Author: Matthew G. Saroff

Bush Appointee Incompetent and Corrupt: Afghan Edition

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It looks like the US and its NATO allies are looking to appoint a Prime Minister to bypass and diminish Hamid Karzai’s role in the day to day operations in the Afghan government.

The US and its European allies are ­preparing to plant a high-profile figure in the heart of the Kabul government in a direct challenge to the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, the Guardian has learned.

The creation of a new chief executive or prime ministerial role is aimed at bypassing Karzai. In a further dilution of his power, it is proposed that money be diverted from the Kabul government to the provinces. Many US and European officials have become disillusioned with the extent of the corruption and incompetence in the Karzai government, but most now believe there are no credible alternatives, and predict the Afghan president will win re-election in August.

Hooccoodanode that George “Heck of a job, Brownie” Bush would appoint people completely inept and corrupt to critical positions?

New York Times OP/ED Asks if Geithner/Summers/Bernanke is Obama’s Katrina Moment

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Frank Rich, who I generally find unobjectionable, but also unmemorable, asks this question, and I believe that he may be right.

I believe that Wall Street is being run by, and for, a corrupt class of overpaid crooks, and most of the country agrees with this, but Geithner/Summers/Bernanke believe that these folks posses the unique genius to fix the problem that they have created.

They are wrong, and unless, and until, the campaign to fix these things becomes a campaign against these folks too, a bit of reality that even perennial light weight Maureen Dowd gets, things will get worse.

These people don’t work for their banks or brokerages, they work for their own benefit at the expense of those banks or brokerages.

Body Armor for the Judean People’s Front Crack Suicide Squad

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Judean People’s Front Crack Suicide Squad!
What, you haven’t seen Life of Brian? Rent it now!

You may, or not, be aware of the concept of reactive armor.

It’s used on a fair number of armored vehicles out there: It’s a box with explosives in it, and when struck by a round, it explodes, dissipating the jet from a shaped charge or altering the path of a kinetic energy penetrator dart.

Well, someone has taken the next forseeable step, and submitted a patent application for an exploding bullet proof vest:

As Dave Barry would say, “I am NOT making this up!”

Check out patent number 6474213, Reactive stiffening armor system, which proposes:

A reactive armor structure having an outer layer and a reactive element adjacent to and integral with the outer layer is provided. The reactive element provides an amount of support to the outer layer effective to restrain movement of the outer layer and to delay fracture of the outer layer when the outer layer is impacted by a projectile.

I wonder what happens when a limb is in the path of the detonation of:

10. The structure of claim 1, wherein the explosive material has a detonation velocity of from about 2 km/s to about 5 km/s.

…

24. The structure of claim 15 wherein said reactive material comprises a material selected from the group consisting of TNT, RDX, Comp-B, Octol, and nitromethane.

I’m not sure if it would be worse to be the guy in the armor, or the guy standing next to the guy in the armor.

A400M Troubles Continue

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Best evidence of this is that the seven partner nations in the program have agreed to a moratorium on cancellation until July.

They are not agreeing to continue, they are just saying that they won’t cancel in the next 4 months, because the program is 4 years behind schedule, and well over budget.

I think that the new lesson of defense procurement is never buy anything unless you can cancel it when costs escalate and schedule slips.

Geithner’s New Plan: Same Old, Same Old, Failure

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So, we now have a definitive leak of the features of Geithner’s plan to help the financial system, and it’s the same old, same old: The problem is not that the banks are insolvent, or that their assets are worthless piles of crap, it’s that the markets are just undervaluing them.

The basic provisions:

  • An auction of the big sh#@pile, which is a bad thing, because it only serves to expand taxpayer exposure.
  • The FDIC will lend about 85% of the money to buy this.
    • These FDIC loans will be non-recourse loans, which means that if those assets bought with that particular loan would be used to repay. Any further losses would be eaten by the taxpayer.
  • The Treasury will match, “the private money that each of the firms [4-5 investment firms hired by the Treasury, meaning Goldman and the rest of the usual suspects] puts up on a dollar-for-dollar basis with government money,” which means that the 15% that they have to buy to get the assets is now 7½%
  • The Treasury/Federal Reserve TALF lending program will be used to further expand lending to buy this toxic waste.

This is what Geithner has been pushing for a long time, some sort of program to overvalue assets at taxpayer expense, all while, “firmly against imposing any restrictions on pay for companies investing money in the rescue effort rather than receiving money from it,” except, of course, any participants in this are receiving federal money because of the subsidies.

Dean Baker notes that the that unlike Timothy “Eddie Haskell” Geithner and Lawrence “Shoggoth” Summers and their Evil Minions™, the current market values of the securities are probably accurate, because real estate prices remain 20% above the historical trend, and if houses fall another 20%, these mortgage backed securities now selling for 30¢ on the dollar, which are the very top tranches, would be near a dime on the dollar.

Paul Krugman correctly calls it, “an open invitation to play heads I win, tails the taxpayers lose,” policy, and Calculated Risk and Yves Smith are similarly disparaging, though John Cole is the one who best nails the situation:

The Illness- reckless and irresponsible betting led to huge losses
The Diagnosis- Insufficient gambling.
The Cure- a Trillion dollar stack of chips provided by the house.
The Prognosis- We are so screwed.”

