Month: September 2007

Small, Cheap, AESA Radars Available for RPVs.

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Truth be told, I could see these entering civil aviation as weather radars too, and with a bit of software, you could put it on a cruise missile, and you could follow terrain, and jam radars searching for you.

The PicoSar(Shown below) weighs less than 25 pounds and is about the size of a toaster.

It has a range of about 12 miles and can track ground targets, and it appears to run cool enough that it does not need liquid cooling.

With some decent software, you could probably gang a bunch of these together for better resolution, or use it for stealthy radar antenna.

I’m waiting for someone to apply a low performance (cheap) version of this technology to satellite TV receivers. It could adjust to gusts in fractions of a second.

Strange Bedfellows, Schadenfreude Edition

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It should come as no surprise that the ACLU is supporting Senator Craig’s attempt to withdraw his guilty plea.

Additionally, there is a good point made by the ACLU:

Anthony Romero, the ACLU’s executive director, argued that police sting operations sometimes trap innocent people. He said police must show that sex was to occur in public, not just that someone was soliciting sex.

“If the police really want to stop people from having sex in public bathrooms, they should put up a sign banning sex in the restroom and send in a uniformed officer to patrol periodically,” Romero said.

Let’s be clear if crude come ons were a crime, the cops would be arresting 20% of the people in your average singles hangout bar.

Is There Some Sort of Fix in on the “Duke” Cunningham Invegation?

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This is weird. Thomas Kontogiannis, who has already admitted to bribing disgraced former Republican Congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham was out on bail and money laundering, and as such he was not supposed to leave the country.

It turns out that he did leave the country, he went to a vacation resort in Greece, and the judge was ready to revoke bail and to lock him up, when an assistant U.S. Attorney said at a hearing this morning that the man’s recent trip to Greece was at the direction of federal agents.

This is beyond weird.

I’m wondering if someone in the DoJ wanted to send Kontogiannis a message about not fingering too many Republicans, and thought that they could do so more easily in Greece.

Harry Reid Tells Republicans “My Way or the Highway”.

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Honestly, I think that Reid has spent way too much time being too accommodating to Republicans. He’s given them repeated opportunities to support phony withdrawal bills.

I don’t know why he is now saying that the negociations are off. This is without warning.

One wonders why the abrupt change in position:

Some possibilities:

  • He doies not want any phony solution to get tied up in the Democratic Presidential Primaries (Translation, he doesn’t want to put Biden and Clinton in a bad place).
  • Some Democrats have come to him and announced their intent to filibuster any spending measure that is not definitive.
  • He has gotten definitive word on an attack on Iran, and he’s trying to stop it.
  • He’s sick to death of Mitch “Got thrown out of the army after 12 days in 1967, nothing gay here” McConnel, and he’s seen his poll numbers, and he wants to prevent any half measures that might benefit him.
  • He realizes that half measures mean nothing, that they will save no lives, but that they will neutralize a majro Democratic party advantage, and he does not want to stop the Republicans from stepping on their own dicks (Cheney, that is).
  • That he realizes that the Republicans will break if he keeps up the pressure.

My guess is the last one.

Another Senseless Packaging Injury

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Well Charlie, aka “the human metronome”, just got a belated birthday gift from his friend Jonathan, one of those simple electronic drum kits.*

Unfortunately, it was literally screwed into the cardboard box, and the drum sticks were kept in place with some rather tight wire ties.

I did what I was supposed to, using some shears to clip the wire ties, but in attempting to gain purchase, the shears slipped, and I punctured my left thumb. It bled for about ½ hour, though it was not particularly painful.

Whoever came up with these packaging schemes should be staked to an anthill by their tongue.

*No headphone jack, or MIDI port, or any such, but thankfully, Charlie is good about keeping the volume down.

Interesting Conondrum from the Other Matt

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Matthew Yglesias makes a very interesting point, that it is in fact in the Democrats best interest NOT to get out of Iraq.

Basically:

  • The Democrats already know how to win on the war, they did it in 2006.
  • Getting out automatically enables the Nazi Republican stab in the back meme.
  • Republicans who vote against the war can use it to inoculate themselves against an anti-war opponent in 2008.

