The Rolling Stones played its first gig at the Marquee club in London
Month: July 2007
Dollar Mixed After New Low Vs. Euro: What Does it Mean
Yesterday, the Dollar hit an all time low vs. the Euro.
Additionally, the dollar has weakened to the lowest amount against the pound since 1981.
What does this mean if this trend continues?
Basically, it means that foreign investors will demand greater return because the risk of their losing money from foreign exchange fluctuations increases. This means higher interest rates, since the US trade deficit is being supported by foreign investors.
Of particular note would be an increase in oil prices.
Furthermore, this is inflationary, since there is an awful lot that is not made in the US any more, and as the dollar drops, the price of these items go up, which will force the Fed to further raise interest rates.
The increases in inflation will reduce consumer spending power, and a significant downward pressure on house prices, as people purchase based on monthly payment, not price.
Additionally, if oil suppliers get skittish, they may switch to Euro denomination of oil purchases, Venezuela and Iran already have for political reasons, and there will be pressures on foreign national banks to further diversify out of the dollar in order to preserve their reserves.
You notice that it all feeds itself.
Additionally, when one looks at systems like this, the changes tend to be abrupt, and there is significant overshoot, so this can get very ugly in a matter of weeks.
Things are Worse in Iraq, but Bush and Petraeus are Lying About It.
There is a story on ABC News about a military intelligent report showing that Iraq is a giant clusterf%#@ that is rapidly deteriorating.
The Bush admin, of course, is still claiming progress as things go south.
Sallie Mae Takeover Threatened by Law Changes
Sallie May (SLM Corp) is the 800 pound gorilla in the student loan market. They are also one of the worst offenders in the current spate of student loan scandals.
Well now, a planned private equity deal involving Sallie Mae is at risk because of legislative changes.
Basically, the law will slash the subsidies to student loan providers, and reduce the interest that they can charge, so SLM is a much less attractive takeover target.
This is a good thing. The private players in the student loan market suck. They shaft the students, and they cost the taxpayers money. The direct federal program saves money for the taxpayer.
Private Equity is Not Trying Blackmail Over Tax Code
It appears that the managers of private firms are threatening to stop doing deals if they don’t get to keep their tax loophole.
This is bulls%$#. A private equity firm that does not do deals is shut down. Furthermore, they make a lot of money now.
While I do not support the capital gains tax break, I don’t see why we should favor unearned income over that created by honest work, the theory is that you reward people for risking their own money. Here, their fees are for managing someone else’s money. It’s normal income period.
Brazil to Restart Nuke Power, Nuke Sub Programs
Lula resumes nuclear program to make Brazil ‘world power’ is the hed. I’m thinking that a more accurate hed would be, “Lula engages in dick swinging to distract from domestic issues.”
Then again, I’m a cynic.
If Schadenfreude Be the Food of Politics, Play on
Now it turns out that Senator Vitter a client at Canal Street brothel too.
So much for family values.
If This Virus Were Any More Clever, You Could Put a Tail on it and Call it a Weasel
Here is an interesting story, it appears that there is a virus that has Internet Explorer launching Firefox, which installs the payload.
If Firefox encounters the payload directly, it will stop it cold, but when it’s passed along by IE, not so much.
This virus probably has a couple more weeks life, just because Mozilla and Microflaccid are busy finger pointing. Clever idea this.
The saying about success having many parents but failure being an orphan seems fitting here. Window Snyder, who heads security at Mozilla, wrote today (http://blog.mozilla.com/security/2007/07/10/security-issue-in-url-protocol-handling-on-windows/) that Mozilla developers will patch Firefox so it no longer accepts bad data from IE. But she stressed that only people browsing with the Microsoft browser were vulnerable to the attack.
“We recommend that people use Firefox and as always take care when browsing unknown websites,” she wrote.
For its part, Microsoft representatives said company researchers have “investigated the claim of a vulnerability in Internet Explorer and found that this is not a vulnerability in a Microsoft product.” Jesper Johansson, a former senior security strategist for Microsoft, similarly argues that “most definitely” the problem isn’t caused by IE.
The Depressing Thing is That Someone Will Get Tenure for This.
Someone got paid to come up with this?
