Author: Matthew G. Saroff

I Love Arlen Specter Since He’s Turned Democrat

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Or, more accurately, I like him since he’s had a primary challenger, thank you Joe Sestak.

It means that we’ll get 18 months of him being a loyal party player….Unfortunately, for the other 54 months of his Senate term, he’s still a contemptible grandstanding untrustworthy jerk.

Case in point, now that he’s running ferociously to the left in order to out-flank Representative Sestak, he dissed Senators Lieberman and Snow regarding their misrepresentations of the public option at a mutual press conference:

“I do not support…a government owned, government run insurance company,” Collins said.

“I have only to look at the experience of my own state in establishing a government run plan to see the problems that arise.”

Collins was referring to the Dirigo health agency, which provides subsidized insurance to poor people in Maine who don’t quite qualify for Medicaid.

“I think we have learned a lot from the Maine plan,” Specter retorted. “We know what not to do. We’re not going to adopt a Maine plan. That experience will stand us in good stead. We won’t make the same mistake.”

Specter went on: “And when Senator Lieberman talks about single payer, I think he’s putting his finger on the pulse of it. That’s what people have concluded [but] the public option isn’t single payer, and it is not going to add to the deficit, it’s going to be a level playing field. So I would like everyone to read the fine print and [for my colleagues] to re-read the fine print.”

(emphasis mine)

By the standards of the Senate, this is actually a pretty nasty slam.

Yet me note that this is not an endorsement of him. When you get 12-18 months of non wankertude out of a 6-year term, and so it’s not really worth it pulling the lever for him.

Oopsie!

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Fail!

So we see a front page editorial in the Mobile Press-Register calling for Northrop-Grumman/EADS to be given a fair shake in the tanker competition, which is far from surprising, since that is where the tanker would be assembled if the A330 wins, but they also have an editorial cartoon showing the “customers” of the tanker.

Notice anything?

Like the model of the aircraft?

It’s an F-15 Eagle made by Boeing whose 767 is competing against the A330 for the contract.

Considering the fact that there are 3 fighters currently in front line service with the USAF, and two of them are not made by Boeing, the choice here seems a big….Inopportune.

Israel Looking at Adapting ATBM to AAM Use

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Python 5 and Derby


Stunner with 2nd stage


Rafael’s video Pr0n, H/t ELP Defens(c)e Blog

Israel is looking at using its Stunner anti-missile interceptor as a starting point for follow-ons to their Python 5 and Derby missiles.

The Python is a 6″ diameter short range (20+ km) infrared guided dogfight missile, and the Derby is a slightly lengthened version active radar guided version with with an ogive nose, and other aerodynamic cleanups (and possibly a longer motor) to achieve a range of about 50km, so replacing both of these with one derivative of another missile is certainly in the realm of possibility.

On the basis of the pictures here, and not much else, it appears that the 2nd stage of the Stunner is about the same size as the Python/Derby.

I’m not sure how much would be gained by developing a Python replacement on this platform, the as the missile already has excellent kinematics, as shown by the marketing video, though marketing videos should always be taken with a bit of a grain of salt.

That being said, given the Stunner’s configuration, the 2nd stage has a dual pulse motor, the 1st stage that would not be carried in an air launched version, could give significant increases in range and lethality for any potential Derby successor.

Here is my earlier post on the Stunner missile.

Now, This is a Rant

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What’s Up With This Pink Tie Thing?

The gentlemen in question is Nigel Farage, Member of the European Parliament (MEP), and former head of the UK Independence Party, which makes him a very heavy duty wing asshole.

That being said, I’m struck by just how well spoken he is. He’s an asshole, and as the defacto head of the UKIP, he is implacably opposed to the EU doing anything, ever, but he is well spoken and thoughtful in a way that is miles beyond people like Boehner, or McConnell, or Bush, or Dick “the Human Snarl” Cheney.

H/t ELP Defens(c)e Blog

Hypocrite

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So, Senator Max Baucus (DINO-MT) submitted the name of his former state office director to be US Attorney in Montana to the President.

That’s not so bad, in fact, that’s what passes for normal.

