makes one of the charges something along the lines of soliciting child pr0n.

It doesn’t matter whether it was a pedophile looking for young bodies, or someone looking for funny pix for the office Christmas party, anyone involved in this, and anyone who knew of this and did not go to police, should go to jail.

Good News on the Broadband Front

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The Phone Company

When one compares broadband in the US and the rest of the developed world, we discover that that in the US we have higher prices, and lower performance, much like our healthcare system.

What is common in both is that markets are controlled largely by monopolistic,* and largely unregulated, for profit private companies.

Well, now it looks like the FCC will be ordering the large players to lease lines to their competitors:

AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. would be forced to lease fast Internet lines to rivals providing Web services to small businesses under a proposal being weighed by U.S. regulators.

The biggest U.S. phone companies have told the Federal Communications Commission that opening access to lines they laid would curb their incentive to continue spending billions of dollars expanding high-speed service. The FCC’s decision “will significantly affect investment in fiber-based networks,” line- maker Corning Inc. said in a filing with the agency.

The idea, proposed to the FCC by computer-services company Cbeyond Inc., has support from the Small Business Administration, which said it could spur job creation. The plan would add to competition for business clients, who are also being courted by cable providers led by Comcast Corp. and Time Warner Cable Inc.

Players like AT&T and Verizon make much of their profits from doing business under either a monopoly of a duopoly environment, and this is a start to creating meaningful competition.

*Full disclosure: I have Verizon® Fios™., so I receive my connectivity from one of these, “monopolistic, and largely unregulated, for profit private companies.”

Signs of the Apocalypse, IMF Edition

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The IMF is coming out in favor of capital controls for developing nations:

International Monetary Fund economists, reversing the fund’s past opposition to capital controls, urged developing nations to consider using taxes and regulation to moderate vast inflows of capital so they don’t produce asset bubbles and other financial calamities. It said emerging markets with controls in place had fared better than others in the global downturn.

The recommendation is the IMF’s firmest embrace of capital controls and a reversal of advice it gave developing nations just three years ago. The IMF has long championed the free flow of capital, as a corollary to the free flow of trade, to help developing countries prosper. But the global financial crisis has prompted the fund to rethink long-held beliefs. It recently suggested the world might be better off with a higher level of inflation than central bankers now are targeting.

(emphasis mine)

I think that a lot of this has to do with the Asian financial crisis 13 years ago, and the fact that the only nation to implemented capital controls, Malaysia, was through the crisis with a lot less pain than their Asian neighbors.

It only took them 13 years, and an increasingly hostile response from the developing world, for them to get the message.

Well, it’s to their credit that it happened before some high level official visiting a 3rd world nation in crisis was actually lynched by an angry crowd, which puts them ahead of American investment bankers, Larry Summers, and Timothy Geithner, I guess.

I Said that This Would Happen

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I said that there would be blowback when GM decided not to sell Opel and suck up all the state aid itself, and it appears taht I was right

We are now seeing that the taskforce reviewing GM’s plans with Opel is saying that, they are inadequate, and aid should not be awarded:

General Motors’ restructuring plan for Opel/Vauxhall has been dealt a potentially serious setback on Wednesday after a German government taskforce said it had doubts about the scheme.

The US carmaker presented the turnaround plan for its lossmaking European operations last week and formally applied to Berlin for €1.5bn ($2bn) in loans or guarantees – the biggest portion of the €3.3bn it says it needs to finance its plan.

However, the federal task force advising Berlin on GM’s plans has deemed the proposals “unqualified for government loan guarantees”, three officials in German states with GM plants told the Financial Times on Wednesday.

(emphasis mine)

Part of the reason for this, though it is not explicitly spoken, is the belief that GM will strip mine Opel to support its US operations.

There has been a tepid denial from the board about this report, but I’m inclined to believe that they want guarantees that the money is not going to Detroit.

Another Must Read from Krugman

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He’s talking about free trade and transportation costs, and makes the point that when the costs of transporting goods falls relative to manufacturing goods and services, as they did in the 1870-1913 era, international trade increases, and when the costs of manufacturing goods falls relative to transporting goods, as they did in the era of Henry Ford’s assembly line, pre containerized cargo 1913-1970 or so, international trade falls.

Go read, it’s 599 words well spent.

Te Stoopid, It Burns US!!!!!

