Author: Matthew G. Saroff

Nutjob Liberal Praises Obama for Killing Embryos

No Comments

This would, of course, be Nancy Reagan:

“I’m very grateful that President Obama has lifted the restrictions on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research,” the former first lady said in a statement. “These new rule will now make it possible for scientists to move forward.”

“Countless people, suffering from many different diseases, stand to benefit from the answers stem cell research can provide,” said Reagan, who has long been at odds with other conservative Republicans over the stem cell issue.

“We owe it to ourselves and to our children to do everything in our power to find cures for these diseases — and soon.”

H/T Extremepreneur, who also supplied the title.

Banks Exposure to Risky Derivatives Surges

No Comments

So the latest regulatory filings show that the big 5 banks exposure to risky financial instruments has exploded, which means that their potential losses have exploded, and so the possibility of being insolvent has increased.

I’m particularly concerned about when the lines cross, which is JPMorgan, and Citi, though it probably applies to Bank of America too, because this graph does not include the derivatives and other financial time bombs that it acquired when it bought Merrill Lynch.

Of course, Geithner and Summers just think that these assets are “artificially” depressed, and so the banks really are solvent…..Tools.

Do Not Reward the Incompetent

No Comments

While I’ve heard complaints about the people who campaigned against Proposition 8 in California, I’ve not followed it closely, but the following is unbelievable. Anyone who had anything to do with the “No on 8” campaign should never be hired as a political consultant ever again:

At the forum, Kors said turning the campaign over to the consultants was “a huge mistake.”

Smith also acknowledged that the campaign should have used then-presidential candidate Barack Obama’s stated opposition to Prop 8. Instead, little use was made of Obama’s opposition in a letter last June to the Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club, and right before Election Day the Yes on 8 campaign sent out a mailer featuring Obama’s image and quotes that he is opposed to same-sex marriage.

“That was a close call,” Smith said. “Maybe we should have.”

Maybe you should have? Maybe you should have?

This is so phenomenally stupid it beggars the imagination.

Smith said that people outside the Bay Area wouldn’t know what the Alice Club was, but club Co-Chair Susan Christian spoke up and said that in fact, Obama’s letter to the club been widely reported, including in the New York Times.

Win or lose at the California Supreme Court, and the indications are that it will be a lose, this will be on the ballot as an initiative petition in 2010, and job 1 is to ensure that the folks who ran “No on 8” don’t get into positions of authority on this.

See here, here, here, and here for better written outrage.

Documentation of Turkish Knowledge of the Armenian Genocide

No Comments

The archives of the old Ottoman Empire are opening up, and fairly conclusive evidence of the direct knowledge of the authorities of the Armenian Genocide has been uncovered:

With his book, “The Remaining Documents of Talat Pasha,” Bardakci (pronounced bard-AK-chuh) has become, rather unwillingly, part of this ferment. The book is a collection of documents and records that once belonged to Mehmed Talat, known as Talat Pasha, the primary architect of the Armenian deportations.

The documents, given to Bardakci by Talat’s widow, Hayriye, before she died in 1983, include lists of population figures. Before 1915, 1,256,000 Armenians lived in the Ottoman Empire, according to the documents. The number plunged to 284,157 two years later, Bardakci said.

To the untrained ear, it is simply a sad statistic. But anyone familiar with the issue knows the numbers are in fierce dispute.

….

Hilmar Kaiser, a historian and expert on the Armenian genocide, said the records published in the book were conclusive proof from the Ottoman authority itself that it had pursued a calculated policy to eliminate the Armenians. “You have suddenly on one page confirmation of the numbers,” he said. “It was like someone hit you over the head with a club.”

Seriously, it’s reality, and it’s something that the Turkish people should acknowledge.

Suck on this Serdar Argıç.

Enough with the DINOs

No Comments

Specifically, Senator Max Baucus (DINO-MT), who thinks that making people pay income tax on their healthcare benefits is preferable to raising taxes on the well-to do:

Currently, the portion of health benefits that are covered by a person’s employer is tax-free income. Baucus said last week that taxing those benefits should be considered. That way, health care reform would be funded with health care dollars.

Baucus says taxing health benefits wouldn’t necessarily be harmful to lower- and middle-class Americans.

