The ruling itself is pretty narrow, ruling against the Department of Justice in a way that effects this case only, but it also invalidated an appellate court precedent, and it’s pretty clear that this court will rule against the voting rights act on a case by case basis until they feel that there is enough precedent to kill it completely.
Author: Matthew G. Saroff
Not Enough Bullets: Goldman Sachs Edition
Yes, the masters of the universe are once again going to make obscenely huge bonuses to its senior staff:
Staff at Goldman Sachs staff can look forward to the biggest bonus payouts in the firm’s 140-year history after a spectacular first half of the year, sparking concern that the big investment banks which survived the credit crunch will derail financial regulation reforms.
Of course the very next paragraph seems to indicate that the nominal reason for these bonuses, retention of skilled staff, is not operative:
A lack of competition and a surge in revenues from trading foreign currency, bonds and fixed-income products has sent profits at Goldman Sachs soaring, according to insiders at the firm.
Lack of competition for business implies lack of competition for employees, but the bonuses keep going up.
Sounds to Me Like Another Republican Spending a Few Days In the Closet
One of the odd bit of news right now is that South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford has gone missing.
He ditched his security detail, he’s turned off his cell phones, and no one can find him.
The interesting quote in the above story is from his wife:
Neither his wife, nor the state’s lieutenant governor, nor police officials know where he is, South Carolina newspapers reported.
But Jenny Sanford told the Associated Press she wasn’t worried.
“He was writing something and wanted some space to get away from the kids,” she said while vacationing with the couple’s four sons.
(emphasis mine)
She sounds to me like someone who is studiously avoiding trying to find the answer to this.
The real issue here is not Mark Sandford’s personal life. It’s the concern that self-hating individuals, and the closet does imply self-loathing, do not make good decisions on the public policy.
Here is a question, how many straight Republicans who practice marital fidelity does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: Either one can do it themselves.
Update:
The governor has been located.
He has been hiking along the Appalachian Trail….Yeah, sure, I believe that.
A commenter on the 2nd link nails it:
brads77 Jun 23, 2009 7:28:12 AM
The only reason this guy would have hiked the Appalachian Trail is because he wanted to visit the Home of Deliverance–thinking that the movie was a love story.
Brads77 owes me a screen wipe.
Well, Here’s a Bit of Good Politics in the Financial Overhaul
On the top right, we have the reorganization of the various financial institutions.
Let’s zoom in a bit in the right hand side, and we see that Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS)will both be eliminated.
The elimination of the OTS is no surprise, apart perhaps from Greenspan’s Federal Reserve, it was the agency most complicit with the bubble.
That being said, the elimination of the OCC is a very good thing. The head of the office was appointed by George W. Bush in 2005, and has a 5 year term, which makes it rather difficult for Obama to get rid of him.
The problem is that the current Comptroller John C. Dugan, has been a roadblock on almost any sort of regulation.
He’s successfully gone to the Supreme Court to preempt state regulations, and he has been a major impediment in implementing even the tepid regulations that the Obama administration has proposed.
They are killing the office to get rid of him, and even if the change does not pass, it means that for the foreseeable future, there aren’t any banks that will take his instruction without some other agency confirming him.
They just cut Dugan off at the knees, and this action is both wise and well deserved.
Train Crash in DC
2 Metro Rail trains collided, and the death toll is now at 6.
When I Think Back On all the Crap I Learned in High School
Kodak is ending production of its Kodachrome color film after 74 years.
Video below:
A Question Regarding Atheists
This cartoon seems to imply that some sort of latte is is the holy sacrament of Atheists.
If this is the case, is it a full caf, half caf, skinny, mocha, soy, or what?
Or do you, like us God fearing folks, just kill each other over disagreements about what sort of sacrament is appropriate to drink, as is traditional?
Economics Update
Last week, I mentioned that some of the declines in continuing unemployment claims might be the result of benefits exhaustion.