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This clusterf%$# comes with a poll

Atrios calls it, “A Great Contribution To The Art Of High Wanking,” but the Washington Post calls it Jeffrey Rosen’s article, “Supreme Court Justice Barack Obama?“

While there is precedent, William Howard Taft became a Supreme Court justice after being President, only the interval was 18 years between the two offices, and Rosen is suggesting that he cut a deal with Hillary Clinton, and that she agrees to appoint him, in exchange for his not running in 2012:

It would be unusual, but not difficult, for Obama to get himself on the Supreme Court. He could nominate himself to replace John Paul Stevens, for example, or he could gamble and promise Hillary Rodham Clinton that he won’t run for reelection in 2012 in exchange for a pledge of appointment to the next vacancy. And although as president, Obama has seemed haunted by the example of his political hero, Abraham Lincoln, on the Supreme Court he could take up the mantle of the greatest liberal justice of the 20th century, Louis Brandeis, another community organizer with a background in politics. In the end, Obama’s legacy on the court might surpass his legacy in the White House.

(emphasis mine)

Nominate himself? Is he out of his mind?

And a promise from Clinton would be crucial, because, of course, no one can successfully oppose a Hillary Clinton primary campaign; she is just unstoppable.

Jeebus, it’s like they have some sort of competition in front of Post editorial page editor Fred Hiatt has some sort of bizarre audition in which they tell people to come up with the stupidest idea, and they get to go on to the next round.

It’s like some of kind of perverted American idol for stupid, and I think that my eyes are now bleeding as a result.

The Russians Have Repainted the T-50

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It cleans up good

They have applied the Russian air force blue and white camp scheme.

This is not surprising.

In related unsurprising news, the folks at Air Power Australia have looked at the T-50 (PAK-FA), and determined that it’s 10 feet tall and requires the resumption of F-22 production this very minute.

I don’t doubt these guys technical chops, but I knew what they would say as soon as I saw the link.

They are kind of predictable.

Damn!

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Turns out that Star Trek is impossible.

At 99.999998% of the speed of light, the the radiation from interstellar hydrogen striking your ship will fry you like an egg:

Professor William Edelstein of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine explained to New Scientist that while interstellar space has just a couple of hydrogen atoms per cubic centimetre, as the crew of the Enterprise hit the gas pedal, a compression effect would greatly increase the number of atoms hitting the spacecraft.

As the spaceship reached 99.999998 per cent of the speed of light, “hydrogen atoms would seem to reach a staggering 7 teraelectron volts”, which for the crew “would be like standing in front of the Large Hadron Collider beam”.

This is a very bad thing, because humans in the path of this ray would receive a dose of ionising radiation of 10,000 sieverts, and as Bones McCoy would doubtless confirm, the lethal dose is 6 sieverts.

The result? Death in one second.

And I was so looking forward to green alien dancing girls.

Well, I guess that there is always recombinant DNA technology.

Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) Has Cancer

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They are expecting a “full and complete recovery,” but he’s 86, and a “full and complete recovery” is frequently predicted in cases that prove terminal:

Sen. Frank Lautenberg, the nation’s second oldest U.S. senator, has curable lymphoma of the stomach, his office said Friday.

Doctors for the 86-year-old Democrat found B-cell lymphoma that will require treatment over the next few months, spokesman Caley Gray said in a news release.

Mr. Lautenberg will undergo six to eight chemotherapy treatments and should make a “full and complete recovery,” said James Holland of New York City’s Mount Sinai Medical Center.

Vulture Capitalists Need to be Slapped down

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I would suggest prosecutions of the folks who are pursuing Russia regarding bonds issued by the Czar:

The Russian government vowed to “defend our rights” after French holders of czarist bonds valued at as much as 100 billion euros ($137 billion) threatened to sue the Kremlin and seize property it owns in Paris.

“May God help them,” Viktor Khrekov, a spokesman for the Kremlin Property Department, said by phone today from Moscow, after the Paris-based International Federative Association for Russian Bond Holders, or AFIPER, pledged to sue to recoup part of the century-old debt.

The empire of Russia has not existed since 1917.

That country was liquidated, along with Czar Nicholas and his family.

People are buying this stuff at cents on the dollar, and then attempting to get be enough of an annoyance to coerce some payments out of sovereign nations.

It’s particularly egregious behavior because France and Russia had a final settlement since 1996.

Surely, if terrorism statutes can be used against the reserves of Icelandic banks, it can be used against these extortionists.

Napoleon Bonaparte is Smiling

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The French will be taking control of the port of Dover.

Well, it’s not really the French, it’s the Nord-pas-de-Calais regional council, which will be assuming control as a part of a privatization scheme:

A plan to privatise the government-owned Port of Dover has provoked “outrage”, not least because the French are front-runners to take control of the facility.