As the other Matt puts it:

But given that Republicans aren’t doing what everyone expected them to do and reducing their political exposure on Iraq by winding the war down, Democrats are disinclined to go out on a limb to do it for them.

That being said, we should still get out, and we should do so today.

Republicans may not give a damn about government doing right by its citizens, but Democrats should.

One wonders though, why the Republicans are being so self destructive? Did Karl Rove get pictures of all of them in the Minneapolis airport bathroom or something?

Baltimore Area Lender’s Checks Bounce

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Thankfully, it’s not my lender, but American Home Mortgage Investment Corp. is bouncing property checks in Baltimore City and Baltimore County.

Over 100 Grand so far, and this is the camel’s nose under the tent.

In addition to everything else, there is going to be a lot of unpaid property tax at the local level, and falling assessments, putting cities and counties in a cash crunch.

Thank you Alan Greenspan.

Iraqis Order Blackwater out of Iraq

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Here is where we get to fish or cut bait time. The Iraqi Government* has told Blackwater to get out, and has suspended their license to operate.

This is not surprising. They are a bunch of trigger happy goons who have immunity from Iraqi law and the military’s UCMJ.

The interesting thing here is that Blackwater, nor (IIRC) any of of the other mercenaries employed by the US, are operating under an Iraqi license.

On the other hand, Blackwater is operating under a State Department contract, and while this may give them a measure of diplomatic immunity, it also allows them to be declared personae non grata, and forced to leave the country.

My guess is that Malaki will be told to pound sand, and thus the government will be revealed to be a puppet of the US formed primarily to allocate oil resources to American oil companies.

*Yes, I know that “Iraqi Government” is currently an oxymoron.

Sweet Spawn of Cthulhu!!!! It’s Real!!!!!!!

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Chocolate with bacon?
Tekeli-Li!!!!!! Tekeli-Li!!!!!!

Bacon Exotic Candy Bar – New

Applewood smoked bacon + Alder smoked salt + deep milk chocolate

Deep milk chocolate coats your mouth and leads to the crunch of smoked bacon pieces. Surprise your mouth with the smoked salt and sweet milk chocolate combination.

Crisp, buttery, compulsively irresistible bacon and milk chocolate combination has long been a favorite of mine. I started playing with this combination at the tender age of six while eating chocolate chip pancakes drenched in maple syrup. Beside my chocolate-laden cakes laid three strips of fried bacon, just barely touching a sweet pool of maple syrup. Just a bite of the bacon was too salty and yearned for the sweet kiss of chocolate syrup. In retrospect, perhaps this was a turning point, for on that plate something magical happened: the beginnings of a combination so ethereal and delicious that it would haunt my thoughts until I found the medium to express it–chocolate.
–Katrina

Shelf Life: 3 months
Gluten free
41% cacao, 3oz.

This is just wrong.

Deputy SecDef Tells USAF to Pound Sand

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Good news, Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England has told the Air Force to Sod off.

The Airforce wanted to manage all UAVs that operated over 3500 feet. That’s right all of them, Army, Navy, Marines, etc.

They wanted to run the contracts, for basically anything larger than a hand launched short range system.

The army, quite logically said that the USAF does a piss-poor job supporting people on the ground. They just don’t give a damn, hence the inanity of the USAF drawing up its own counterinsurgency manual, which basically says, bomb everything that moves*.

While there are some economies gained from merging programs, Congress has pressured the DoD to merge USAF Predator and Army Warrior unmanned aerial system (UAS) programs for this reason, absent real duplication, and positive proof that the USAF if the ONLY service that can efficiently manage the system, any mergers should cut against the fly boys from Colorado Springs.

*Come to think of it, that’s pretty much their answer to everything.

Sunday Foreclosure Chart Extravaganza | Piggington’s Econo-Almanac | Southern California Housing Bubble News and Analysis

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Well, Rich Toscano does it again, with a series of charts that reflect how bad things are in San Diego.

Yep, you read that chart right, notices of default (NOD) are higher than house sales. Notices of trustee sales (NOT—Foreclosure auctions), and real estate owned (REO, basically no one would buy at the foreclosure auction) are skyrocketing too.

