Month: July 2007

Aire Force Jumps on Next Gravy Train

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The problem here is that the USAF has never done well supporting troops on the ground, and this is best folded unto US Army operations.

This is really about the USAF trying to make sure that it’s on the gravy train as the US military is redefined for likely conflicts, counter-insurgency (COINS), where the latest USAF whiz bang gets you no advantage.

The F-22, F-35, new tankers, bombers, etc. have NO additional utility relative to legacy systems in COINS.

US Air Force planners want irreguar warfare wing
By Stephen Trimble

US Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC) planners have called for the stand-up of a new “irregular warfare” wing dedicated to fighting insurgents and terrorists with an aircraft fleet numbering 44 airlifters, 20 helicopters and 20 turboprop strike fighters.

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The irregular warfare wing concept seeks to introduce the first dedicated strike aircraft for fighting insurgent forces since the Douglas A-1 Skyraider in the Vietnam war.

“One possible candidate for the light strike role is the air-to-ground modified [Beechcraft] AT-6B. Other candidate aircraft include the [Embraer] Tucano or Super Tucano,” the AFSOC paper states. The authors add that a Cessna Caravan “might be useful as a light mobility, strike, or intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft depending on its configuration”.

Perhaps more important than the light strike component, the new wing should operate four Lockheed Martin C-130s in a “heavy mobility” role, as well as 20 medium lift and 20 light mobility aircraft. The latter can be comprised of Cessnas or EADS Casa C-212s, while the former might be the Alenia Aeronautica C-27J Spartan Joint Cargo Aircraft.

I Used to Work On This

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When I was at Lockheed in Grand Prairie, I worked on VT-1. the missile in the what was then called the Crotale NG (it’s apparrently now called the Crotale III).

Thales Unveils New-Generation Surface Radar (Subscription Required)

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•A longer range version of the Crotale very-short-range missile system. Designated the Mk. 3, the system will have a range of 15 km. and 9,000 meters altitude—a 50% increase over the existing missile. Combined with Shikra in a ground-based air defense network, the Mk. 3 can detect targets at a range of 108 km., including UAVs and cruise missiles 30-40 km. away—twice the performance of competing radars—Thales engineers say. Its VT1 hypervelocity missile will enable the Mk. 3 to reach targets at 15-km. maximum range within 30 sec.—up to half the time needed for weapons like the Amraam, MICA or Derby converted from air-launched weapons, they say.


The Crotale Mk. 3 will afford a 50% improvement in range and ceiling compared with existing versions of the very-short-range air defense system.

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Yep….that’s VT-1. I recognize my old friend.

FWIW, I started work on VT1 in 1996, regarding some issues of contention between the prime contractor (then Thomson CSF, now Thales) and Loral Vought (Became Lockheed Martin Vought Systems, then Lockheed Martin Missiles and fire control).

I would have figured that it would have been finished well before this.

Nefarious WIPO Plot Defeated

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Basically, the question is about rebroadcast of over the air and cable signals on the Internet across international boundaries.

The broadcasters were trying to use this as a way to generate additional, and undeserved, profits, by creating a new “right”.

WIPO broadcast treaty defeated by web activists
By OUT-LAW.COM
Published Monday 2nd July 2007 09:57 GMT

A controversial new intellectual property right due to be created by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) has been successfully opposed by a coalition of web activists and the technology industry.

WIPO has spent nearly 10 years gathering international agreement over a new deal for broadcasters which would give them intellectual property rights over broadcasts which would exist in addition to existing copyright laws.

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At the end of the meeting, though, there was not enough agreement between member nations about the proposal and the committee recommended that the proposal not be forwarded to a diplomatic conference for adoption.

Gwen Hinze is the international affairs director for the EFF. She told weekly technology law podcast OUT-LAW Radio about the opposition to the plans.

“If you create a new layer of rights that sit on top of copyright from a consumer’s point of view that raises questions about access to information, so information that might otherwise be in the public domain as a matter of copyright law, the exceptions and limitations wouldn’t apply and that raises some concerns about access to knowledge,” said Hinze.

Podcasters were worried that the new right would affect material they produced and their ability to disseminate it on their own terms. One and a half thousand of them signed an EFF open letter to WIPO protesting against the move.

Consumer electronics companies also protested because the plan contained technological protection measures which they feared could give broadcasters control over television recording equipment, such as TiVO boxes.