According to the Daily Mail, the port needs money to fund an expansion plan, and selling it off could net £350m for our cash-strapped government. The harbour board expects to receive the go-ahead for the “voluntary privatisation”, which will likely see Nord-pas-de-Calais regional council, which also owns Calais, adding Dover to its roster of ports.

Chief exec Bob Goldfield explained: “The time is right for the voluntary privatisation of Dover. We want to invest around £400m on a second terminal and need to invest in the existing terminal, but are unable to because of public sector borrowing constraints. We want to throw off the shackles.”

I generally oppose privatization, even if it isn’t the French taking over Dover, and the justification, about avoiding “public sector borrowing constraints,” sounds to me like a recipe for a future bankruptcy and taxpayer bailout.

“Throwing off shackles,” in a finance context generally means, “Engaging in dodgy behavior.”

But still the short Frenchman is up there, or down there, having a good chuckle.

Son of FCS-MGV* Looks Like a Repeat Fail

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With the cancellation of the US Army’s FCS-MGV system, the 20 ton class (30 ton+ in operational use), the army has been cast about for a vehicle to fill the role, and they have found it in their ground combat vehicle (GCV) program, which is supposed to have, the “urban mobility of a Stryker, with the off-road capability of a Bradley and the survivability of an MRAP,” while being C-130 transportable. (see also here)

Truth be told, a slightly improved Bradley, particularly one that has the manned turret replaced with an external remotely operated one, which would allow for a single vehicle to carry a full 9 man squad, but the way that it is all phrased does seem to be an invitation to mission and cost creep juxtaposed with schedule slippage.

By “urban mobility,” they mean “road speed”, though I noted about 3 months ago that they were calling for the “sustainability of a Stryker”.

With improved tracks and propulsion, the road mobility can be achieved, though it would still be more maintenance intensive, and less fuel efficient than a wheeled vehicle.

In any case, the Army is looking to spend about a billion bucks on developing the GCV, and they have already delayed the review, though they are claiming, with some justification, I might add, that this was a result of the snowpocalypse.

My inclination would be to look toward improving existing systems, or purchasing and making minor modifications to foreign systems.

*Full disclosure, I worked on the Future Recovery and Maintenance Vehicle, FRMV, “wrecker” variant of the FCS-MGV† from 2003-2006 at United Defense (later BAE Systems after the Carlyle Group sold me to buy Dunkin Donuts).
†Future Combat Systems-Manned Ground Vehicle. These are the ones that are the tanks and APCs. As opposed to the various unnmanned vehicles, networking technologies, etc. that form the full FCS along with the MGVs.‡
‡Yes, I have worked everywhere. Maybe I can’t hold down a job, but more likely this has been my role as “technical hit man”, where you are parachuted in to take care of a specific need.

Deep Thought

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With Greece mired in a debt crisis of their own making, and coming to the EU for aid, perhaps one of the conditions for any aid should be for them to stop being so pissy about admitting Macedonia to the EU, because the Greeks want to claim Alexander the Great was “Greek.”

He was a Macedonian, who led a nation that did not speak Greek, though he, as a royal child, was tutored by the best Greek scholars, and doubtless spoke Greek, albeit with a foreign accent.

But, even if he were Greek, it was 2000 years ago, and the government of Greece needs to focus on the hear and now.

More on Bybee and Yoo, and the Lessons Learned Therein

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Courtesy of Chris Floyd:

“Children, the law is nothing but a rag smeared with blood and sh%$.

“It is only for suckers, rubes and losers.

“Claw your way to the top — by any means necessary — and the law can never touch you.

“This is the American way.”

This is the message of Barack Obama and His Evil Minions™ determination not to prosecute, nor review in the smallest way by the bar association, the contemptible actions of the worst of the wrong doers amongst Bush and His Evil Minions™.

Alexander Haig is Dead at 85

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In the 1980s, I was always rather contrarian, maintaining that Alexander Haig, who died today, was among the most competent and most sane of the members of Reagan’s cabinet, though that is damning with faint praise.

I think that he understood and appreciated our NATO allies more than most people in the foreign policy establishment.

One interesting note, he was a west pointer, and graduated 217 out of a class of 310, which may imply that success at the Point is orthogonal to success later in life.

I love this quote about him:

Never much of a politician, Gen. Haig in 1988 made a brief presidential run, often described by commentators at the time as “quixotic.” Borrowing a phrase from a supporter, the comedian Mort Sahl, he announced he was “throwing my helmet into the ring.” But he withdrew before the primaries.

Considering the fact that he was a Kissinger protégé, he was relatively non evil, which is again damning with faint praise.