Well now we have the chart pr0n to show it, and I’m now wondering how many of the people dropping off the rolls are actually getting work.
Still, we are seeing some signs of improving business confidence, this time it’s German business confidence, which is up for the 3rd straight month.
I tend to prefer less ephemeral statistics though, such as commercial real estate prices (down 8.6% from April and down 25% year over year) and the fact that rail and truck traffic are still trending down.
We are also seeing some more signs of a reduced appetite for risk, with the dollar strengthening.
In energy, both crude oil and retail gasoline fell, largely on good inventories and concerns about a jobless “recovery”.
Note that this is the first time that gasoline has fallen in 54 days.
Dodd Comes Out in Favor of Marriage Equality
I am not sure whether Chris Dodd’s official announcement of his support for marriage equality is being driven by a legitimate change in view, a recognition that the public is moving in this direction at a blindingly fast pace, or desperation over his otherwise low poll numbers in Connecticut following the entire business with his mortgage.
I really don’t care why he is doing this as much as I care that it is the right thing.
Pay Per View Review
It was my just-turned-12-year-old daughter’s turn to choose a movie, and she chose Twilight.
Kristen Stewart … Bella Swan
Robert Pattinson … Edward Cullen
Billy Burke … Charlie Swan
Ashley Greene … Alice Cullen
Nikki Reed … Rosalie Hale
Jackson Rathbone … Jasper Hale
Kellan Lutz … Emmett Cullen
Peter Facinelli … Dr. Carlisle Cullen
Cam Gigandet … James
Taylor Lautner … Jacob Black
Anna Kendrick … Jessica Stanley
Michael Welch … Mike Newton
Christian Serratos … Angela Weber
Gil Birmingham … Billy Black
Elizabeth Reaser … Esme Cullen
It’s a Vampire film, based on the book, which Natalie read, and enjoyed immensely, and it’s very much geared towards tween girls, and so she loved the book, and so chose the movie.
I really tried to talk her out of it, but she was having none of that, and it is a kind of a reward for her reading, so what can a parent do..
The plot is straight forward, Vampire meets girl, they fall in love, damsel in distress ensues.
For what it was, and I would not see this sort of film except under familial duress, it’s of fairly high quality, well shot, and well acted.
I think that the combat sequences could have been a bit better, but I’m a big fan of Kurasawa’s filming of combat in The Seven Samurai and The Hidden Fortress, which has a level of realism that would not match the target audience (12 year old girls).
It is what it is, and if you like what that is, and I really don’t, you’ll enjoy it.
The only surprises were that there were some legitimately funny bits to it, and I felt no need to claw my eyes out.
Why I’ve Not Been Posting on Healthcare Legislation
I think that it’s important, and it’s something of direct interest to me, I get my insurance, and pay a lot for it, through MHIP, but I simply do not believe that a meaningful plan is on the way, and so I find it to depressing to write about.
Between the belief that the plan needs some Republican votes, even though meaningful healthcare reform will cut their own throats politically, and the power of the insurance, the AMA, and medical lobbies, I just don’t see anything meaningful happening.
So, I read, and I get depressed, and how often can I call someone like Bayh, or Baucus, or Conrad pig felching rat bastards?
It adds very little to the understanding of the situation.
50% Off Peak
This is across the pond, where the there has been a £1.15 billion default on bonds for 9 office buildings in downtown London.
The value of the properties has declined 50% from peak.
We will see a lot more of this in commercial real estate, particularly since most of the loans are relatively short term, typically about 5 years, and the note will come due, and there will be no opportunity to refinance, because the value of the property has fallen.
H/t Calculated Risk
You Can Now Follow This On Twitter
Using a utility called Twitterfeed, which allows RSS feeds to be fed into twitter.
You can see the feed here, and it’s called “40_Years”.
I’ve also put the link into the Feeds/RSS box on the upper right.