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Opponents agree that television signal piracy is a problem that must be solved, but say that it can be solved with a ‘signals based approach’ rather than by creating an entire new intellectual property right.

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As always, I do not agree to the term intellectual property. It does not exists. There is simply a limited exclusive license in order to promote the useful arts and sciences.

This is Where We Are in Real Estate

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5 Paragraphs, and the entire picture of the sick man that is US housing is laid bare.

Salton City: A land of dreams and dead fish

New homes and old optimism continue to sprout in a desert community that hasn’t really jelled in 50 years.
By David Streitfeld
Times Staff Writer

July 1, 2007

SALTON CITY, CALIF. — This lakeside hamlet is about as remote as you can get in Southern California and still have plumbing and pavement.

Nestled on the western shore of the Salton Sea, the town doesn’t have a supermarket or movie theater or drugstore. But it has as many as 250 homes for sale, most of them newly built — a huge supply for a place with just 1,440 people.

When real estate values began soaring a few years ago, builders flocked here. Summer temperatures might hit 115 or even 120 degrees and the sea may be too sickly for swimming or sailing, but land was cheap. Builders figured that people priced out of Los Angeles and San Diego would discover Salton City and the other towns in Imperial County.

Now, with home values sliding, mortgage rates edging up and gasoline prices on an upward trend, that assumption appears premature at best. Imperial County, at least for the moment, seems a subdivision too far.

“Builders are like lemmings. They saw a few of their peers going to Imperial County and they all joined in,” housing consultant Patrick Duffy said. “They didn’t do market studies. They just crossed their fingers.”

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Emphasis mine.

What Atrios Said

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Here:

Inevitably, the subject of Marc Rich comes up every time presidential pardons come up. Without going into all of the issues, can we just remind the world that… Marc Rich’s lawyer was Scooter Libby.

As I’ve said before, and will say again, this is why Duncan Black is an A-list blogger, and I am a Z-list blogger.

Universal Attempts to Screw )tunes, Two Great Retister Headlines Edition

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No mistake about this. The labels are doing this for control, and once they have control, they will make the music experience total hell for listeners.

I wonder who writes the headlines for The Register. They are the best heds on the net.

World’s biggest label kneecaps iTunes store
By Andrew Orlowski
Published Monday 2nd July 2007 10:34 GMT

Universal Music Group (UMG) has dealt a serious blow to Apple’s music ambitions by refusing to renew its contract with the iTunes Store.

The New York Times reports that the decision not to continue the annual contract was made by UMG executives last week.

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Update today

Universal downgrades kneecapping to kick in nuts
By Andrew Orlowski (andrew.orlowski@theregister.co.uk)
Published Tuesday 3rd July 2007 14:02 GMT

Universal Music Group (UMG) has responded to yesterday’s report in the New York Times by declaring that it will continue to supply its catalog to Apple’s iTunes store. It’ll just do so on new terms, far more flexible than it previously enjoyed.

The Times reported that UMG had refused to renew its new annual contract with Apple. Apple therefore faced the prospect of seeing the world’s biggest record label withdraw its repertory from the iTunes store. But Business Week reports today that UMG is keeping this nuclear option dry.

It cites anonymous sources who explain that UMG has made an “at will” arrangement, that “enables [UMG] to strike exclusive distribution deals with other digital music providers for individual artists or tracks, though it will continue to sell music through iTunes. Under the new arrangement, for example, Universal could charge another music e-tailer (or Apple, for that matter) a premium to sell Jay-Z’s latest single exclusively for a limited time”.

With Apple facing competition from ad-supported download services, it’s hardly surprising UMG wants to retain flexibility with its pricing. But what UMG wants even more than Apple is to maintain a higher unit price for music, as competition from service providers drives the per-unit cost down, reducing the value of its assets.

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Senior execs targeted in ‘precision’ malware attacks

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Evil techno geeks vs. evil MBAs. Hopefully, there is a way for BOTH of them to lose.

This is very smart on the part of the scammers. Most exploits are found because they are millions of copies floating around the web. In this case, they might not be found until well after the criminals have put a few million bucks in Zurich.

Senior execs targeted in ‘precision’ malware attacks
By John Leyden
Published Monday 2nd July 2007 12:36 GMT

Hackers are targeting senior managers of large firms – along with members of their families – in a new wave of highly-focused email attacks.

