Month: March 2008

Great Prank

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This is a great way to protest, and an inspired prank, and I approve of this message.

Root beer keg party doesn’t amuse officials

By Brian Reisinger
Wausau Daily Herald
breisinger@wdhprint.com

The Zebro home in Kronenwetter showed all the signs of an underage drinking party March 1: cars blocking the road, dozens of rowdy kids and a keg.

And yet, every partyer’s breath test revealed an alcohol-free gathering.

Dustin Zebro, 18, and his friends said they threw the party after D.C. Everest High School administrators suspended their friends from sports.

….

Forest Service May Move From AG to Interior

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Personally, I like the idea of moving the National Forests, but there may be issues with cultures.

The Forest Service is has very much the culture of the AG department, profits through harvest, with the National Forests having as their de facto primary purpose providing wood for the timber industry, and the Interior Department is about preservation of special places as an independent good.

To the degree that the Forest Service ends up more like the Park Service, that will be a good thing.

The Case for Partisanship

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Matthew Yglesias, who I think is sometimes contrarian for its own sake, nonetheless nails it in this essay.

The best point for me is here:

For veteran Washington hands—wheelers and dealers in the lobbying game or at the major interest groups—the new system is worse than dull. It’s emasculating. This is why political elites find polarization so distasteful. In a polarized world, elections and procedural rules largely determine policy outcomes; there’s little room for self-styled players to construct coalitions on the fly, and enhance their own power in the process. The growth in the lobbying industry might seem to belie the point, but consider Tom DeLay’s post-1994 “K Street Project”—which pressured lobbying firms who wanted access on the Hill to hire more Republicans—or the swing of the pendulum back after the Democratic takeover in 2006. Power in Congress is firmly in the hands of the party leadership; lobbyists become less powerful, not more, in a polarized system.

The fact is that outside of the beltway, no one really cares what David Broder thinks, or what gets said at Sally Quinn’s parties, and if you have a political system in which party affiliation actually means something, neither do the members of Congress or the Executive branch.

They answer to the voters under those circumstances.

The KC-X Tanker, The Musical

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It appears that we’ve got our first astroturf, Tankerblog.com, which has been anonymously registered, where they brethlessly reveal that A330 tanker cannot refuel the V-22, while the 767 could.

The blog describes itself as, “The blog is moderated by Mike Reilly who spends his days at the Center for Security Policy and a bipartisan group of legislative assistants who spend their days, and most nights, working on Capitol Hill.”

These “staffers” are from the Seattle no doubt, and the CSP has among it members, Richard Perle, Douglas J. Feith, , Frank Gaffney – Project for the New American Century, Monica Crowley and , Laura Ingraham. (You can get a line on their right wing nut supporters here)

No reasons given for why the difference, and in the real world, if refueling were needed it would be done by a KC-130 turboprop, since using a jet to refuel a turboprop that has to operate below 15k feet because it is not pressurized is just nuts.

A bit of humor at this “blog” though, they have a poll on whether congress should stop the deal, and the pro EADS sides in winning.Tanker War Blog, unnamed bipartasin staffers in congress, from Washington state, no doubt. http://tankerblog.blogspot.com/ look at their poll…good yucks.

The kicker is that Northrop Grumman says it can refuel the V-22, “said on Monday its aerial tanker based on the Airbus A330 could refuel the V-22 tilt-rotor aircraft flown by the Marine Corps.”

Nice to see some defense procurement related humor.

In the meantime, we are starting to see people worrying that Congress will go xenophobic, and queer the contract which would threaten weapons sales in Europe. *cough* JSF *cough*

As to what Boeing is arguing about, it appears that a lot of this is the spacing between wingtips while parked. The USAF reduced this on the basis of what had actually observed.

Additionally, Boeing complained that the Combined Mating and Ranging Planning System (Cmarps) system which was used to develop operational scenarios for the bidding, was something that NG was more familiar with, but seeing as how the software is over 20 years old, I think that this is more another example of how Boeing was being petulant in the bid process.

Aviation Week (subscription required) also lists the following issues:

  • The Air Force added a “receptacle credit” for the capability of receiving as well as offloading fuel. Should have been there from the start, but it’s a clearly a positive capability.
  • Changed its assessment of the pavement thickness/strength at airports used in the mission modeling, allowing more A330s to be parked.
  • There was a change in ground turnaround time, which was then, “fixed for both competitors at 4 hr., 15 min.

For what it’s worth, Airbus tanker is already in test, see picture:

There are 767 tankers flying, but they are substantially different from what was pitched to the USAF.

Bear Stearns Employees Already Financially Raped, Now Possibly Enslaved – Business on The Huffington Post

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Jill Brooke is reporting that JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon is now calling Wall Street firms and threatening them if they attempt to hire away curretn Bear Stearns employees. (The hed, btw is Ms. Brooke’s not mine).

He’s claiming that it’s “unpatriotic” to poach people before he fires them, and he also, “threatened to cut counter-party credit lines to firms that poach Bear stars before the transaction is completed”.

If I were on the jury, I would vote to acquit his murderer.

On a slightly more law abiding note, I believe that the Bear employees might have grounds for one hell of a class action lawsuit.

Bull%#&@!

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Yes, Secretary Paulson is saying that we need to take immediate action to “fix” Social Security.

They are, of course, using the word “fix” much in the same way that my veteranarian does.