Truth be told, San Diego was one of the 10-20 most over heated markets in the country, but it’s effects are nationwide.

You see accelerated NOD, NOT, and REO levels in places as “un-overheated” as Toledo, and you see people who have used their equity in overheated markets to make investment and vacation home purchases in cheaper areas, which inflate prices everywhere.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, in particular, and the mortgage resale market in particular, have made real estate markets more national, and even global.

China’s central bank raises interest rates

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China’s central bank has raised interest rates by 27 basis points.

As I have mentioned earlier, food prices are skyrocketing there, but the higher interest rates available in china is one more factor in making the dollar less attractive.

The dollar may float downward for a bit, but given the nature of currency markets, eventually, it will crash, and probably overshoot it’s normal equilibrium price, and rising Chinese interest rates, and falling US interest rates within a few days of each other is a double whammy that the dollar can ill afford.

Good Proposal by Chris Dodd on the Subprime Mess

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Chris Dodd, chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, has put forth interesting proposals on the current housing/mortgatge* mess.

  • Require lenders to assess borrowers’ ability to pay the mortgage even after a rate reset if they’re signing up for an adjustable-rate loan.
  • Require lenders to verify subprime borrowers’ income with documentation. Earlier this year, the Federal Reserve
  • Prohibit pre-payment penalties and yield spread premiums (YSP) in subprime loans. A pre-payment penalty is the fee some lenders charge if you end up paying off your mortgage early, including if you choose to refinance. It sometimes can be as high as six months’ worth of mortgage payments. A YSP is the difference between the the lowest interest rate a borrower qualifies for, and the actual rate he gets. A broker’s fee may be based on it.
  • Prohibit steering borrowers to more expensive loans when they qualify for lower cost ones.
  • Hold lenders liable for appraisals and for brokers’ actions when the broker is paid based on yield spread premiums.

These are good policies, and they would have been much better had they been implemented, or at least proposed, 2 or 3 years ago. to the degree that these can be made retroactive, they should be (you could make prepayment penalties immediately illegal, for example).

More importantly, it places much of the onus upon those who profited through their highly leveraged, and ruinous, financial products.

It’s taken him up a notch in my view of the presidential candidates.

*To all but the blind, this horse has left the subprime stables, and is roaming the prairie.

Military Penile Inferiority Complexes.

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Well, it appears that Retired Lt. General Thomas McInerney, in a bid to talk about large US munitions, has revealed that he has feeling of inadequacy about his small penis.

Specifically, when talking about the recent Russian demonstration of their massive fuel air/thermobaric bomb recently:

…

McInerney said the U.S. has “a new massive ordnance penetrator that’s 30,000 pounds, that really penetrates … Ahmadinejad has nothing in Iran that we can’t penetrate.”

He also said the new Russian bomb was not a “Penetrator.”

To quote Shreck, “Do you think maybe he’s compensating for something?” In the future, we should call our weapons “Anal Intruders” to remove any doubt

Then again, this guy is so batsh&% insane, that he makes Curtis LeMay look like the Dali Lama:

He said that bombing would be launched by 65-70 stealth bombers and 400 bombers of other types.

“Forty-eight hours duration, hitting 2500 aimed points to take out their [Iranian] nuclear facilities, their air defense facilities, their air force, their navy, their Shahab-3 retaliatory missiles, and finally their command and control. And then let the Iranian people take their country back,” the general said describing the campaign, adding it would be “easy.”

So, in addition to being crazy, he is just plain stupid.

Any US attack will cement the rule of the Mullas for at least another 20 years, just as Saddam’s attack on Iran secured their rule for the past 20 some odd years.

Moron.

Schadenfreude, Silicon Valley Rat Bastard Edition

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SCO has filed bankruptcy.

Now that they have lost their bogus Unix claims, and owe back royalties, they are running to the bankruptcy court. I just hope that the court looks into the ties between SCO and Microflaccid™, because it’s clear that they were induced by Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, and their Evil Minions™ to do this in order to sow fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) about Linux.