If it won’t be harmful, then I’m Karl Rove’s secret love child.

Of course this will harm “lower- and middle-class Americans”. That’s what its intention is: Tax the poor to keep a tax break for the rich.

I understand that you won’t find a flaming liberal representing Montana. I get that, and if he were low on the seniority totem pole, I might let it slide, but he’s 7th in seniority, and so is chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.

Unfortunately, his next election will be in 2014, but this guy needs to be kept away from the machinery of government to the maximum degree possible.

There is a reason that Baucus is whoring for rich people from one of the poorer states in the nation, as the Wiki notes, 91% of his donations in 2008 came from out of state, so his money comes from bankers, insurance companies, etc., and he is offering them a return on his investment.

Economics Update

No Comments

Calculated Risk’s semi regular review of credit conditions is showing a bit of a tightening. Nothing major, but when you start with awful, it’s worse.

That being said, it sucks to be Japan, as they just swung to their first trade deficit in a decade, and it’s a record too.

Meanwhile, the impending wave of impending loan defaults on commercial real estate appears to be starting in Cleveland and Detroit.

It is also looking like treasury bonds are falling, which means that yields are rising, implying that the markets are expecting interest rates to climb.

In energy, it appears that OPEC is looking at cutting production again, and it’s member states are not cheating on production quotas, or at least cheating on them less than is expected, so oil is up today.

In addition, the upward trend in gasoline prices over the past few months continues unabated.

In currency, we continue to see a flight to safety, which is driving the dollar up, and the Canadian dollar hit a 4½ year low against the USD.

STOVL JSF Range Same as AV8B Harrier

No Comments

Bill Sweetman looks up the current numbers for the JSF and the Harrier, and finds the following:

But the bottom line is this: with 2,500 pounds of weapons, plus the gun pod, the AV-8B has a hi-lo-hi operational radius of 508 nm. The F-35B’s design radius, with no gun, two 1,000-pound bombs and two AMRAAMs, is 450 nm: the most recent numbers (from 2007) show it exceeding that and just about equalling the AV-8B’s range.

Huh. Obviously, there are differences, a supersonic dash speed, some level of stealth, and a superior avionics suite, but it’s a less than impressive performance for an aircraft that will enter service about 30 years after the Harrier II.

We Finally Have a Price for the JSF

No Comments

The catch? Engines are not included.

So, it’s a $70 million (A-model) or $80 million (B-model) paperweight.

That’s clear.

As Bill Sweetman notes:

  • The Norwegians think it’s $52M.
  • The Israelis think it’s +$100M.
  • The Dutch think it’s €56M.
  • The Danes think it’s $82M with spares and training.
  • Davis thinks it’s $70M for an F-35A in 2014.
  • Davis thinks it’s $70M for a F-35C without engine in 2014.
  • Davis thinks it’s $80M for a F-35A in 2014.
  • The USAF budget says it’s $91M flyaway in 2013.
  • The GAO thinks it’s $104M

I’m inclined to believe the GAO at this point.

Shooting Behind You

No Comments

MBDA just demonstrated an over-the-shoulder shot with their ASRAAM IIR AAAM, using its using the lock-after launch mode.

It’s a neat trick, and one of the arguments that the ASRAAM people have used, suggesting that its relative lack of maneuverability off the rail is more than made up for by its superior end-game kinematics, but one wonders how the launch aircraft would get targeting data in a real combat situation, unless, of course, it has the small stinger mounted radar of the Su-27 series.

Thick flying wing for UAVs faces windtunnel tests

No Comments

Interesting new aerodynamic concept here, a very thick wing with slots in it to improve lift to drag ratio.

I have no clue if it will work, though there is rather a lot of analysis that indicates that it might, but given the non-aerodynamic advantages of a thicker wing in terms of structure and volume, it is an intriguing concept.

It appears that this could be tied with some sort of bleed air technologies to work as control systems too.

US Air Force Sacrificing ECM Capabilities to Push F-22 & F-35

No Comments

The Air Force has yet canceled the stand-off jammer EB-52.

If you look at electronic warfare assets for the USAF, they have been starved for some time, and the USAF’s argument is that AESA radars can fill the gap on their stealth platforms.