This post will remain on the top for a few days.
Father’s Day Has Never Been a Big Thing for My Dad and Me
My mom was killed by a drunk driver when I was 14, so we’ve always made a bigger deal over “Mutha’s Day,” since he raised me from that point on.
I always call him on Mother’s, and it’s usually an overseas call, as he typically hits Europe that time of year.
I’ve been doing that for years.
We actually got together for a cookout today, though his and my step-mom’s being here was about their annual trip out east for a conference in DC and not Father’s day.
Neither of us remembered until my daughter, Natalie, made mention of it.
I did up lamb chops for everyone but Charlie, my son, who is not a big fan of meat, so I did a Cornish game hen for him.
Of course, I used my Indian spice rub and plum barbecue sauce.
We hung out, shot the breeze, he gave lots of advice (he is my dad, after all), and a good time was had by all.
My wife and kids are going out for ice cream in a bit.
Russia Looking at AESA on MiG-35
This is not a development, as Russia, or more exactly the USSR, is the only nation to have fielded a combat fighter in squadron service with a phased array radar, the MiG-31 Foxhound.
It appears that much of this development is being driven by the Indian medium fighter competition.
The installation appears to be a bit tight (top pic) in the demonstration, though there may be more changes to shrink the “back end” of the radar and increase the aperture size in the production model.
The ground mapping imagery (bottom pic) does appear to indicate a very significant improvement in air to surface capabilities.
An Idea So Good, that the USAF Will Never Do It
Specifically, the idea that a relatively low performance airframe can serve better in the counter-insurgency (COIN) or the close air support role than something like the F-15, F-16, F-22, or F-35 JSF.
Not only would lower performance aircraft tend to have better short and rough field capabilities, just as the A-10 Warthog currently does, but they would be able to loiter over the battlefield for a much longer time, as they are designed for this regime, unlike aircraft designed to operate above 30,000 feet and to reach supersonic speeds.
Case in point, the Combat Air Tractor, an aircraft based on Air Tractor’s crop dusting aircraft.
It can take off and land off of rough airfields in less than 100m, and can loiter over the battle field for over 10 hours.(click slide show [top] for pictures of aircraft and weapons load outs)
The CAT also costs somewhere between $4 and $10 million dollars, as opposed to the $80-$200 million of a JSF, and it has been used in combat situations, spraying herbicide on coca fields and the like, and the aircraft is on the tarmac at the Paris air show.
While it would be an unlikely choice, there are also rumblings that the USAF is considering modifying their T-6 trainer for a similar role (bottom pic)
Personally, I’d favor something turbofan powered, because it could be designed with narrow-band stealth against radar guided AAA, but anything is better than the current plan, which is JSF’s for everything.
Jon Stewart is a F%$#ing Genius, Part 46.38336797
2 video clips, lots of laughs.
1 of 2
2 of 2
Too True, Healthcare Edition
Lockheed Concerned That Israel Will Terminate F-35
Israel’s early order of the JSF has provided a lot of credibility to the program, but concerns about the escalating costs, and the inflexibility, the plane is a closed platform to which the Israelis cannot add their own systems,is causing some cold feet inside the IDF/AF.
By way of hand holding, Lockheed has proposed to offered to do final assembly in Israel.
While there has been a lot of effort to portray this aircraft as a colossus striding across the world military jet fighter market, it’s position actually seems precarious.
Locking Small Children in Car Trunks
And why this can be a good thing sometimes.
My wife is driving a rental car, because an adjuster is looking at her car, a 2008 Dodge Avenger.
While loading the trunk I noticed the emergency release handle on the latch (see crappy cell phone pic)
It’s there to deal with the problem of small children locking themselves in the trunk ans suffocating.
In condicting human factors resarch on how to make the use of the device as easy and intuitive as possible, at one point, researchers locked children in trunks of cars, and observed their progress on infra red cameras.
It’s kind of neat.
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