Cheney is saying that Congressional leaders were fully briefed and approved of the warrantless wiretapping at various times from 2001 through 2004, which would mean that Pelosi, and HHS Secretary nominee Tom Daschle are co-conspirators.
My guess would be that if Cheney is telling the truth, and that is a big if, then they are probably in on torture too.
On face the nation, Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-NY), said the following, “You know, Rembrandt was a great artist. His brother Murray, on the other hand, Murray Rembrandt wouldn’t paint a house”
So, while the largest banks in the nation were getting money handed to them by Hank Paulson with no strings attached, their upper management lined up $1.6 billion in bonuses for the top 600 bankers.
Well, over the weekend it appears that the Big 3 (Big 2½) auto maker bailout has driven the dollar down, and driven oil up, though trading in both was light, though retail gasoline hit a new low.
That being said, the real news is that Japanese exports fell 27% year over year in November as the worldwide recession crushed demand.
27%????? Ouch.
So, I come across this story describing how Bush’s push for home ownership, aka the “Ownership Society,” was responsible in part for the housing crash.
I tend to agree with the Shrill One, when he says that Bush’s support of home ownership had the same role in the housing bubble as his support for marital fidelity did in the overall rate of adultery in the USA, and that his most significant contribution was in stripping away regulation that protected people from predatory lendors.
That being said, I cannot allow this quote go unanswered:
Then his Treasury secretary, Henry Paulson Jr., told him that to stave off disaster, he would have to sign off on the biggest government bailout in history. Bush, according to several people in the room, paused for a single, stunned moment to take it all in.
“How,” he wondered aloud, “did we get here?”
You just cannot read that and then not show a clip of the seminal music video from Talking Heads’ Once in a Lifetime.
Well, Northrop-Grumman has rolled out its first X-47B unmanned combat air system (UCAS) demonstrator in a rather splashy debut.
Not bad for a project that was on the death watch list just 6 months ago.
It’s actually rather large, with a, ” 62.1 ft, compared to 44.7 ft. for an F/A-18″ (the E/F models), and so looks to be close to the size of the canceled A-12 attack aircraft.
Here we can see the standard robust naval landing gear.
Here is a closeup of the inlet, which the N-G folks were fine with letting people take, which surprises me, because it’s kind of the “secret sauce”.
There is still a part of me that is surprised that the US Navy is considering a tailless anything after the debacle that was the F7U Cutlass (aka “Gutless” and “Ensign Eliminator”).
NG press release here.
Well, it certainly sounds like one of those pre-Christmas sales.
Boeing is offering to sell F/A-18 E/Fs to the US Navy and Marines for less than $50 million each, in order to help with the “fighter gap”, that the Navy is facing as its older aircraft face the end of life, and the F-35 is further delayed.
This is with the AESA radar, so it is a very good deal by today’s standards.
I never in my life thought that I’d be saying “F/A-18”, and “low cost” in the same breath.
Well, it looks like the on again off again deal between Russia and India to lease nuclear attack submarines is on again.
The Nerpa, which was originally the subject of the deal until an accidental discharge of the fire fighting system killed 20 people, is no longer believed to be a part of the deal, though a sister ship (Project 971 “Akula” class boats), or perhaps more than one sister ship, might be a part of the deal.
So, we have a fairly run of the mill article Aviation Week article about delays on integrating new weapons into the Eurofighter Typhoon. (paid subscription required)
It appears that there will now be a 2 year delay in qualifying the Meteor rocket-ramjet long range AAM for the platform:
Fielding of the rocket/ramjet-powered Meteor air-to-air missile on the Eurofighter Typhoon is being pushed back two years. The move is part of a wider rescoping of weapon-integration plans.
…
… It had intended to introduce the missile in 2013, although this date was in itself a shift from the previous in-service date (ISD) of 2012. The delay came to light following this cryptic comment from the Defense Ministry: “When the missile is integrated on Typhoon is being deferred until a time in keeping more with when the threat may materialize.”