Women prefer well-built blokes: official
By Lester Haines
Published Tuesday 10th July 2007 14:44 GMTHere’s some good news for the gym monsters among you: women are “predisposed to prefer muscularity in men”, according to researchers at UCLA.
The team’s report, published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, suggests “muscles in men are akin to elaborate tail feathers in male peacocks” which “attract females looking for a virile mate”, as Reuters puts it.
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Google for Idiots
Too funny for words. Google needs to use this in their next Superbowl ad.
Google in Colorado safe cracking caper
By Cade Metz in San Francisco
Published Tuesday 10th July 2007 19:49 GMTIt’s true. Google can help with anything. Minutes before they operned several locked safes at a “family fun center” in Colorado Springs, a team of masked bandits sat down at a nearby PC and Googled “safe-cracking.” “They brought up a site called ‘How to Open Safes,'” Colorado Springs detective Chuck Ackerman told The Register.
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ESA study finds in-flight oxidiser collection possible-10/07/2007-London-Flight International
This sounds very similar to the HOTOL concept in the early 1980s, and it appears that they are using cryogenic separation. They might save space and weight by using another form of oxygen separation, but they would still need the heat exchangers for making LOX.
ESA study finds in-flight oxidiser collection possible
By Rob CoppingerIn-flight oxidiser collection possible, says ESA study
A European Space Agency-funded study has concluded that air liquefaction plants for a space transportation system’s first-stage carrier aircraft are possible within the mass limits required.
The first stage would collect air, liquefy it and separate the nitrogen, producing 10kg/s (22lb/s) with a 10,000kg (22,000lb) on-board liquefaction plant.
The advantage of such a system is that the preferred liquid-oxygen propellant does not have to be carried from the ground. Once collected, the oxygen-enriched liquefied air is stored in the second-stage reusable orbiter vehicle.
The plant’s main mass drivers are the heat exchangers, of which there would be three. These have been a focus of the ESA study.
The study, involving Universite Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), developed the two-stage launch system concept that incorporates liquefaction.
That system has a dual-hull, hydrogen-fuelled aircraft using six General Electric 90b engines as the carrier aircraft. Between its two fuselages under the wing, it would carry an orbiter vehicle fuelled only with liquid hydrogen with a total mass of 90,000kg.
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Ten Schoolgirls Murdered for Bush’s Oedipal Issues
This is what George W. Bush’s Oedipal obsession with Iraq has bought us: the Taliban taking over Afghanistan again.
As War Enters Classrooms, Fear Grips Afghans
By BARRY BEARAKQALAI SAYEDAN, Afghanistan, July 9 — With their teacher absent, 10 students were allowed to leave school early. These were the girls the gunmen saw first, 10 easy targets walking hand-in-hand through the blue metal gate and on to the winding dirt road.
The staccato of machine-gun fire pelted through the stillness. A 13-year-old named Shukria was hit in the arm and the back, and then teetered into the soft brown of an adjacent wheat field. Zarmina, her 12-year-old sister, ran to her side, listening to the wounded girl’s precious breath and trying to help her stand.
But Shukria was too heavy to lift, and the two gunmen, sitting astride a single motorbike, sped closer.
As Zarmina scurried away, the men took a more studied aim at those they already had shot, killing Shukria with bullets to her stomach and heart. Then the attackers seemed to succumb to the frenzy they had begun, forsaking the motorbike and fleeing on foot in a panic, two bobbing heads — one tucked into a helmet, the other swaddled by a handkerchief — vanishing amid the earthen color of the wheat.
Six students were shot here on the afternoon of June 12, two of them fatally. The Qalai Sayedan School — considered among the very best in the central Afghan province of Logar — reopened only last weekend, but even with Kalashnikov-toting guards at the gate, only a quarter of the 1,600 students have dared to return.
Shootings, beheadings, burnings and bombings: these are all tools of intimidation used by the Taliban and others to shut down hundreds of Afghanistan’s public schools. To take aim at education is to make war on the government.
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Woot!!!!! My First Right Wing Troll in the Comments!!!
Here
Perhaps I’ve just become a “Y” list blogger.
COOL!!!!!
