Year: 2007

Saw it On CNN While Excercising, So What the Hell…

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10 Years ago, I was sitting on the computer, reading Usenet (remember that? I still use it*), and my wife rushed in and said that Diana, Princess of Wales, was in an accident, and was seriously injured.

I replied, “Let there be no kings”, paraphrasing George Washington.

Another friend was later informed by his distraught wife that Diana had died, and he replied, “I had no that the two of you were so close.”

As to her life, for the British republicans (i.e. those who support abolishing the monarchy) the breakup of the marriage was cause to say, “I told you so”.

The best comment I ever heard on the marriage was a girlfriend of mine, “It’s a marriage between the biggest welfare recipient in England with its only remaining virgin.”

In a very real way, this is an accurate description.

Charles was not allowed to marry the woman he loved, and hoped it would work out, and Diana, who was all of 19 when she was married, was in love with Charles, Prince of Wales, not Charles Philip Arthur George Mountbatten-Windsor.

I never understand why so many people seemed interested in her. She dressed well, but I never saw much behind it.


*And it’s a heck of a lot safer to get workarounds and cracks and WaReZ off of Usenet because it is pretty much an ASCII only medium.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

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China is implementing a law that requires state permission for reincarnation.

It appears that this is all a cunning plan * by the Chinese government to game the system for finding a successor to the Dali Lama when he dies.

Then again, it could just be bureaucratic bloody-mindedness, something the Chinese quite literally invented over 3000 years ago.

*A plan so cunning you could put a tail on it and call it a weasel!

Cover Up, Part Deux

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Well it looks like the cover up masquerading as a court martial is finished.

So they acquitted Lt. Col. Steven L. Jordan of everything but talking about the investigation, for which he will receive a reprimand.

So, no regular army officers, Jordan is a reservist, were convicted of anything, and the only thing an officer got was a slap on the wrist.

My someone with a star had to know, and explicitly approve of it, and someone at a higher level had to give tacit approval.

Based on reports, we already know that Rumsfeld viewed the Geneva conventions with contempt, and as the saying goes sh&% flows down hill.

Osama Has Already Defeated Us.

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So, let me get this straight, a group of beer swilling runners are marking a trail for a run, and it gets treated as a possible terrorist attack?

If the goal of terrorism is to create terror and panic, Osama bin Laden has already defeated us.

Two people who sprinkled flour in a parking lot to mark a trail for their offbeat running club inadvertently caused a bioterrorism scare and now face a felony charge.

The sprinkled powder forced hundreds to evacuate an IKEA furniture store Thursday.

New Haven ophthalmologist Daniel Salchow, 36, and his sister, Dorothee, 31, who is visiting from Hamburg, Germany, were both charged with first-degree breach of peace, a felony.
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The siblings set off the scare while organizing a run for a local chapter of the Hash House Harriers, a worldwide group that bills itself as a “drinking club with a running problem.”

We are a bunch of scared rabbits, aren’t we?

Leaked GAO Report Says Iraq a Failure

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It appears that a draft of a GAO report has been leaked to the Washington Post.

Iraq has failed to meet all but three of 18 congressionally mandated benchmarks for political and military progress, according to a draft of a Government Accountability Office report. The document questions whether some aspects of a more positive assessment by the White House last month adequately reflected the range of views the GAO found within the administration.

It’s been leaked because one of the writers knew that it would be censored by Bush and His Evil Minions™ in its final version.

In a related note, the Pentagon, “Said Wednesday that it won’t make a single, unified recommendation to President Bush during next month’s strategy assessment.”

This means that they don’t want to be Bush’s bitch on Iraq any more.

Hmmmm….I’ve Heard This Before

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A few years back…I can’t put my finger on it….Those things that Bush and His Evil Minions™ have been saying about Iraq Iran,”And Iran’s active pursuit of technology that could lead to nuclear weapons threatens to put a region already known for instability and violence under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust,” sounds strangely familiar.

It’s almost like I’ve heard this before, maybe about 5 years ago.

Gonzalez Replacement Will Signal New Biparisan Approach for Bush

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On another bipartisan note, monkeys will be flying out of my butt.

It appears that we have a number of papers (here, and here) suggesting that George Bush will reach across the aisle in a non-partisan spirit.

What the frack are they smoking? Did they see the official announcement? It was angry announcement was angry and petulant. He’ll flip the bird to the congress.

My guess is that it will be Ted Olson, since his wife was killed on 9/11, it allows them to pull out that card.

Of course, there that whole lying under oath thing, where he claimed to not to be close to R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. under oath, the guy who manufactured the Paula Jones crap, despite the fact that he was best man at his wedding.

I won’t bet on that, but I would bet that whatever choice it is, it will be a big $%#@ you to Congress.

More on Japan’s Road to Militarism.

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I’ve posted before on what I see as Japan’s return towards its militaristic past, and now we have the JapaneseDefense Tech: Japan launching an aircraft carrier.

I present to you the the Hyuga, 18,000 tons of naval pulchritude:

Of course, it’s not a “real carrier”, like the American super-carriers, or the France’s smaller deGaulle.

Right now, it will carry 4 helicopters, 3 Blackhawk types, and 1 Ch53E Super Stallion, though in a pinch, more can be accomodated.

If the Japanese get the JSF, I can see them getting some of the STOVL versions and operating them from these boats, if just for training for a possible future, and larger, carrier of Hermes size.

But still, the idea of Japanese getting back into carrier aviation does not fill me with anticipation.

Nukes in South Asia

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Some more updates on how the Bush administration is making what is currently the worst threat to global security even worse by helping India increase its arsenal, with the obvious consequence of the almost failed state of Pakistan following suit.

First, it turns out that Pakistan is going with mobile launch systems, which are more likely to fall into terrorist hands, and India is working on technologies to take out buried facilities.

Lovely arms race there, and Bush is fanning the flames so that American nuclear companies can make a few bucks.

Nuke Worries?

Then we have a “a broad spectrum of political parties calls on the government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to scrap the deal, saying it limits the country’s sovereignty in energy and foreign policy matters“.

Basically, Bush is winking at India’s nuclear weapons program, but it’s not enough for the more bellicose and nationalistic members of India’s body politic.

Delightful.

It’s the Moral Hazard, Stupid

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CNN has an article on the mess that Bear Stearns has Found themselves*.

They go into a number of reasons, but at its core, Bear Stearns*, and the rest of Wall Street have fallen victim to one of the favorite bogeymen of the right wing, moral hazard.

The right wing insists that things like minimum wage laws make us lazy, and public health care delivery makes us hypochondriacs.

While it is certain that minimum wage laws raise the cost of low value employees, and that there would be more use of the healthcare system if it were sane, the most extreme case illustrating the risks moral hazard is in the financial markets.

It turns out that Alan “Bubbles” Greenspan did the same with financial markets: There was never a market failure that he would not bail out over the past. As a result, people have become far more accepting of risk in the pursuit of greater return.

Whether it be the bailout of LTCM, or the floodgates being opened after the crash of 1987, or the dotbombs, Alan Greenspan has insulated people from the consequences of their decisions, and so we have people loaning dogs money to buy a house.

FWIW, I do not think that this serves as a good argument against socialized healthcare, which I support (I support a NHS over a single payer), but it is a good argument against socialized capitalism.

*Just to remind you, I have predicted that Bear Stearns cease to exist as an independent entity sometime before August 2, 2008.

And the Winner in the “So Stupid They Can’t Cut Thier Own Meat” Category

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Rich Karlgaard, who thinks that comparing a Democratic candidate with Franklin Delano Roosevelt is somehow a slur.

It isn’t, not in the general election, and particularly not in the Democratic primary.

It’s easy to see why he’s so profoundly misinformed, as he tells us with self assurance that only comes from being an economic knuckle dragger, who are in no short supply at Fortune magazine, that the investment class “went on strike” in 1937*.

I guess that would explain the soaring mattress sales at the beginning of that year, they had to put their money somewhere.

While it is clear that criminals bury their money in low return investment when the heat is on, most investors are law abiding and moral individuals, who continue to invest. Tax and regulatory policy can determine where they invest, but not how much.

*In reality based economics, what happened was that Roosevelt thought that the depression was over and he backed off the new deal, for example cutting the WPA funding by half.

Bulava Missile Not Ready For Mass Production : Missiles and Bombs : Defense News Air Force Army Navy News

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I think that there is some misunderstanding about Russian weapons development, as shown by the following story about the failures in the Bulava-MLBM.

The missile has failed 4 of its first 6 test flights, but this means something very different than it would in a US missile development program.

Simply put, the Soviets, and later the Russians, use missile tests to find design flaws and verify performance, while the western nations typically use tests to verify theoretical analysis.

While the testing protocol is different from previous Russian SLBMs, there have been no ground tests, as it is an adaptation of a ground based system, the test-fail-fix strategy continues.

India launches contest for 126 new fighters with RFP release

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India just released it’s request for proposal for 126 fighters to replace part of it’s aging MiG-21 fleet.