On 26 June, net security services firm MessageLabs intercepted more than 500 individual email attacks targeted against individuals in senior management positions. The attack email often featured the name and job title of the intended victim in their subject lines. Chief investment officers accounted for 30 per cent of the attacks, 11 per cent were directed against chief executives.

Other job titles among the top 10 targets included chief information officers, chief financial officers, directors of research, directors of development, and company presidents.

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Move Over Subprime. Here is Your Brother, Alt-A

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These are more common than subprime loans, and while the terms are better, and the debtors in a better position to pay their loans, this bubble is deflating too.

To quote Rich Toscano, “As a matter of fact, high-risk mortgages have accounted for a comfortable majority of all San Diego home loans in recent years.“

If you have a 10% drop in housing prices, you will see many, if not most, of the homeowners in the US under water, owing more than they can sell the property for.

Alt A Loans `Disconcerting,’ Jumbos Weaker, S&P Says
By Jody Shenn

June 26 (Bloomberg) — U.S. homeowners with good credit are increasingly falling behind on mortgage payments, a sign lenders have been offering “higher risk” loans outside the so-called subprime market, Standard & Poor’s Corp. said today.

Rising late payments and defaults on so-called Alt A mortgages made last year are “disconcerting” and delinquent borrowers appear to be “finding it increasingly difficult to refinance” or catch up on their payments, S&P analysts said today in a statement. “Serious” delinquencies, foreclosures and seized property among “prime jumbo” mortgages in bonds from 2006 reached the highest among loans of less than 13 months since at least before 2000, S&P said in a separate report.

Alt A home loans are granted to borrowers with generally good credit scores who opt for unusual loan terms or underwriting standards, such as reduced proof of their pay, without enough offsetting positive attributes.

S&P, one of the two largest ratings firms, is now “examining how the risk profile clearly increased” in the Alt A market, it said in a statement sent by e-mail today. “We will communicate our findings to the market,” S&P said, in language it typically uses ahead of adjusting its rating methodology.

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Hoovervilles Return

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The reporter is missing the story.

The story is a Hooverville, the Brazilians call them Favelas, have returned, and over the past 8 years or so, the population has increased 10 fold.

Illegal squatters create new sprawl on mesa
Jeremy Jojola, Eyewitness News 4, and Kurt Christopher, KOB.com
Illegal squatters create new sprawl on mesa

No roads. No power. But that’s not stopping an explosion of illegal homes from being built just southwest of Albuquerque on Pajarito Mesa.

For years, families just outside of Albuquerque have been living in third-world conditions. Now a recent estimate by Bernalillo County officials shows a jump of illegal growth in the area that could end up costing the county big bucks to stop and clean up.

You could call it Albuquerque’s version of a shanty town. It’s where families build homes of plywood in the middle of the desert without running water or electricity.

Josefina Quesada and her family of seven have been living on the mesa for 13 years. They buy water in the city and truck it back home in barrels. Their source of power is a series of car batteries.

Every ten days the water runs out and they go back into town for more. Quesada says despite the hardships, she’d rather live here than in the city.

A recent estimate by the county shows more families like the Quesadas are moving onto the mesa. In the early 1990s, the county counted about 50 families living in the area. Today the estimate is 500 families, many of them in homes that were either built or moved to the mesa illegally.

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Common Ground for Hunters and Environmentalists

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Christina Larson, Blogging for Kevin Drum makes a very good point about hunters and other sportsmen.

Specifically, if they are allowed reasonable access in an environmentally friendly way, they are great allies in protecting critical habitats.

I don’t hunt myself. I keep Kosher at home out of respect for my wife, and anything that you would shoot would be treif, and so we could not eat them, but I’ve taken my kids fishing, and only my astonishing ineptitude has prevented us from taking fish home to cook.

Here we have roadless land where hunters can walk in to hunt, and they, who are not what one could call reflexively anti-military, are screaming bloody murder.

Hunting is essential in much of rural PA, because the deer have gotten completely out of hand, because the wolves have been eliminated.

I’d like to see wolves reintroduced, if just because they are more efficient, and tend to go after the old and infirm animals, but for the foreseeable future, hunting is an indispensable part of the ecosystem.

Land Conservationists Take on the National Guard – New York Times

By SEAN D. HAMILL

FORT INDIANTOWN GAP, Pa., June 27 — There are few better vantage points than Hawk Watch to see both sides of the debate between the Pennsylvania National Guard and local conservationists.