To my mind, what is going on here is that the Air Force is systematically defunding projects that might constitute a threat to the F-22, F-35, B-2, and NGB.

If you possess sufficient EW capabilities to negate the newer integrated air defense systems, then you don’t need stealth, so those EW capabilities have to be killed, even if they, as in the case of the EB-52, make stealth more effective and more survivable.

GAO Report Savages Future Combat System

No Comments

Seriously, the report is brutal:

Advocates of restructuring or cutting back on FCS will find ammunition in the draft report. In it, GAO asserts that FCS is “unlikely to be executed” for the $159 billion the Army says it will cost, a source said, citing the draft.

Moreover, and perhaps more relevant to the current decision-making within the Pentagon, GAO states that the Army has already spent 60 percent of its FCS development funds even though “the most expensive activities remain to be done before the production decision” in 2013.

GAO contends that the funding situation will deteriorate for FCS as the program’s costs will likely grow at the same time as competition for federal funds tightens, a source said.

The report also cites what it calls “actual immaturity” in the program, according to sources. Calling the network performance “largely unproven,” GAO says the Army has failed to convincingly demonstrate that FCS designs will meet their requirements, a source told ITA.

I am completely not shocked at this. I worked on the program, and it was over ambitious, and managed under the now discredited Lead System Integrator (LSI) concept, which been universally unsuccessful.

It’s no surprise that this whole program has turned into a clusterf^%$.

The Case for the Abolition of the US Air Force

No Comments

Robert Dilger and Pierre Sprey, the latter being largely responsible for the A-10 and F-16, are arguing that the current procurement strategy of the US Air Force does not serve the military needs of the rest of the military.

The thing is that they provide a historical perspective or an organization that has always continued to follow the failed philosophy of Giulio Douhet, and it’s clear that the Air Force is not, and has never been, capable of providing for the needs of the warfighters, because they continue to pursue the elusive goal of total victory from an air campaign alone.

This goal has never worked except in a nuclear scenario, and their observation is spot on:

In summary, over the last 60 years of combat, our Air Force has, at higher and higher cost, demonstrated less and less effect on the outcome of each succeeding war. The root causes are equally clear: first, the blind insistence on procuring and planning for little besides the failed strategic bombardment mission; and second, the ingrained development incentives that reward increasing unit cost and complexity without regard to the effect on actual combat effectiveness and force size. If the new Administration follows the “business as usual” pattern, the sequence of events and outcomes is easy to project.

While these problems have existed since the creation of an air force, even in the USAAC days, it has become progressively worse as the Air Force has continued as an independent branch.

As to their specific recommendations:

  1. A new close support aircraft smaller, more survivable, and more lethal than the A-10, one that is affordable in vastly larger numbers. (The Air Force plans to use small numbers of the unmaneuverable, highly vulnerable and ineffective F-35, at $150 million each, for this mission.)

  2. A forward controller spotter plane dramatically more survivable, longer-loitering and far lower cost in than a helicopter, able to land next to the tents of the supported troops. (The Air Force suffers from the delusion that close support can be called in using drones, satellites, and other “high tech” sensors, contrary to the lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan.)

  3. A small, affordable dirt strip airlifter to meet the real emergency needs of beleaguered battalions in the boonies. (The Air Force always short-changes this in-the-mud prop mission in favor of large jet transports.)

  4. A super-maneuverable new air-to-air dogfighter with all–passive electronics, far smaller with far higher maneuvering performance than the best of the F-16s and thus able to outfight the F-22 or any other advanced fighter in the world. (Emitting no radio/radar signals whatsoever, this new fighter will obsolete the F-22’s electronics, defeat any enemy fighter’s passive warning/identification-friend-or-foe system, and render useless the enemy’s radar-homing missiles which rely on seeking our fighter radars.)

I agree with items 1-3, but I am dubious of 4, where I do think that the provision of a radar, both for BVR air to air and poor weather strike missions would be desirable, though I think that advances in electronics could vastly reduce the weight of such a system.

I would also add another procedural change, and remove procurement authority from the service, and place it in the hands of the US Army, who, after all, is the consumer of the services that the USAF offers.