A list of likely bidders are, with what I see as pros and cons are below, with my guesses as to the outcome after that:

  • Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Horne
    • Pros:
      • Interoperability with Western weapons
      • Good payload/range (Probably best of the lot)
      • Highly capable radar/avionics. (maybe the best of the lot)
    • Cons
      • Relatively low agility (probably worst of the lot)
      • Expensive.
      • Largest plane in competition.
      • Subject to US sanctions.
  • Dassault Rafale
    • Pros
      • Interoperability with Western weapons Highly capable radar/avionics. Might be adapted to use Indian Kaveri engine. Dassault already has aircraft in the Indian fleet (Mirage 2000s) Cons Would be 1st foreign adopter of system, may cause support issues.
      • Somewhat expensive.
  • Eurofighter Typhoon
    • Pros
      • Interoperability with Western weapons
      • Good payload/range
      • Highly capable radar/avionics.
      • Very high performance (supercruise at Mach 1.4+ in air to air configuration)
    • Cons
      • Air to ground capabilities still in development.
      • Expensive.
  • Lockheed Martin F-16
    • Pros:
      • Interoperability with Western weapons
      • Good payload/range
      • Capable radar/avionics.
      • Good agility.
      • Lower lifetime costs (because it is single engined).
    • Cons
      • Expensive.
      • Subject to US sanctions.
  • RSK MiG-35
    • Pros:
      • Interoperability with Russian weapons, which they already have in service.
      • Operations and maintenance should be most similar to those of the MiG-21s being replaced.
      • This is a member of the MiG-29 family, which the Indians already have in service.
      • Probably the lowest purchase price of any of the competitors.
    • Cons
      • Avionics are likely the least capable of the lot.
      • Payload/range is likely 2nd least of the lot.
  • Saab Gripen.
    • Pros:
      • Interoperability with Western weapons
      • Highly capable radar/avionics.
      • Lowest life cycle costs (based on the fact that it is the smallest and lightest of the lot.
      • Superb short/rough runway performance.
      • Might be adapted to use Indian Kaveri engine.
    • Cons
      • Probably the least payload/range (but more than the MiG-21)
      • Somewhat subject to US sanctions.

First, note that this will not be India’stop of the line fighter. That will be the SU-27 family variants that it is already flying, or has already bought, so absolute top end performance is not crucial.

India, by virtue of it’s non-aligned status, has a highly heterogeneous air fleet, which makes for a complex supply chain and support. This would suggest that they will buy the MiG, and that’s my call at this point, though there are issues with the Russians, such as the much delayed carrier delivery, and currency issues (the Russians want to start pricing in Euros).

However, the Russians are no doubt aware of this, and might push too hard.

If you go for lowest life cycle costs, the Rafale wins, with the F-16 being close behind.

The Indians have experience with Dassault as a supplier, which might give them a leg up too.

I think that the F-18 and Typhoon are pretty much out of the running.This is a competition for a lightweight or medium fighter aircraft, and both are well above this weight class.

Comments? Thoughts? Aspersions to my heritage?

And In The Realm of the Truly Silly

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It seems that the wizards at the Pentagon have come up with a concept called Heavy Air Lift Seabasing Ship (HALSS). It’s basically a ship, with a trimaran hull form and built to commercial ship standards, that would carry 6 C-130s, and then use these aircraft to ferry cargo to shore.

The idea is to use this to fill in the “last mile” gap of some of the newer basing schemes for American forces associated with the “systems of systems” concept and equipment by flying it all in on a C-130.

It won’t work.

A C-130 can take off and land from a carrier deck, this was shown in the 1960s, and the ship is technically possible, though the one concept has it using nuclear power (!).

The concept is flawed.

What is suggested here is that a unit of action (the new name that they have for a brigade) would be flown to an airfield in that last mile.

As strange as this might sound, will be many times slower than using a port or landing craft to deliver the men and materiel: the manned ground vehicles in the FCS family will have to be stripped down to fly on a C-130 (normal max payload is about 19 tons). You will basically have to make 3 C-130 flights to deliver two vehicles, and they will have to be basically reassembled on the other side, with the armor and other systems removed to make transport weight.

Additionally, this does not really allow for significant inland transport, as the C-130 is at maximum weight, and so it’s range is rather short, particularly to locations where it might be “hot”, and so it would have to carry fuel for a return trip.

Additionally, someone had to be smoking something special if they think that the Air Force’s Air Mobility Command would ever allow the Navy to get any sort of authority over their aircraft, which would be required for such a scheme.