The Zanu PF appears to have lost its parliamentary majority, though it also appears that the MDC Mutambara, while being the plurality party, will be about 2 seats short (out of 200) of an outright majority.
Meanwhile, the MDC Mutambara is now explicitly saying that Mugabe has lost the election for President. From the numbers, I’m not clear if they are insisting that they won outright which still seems a close call, or if they won, but did not get the 50% necessary to avoid a runoff.
Juan Cole has a fairly detail take on what happened with the fighting. It’s basically the same conclusions as me, but with more detail, and it helps that he can actually speak Arabic.
I find his conclusions fairly basic, though obviously they are too though for Republicans, and other brain damaged people, to understand.
Additionally, it appears that there was a bombing in Basra that target a top Iraqi general.
Treasury undersecretary Stuart A. Levey told Congress that, “Saudi Arabia remains the world’s leading source of money for Al Qaeda and other extremist networks and has failed to take key steps requested by U.S. officials to stem the flow“.
Well duh.
When he wrote the memo OKing torture, he became a war criminal, and he needs to stand trial, be convicted, and spend the rest of his life in jail.
Fortunately for him, the ICC in the Hauge doesn’t do waterboarding.
FWIW, if that man were janitor at a school, it would be an embarrassment. The fact that he is tenured faculty in the UC Berkley Law Department is repugnant.
Remember my post about an April Fools prank driving the stock market rally?
There was an April fools gag, but the there were no news reports, nor any stock market rally as a result. Barry Ritholtz completely punk’d me by using someone else’s April Fools’ gag as a jumping off point.
Damn….I gotta get him back next year, but it was a very good prank.
It looks like Microsoft won the vote on OOXML at the ISO, but as I’ve noted, the voting in a number of places seemed to be highly irregular.
Of note, at this point, there are no OOXML compliant applications, including Office 2007, for which it was written, and as I’ve detailed before, the entire spec is a bloody mess, see here.
Of course, I thought that the ISO would reject it, chalk up another one for my blown predictions.
Talk about screwing up in reverse.
Bush wants Iraq forever to appease his ego, and the victory of Sadr in the recent conflict has given yet another excuse to delay a draw down.
Delightful.
Great googly moogly…..NO!!!!!!!!!
Brain damaged woman gets to keep her settlement.
Thanks Keith.
It appears that the opposition is now claiming outright victory, and we are seeing denials that there are any negotiations regarding the transfer of power.
As I’ve said earlier, I don’t see Mugabe leaving politely.
The immigration system of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), one of Jack Abramhoff’s slimier clients*, will be brought into line with the rest of the US under a bill making progress in the Senate.
The spectacle of what amounted to indentured servitude at factories there was a blot on the US, and this change is good policy, additionally, the tremendously corrupt behavior of the government of the CNMI appears to be getting a well deserved dope slap.
*Scary thought that.
Ailing (and corrupt) mortgage giant Countrywide Financial has just placed a cap of 4% on Mortgage brokers.
Note that 4% is way too high, but it’s a start.
Basically, it stops incentivizing the most extreme Yield Spread Premiums (basically a “load” on the loan which largely goes to the broker) to the detriment of the borrower, the lender, and the rest of the economy.
The incentives in the current home mortgage environment is a morass of forces pushing lenders toward unsafe, immoral, and destructive loan products, and this is something that should be changed.
Terry Jones doing an ad for the Beeb.
It’s not the spaghetti harvest, but it’s pretty good.
We have a report that the Federal Reserve is making inquiries with the Scandanavian banks regarding how they handled their banking crisis in the early 1990s.
What they did back then was nationalize their banks:
Scandinavia’s bank rescue proved successful and is now a model for central bankers, unlike Japan’s drawn-out response, where ailing banks were propped up in a half-public limbo for years.
…
Norway ensured that shareholders of insolvent lenders received nothing and the senior management was entirely purged. Two of the country’s top four banks – Christiania Bank and Fokus – were seized by force majeure.
“We were determined not to get caught in the game we’ve seen with Bear Stearns where shareholders make money out of the rescue,” said one Norwegian adviser.
“The law was amended so that we could take 100pc control of any bank where its equity had fallen below zero. Shareholders were left with nothing. It was very controversial,” he said.
Works for me.
Senior management gets the boot without golden parachutes, shareholders get nothing, and then people think twice before they pull this crap again.
Unfortunately, property is the one true religion of the good old USA, so I don’t think that it would work here.
But it is probably the best solution.
The planned draw down has been delayed due to the overwhelming success that the forces of peace, democracy, and self determination in the recent conflict against al Sadr and his Mahdi army.
The Poodle’s gift to the British people just keeps on giving, huh?
The Myth Lives On, or not, I guess.
Yep, EADS has already delivered the first aircraft, D-1, to Dresden for modifications to full KC-45 status.
Doubtless, this is on hold because of the challenge, but note that Airbus had the airframe ready to fly to an outfitting location, and Boeing’s “Frankenplane” would not be cutting metal for months.
Boeing simply got beat like a ten dollar hooker* on this one.
Pictures below.
*My apologies for comparing a multi-billion dollar defense contractor to a cheap whore†.
†Sorry, wasn’t clear there. I was apologizing to the whore.
Normally, I don’t comment on market daily moves, there is too much noise there, but today’s stock market rally, particularly in the morning, bears note, because much of it appears to have been driven by an April Fools gag.
Dedicated short fund manager Doug Kass, of Seabreeze Partners Short LP, put out an early morning, tongue-in-cheek commentary, titled Time to Buy the Bull? The long time Bearish market pundit and writer for The Street.com and Real Money announced that he was raising his year end price targets for the S&P500 to 1,666, which would reflect a yearly gain of 26%.
This was picked up by:
Mr. Kass subsequently apologized, “I apologize to my partners, and to my friends, and especially to the SEC, for whom I have the greatest possible respect. I never intended markets to be manipulated in this manner. I was only trying to make some traders, who have been having a tough year, break a smile.”
You gotta love Wall Street. I wish I had chosen it as my career. I would already have made my millions, gotten busted, done my 22 months at Club Fed, written a book about it, and now I’d have a 2 day a week job as a pundit on CNBC.
I already have a trophy wife though, so I can’t complain.
The USAF just put in a request for a potential C-5 replacement
This is a special notice open to U.S. industry requesting information on project plans and overall feasibility of designing, fabricating and flying a full-scale, aero-structural technology demonstrator of an advanced, long-range transport concept in approximately 36 months. Responses are requested to provide information on four key aspects of the demonstrator project: (1) a description of the advanced aircraft concept (2) a description of the flight demonstrator and how it will establish proof-of-concept for the objective system (3) a project plan to go from demonstrator design to flight in 36 months (4) discussion of featured, enabling technologies for the objective system concept and risk reduction strategies necessary to validate them. The objective of this RFI is to identify potential flight demonstrator options and feasible program plans that will rapidly accelerate technology readiness level (TRL) growth of advanced transport system concepts and/or critical component technologies without being constrained by a formal acquisition program or requirement. Interested offerors may view and/or download the full Request for Information (RFI) by accessing the Federal Business Opportunities (FedBizOps) homepage at http://www.fbo.gov. Direct questions to Mr. Barth Shenk, AFRL/RBOT, (937) 255-8343.”
They want this in 36 months?!?!?!? Well, whoever wants to make the bid and better have Antonov on their speed dial. