Month: June 2007

My Former Employer/Client Under Criminal Investigation

No Comments

I worked on the Future Combat System Recovery and Maintenance Vehicle, FRMV, from 2003-2006. I worked at BAE Systems in York, PA (Formerly United Defense), under the direction of BAE Systems employees, but my paycheck was from another firm TAC Worldwide, who does technical placement, both temp and perm.

BTW, the folks at TAC are pretty decent, and if you are looking for technical work on the East coast, contact Harry Torbit at their Baltimore Office. He’s a good guy.

We know the money was dirty, because it went through Riggs Bank.

Also the “Bob Cratchett” imagery is prize.

The House of Saud may very well be the most corrupt organization on earth.

BAE faces criminal inquiry in US over £1bn payments

Justice department alarmed at claims over MoD’s role

David Leigh and Rob Evans
Thursday June 14, 2007
The Guardian

The US department of justice is preparing to open a corruption investigation into the arms company BAE, the Guardian has learned. It would cover the alleged £1bn arms deal payments to Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia.

Washington sources familiar with the thinking of senior officials at the justice department said yesterday it was ‘99% certain’ that a criminal inquiry would be opened under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). Such an investigation would have potentially seismic consequences for BAE, which is trying to take over US arms companies and make the Pentagon its biggest customer.

The sources say US officials were particularly concerned by the allegations in the Guardian that UK Ministry of Defence officials actively colluded in the payments. One said: “The image of all these Bob Cratchits in Whitehall sitting at their high stools processing invoices from Bandar has been a startling one to us.“

The Guardian has revealed allegations that BAE used the US banking system to transfer quarterly payments to accounts controlled by Prince Bandar at Riggs Bank in Washington. Another senior US source said this brought the payments within the ambit of the FCPA. “Prosecutors have previously taken the view that the FCPA does reach that far,” the source said.

…

More Bush Law Breaking

No Comments

I miss Richard Nixon.

I can’t believe I said that, but I miss Nixon’s competence and relative honesty.

I can’t believe I just said that.

Stop the world, I want to get off.

Dem Claims Meddling in Waiver Request

By ERICA WERNER
The Associated Press
Tuesday, June 12, 2007; 9:04 PM

WASHINGTON — The Transportation Department acknowledged Tuesday encouraging members of Congress to weigh in with the EPA on California’s request to implement global warming controls on automakers.

California officials criticized the intervention by one executive branch agency with another as improper and possibly illegal, but a Transportation Department attorney said it wasn’t.

The Environmental Protection Agency is accepting comments through Friday on whether to grant California a waiver to put in place a state law that would cut greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent from cars and 18 percent from sport utility vehicles beginning in 2009.

….

Waxman wrote that the call “raises serious concerns” as an improper or possibly illegal use of federal resources, and at the very least “suggests the presence of an improper hidden agenda.” He asked for records of any other contacts and said he wanted to depose Shahmoradi.

California Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez called the Transportation Department’s intervention “a whispering campaign by administration officials to try and derail one of the most important tools out there to fight global warming.”

The EPA has not indicated when, or if, it will grant the waiver.

Study supports existence of Martian Ocean

No Comments

If this is true, Mars must have had life at some point.

New study supports existence of Mars ocean shoreline

WASHINGTON – Long, undulating features on the northern plains of Mars probably are remnants of shorelines of an ocean that covered a third of the planet’s surface at least 2 billion years ago, scientists said today.

The geological features, stretching thousands of kilometres, were first revealed in the 1980s in Viking spacecraft images. But topographical data collected by Nasa’s Mars Global Surveyor in the 1990s cast doubt on whether the features truly marked a long-gone sea coast.


An illustration shows how Mars might have appeared more than 2 billion years ago, with an ocean filling the lowland basin. Photo / Reuters

“Shrinkage”, aka Theft is Rising at U.S. Wal-Mart stores

No Comments

Gee, you treat you employers and suppliers like crap, and we are supposed to be surprised when they rob you blind?

Payback is a bitch, huh.

Theft rising at U.S. Wal-Mart stores

Theft rising at U.S. Wal-Mart stores
June 14, 2007: 06:25 AM EST

Jun. 14, 2007 (AFX International Focus) —

NEW YORK (AP) – businessminute
Shoppers at Wal-Mart stores (NYSE:WMT) across America are loading carts with merchandise — maybe a flat-screen TV, a few DVDs and a six-pack of beer — and strolling out without paying. Employees also are helping themselves to goods they haven’t paid for.

The world’s largest retailer is saying little about these kinds of thefts, but its recent public disclosures that it is experiencing an increase in so-called shrinkage at its U.S. stores suggests that inventory losses due to shoplifting, employee theft, paperwork errors and supplier fraud could be worsening.

…

Edwards to Detail Health Care Plan – New York Times

No Comments

A good start, and a substantive proposal.

Not what I would favor, as I favor a UK/Canadian style National Health Service, but it’s an OK start, and good on the details.

Edwards to Detail Health Care Plan – New York Times

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: June 14, 2007

Filed at 11:56 a.m. ET

DETROIT (AP) — Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards wants to reduce the cost of U.S. health care by removing patents for breakthrough drugs …

Considering the fact that the Federal Government funds something like 80% of all Pharma research (need cite, this is memory), this is a good thing.

Also, this is a direct challenge to the idea of intellectual product (IP)law, such as copyright and patents, as being property law. It isn’t.

Instead, IP Law is Public Interest Law. It says so in the constitution, in Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the Constitution. Congress is empowered “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.”

This is not the money in your wallet, or your home. This is an exclusive license for use, more akin to a liquor license than property.

and requiring health insurance companies to spend at least 85 percent of their premiums on patient care.

I don’t like my premiums paying for multimillion dollar bonuses for already rich executives. I like the fact that it’s paying for generally uninformative TV ad blitzes even less.

Thank Heaven for Little Girls

No Comments

I was going shopping tonite. My wife, my son Charlie, my daughter Natalie, and I were all in the store together.

The kids were a little bit hyper, and this was being magnified as it bounced back and forth between them, like an echo chamber.

Natalie’s birthday is coming up, and so we were getting cupcakes for a little party in her class.

Our already hyper 9 year old ran, grabbed the cupcakes, and put them in the shopping cart.

Then she grabbed the cupcakes, and ran back and put them back, to see if she could find something better.

She eventually ended up back at the cart, empty handed.

When reminded that we needed something for her party, she headed off at a sprint, back to the cupcakes.

I turned to my wife, and said, she reminds me of a hummingbird on crystal meth.

Sometimes, kids are exhausting.

Good Court Decision on Eminent Domain

No Comments

I was appalled by the actions taken in Kelo v. City of New London, but not the court decision.

The idea of taking someone’s home, and giving it to a real estate developer is a POLITICAL calculus, and not a judicial one.

If you look at the case, the right wingers on the court sided against the “taking”, and they did so with an ulterior motive.

They were looking to make it a wedge for the “Fair Use” crazies, who want to be reimbursed for not putting a toxic waste dump on their land.

This decision is far more narrow, and simply says that fallow land is not blighted land under the NJ constitution.

Ruling limits use of eminent domain

Thursday, June 14, 2007

By SCOTT FALLON
STAFF WRITER

New Jersey towns will have a harder time seizing private property for redevelopment after the state Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that targeted property must be blighted and not merely underused.

The ruling will have far-reaching effects, state officials said, and could aid property owners fighting eminent domain in Lodi, North Arlington and Passaic.

The 42-page unanimous decision said that town officials cannot seize homes and businesses simply because they believe those properties can be put to better use.

“The court is giving notice that municipalities no longer have unfettered access to private property,” said Harvey Pearlman, a lawyer who represents a Passaic homeowner whose house was condemned by the city without his knowledge.

The court wrestled with what constitutes blight in deciding a case from Gloucester County, where the town of Paulsboro sought to condemn a 63-acre tract made up mostly of wetlands.

….

TheStar.com – News – DNA `junk’ appears to have uses

No Comments

I’ve always wondered if DNA outside the nucleus, like the malformed DNA that causes Creuzfelt-Jakov (mad cow) disease might have other, more basic, effects on how creatures develop.

Then again, I’m an Engineer, Not a Doctor, Dammit!!!!!!

I Love it When I can Mangle a “Dr. McCoy” line.

DNA `junk’ appears to have uses

Jun 14, 2007 04:30 AM
Joseph Hall
health reporter

A groundbreaking study says scientists may have to substantially alter their long-held conception of life’s basic blueprint, DNA.

In a departure from traditional thinking, the four-year study says that genes can no longer be considered the only active parts of DNA and that huge segments thought to be ‘junk’ may play a significant role in such individual traits as susceptibility to diseases.

‘A lot of these regions that previously we were thinking were junk DNA, or vast deserts of non-functionality, have been found to be a lot more active,’ says Steven Jones, associate director of the British Columbia Cancer Agency’s Genome Sciences Centre, and one of numerous authors of the scientific paper published today in the journal Nature.

‘This was the surprise … they seem to be doing things from a biological level.’

…

PPI rises in May on higher energy costs – Jun. 14, 2007

No Comments

Prices are rising, but don’t worry, it’s only on sh%^ that we need to live.

PPI rises in May on higher energy costs

Producer Price Index up on higher energy costs; core prices increase in line with forecasts.
June 14 2007: 8:39 AM EDT

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Prices paid by businesses rose in May due to higher energy costs, as the latest inflation reading was roughly in line with Wall Street expectations.

The Producer Price Index, the government’s key measure of inflation at the wholesale level, was up 0.9 percent in May, compared to a 0.7 percent rise in April. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com had forecast a 0.6 percent increase. Energy prices were up 4.1 percent.

The more closely watched core PPI, which strips out often volatile food and energy prices, was up 0.2 percent, in line with forecasts of economists, although it’s up from the April report that showed no change in those prices.

…

I just love how the “important” inflation number strips out the stuff that we need to live.

China Blasts US for Stupid Comment.

No Comments

Someone needs to tell the Bush admin that this kind of false macho bullsh$# does not fly in the real world.

Better yet, someone should show them.

Oh…I forgot. Muqtada al Sadr already has

China says U.S. remarks on its military irresponsible

Reuters
Thursday, June 14, 2007; 5:31 AM

BEIJING (Reuters) – China denounced U.S. comments on its defense spending as “irresponsible” on Thursday and defended its military budget, saying it was open and transparent.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang also called on the United States to stop selling weapons to Taiwan, the self-ruled island China considers its own, and to refrain from “sending any wrong signals to Taiwan secessionist forces.”

“China sticks to the role of peaceful development,” Qin told a news conference.

“On the military expenditure of China, we are transparent and open. The U.S. official’s remarks disregard the facts and spread the China threat theory,” Qin said.

On Wednesday, Richard Lawless, the U.S. deputy undersecretary for defense for Asia, was reported to have accused China of concealing its spending on its weapons programs.

“What we see is a deliberate effort on the part of China’s leaders to mask the nature of Chinese military capabilities,” Lawless told the U.S. House Armed Services Committee.

…

2 Committees Subpoena Ex-Officials on Dismissals – New York Times

No Comments

Phony offer.

2 Committees Subpoena Ex-Officials on Dismissals

By DAVID JOHNSTON
Published: June 14, 2007

WASHINGTON, June 13 — The Senate and House Judiciary Committees issued subpoenas on Wednesday to Harriet E. Miers, the former White House counsel, and Sara M. Taylor, the former political director, ratcheting up the pressure on the White House to cooperate with the Congressional inquiry into last year’s firings of federal prosecutors.

The White House has rejected previous Congressional requests to interview presidential aides, offering to let them be interviewed in private if no transcript is kept.

The judiciary panels, acting two days after Republicans blocked an effort to hold a no-confidence vote on Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, also sought White House documents about its involvement in the dismissals and efforts to respond to Congressional inquiries into whether as many as nine United States attorneys were removed for political reasons.

A White House spokesman, Tony Fratto, said in a statement that “committees can easily obtain the facts they want without this confrontational approach by simply accepting our offer.” The committees’ Democratic leaders “are more interested in creating media drama than getting the facts,” Mr. Fratto said.

…

The offer is no transcript, in secret, and not sworn in.

This means:

  • No Ability to Investigate Conflicting Testimony

  • No Ability To Document Lies

  • No Ability to Prosecute Lies

  • No Public Disclosure of Illegality

Translation, “I’m gonna make you squeal like a pig.”

More Signs that We are in for a Bumpy Economic Ride

No Comments

These “financial instruments” are not hedges, they are a highly speculative instruments to boost profits to satisfy share holders.

Between their core business tanking with problems with sub prime and Alt-A loans, and speculative derivatives, this will get ugly.

Freddie Mac falls into loss

Jun 14, 2007 08:17 AM
Associated Press

WASHINGTON – Freddie Mac, the nation’s second largest buyer and guarantor of home mortgages, reported a first-quarter loss of $211 million (U.S.), mainly from erosion in the value of financial instruments it uses to hedge against interest rate swings.

…

It’s Gonna be, I Believe — The Bigots Lose the Pennant!!!!! The Bigots Lose the Pennant!!!!! The Bigots Lose the Pennant!!!!!

No Comments
The Bigots Lose the pennant!!!!!
The Bigots Lose the pennant!!!!!
The Bigots Lose the pennant!!!!!

Legislators vote to defeat same-sex marriage ban

By Frank Phillips, Globe Staff

A proposed constitutional ban on same-sex marriage was defeated today by a joint session of the Legislature by a vote of 45 to 151, eliminating any chance of getting it on the ballot in November 2008. The measure needed at least 50 votes to advance.

The vote came after House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi, Senate President Therese Murray, and Governor Deval Patrick conferred this morning and concluded that they have the votes to kill the proposal. Cheers echoed in the State House when the vote was tallied.

“In Massachusetts today, the freedom to marry is secure,” Patrick told reporters after the results were official.

The three leaders – along with gay rights activists – spent the last several days intensely lobbying a dozen or more state representatives and state senators who had previously supported the amendment but signaled that they were open to changing their positions.

Because fewer than 50 of the state’s 200 lawmakers supported the amendment, it will not appear on the 2008 ballot, giving gay marriage advocates a major victory in their battle with social conservatives to keep same-sex marriage legal in Massachusetts.

…

Scooter Is Going To Gaol.

2 Comments

As tempting as it is to make politically incorrect jokes, I will simply leave it at:

Scooter is a Really Bad Name in Prison

Judge won’t delay Libby prison term

By MATT APUZZO, Associated Press Writer 1 minute ago

WASHINGTON – A federal judge said Thursday he will not delay a 2 1/2-year prison sentence for I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, a ruling that could send the former White House aide to prison within weeks.

U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton’s decision will send Libby’s attorneys rushing to an appeals court to block the sentence and could force
President Bush to consider calls from Libby’s supporters to pardon the former aide.

Mortgage Bond Funds Running Screaming for the Door

No Comments

This is an attempt to sell at fire sale prices, so they can get out before everyone is heading for the exits.

It is the start of a panic.

Bear Stearns fund scrambles to sell bonds

Hedge fund faces losses as it tries to sell about $4 million in mortgage-backed bonds to raise cash for redemptions, according to a report.
June 14 2007: 8:03 AM EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) — A hedge fund managed by Bear Stearns Cos. Inc. is trying to sell large amounts of mortgage-backed bonds in a potentially troubling sign for the broader mortgage-backed bond market, The Wall Street Journal reported in its online edition.

Bear Stearns’ (Charts, Fortune 500) High-Grade Structured Credit Strategies Enhanced Leverage Fund is facing losses and, together with a sister fund, is trying to sell about $4 billion in bonds to raise cash for redemptions and to prepare for likely margin calls, according to the report, which cited people close to the fund.

North Korean Money Released

No Comments

This problem was not created by the DPRK. It was created by the Bush administration, which DAYS after having a preliminary agreement, froze North Korean assets.

My guess is that some of Dick Cheney’s protégés made the call to freeze these assets.

They have been sabotaging negotiations for years.

Hopes rise for end to North Korea impasse

TOKYO – The transfer of blacklisted North Korean assets from a Macau bank was set to begin Thursday, a report said, raising hopes of resolving the drawn-out dispute which has held up a nuclear disarmament deal.

Japan’s Kyodo News agency, quoting unnamed authorities in the Chinese territory, said procedures to transfer the funds out of the Banco Delta Asia were scheduled to begin Thursday.

The communist North, which sparked international outrage when it tested an atom bomb for the first time last year, agreed in February to shut down its nuclear reactor in return for badly needed fuel aid and diplomatic benefits.

…

George Bush’s watch Hits eBay

1 Comment

I have been told that a different camera angle disproves the theft story, but the fact that someone is hawking a phony watch on eBay is funny.

George Bush’s watch clocked on eBay

George Bush’s watch clocked on eBay
On its way to Oz via Kazakhstan
By Lester Haines → More by this author
Published Wednesday 13th June 2007 15:43 GMT
Mobile computing: Opportunities and risk – Free whitepaper

It didn’t take long for George Bush’s wristwatch – allegedly swiped on Sunday by Albanian former godless Commies – to pop up on eBay.

Sadly, there’s no photo at present to back up the sale, but the vendor does give a very good reason:

I bought this watch from an Albanian friend, he claims to have “borrowed” it from George Bush.
Click here to find out more!

I can’t prove it’s an Authentic Dubya timepiece, (It has a Mickey Mouse face, as opposed to the Presidential Seal) but it’s certainly a nice watch.

Obviously the watch is second hand, however it’s in mint condition.

…

Bush Administration Endangers Air Travelers Over Petty Snit

No Comments

Yep, bullsh&% at the expense of safety, because petty score settling.

One wonders what other self destructive stupidity might be occurring because of, say, oedipal conflicts, *COUGH* IRAQ *COUGH*.

U.S. delays exporting licenses to Syrian Air

The U.S. government is dragging its feet on exporting licenses for aviation security items to Syrian Air – and the airline thinks there is an ulterior motive. Fortune’s
Marc Perelman reports.
FORTUNE Magazine
By Marc Perelman, Fortune
June 14 2007: 5:42 AM EDT

(Fortune Magazine) — Is the Bush administration toying with aviation safety to pursue its political goals in the Middle East?

That’s what the chairman of Syria’s national airline and other experts say is the effect of extensive delays by Washington in issuing export licenses to Syrian Air for U.S.-manufactured aviation-security items – even though those items are exempt from a three-year-old export ban.

“Since the export ban has been in place, the U.S. has begun to delay the export-license process,” Syrian Air chairman Nachaat Numir told Fortune in a recent interview in Damascus. “In the past the normal export-license application process took one month, maximum. Now it takes several months, even a year.”

…

Av Week Editorial Slams “U.S. Footdragging” On Global Warming

No Comments

As I have said before, AW&ST has a fairly right wing editorial page, and this an indication that the scientific whores trying to cast doubt on global warming have lost.

U.S. Global Warming Initiative Is A Step Backward (Subscription Required)

Aviation Week & Space Technology
06/11/2007, page 66

Open a good book on global warming and in its index you will find references to a wealth of data and analysis from NASA Earth sciences flight programs and scientists, as well as to their contribution to the growing awareness and understanding of risks our planet faces from greenhouse gases.

Thus it is a mystery how NASA’s administrator, Michael Griffin, could have become so entangled during a National Public Radio interview on May 31, and how President Bush could have come up with so passive a greenhouse-gas proposal for last week’s Group of 8 meeting in Germany.

Griffin is a very smart man who sometimes says not-so-smart things. He did it again on NPR, commenting that he couldn’t say whether global warming is “a long-term concern.” When a dumbstruck interviewer followed up, asking whether Griffin had “any doubt that this is a problem that mankind has to wrestle with,” the administrator waded in up to his waist. “To assume that [warming] is a problem is to assume that the state of Earth’s climate today is the optimal climate . . . and that we need to take steps to make sure that it doesn’t change.”

…