Hawk Watch, a 30-yard-wide clearing named for its grand view of soaring raptors, is on the ridge of Second Mountain, about 12 miles northeast of Harrisburg and part of the Appalachian range.

“This is Stony Creek Valley,” said Larry Herr, pointing north to 44,000 acres of state-protected wilderness that is home to a nearly unaltered green carpet of hemlock, maple and oak trees going down the hillside to the valley 1,000 feet below.

Then, walking to the other side of Hawk Watch and looking south onto a 17,000-acre base operated by the Pennsylvania National Guard, Mr. Herr said with contempt: “And this is the Gap. Notice the difference.”

Amid large swaths of a similar tree canopy are pockets where the valley and hillside have been carved up for guard training areas, the trees removed and roads, buildings and ranges put in their place.

“That’s why we don’t want them over here,” said Mr. Herr, 67, a hunter who is part of the Stony Creek Valley Coalition fighting the guard’s request to use about 900 acres as a buffer for a new target range for Abrams M-1 tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles. “We don’t trust them.”

In a series of public meetings, charges have flown back and forth about a lack of concern for the public and past environmental abuses by the Guard — charges the Guard denies — and accusations that sportsmen regularly trespass on Guard land.

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Emphasis mine.

Note to Aerospace Journalists: Star Trek Analogies Make You Look Like a Wanker

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This is a significant development. It could lead to an explosion of planetary probes, and perhaps a meaningful space tug for transfer from LEO or GTO to GEO.

That being said the fact that the phony Next Generation Enterprise and ion drives both turn blue is not a reason to make stupid analogies that turn the stomach.

Interesting story. Lousy writing.

Dawn Spacecraft Ready To Turn Science Fiction into Reality (Subscription Required)
Aviation Week & Space Technology
07/02/2007, page 56

Craig Covault
Cape Canaveral

Dawn ready to turn science fiction into reality on mission to orbit two infant planets

Printed headline: Blue Light Special

In the classic television series Star Trek, the Starship Enterprise speeds around the galaxy on blue light propulsion beams, then maneuvers into orbit around many different worlds before zooming off again to do more exploration.

Such science fiction becomes fact here as the $446-million NASA Dawn mission is readied for liftoff on an eight-year, 3-billion-mi. journey to the protoplanets Vesta and Ceres (see cover).

Powered by glowing blue beams from its own revolutionary solar electric ion propulsion system (IPS), Dawn is to fly to, then orbit, these two separate bodies hundreds of millions of miles apart. Only science fiction spacecraft have done such things before; Star Trek’s Enterprise did it using antimatter propulsion.

With 935 lb. of xenon fuel, the 2,696-lb. Dawn spacecraft has far more propulsion capability than any previous real spacecraft.

Dawn’s solar electric propulsion system has the ability to accelerate the spacecraft by nearly 7 mi. per sec. over the course of its mission. This is as much velocity change in deep space as it will receive from its entire Delta launch vehicle to reach space, then depart Earth orbit.


Like Star Trek come true, the NASA Dawn spacecraft and its Dutch Space solar arrays spanning nearly 65 ft. (left) will accelerate by about 7 mi. per sec. on blue beams of ion propulsion to orbit two different bodies.Credit: (LEFT SIDE OF SPREAD) NASA/JPL, (RIGHT) STAR TREK BETHSOFT.COM

“That is huge for a planetary mission, it is really incredible velocity capability,” says Mike Mook, the Dawn Orbital Sciences project manager.

A conventional interplanetary spacecraft may burn roughly 660 lb. of propellants during a total of 20 min. of operation in an entire mission, achieving a velocity change of perhaps 3,300 fps. This compares with Dawn’s far greater solar electric capability to increase velocity—to nearly 7 mi. per sec.—over its longer mission life.

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Republicans: Who Cares About Safety? We Need to Diss a Union!

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The FAA maintains that it was a pay increase, not a pay cut, but it looks like going back to the old contract would require $20m in back pay.

The FAA refused to negotiate in good faith with the union.

Controller Amendment Could Scuttle FAA Bill, Mica Says (Subscription Required)
Aviation Week & Space Technology
07/02/2007, page 37

Adrian Schofield
Washington

Republicans say controller amendment could be ‘showstopper’ for FAA bill

Printed headline: Veto Bait

The juggernaut that is the FAA reauthorization effort has rolled past another congressional milestone, but in doing so it picked up a controversial amendment that threatens to draw a White House veto.