The Meteor is a key element of the Typhoon’s air-to-air capability, providing the aircraft with a weapon with an engagement envelope, and no escape zone, substantially greater than the Raytheon AIM-120 Amraam family of weapons. The revised ISD is also understood to reflect a threshold for some of the Typhoon partners beyond which their present Amraam inventory would require refurbishment. France and Sweden are also Meteor partners; the weapon is intended for the Rafale and Gripen, respectively.
The translation into English here is that while the Typhoon is already flying, and that the Meteor is largely on schedule, at least its current schedule, it’s outrageously expensive to qualify the Meteor for as a weapon on the Typhoon, and since the most likely competitor, a rocket/ram jet upgrade of the Vympel R-77 (AA-12 Adder) is on the back burner, it’s simply unaffordable to take a system ready for deployment, and make sure that it can be used by a system in deployment.
This is nuts. It’slike saying that the cost of getting a new sound system for your car is $50,000.00.
The commander of Russia’s Strategic Missile forces, Colonel-General Nikolai Solovtsov is saying that many of the systems currently in development would not be necessary if the US backs off its missile defense installation in Poland:
“If Americans give up plans to deploy the third positioning region and other elements of the strategic missile defense system then certainly we will adequately respond to it,” Colonel-General Nikolai Solovtsov said.
“We will simply not need a number of expensive programs,” he added echoing earlier Kremlin overtures to the new U.S. administration.
This has generally been the knock on various BMD efforts since Reagan’s “Star Wars,” and the installations in Europe, which appeared to be located to challenge Russia more than Iran, just further complicate the matter.
Japanese aero engine manufactuer IHI is working on a a low fuel consumption turbofan (paid subscription required) to compete with US and European engines on future regional jets.
One of the interesting features of the engine, IHI calls it the Eco turbofan, mockup shown is how the fan wraps around its hub, so as to cover more of the frontal area of the engine, which is intended to improve efficiency.
In its initial form, it should put out around 9,000 lbs of thrust with a 7:1 bypass ratio.
The IDF has started deploying a new radar geared toward counter-battery fire.
The Elta’s EL/M-2084 Multi-Mission Radar (MMR) phased array radar can pick up artillery and rocket rounds at launch, and determing both the launch point and impact point.
It will be integrated with Israeli rocket interception systems, though I wonder if it might also be incorporated into counter-battery fire control too, as it appears that this would allow the IDF Artillery Corps to have rounds on a target firing at them in less than something less than 2 minutes.
A brief synopsis of what’s going on with the F-22
I think that this is the background of this report of statements by the SecDef and Chairman of the JCS that call the aircraft irrelevant and expensive.
Unfortunately, I think that we will continue to see lobbying about it until definitive orders are given, and officers who lobby against those orders are fired.
Yes, it now appears that there is no segment of the finance industry too opaque to receive aid from the Federal Reserve.
This time, it’s hedge funds that are the recipient of Helicopter Ben’s largesse, being allowed access to the $200 billion Term Asset-backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF).
This is like lending Sweeney Todd money to open a combined barber – butcher school.
So, it now appears that the 24 interior ministry officers arrested for either plotting a coup, or plotting to revive the Baath party have been released.
I believe that Robert Farley’s analysis is spot on.
There never was a coup or a Baath party plot, there was just a power grab by Nouri al Maliki, and when too many people called him out on this, he folded.
Not sure what this means, though it will make the next round of elections in Iraq interesting.
Which generally means that I don’t write about it.
As I have said about She Who Must Not Be Named, and They Who Must Not Be Named:
Absent some sort of political activity, such as endorsements, running for office (PLEASE GOD NO!!), or their attempting to assassinate someone, she will not be mentioned here.
So why am I writing about the arrest of Sherry L. Johnston on drug charges that appear to be associated with possession or distribution of Oxycontin.
Why am I writing about a small time drug bust in the small town of Wasilla, Alaska….Hold it….Wasilla, where Sarah Palin comes from, and Johnston, like the guy, Levi, who knocked up her teenage daughter?
Yes, Sherry L. Johnston is Levi’s mom….And Levi Johnston and and Bristol Palin are still engaged to be married, and her baby is due today, though a quick scan of the ADN web site shows that the birth has not yet been anounced.