Snark of the Day
Courtesy of Glenn Greenwald, who noted a comment on his blog:
As Gen. Apathy noted in comments, having read the entire Murray [Washington Post National Political Reporter Shailagh Murray] chat from yesterday: ‘Every answer she gave was smarmy, sarcastic, pedantic and lacking any serious insight.’ Indeed, the whole thing reads like a tongue-clucking rant from a 12-year-old Maureen Dowd, which is saying quite a bit since Maureen Dowd, in her full-blown adult self, is more than sufficiently adolescent.
FWIW, Glenn Greenwald, Esq. is generally pretty serious, though a good read.
His expertise is constitutional law.
You Have to Destroy Army You Have, Not the Army You Want.
It appears that the US Army has missed its monthly goal by 15%.
It should be noted that the army has consistently backpedaled on these goals, in order not to make the shortfalls sound too bad too.
It got only 5/6 of the men it needs, and people are leaving the Army, Guard and Reserves as fast as they can.
Then you have the people who are staying only because they don’t want to leave their buddies while combat continues in Iraq.
Do I feel a draft in here?
Gonzalez Lied to Congress
Gonzalez should be under indictment.
Gonzales Was Told of FBI Violations
After Bureau Sent Reports, Attorney General Said He Knew of No WrongdoingBy John Solomon
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 10, 2007; Page A01As he sought to renew the USA Patriot Act two years ago, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales assured lawmakers that the FBI had not abused its potent new terrorism-fighting powers. “There has not been one verified case of civil liberties abuse,” Gonzales told senators on April 27, 2005.
Six days earlier, the FBI sent Gonzales a copy of a report that said its agents had obtained personal information that they were not entitled to have. It was one of at least half a dozen reports of legal or procedural violations that Gonzales received in the three months before he made his statement to the Senate intelligence committee, according to internal FBI documents released under the Freedom of Information Act.
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That Sound You Hear is George Orwell at 10,700 RPM
The Bush Administration does not believe in reality, or policy, it’s all just politics.
The testimony of Richard Carmona, former Surgeon General of the United Sates.
Ummmm….Conrad Black is Guilty as Sin! What’s Your f%$#ing Problem?
Sometimes the thought of a jury of one’s peers is kind of scary.
Black jury deadlocked
By Ameet Sachdev
Tribune staff reporter
Published July 10, 2007, 2:54 PM CDTA Chicago federal jury weighing fraud charges against former Sun-Times publisher Conrad Black said today it was deadlocked.
‘We have discussed and deliberated on all the evidence and are still unable to reach a unanimous verdict on one or more counts. Please advise,’ jurors wrote in a note to the U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve this afternoon.
In court, St. Eve responded by rereading a portion of the jury instructions which advised the panel to act in good faith and attempt to reach a verdict before sending the 9 women and 3 men back to the jury room to continue deliberations.
Tuesday was the ninth day of jury deliberations. The trial began March 20.
It is unclear if the jury has reached a conclusion on any of the 42 charges and four defendants before them.
Black faces 13 criminal charges, including racketeering and mail and wire fraud, tied to accusations that he and associated pocketed more than $60 million from non-compete agreements signed when his company Hollinger International Inc. sold several newspapers. If convicted, the 62-year-old member of the British House of Lords could spend the rest of his life in prison and forfeit much of his fortune.
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TPMmuckraker July 10, 2007 2:43 PM
Brent Wilkes has had Mark Geragos has been thrown off of his defense team.
It appears that he was unwilling to undergo a background check, and Wilkes is hip deep in the Randy “Duke” Cunningham scandal.
I’m wondering if he saw the evidence, and just wanted out.
Joe Lieberman is the Wanker of EVERY Day
Seriously, I’m embarrassed to share a religion with this bloke. He is a Shanda before the Goyim.
He’s been full of himself since he ran for president in 2004 (I know what you are saying, it was VP, but in 2000, he was running for Prez in 2004), and now all that is left is bitterness and spite.
He needs a splenectomy, as evidenced by his attack on Harry Reid.
You know, Harry Reid said a while ago that the war in Iraq is lost. It’s wrong. It’s not lost. In fact, I would say we’re beginning to win it. We’ve turned the tide with the new strategy. And in fact, I cannot conceive of a circumstance in which American forces would lose the war in Iraq, on the ground in Iraq. If we lose it, it’s gonna be lost here at home, in a different kind of war for public opinion and political support.
This was without any prompting from radio host Bill “Slot Machine” Bennett.