The House version of the FAA reauthorization bill was introduced June 27 –after many false starts–and was supported by both Republican and Democratic leaders from the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. However, this accord was short-lived: Just a day later Republicans vehemently opposed an amendment that would reopen an air traffic controller contract imposed by the FAA last year.

The amendment and the bill itself were eventually approved during a June 28 markup hearing, and are now headed for further debate on the House floor. The Senate passed its own version in May.

Rep. John Mica (Fla.), ranking Republican on the committee, stressed the controller clause will likely result in a presidential veto. This amendment is a “showstopper” and “a poison pill that could kill FAA reauthorization,” he said. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters later confirmed the veto threat.

The controller amendment–offered by aviation subcommittee Chairman Jerry Costello (D-Ill.)–would turn the clock back to before the FAA declared an impasse in negotiations with the controllers union. Under existing law, the impasse allowed the agency to impose its last contract proposal. The Costello amendment would send the FAA and the National Air Traffic Controllers Assn. (Natca) back to the bargaining table, and would require binding arbitration if no agreement is reached within 45 days.

Both sides agree the contract negotiation process needs to be changed in the future, but they differ over reopening the existing contract. Costello proposes reversing new pay and work rules imposed by the FAA last year, and awarding up to $20 million in back pay to controllers. However, he noted the amendment would be void if the FAA and Natca manage to reach a settlement before the reauthorization bill reaches the President.

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Starting World War III By Mistake

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Let’s see the problems here:

  • This makes a conventional attack indistinguishable from a nuclear one, increasing the possibility of a nuclear response.

  • It makes arms control agreements next to impossible to enforce, though that might be the goal of Bush and his evil minions™, they have always opposed arms control agreements.

Navy, Air Force Explore Conventional Strike Options (Subscription Required)

Aviation Week & Space Technology
07/02/2007, page 32

Amy Butler
Los Angeles and Sunnyvale, Calif.

The Pentagon is looking for non-nuclear strike options, prompting new demos

Printed headline: Hardly Conventional

The U.S. Air Force and Navy are preparing different approaches to solving a gap in the nation’s ability to deliver a conventional payload to strike any target on the globe within one hour of a go-ahead.

The Navy is looking to its Trident II D5 submarine-launched missile, while the Air Force is considering a land-based design using decommissioned Peacekeeper and Minuteman rocket motors on a Minotaur launch vehicle tipped with a conventional munition.

U.S. Strategic Command chief, Marine Corps Gen. James Cartwright–the White House’s pick for the next vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff–says he needs this capability to react to a variety of threats without having to rely on basing rights or nuclear weapons. The target set could include anything from activities deserving of a preemptive strike–such as an anti-satellite threat–or a reaction to real-time intelligence on terrorist elements.

And this makes it even worse:

The Navy notionally plans to dedicate two of 24 tubes in each of 14 Ohio-class submarines to the conventional Trident mission. The remaining tubes would continue to carry the nuclear-armed versions.

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There is a sub launched ballistic missile headed toward you. You have nukes. Is it targeting you, or someone else? Is it conventional or nuclear?

You have 5 minutes to choose a response.

NASA Boondoggle

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If useful work were being done there, they would be fighting applicants off with a stick.

They are begging for people to find uses for that white elephant.

NASA Seeks Outside ISS Users (Subscription Required)
NASA Seeks Outside ISS Users
Aviation Week & Space Technology
07/02/2007, page 24

Frank Morring, Jr.
Washington

Half of U.S. rack space on station unfilled; NASA seeks outside users

Printed headline: Space Available

NASA is giving away half of its space on the International Space Station. The question is whether anyone will be able to get there to use it.

As the ISS enters the final stretch of its buildout to completion before the space shuttle fleet is retired in 2010, NASA managers are offering the use of roughly 11 refrigerator-sized experiment racks inside the station’s pressurized modules, and perhaps four external sites, free of charge. The catch is that users will have to get their experiments to the ISS at their own expense.

“We’re not going to require users of the station to pay a fee for access to the laboratories,” says Mark Uhran, assistant associate administrator for ISS in NASA’s Space Operations Mission Directorate. “What we expect the new entities to cover is the cost of their own research, the cost of the payload devices. We’re still working the challenges with the transportation costs because obviously we don’t know precisely what those transportation costs are going to be.”