What doesn’t pass for normal is that they are sleeping together, and have been since before both got divorced from their prior spouses. (see also here):

“Senator Baucus is currently in a mature and happy relationship with Melodee Hanes. They are both divorced, and in no way was their relationship the cause of their respective divorces,” Ty Matsdorf, a spokesperson for Baucus, said in a statement to Main Justice.

Yeah, and Larry Craig has a wide stance.

More significantly, they started “dating” in the summer of 2008, and she was working as Baucus’s state director and counsel until spring of this year, which means that he was Cheneying a subordinate, which is sexual harassment, even if the subordinate is willing, if you are not a Senator anyway.

Why Bernanke Should Not Be Re-Appointed

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In testimony before Congress, Ben Bernanke talked about the dual mandate [of the Fed], which is growth and inflation.

Of course, anyone who knows anything about the Federal reserve knows that this answer is only ½ true. The actual mandate is to control inflation and minimize unemployment.

Given that he has been Fed Chairman for 4 years, and that he has been on the Fed for 8 years, he knows this, and he also knows therefore that growth does not necessarily mean low unemployment (see Recovery, Jobless).

He made this statement, along with talking down more fiscal stimulus and likening social security to bank robbery, which are well outside of the purview of the Federal Reserve.

It’s pretty clear that Ben Bernanke does not give a damn about employment, or the social safety net, except to the degree that it influences Wall Street profits, and he’s the wrong man for the job.

I would also note, as I have before, the “rock star” Fed Chair is a bad thing, both for democracy, bad for the economy.

Obama Doubles Down for Torture

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We have another resignation from the Obama Administration, Phil Carter, and it seems to flow from the same dynamics that had Greg Craig being forced to resign 2 weeks ago.

Mr. Carter was the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs, which meant that he was in charge of trying detainees, and was a vociferous opponent of both Bush’s kangaroo courts, the use of evidence derived from torture, and has also been very leery of the military commissions, though he does support the use of courts martial through the UCMJ.

Carter is denying that he is leaving for policy differences, but considering the actions of the Obama administration, which has been to use military commissions to ensure convictions when they might be in doubt through tainted (tortured) evidence, I do not take his statement at face value.

It Snowed Today

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And Natalie managed to dragoon Charlie into helping her with a snowman that they named “Todd.”

(click images for full size)


Natalie with a chunk of Todd.


Charlie with another chunk of Todd


Natalie and her new friend.


Charlie giving bunny ears to an amused Todd.


Natalie and Charlie giving bunny ears to everyone.


Todd in all his majestic glory

From the Annals of the Thoroughly Unsurprising

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Maybe they could use the Amish …. Uhhhh … Never mind

Researchers, looking to “compare men who watch porn with those who haven’t encountered it,” have hit a snag.

They have been unable to find any men who haven’t sampled pr0n:

“We started our research seeking men in their 20s who had never consumed pornography,” the Telegraph reported Professor Simon Louis Lajeunesse as saying.

“[But] we couldn’t find any.“

I was thinking that they might want to contact members of the Amish community, and then I went to google images, and typed in “hot Amish chicks“. (NSFW)

Not Enough Bullets

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Yep, here’s another example morality, or lack thereof, of the American “Entrepreneur with someone else’s Money,” usually abbreviated to MBA, class. While executives were running companies, like UAL, LTV, WestPoint Stevens, Polaroid, Reliance Insurance, and Pillowtex into the ground, they were taking hundreds of millions of dollars in salaries:

UAL Corp., US Airways Group Inc. and eight other companies paid executives $350 million in the five years before the U.S. was forced to take over their under-funded employee pension plans, a government report said.

One airline company missed $979 million in required pension contributions while its top three executives took $55.5 million in compensation, and another paid four executives $120.4 million amid two bankruptcies, a Government Accountability Office report today found. Data including dates of the pension terminations, stock awards and pay levels show the unnamed companies were UAL, the parent of United Airlines, and US Airways.

