Category: Stupid

Another Argument for Abolishing the Airforce

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I really am getting sick and tired of the machinations of the fighter pilot Mafia.

Yes, General Bruce Carleson, who has raised insubordination to an art form, is saying that, “Air Force officials must develop and buy new aircraft or risk the service becoming irrelevant”.

In any likely conflict for the next 20 or so years, we are looking at a few weeks of the “kinetic” phase, followed by months or years of peacekeeping, where it does not matter if you are flying an F-16, F-22, or for that matter, a WWII era piston engined A-1 SPAD.

You are bombing and rocketing insurgents from a position of absolute air supremacy.

The Air Force as a combat service is largely irrelevant. What might be important is airlift, and there was just a 30+ billion award made on that a 2 weeks ago.

To the degree that you might need to exert “dominance” if challenged by a real air threat, the critical issue will be situational awareness and communications, which can be handled through system upgrades.

Wack Job Religious Fundamentalist Nutjobs Should Not Be Given Secular Power Over People: Israel Edition

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The story is in the New York Times.

Basically, a Jew, from a long line of Jews, wanted to get married, and the Rabbinic courts there made her jump through a series of hoops to prove she was Jewish.

I’d say that the officials on the Chief Rabbinate’s office can to go to hell, but that would be superfluous. They are already well on their way toward Gehenna.

Does McCain Know Anything About Anything????

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Yep, now we have McCain saying that Thimerisol causes autism.

It’s not true. It’s never been true, and there is no evidence of this.

Any evidence presented to indicate this has proven to be false, and there has been no change in the trajectory in conditions on the Autism spectrum since Thimerisol was phased out in the 1990s.

My wife recognized that my son might be on the spectrum at birth, though it was clearer at 3-4 weeks, well before any inoculations.

Loan Portfolio Limits Eased on GSEs. Disaster to Follow

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As a result of their accounting scandals Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac had their portfolios capped about 725 billion dollars, but regulators have now removed the caps.

This is, to quote Nietzsche, “Like the bite of a dog into a stone, it is a stupidity”.

The head of OFHEO, James Lockhart, will be eliminating the caps this week, and it looks like he will be reducing their capital requirements below the current 30% too.

Mr. Lockhart is an ass. At a time when the 2nd and 3rd largest borrowers in the world, after the US government, are facing a collapsing market, allowing them to go further out on a limb that is being sawed through is insane.

Thoughts on Cuba

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First, you have to read what Lower Manhattanite of the Group News Blog said. The short form is, that that the US is in the position of a stalking ex-boyfriend. To true.

Then we have Ben Sargant’s editorial cartoon:

Hoisted from Brad Delong’s comments, it’s an excellent historical perspective:

And I think he knows that he has fallen short and is pained by that. And to have his life evaluated by a moral midget like George Bush and his ilk must gall him.
Having said that, the real decision on Castro will be made by the Cuban people and above all I wish them as much freedom as possible to do this. Freedom from their own government trying to hold on to power the old way even if that is no longer appropriate. But even more, freedom from those in our country would be willing to slaughter large numbers of Cubans and destroy what good Cuba has created over these past.

Whatever Castro has been, the Cuban people have paid a high price and achieved genuine social development. The worst tragedy would be for this to be taken from them in a wave of Thatcher-Reagan-Yeltsin privatization combined with America bringing “freedom” to Cuba the way we have brought it to Iraq.

(emphasis mine)

Finally, I have a thought on why the Cubans are way more batsh%$ insane 50 years after Castro left than, for example, my Estonian acquaintance was about the USSR and Estonia 40 years after Stalin invaded:

It’s more than that with the emigres.

You have to understand that Cuba has a heritage of Spanish rule.

For 300 years, when the British Crown got too autocratic, the refrain was, “This isn’t Spain”.

Spain bought into divine right big time, and it got passed down from the Spanish crown to the despotic successors of the crown.

A coup was OK, because that was just the man at the top changing, but Castro, he broke up the estates, and gave them to the peons, some of whom were n***ers (IIRC, Cuba is now majority Afro-Cuban).

That is an affront to God, and cannot be tolerated.

OK, This is Just Bat$#%@ Insane, and Stupid

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The entire accusations of “plagiarism” against Obama in his speaking are bogus.

There is a qualitative difference between a politico using someone else’s catch phrase, which is done all the time, and what Joe Biden did in 1988, when he lifted an entire speech and life story.

John F. Kennedy’s “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country” phrase came from a speech from Warren G. Harding, for example.

This some seriously lame stuff.

US Air Force Intent on Committing Suicide

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Gen. Bruce Carlson, chief of Air Force Materiel Command, told a group of reporters Wednesday that the Air Force will figure out a way to buy 380 F-22s, despite the fact that the Pentagon – through the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) – has capped the number of Raptors to be procured at 183.

What is first obvious is that is engaging in insubordination by giving a press conference saying that he will find a way to subvert the decisions of a superior in his chain of command, and he should be fired immediately.

This is far more brassy, and far more public than anything MacArthur did to Truman.

That being said, if he gets his wish, he will destroy the USAF as a fighting unit.

Flight International’s Stephen Trimble does the numbers, and gets an additional 20 F-22s a year at $150 million an aircraft gets another $3 Billion a year over the next 10 years.

Based on my experience with military contracting, I’d double that number when operational expenses, the inevitable cost overruns, and gold plated block improvements are added.

To do this, I think that you need to slash personnel, and cancel pretty much every other program, the F-35, the KC-X, the next gen bomber, the next gen freighter, etc.

You will also have to reduce the existing inventory to cut costs and to reflect the fact that you don’t have enough people to keep the stuff running

Taliban Style CatholicsGo After High School Sports

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In Kansas*, a religious high school refused to allow a female referee to officiate at their game, because they did not believe that women should ever have authority over men.

To the credit of then Kansas State High School Activities Association, they are in the process of considering banning St. Mary’s Academy from any sporting events with their members schools if this is actually their policy.

They should do so, and they so should do so for non sports activities too. Whether that be beauty contests, band competitions, car washes, or educational conferences.

These people are the real American Taliban, and any accomodation will encourage more extreme demands.

*You know, Kansas would be the last place that I would expect this. So say we all, by the might of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Condi’s State Department: Making Our Best and Brightest Targets

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The US Embassy in Bolivia has been asking members of the Peace Corps and Fulbright Scholars to Spy on Cubans and Venezuelans.

Van Schaick’s account matches that of Peace Corps members and staff who claim that last July their entire group of new volunteers was instructed by the same U.S. Embassy official in Bolivia to report on Cuban and Venezuelan nationals.

The State Department says any such request was “in error” and a violation of long-standing U.S. policy which prohibits the use of Peace Corps personnel or Fulbright scholars for intelligence purposes.

This paints big fat targets on the backs on a group of people who are sent out into the world to understand, and develop friendships with, foreigners all over the world.

Bush League Diplomacy in action.

Because Republican Senators Have Nothing Better to Do With Their time

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So the hippy-dippy city council of Berkeley California decides to waste its time declaring a Marine recruiting station “unwelcome” in the town, and in reaponse, “Six Republican senators, led by Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., and an Orange County representative on Wednesday introduced companion bills called the Semper Fi Act of 2008 that seek to take away $2.3 million from Berkeley earmarked in the 2008 Omnibus Appropriations bill and give it to the Marine Corps.”

You’re wrestling with a pig, dudes. You both get dirty, and the pig loves it.

Where that money would come from:

  • $243,000 from the Chez Panisse Foundation, which provides 10,000 daily school lunches for Berkeley public schools
  • $243,000 for the Ed Roberts Campus, a project that houses offices for disability organizations
  • $750,000 for water ferry service planned from Berkeley to San Francisco
  • $94,000 for a police and fire emergency communications system
  • $975,000 from UC Berkeley’s Matsui Center for Politics and Public Service, which houses the papers of the late U.S. Rep. Robert Matsui

Morons.

Bad Ideas: Combining Nuclear Power With Explosive Metals

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I understand that there advantages to Sodium cooled reactors, particularly the fact that, because of the small cross section of the nucleus of Sodium, you can get a much more complete burn with fewer waste products, but that the Sodium-Cooled Fast Reactor Prototype Development, memorandum of understanding (MOU) will lead nowhere.

The U.S Department of Energy (DOE), the French Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) and Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) have expanded cooperation to coordinate Sodium-Cooled Fast Reactor Prototype development through a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). The MOU establishes a collaborative framework with the ultimate goal of deploying sodium-cooled fast reactor prototypes. A sodium-cooled fast reactor uses liquid sodium to transfer heat, burning the plutonium and other transuranic elements in the process producing clean, safe nuclear power, less waste and increasing non-proliferation goals.

This makes the Hindenberg look like a cap gun.

Liquid Sodium explodes on contact with air.

When Journalism Sucks Wet Farts from Dead Pigeons

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When Jake Tapper ran a story suggesting that Bill Clinton suggested that slowing the economy of the developed nations would have to slow their economies to deal with global warming, when he was actually showing that such a strategy would not work.