So, why am I mentioning it?
Let’s see:
So, yes, this is noteworthy, particularly if your name is Jay Leno, Conan O’Brien, David Letterman, or Jon Stewart.
Mike Connel was Karl Rove’s IT guy, and had been described as the GOP’s, “high IQ Forrest Gump” by lawyers investigating allegations of GOP vote manipulation for his presence at almost every instance of voting irregularities, and now he has been killed in a plane crash. He was the only one on the plane at the time of the crash. (see also here)
He was also a source for the Managing Editor for investigative news at Raw Story.
Before his death, his lawyers alleged that he and his family were threatened by Karl Rove.
How utterly convenient.
One of the basics of law, in the US at least, is that ISPs are viewed as common carriers, which means that, much like phone companies, they are not responsible for activity that takes place on their networks.
Much like the phone company is not responsible for people who, for example, plan a bank robbery over their network, so the ISPs are not responsible if these same people were to do so using email or VOIP.
Well, the good folks at the RIAA* have come up with a way to put an end to this legal arrangement, which has served telecommunications for over 100 years now.
Basically, they have decided to abandon their strategy of suing grandmothers for multimillion dollar lawsuits based on dubious data, and instead, they are asking ISPs to take responsibility for the actions that people take through their networks, and threaten them and disconnect them, based on the same bogus data.:
Instead, the Recording Industry Association of America said it plans to try an approach that relies on the cooperation of Internet-service providers. The trade group said it has hashed out preliminary agreements with major ISPs under which it will send an email to the provider when it finds a provider’s customers making music available online for others to take.
Depending on the agreement, the ISP will either forward the note to customers, or alert customers that they appear to be uploading music illegally, and ask them to stop. If the customers continue the file-sharing, they will get one or two more emails, perhaps accompanied by slower service from the provider. Finally, the ISP may cut off their access altogether.
So, they are getting ISPs to agree to take legal responsibility for this, and exposing these same ISPs to legal jeopardy from their customers when they get this wrong.
This is, as Matthew Yglesias frequently notes, a consequence of a lack of understanding of what IP in general, and copyright in particular are actually about.
The purpose of IP is not about the creation of property, nor the guarantee of profits, its purpose is one of public interest. To quote the pertinent section of the US Constitution:
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.
(emphasis mine)
Or, as Yglesias puts it:
But boosting album sales is not a legitimate public policy objective. Nor is boosting record company profits. Nor, even tough musicians themselves are a much more sympathetic claimant than record company shareholders, is boosting musician incomes. The purpose of intellectual property law is to protect the interests of consumers. I’ve never seen anybody attempt to argue that people aren’t forming new bands or recording new songs anymore. Nor have I seen anybody attempt to argue that it’s more difficult today to find new music to listen to than it was ten or twenty years ago. In fact, the reverse is the case. The very trends toward digitization and file-copying have made music much more widely available than it was in the past.
Of course, the folks always trot out this graph showing declining album sales, but, as the other Matthew notes, selling albums is not the business of the US government.
Additionally, this is not a graph of album sales, but a graph of album shipments, and the record companies have improved inventory system over the past decade, using software to predict sales, so they ship fewer albums to stores, and get fewer returns.
As if we did not already know that they were lying sacks of sh%$, they are attempting to use new efficiencies in distribution to create the illusion that “pirates” are “destroying their industry”.
*And by, “good folks at the RIAA,” I mean, “bunch of mindless jerks who’ll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes.”
Basically, the Dutch government is disputing the amount of kickbacks that are supposed to accrue to it over JSF production.
This is not illegal, or necessarily corrupt, the money is going back to the taxpayer, not an individual politician, but as part of the industrial arrangement, the Dutch government gets profit sharing, hence my earlier comment about their being paid to buy the fighter, and they are now saying that the concerns manufacturing JSF components owe them about €300 million, so they are taking them to court.
In a real way, it’s yet another indicator of how screwed defense procurement has become. It’s like dope dealers fighting over their percentages.