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No One Must Distract the Emperor

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Bush and his evil minions™ really do hate America.

Not for Nothing – Reporter sanctioned for approaching Bush
WPRI-TV, Channel 12 reporter Jarrod Holbrook had his White House press pass snatched after he shouted “Mr. President!” twice as President Bush greeted Air and Army National Guardsmen gathered on the tarmac at the Air National Guard base in Quonset.

A member of the president’s entourage pointed at Holbrook after he first tried to get Mr. Bush’s attention. The man then ripped the pass from Holbrook’s belt after he shouted again to the president, who was about 10 feet away.

Holbrook said afterward that he just wanted to ask Mr. Bush how he enjoyed his visit to Rhode Island. Members of the media were not told they could not ask the president questions.
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New Sensor Detects Submarines?

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I think that this technology is probably oversold, otherwise we would not see it in Aviation Week.

If it worked, it would be so classified, we wouldn’t even hear rumors of it.

New Sensor Detects Submarines(Subscription Required)
New Sensor Detects Submarines
Aviation Week & Space Technology
07/02/2007, page 13

Edited by Edward H. Phillips

Printed headline: Hide and Seek

Scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a sensor that measures the motion generated by sound waves under water. A series of the device could be configured in compact arrays and deployed by the U.S. Navy to detect enemy submarines. According to Francois Guillot, a research engineer at the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering in Atlanta, the sensor is capable of detecting small sounds despite the surrounding noise of the ocean, and it provides clear directional information. In addition, the sensor can be modified to measure water deformation, or shear, associated with a sound wave. The research is being supported by a grant from the Office of Naval Research.

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Russians to Launch Nuclear Powered Carrier

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Aviation week is covering the new aircraft, but to me, the building of a carrier is more interesting.

MiG is beginning flight testing (subscription required)

Aviation Week & Space Technology
07/02/2007, page 18

MiG is beginning flight testing of the latest iteration of the MiG-29K carrier-borne derivative of the Fulcrum, which is destined for the Indian navy.

The two-seat variant, the MiG-29KUB, flew for the first time in January. Under a contract with India, signed in 2004, 12 single-seat and four two-seat aircraft were ordered as part of the $1.5-billion deal covering the aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov. The single-seat MiG-29K uses the same forward fuselage section as the two-seat aircraft, including the canopy. The second cockpit, however, is replaced with an additional fuel tank.

Credit: ALEXEY KOMAROV

The MiG-29 could yet find its way into the Russian navy inventory, which only includes the Su-33 in the combat role. Commander-in-Chief Adm. Vladimir Masorin says its future carrier requirement is for a ship “with some 50,000 tons displacement. We assume the carrier will accommodate 30 aircraft, both fixed-wing and rotorcraft.” The new class of nuclear-powered ship would replace the Admiral Kuznetsov after 2015.

By comparison, the Charles de Gaulle displaces 40,600 tons, their future Carrier will displace about 65,000 tons, and the Nimitz class super carriers displace about 102,000 tons.

The Nimitz has a complement of about 75 aircraft.

I’m wondering if they will continue with the ski jump, or go with catapults.

28301-016, Next Round

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Scooter just got turned down by the appeals court. He’s going to have to go to jail.

Libby, Ex-Cheney Aide, Must Go to Jail During Appeal
July 2 (Bloomberg) — Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff, must go to prison while appealing his conviction for obstructing a CIA leak probe, a U.S. appeals court said.

Libby may be behind bars within weeks after a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit today denied his request for release. The decision will increase pressure on President George W. Bush to decide soon whether to pardon Libby, 56, as the former White House official’s supporters have urged.

Libby “has not shown that the appeal raises a substantial question” under federal law that would merit letting him remain free, the court said.

Libby was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison last month following his March 6 conviction of lying to investigators probing the 2003 leak of Central Intelligence Agency official Valerie Plame’s identity. U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton refused to let Libby stay out of prison during his appeal — which might take more than a year to resolve — saying that evidence of his guilt was “overwhelming.”

Libby was convicted of obstructing justice, perjury and making false statements. He resigned as Cheney’s top aide upon being indicted in 2005.

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It was a unanimous decision by the appellate panel, so he’s going to be going to jail. No legal question here.

Of course, the Supreme Court could review this, but I don’t think that even Scalia would be so brazen.