It appears that the advocates of space based solar power generation just set up a system to transmit power 92 miles, from Maui to the island of Hawaii, a distance of 92 miles. (paid subscription required)
It was only 20 watts broadcast, but they say that they can get over 60% transmission efficiency from orbit.
Even with a fairly abysmal test record, the Missile Defense Agency is planning to start testing on the Kinetic-Energy Interceptor (KEI) upgrade to the system. (paid subscription required)
It’s supposed to be able to intercept the missile bus before it dispenses warheads and decoys
….It’s also supposed to back up your hard drive, and keep your daughter from dating the guy with the pierced tongue.
Alan H. Fishman. former CEO of the former Bank Wamu, got $20 million for his 17 days on the job:
According to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, WaMu threw a $7.5 million bonus at Fishman when it hired him on Sept. 8, and guaranteed him an immediate cash severence of $11.6 million — both of which he gets to keep.
He also was eligible for annual bonuses of up to 365 percent of his annual base pay — set at $1 million — to go with millions of shares of company stock.
Fishman does lose out on a big bonus that would have kicked in had he remained on the job through 2009.
We are paying a bunch of Harvard MBAs to fail, and not surprisingly, that’s what they produce, failure.
Of course, the employees and their pensions….C’est caduc.
I suppose that it was inevitable, but Ewwwww!!!
Too Funny
It appears that Richard Branson’s space flight concern, Virgin Galactic, has rejected a $1 million offer to fly a group of people into space for a porn shoot.
*Sorry, I just could not resist…the headline is just too damn good.
No mistrial for now, but it seems to me that the prosecutors now have to deal with a seriously pissed off judge.
Still, Senator Ted Stephens is clearly as guilty as hell, and it’s marginally easier to get a conviction against a guilty man.
Well, we are seeing the 9th straight drop in monthly non-farm employment rolls (click on graphs for pretty pictures).
I find The U6 graph that I swiped from Paul Krugman to be particularly interesting.
Let’s just call it; we are in a recession.
I would also note that the credit flows have nearly shut down worldwide, which is why the Federal Reserve lending window is seeing record use from banks.
BTW, it ain’t just the Fed which is throwing money, particularly US Dollars, out the windows, it’s all of the central banks.
The obvious big news is the House passing the Wall Street bail-out, and I’m as yet unsure how the markets are reacting to this.
Oil is down down, which could either imply confidence in the US economy, or the belief that a recession is inevitable, and the dollar is mixed.
So, now that Charlie, aka, “The Human Metronome,” is in public school, he can take music classes, and we got him a Ludwig Percussion Kit, model LR2482R, which, “features a 13″ wooden snare drum, 2 1/2 octave bells, tunable practice pad with multi-purpose snare and bell stand, music rack, mallets and drum sticks. All items fit securely in the padded rolling bag that has sturdy plastic wheels and a telescoping handle.”
It’s pretty neat how you get it all into one compact package.
Charlie got it yesterday, when the music store delivered it to school, and has been working the drums and bells.
Mostly the bells.
Right now, he’s sitting there with the mallets, and plinking out a tune….Not Mary Had a Little Lamb….He’s doing Beethoven’s Ode to Joy.
He must get the musical skilz from his mother’s side of the family.
It looks like former AIG CEO CEO Maurice “Hank” Greenberg will net over a billion dollars on the sale.
He should be looking for dishwasher work.
I’m not sure that there was a realistic alternative at this time, thought I think that the package sucks.
$700 billion to the rich pigs on Wall Street….*sigh*
It appears that the Wachovia-Citi deal is off, and they will be purchased by Wells Fargo, though Citi is saying that Wachovia can’t back out of the deal.
My guess is that they are looking for a breakup fee.
Interestingly enough, the Wells deal does not require FDIC assistance.
All I can say is that it was a done deal yesterday evening.
The rule of thumb is that undecideds break 2/3 for the challenger, and McConnell is about as incumbent as they get.
45-44 Mitch McConnell (R) over challenger Bruce Lunsford (D).
After what was done to Daschle, I really hope that they DSCC pulls out the stops on this one.
For those folks who think that treasuries art not safe enough.
Man, I love the Daily Show
It appears that Kathleen Parker is surprised to get hate mail when she writes an article suggesting that Palin should step down from the ticket.
After years of spewing hate towards Democrats, Women, and Minorities, Ms. Parker appears to have finally come to have a frank discussion with the children of her bile.
Just in case you are wondering, that is the world’s smallest violin, and it’s playing just for her.
In the “Heterosexually yours in a chaste and biblically appropriate kind of way,” that the Jesus’ General does. Or at least I love the distinguished gentleman from Massachusetts when he says stuff like this:
Frank: “We don’t believe they had the votes and I think they are covering up the embarrassment of not having the votes. But think about this: somebody hurt my feelings so I will punish the country. I mean that’s hardly plausible. And there were twelve Republicans who were ready to stand up for the economic interest of America but not if anybody insulted them. I’ll make an offer: Give me those twelve people’s names and I will go talk uncharacteristically nicely to them and tell them what wonderful people they are, and maybe they’ll now think about the country.”
There is some serious ownage going on here.
Well, it appears, that once again Rice is more concerned with being a close confidant to the president than doing her job, and as a result, conflicts between the negotiators and the John Bolton clones in the arms control wing of the State Department have sabotaged the agreement on North Korean nuclear weapons.
Under the proposal, heavily influenced by the State Department’s arms control experts, the U.S. requested “full access to all materials” at sites that might have had a nuclear purpose in the past. It sought “full access to any site, facility or location” deemed relevant to the nuclear program, including military facilities, according to the four-page document, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Post. Investigators would be able to take photographs and make videos, remain on site as long as necessary, make repeated visits and collect and remove samples.
It’s essentially what they insisted on Iraq, only the Iraqis had already lost a war, and signed an agreement ceding much sovereignty in that area.
What’s more, we know who was pushing for a breakdown in the agreement:
“I am notifying Congress of my intent to rescind North Korea’s designation as a state sponsor of terror in 45 days,” Bush announced June 26. “The next 45 days will be an important period for North Korea to show its seriousness of its cooperation. We will work through the six-party talks to develop a comprehensive and rigorous verification protocol. And during this period, the United States will carefully observe North Korea’s actions — and act accordingly.”
But there was no written document linking North Korea’s performance on verification to its removal from the terror list, sources said. So when Bush let the 45 days pass without any action, North Korea denounced what it called “obviously a violation of the principle of ‘action for action’ essential for realizing denuclearization.”
The Bush administration does not want a deal. They see it as weakness, and besides, California and Hawaii, the likely targets of a missile attack, don’t vote Republican.
Looks like he’s decided that the terraine there is not friendly, which gives Michigan’s 17 EVs to Obama.
Cool.