We are (run around and scream like a little girl) about 41 years from insolvency! Ten years ago we were 42 years from insolvency! Think about what this means?

Ummmm…that in 410 years we will be down to zero years? But what do I know about math…I’m an engineer.

I think that the earnings cap should be removed and a portion of the amount collected needs to be diverted to medicare, where there is a problem, but my main reason for wanting the cap raised is the same is Warren Buffett. We both find it completely absurd that his secretary pays more of her salary in taxes than he does.

The Republicans want to kill Social Security. There is no crisis, and it does not need to be fixed, but it is a Federal program, it does not kill people, and it helps ordinary people, so they hate it for philosophical reasons.

The response to Republican attempts to kill Social Security should be, “Over the Elephant’s dead rotting body”.

Clear Channel’s Going Private Likely to Collapse

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It appears the deal for private equity firms Thomas H. Lee Partners LP and Bain Capital Partners LLC to take Clear Channel Communications’ Private is in the process of imploding.

The banks that are supposed to back the deal, “Citigroup Inc., Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank AG, Credit Suisse Group, Royal Bank of Scotland PLC and Wachovia Corp”, appear willing to eat the termination fees, and the private equity firms aren’t to interested in going forward either.

The only folks looking eagerly toward closing the deal are the founders, the Mays family.

The article describes the process as, “The negotiations have turned into a bizarre “kabuki” dance, said one person familiar with the situation. To protect against litigation, neither the private-equity firms nor the banks want to leave any doubt that they are committed to closing the deal. But their public actions have little to do with what’s going on in private, say a number of people involved in the matter.”

Basically, the first person to blink gets sued.

The deal is supposed to be for $19 billion, and a breakup fee is likely to be around $600 million, and if the banks repackage and resell the loan, which they really have to do, they are saying that it would have to be at around a 15% discount, which seems to me with my imperfect non-MBA math to show that it is cheaper to back out.

I wish that there was a way for all of them, particularly the Mays family, the creator of the cancer of the airwaves, Clear Channel, to lose.

Video below:

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Rabi’ al-awwal (ربيع الأول) is Arabic for Tet

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It appears now that the truce with Moqtada al-Sadr is well and truly over. Even if hasn’t called for a revolt against the Maliki government, he has called for civil disobedience and self defense, and the shooting has begun.

The US blames the latest attacks on rogue Mahdi Army elements tied to Iran, but analysts say the spike in fighting with Shiite militants potentially opens a second front in the war when the American military is still doing battle with the Sunni extremists of Al Qaeda in Iraq.

“The cease-fire is over; we have been told to fight the Americans,” said one Mahdi Army militiaman, who was reached by telephone in Sadr City.

The force most closely linked to Iran is not the Mahdi Army. It is sectarian, but also Iraqi nationalist.

It isn’t helping that out west, the Sunni Militias are going strike because they have not been paid.

It would be comical if it were not for the killing.

The ones in the thrall of Iran, are Maliki’s guys. They fought for Iran in the war, and tortured Iraqi POWs at the request of the Iranians.

The Americans don’t get it. Sadr is not an Iranian puppet, he’s the strongest nationalist Shia out there, though this is not stopping David Petraeus, Bushes Bitch on the Euphrates, from claiming that all the attacks are coming from Iran.

Sir, you are a lying sack of sh%$ and a disgrace to your uniform, the men who serve under you, and the United States of America.

The press coverage on this side of the pond, excepting the Monitor and McClatchy, is universally poor, with claims that the civil disobedience causing the violence.

Eric Martin makes some very good points about how Malicki and the US undermined the truce int he first place.

He notes there has been a crackdown against the Mahdi army and its related political party in advance of provincial elections.

It’s pretty clear that the state security apparatus, and the US military, have been used in an attempt to influence these elections.

Ilan Goldenberg notes, when talking about the factors responsible for the current lull in the violence:

It’s hard to say for sure, which of these factors [The surge, the Anbar Awakening, the Sadr ceasfire, or the Completion of ethnic cleansing in most of Baghdad] was the most important. The Bush Administration will tell you it’s all about the troop levels. I’ve tended to believe it’s more of a mix and was most inclined towards the Anbar Awakening and the sectarian cleansing as the important factors. But when you look at the data it really seems to indicate that the Sadr ceasefire may have been the key.

More than anything else, Sadr wants us out.

He may get it before November.

So, the Plot Sickens with the Bear Bailout/Buyout

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Well, we have the WaPo reporting on the increased share price, and calling it “a good deal” since the stock was selling for $70 two weeks ago.

Then again, you have a noted stock analyst saying that the true cost, which includes all the debts owed, will be close to $65/share, and you have Market Watch reporter Greg Robb calling the Fed and JP Morgan’s actions putting lipstick on a pig.

Economics Update

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People are not feeling confident right now, Conference Board’s consumer confidence index fell to 64.5, and the expectations index fell to 47.9, the latter being the lowest since December 1973.

Not surprisingly, the dollar is down as a result, though the fact that the Federal Reserve continues to run those printing presses like they were making toilet paper for rancid burrito day may have contributed.

In real estate, Freddie is seeing mortgage delinquencies increasing.

We are also seeing an explosion in payday loans, which means people are being abused by the system just as Bear shareholders are getting a freebie courtesy of the Federal Reserve.