Seriously, tag team of Geithner/Summers may very well be worse for the economy than Hank Paulson.

For your amusement, here is Rep Brad Sherman (D-CA) opening up a can of whup ass on the CNBC Wall Street apologists

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Boeing Unveils LO F-15

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It appears that Boeing is looking to extend the life of the F-15 Eagle with a technological update (also here and here) called the Silent Eagle.

The two most obvious changes are creating weapons bays in the conformal fuel tanks and the canted tails, though it is also reported that there is a fair amount of radar absorbent material (RAM) added, including a frangable gun cover that hearkens back to how armorers treated the guns in WWII.

There are apparently no radar blockers in the inlets, even though Boeing has extensive experience with them in the F/A-18 E/F, because of potential export issues.

This implies that Boeing has decided (correctly IMHO) that they have no chance of selling these to the USAF, who have eyes for nothing for the F-22 and F-35.

They are suggesting a $100m unit price, though it is not made clear in any of the articles as to whether this is unit price, or fly-away cost.

The implication is that $100m will be cheaper than the F-35 JSF, and perhaps this is less an exercise to sell more F-15s than it is to sell more F/A-18E/Fs by implying that the JSF will break 9 figures in cost.

If they are implying this, they are probably right. The JSF shows a lot of signs of cost escalation and schedule slippage.

Powerpoint courtesy of The DEW Line, video of missile actuator courtesy of Boeing.

Potential Rafale Sale to Libya

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It makes sense.

Khaddafi has signed a deal for 6 months exclusive negotiations for the Rafale.

This purchase actually makes sense for Libya, because they have a reasonable chance of being able to continue to operate the aircraft even in the face of an embargo by the US, such as the sort that grounded the Venezuelan F-16s, and the competitors, the Eurofighter Typhoon, and SAAB Gripen, both have significantly more US content.

This would be the first foreign sale of the Rafale, and I’m sure that the French foreign ministry and Dassault are both drooling at the prospect.

The Navy is Doing This Because the USAF Can’t Be Bothered

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After years of ground troops begging for something lower, slower, and with more short field capability, it is the US Navy that is considering a solution, the Super Tucano turboprop trainer configured for the light attack mission.

You could probably buy 50 of these aircraft for the price of one JSF, and it can loiter over the battle area for a much longer period of time, and spot things that the fast movers would miss.

Shades of the A-1 Skyraider, which wasn’t a USAF idea either.

Naval aviation is fighting it, because, well, has a propeller and all, but it looks like this will actually be used, because it’s what the guy on the ground needs.

Yadda, Yadda, Yadda

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Another flying car. This one from Terrafugia.

It appears to be very much on the “roadable plane” side of the roadable plane/flying car divide, and I rather expect that it will be like the rest: single digit production followed by an exit of the business.

In any case, here is a vid of their first flight.

It really appears to love the ground a lot, but that may be because of its relatively long wheel base relative to dedicated aircraft, requiring more force to rotate.

Worldwide War Pigs: Drop Tank IRST Tests Well For Supers

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About 1 ¾ years ago, I wrote about how Boeing was looking into putting an Infra-Red Search and Track (IRST) on the F/A-18 E/F Super Hornet by fitting it to the front half of a center-line drop tank.

Well, Boeing has completed successful flight tests on the system, which is supplied by Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control*.

There hasn’t been an aircraft in the US inventory with an IRST for air-to-air since the F-14 Tomcat was retired, but Russian and European fighters have embraced this technology.

The advantages of going passive are real, though I would wonder about the reliability of the system under the very turbulent and vibration laden environment beneath the Super Bug.

My original post on this.

H/t Worldwide War Pigs

*Full disclosure, I worked at Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control in the late 1990s.†
†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.

China’s Chengdu J-10 Modified

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It appears that there have been some upgrades and/or fixes to China’s Chengdu J-10 canard-delta fighter.

If you look at the top (newer) image it appears that an Infra-Red Search and Track (IRST) unit has been added just forward of the cockpit, and that the inlet has been modified from the original aircraft (bottom).

Douglas Barrie thinks that there may have been vibration or air flow instability issues with the original inlet, but it looks to me more like an attempt to reduce RCS in the forward aspect.

Or maybe it’s a buff with photoshop.

Oh Lord, Won’t You Buy Me a Mercedes Benz (Zimbabwe Edition)

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So it now appears that foul play has been ruled out in the Tsvangerai crash, and MDC official Roy Bennett has been released from custody.

That being said, Mugabe’s attempts to maintain his political power have gotten truly surreal:

On his first day as education minister in a government so broke that most schools were closed and millions of children idle, David Coltart said he got a startling invitation.

“Come and get your brand-new white Mercedes,” an official told Mr. Coltart, a veteran opposition politician, as President Robert Mugabe peered down from a portrait on the minister’s office wall.

The offer of an E-Class Mercedes to every minister in the month-old power-sharing government was vintage Mugabe, an effort to seduce his political enemies with the lavish perks he has long bestowed on loyalists.

(I would have offered him silver, or metallic blue, myself.)

I’m an optimist, and see this as a sign of weakness.

Mugabe had previously dismissed the MDC entirely, and how he is trying to bribe them.