Benefits to retirees were cut in some cases by as much as two-thirds, as executives got salary increases, stock awards, retention bonuses and other pay, the GAO said in a report that studied pension takeovers from 2002 through 2005. Representative George Miller of California is considering legislation that will freeze executive compensation if a company’s rank-and-file pension plan becomes significantly under-funded.

The problem here is that the Federal Pension Guarantee Corporation (FPGC) had to take over their pensions, at what will eventually be a cost of billions to the taxpayers, in addition to cutting pensions of ordinary guys who played by the rules and did their jobs to the best of their abilities.

Here’s an idea: If the FPGC has to take over a pension, they get to claw back anything that senior executives got over the pay of the President of the US for the preceding 10 years.

Then maybe, just maybe, these guys won’t use the pension funds to juice the numbers for this year’s bonuses.

This Will Probably Go the Route of Dubai

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At the Dubai air show, which finished up a few days before the Dubai meltdown, the developers of supersonic business jets were optimistic as to their prospects.

I’m inclined to disagree. One of the things that drove the adoption of the jet airliner, in addition to speed, was that, when you considered the reduction in crew cost per segment and the profoundly lower maintenance costs of jets versus pistons, they were cheaper to operate.

This is not the case of any form of SST, whether civil, or business/personal.

That’s why optimism by SSBJ companies like Aerion (shown) making comments like. “We are in active discussions with more than one OEM and should have an agreement concluded by the second half of next year if things don’t get any worse in the world economy,” are more an indication of delusion than of viability.

They have this real cool design, but no one willing to make it….

But the picture of the is cool.

Reality Is a Bitch

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So, the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), the modular, whiz bank, high tech wonder that manages to cram all the weaponry of a corvette into a hull the size of a frigate*, is heading out to sea on its 1st deployment, and they had to add an additional 20 crew to the nominal compliment of 75, an increase of 27%, in order not to overwork the crew to the point of uselessness. (see also here and here):

Good said Freedom’s 20 extra sailors would sleep in two 12-rack berthing modules, about the size of shipping containers, which will ride in the ship’s multiuse mission spaces. While the 75 core crew members will stay in the ship’s integral berthing spaces — which include double-tall racks, rooms of no more than eight sailors, and a head and shower to each berthing area — the VBSS sailors’ lodging will be more like those of sailors on a destroyer, he said.

Note that these spaces will not have heads or showers, and that the multiuse mission spaces are intended for the addition of capabilities to the platform for modular upgrades.

It seems to me that we are seeing the US Navy’s fetish on getting the number of crew on ships down coming back to bite them in the ass, much as it did with the now-canceled Zumwalt class (an overview here).

In any case, this yet another example where, to paraphrase Commander Salamander, truth trumps PowerPoint slide thinking.

Not only does this show an increase in crew costs, it also reduces the “flexibility and modularity” which was supposed to be the primary justification for the program, because some of those “plug and play” spaces must now be occupied by additional crew.

These problems are in addition to the cost overruns and schedule slippage that the program is seeing, of course.

*A corvette is a lot smaller than a frigate.

This is the Argument Room

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It looks like they are looking at replacing/upgrading the M4 carbine again.

As a result of stoppages and other problems under very heavy use, they are looking at some mods:

Army weapons officials presented the proposed changes to Congress on Oct. 30. They are:

  • Adding a heavier barrel for better performance during high rates of fire.
  • Replacing the direct-impingement gas system with a piston gas system.
  • Improving the trigger pull.
  • Adding an improved rail system for increased strength.
  • Adding ambidextrous controls.
  • Adding a round counter to track the total number of bullets fired over the weapon’s lifetime.

I think that the gas tube operation has always been a problem, so going with a piston makes sense, and an improved trigger pull, making the weapon a bit more robust, and adding ambidextrous controls are all pretty common sense. The heavier barrel is a trade off, more weight vs better performance under heavy use, and I don’t have the data for that.

As to the round counter, it has to be designed such that if it fails, everything else works, because it add a lot of complexity.

To my mind, the real solution is to go with a Bullpup design, which would be shorter, but have a longer barrel, and you can incorporate improvements in a new weapon.

That being said, arguments over the M16 family, and 5.56mm rounds tend to be contentious.