Here is Bill Clinton’s quote:

“And maybe America, and Europe, and Japan, and Canada — the rich counties — would say, ‘OK, we just have to slow down our economy and cut back our greenhouse gas emissions ’cause we have to save the planet for our grandchildren.’ We could do that.

But if we did that, you know as well as I do, China and India and Indonesia and Vietnam and Mexico and Brazil and the Ukraine, and all the other countries will never agree to stay poor to save the planet for our grandchildren. The only way we can do this is if we get back in the world’s fight against global warming and prove it is good economics that we will create more jobs to build a sustainable economy that saves the planet for our children and grandchildren. It is the only way it will work.”

(emphasis mine)

But Jake Tapper reported it thusly:

In a long, and interesting speech, he characterized what the U.S. and other industrialized nations need to do to combat global warming this way: “We just have to slow down our economy and cut back our greenhouse gas emissions ’cause we have to save the planet for our grandchildren.”

At a time that the nation is worried about a recession is that really the characterization his wife would want him making? “Slow down our economy”?

I don’t really think there’s much debate that, at least initially, a full commitment to reduce greenhouse gases would slow down the economy….So was this a moment of candor?

Remarkably hacktacular. In fact, it was so hacktacular that right wing blogs, such as The Corner on National Review Online, and Hot Air are criticizing Jake Tapper for being unfair to Bill Clinton.

When you have right wingers complaining that you are unfair to Bill Clinton, it is clear that you have jumped the shark.

H/t The Carpet Bagger Report

Wanker of The Day: Northwestern U’s Coordinator of Violence Prevention and Sexual Health Education

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Here is the cartoon:

It’s pretty straightforward. It’s a call for promiscuity, something I whole heartedly approve of, unless it’s MY daughter.

Unfortunately, you have Northwestern’s Coordinator of Violence Prevention and Sexual Health Education not getting the fact that sex and rape are different things, and so she conflates them.

Letters to the Editor – Forum

Cartoon sexist, offensive

In The Daily on Friday, Jan. 25, a Drawing Board illustration was published depicting an angry stick figure and the message “I like my women like I like my cell phone minutes: Unlimited on nights and weekends.” Directly opposite this image were two Daily articles about the highly publicized sexual assault of an NU student that occurred near campus in May of 2007.

These two items juxtaposed in our student newspaper speak volumes about the culture here at NU. Whether or not the cartoon was created in an attempt to parody the attitude expressed in the quote, the illustration calls into question a set of beliefs about women and sex that research has shown to contribute to the alarmingly regular occurrence of sexual assault on college campuses.

Sexual assaults happen because the sexual aggressor believes that he is entitled to a woman’s body and pursues sexual activity without care or concern about the wishes of the victim. Attitudes like the one expressed in the cartoon reflect and contribute to a cultural climate where women’s value is based on their ability to sexually gratify men. When women are devalued in this manner and sexual relationships between men and women are viewed as adversarial, sexual violence against women is the natural extreme on a continuum of sexually aggressive and exploitative behaviors. In such a climate, the belief that women should be “unlimited” (and the assumption that they are) takes away an individual’s ability to give consent to sexual activity.

Most men who commit rape do not define their behavior as assault and are therefore able to justify their actions to themselves and others. Perpetrators of sexual assault are products of a culture that encourages them to view women as sexual objects and to believe that they are entitled to unlimited sexual access to women.

The belief that the majority of sexual assaults are committed by strangers in dark alleys is a misconception. Perpetrators of sexual assault are not mentally ill or psychotic, as the myths suggest, but rather they are “normal” men on your campus who hold beliefs about women and sex identical to those expressed in the Daily cartoon.

While the cartoon was most likely created in good humor, it is critical to make the connection between this humor and the set of beliefs that perpetuates and justifies sexual assault. We can all play a role in changing the culture at NU by thinking critically about the messages we receive and striving to challenge those that support and condone sexual violence.

– Kathryn Guilfoyle
Coordinator of Violence Prevention and Sexual Health Education
NU Health Education Department

The problem here is a simple one, and it not that the cartoon is crass, and perhaps a bit tasteless.

There is no call for violence. There is no implication of violence. There is a call for promiscuity.

There is a problem however, and that is when a “Coordinator of Violence Prevention” because of a need to justify the existence of such a position.

She is paid to be humorless and easily offended….Come to think of it, perhaps she needs a raise.

In conflating the desire with promiscuity with violence, Ms. Guilfoyle diminishes real, and ongoing threats of sexual violence.

She makes rape becomes about how humorless people find any reference to sex a call for rape, rather than being about the real, and more common than we would like to think, of sexual violence in our society.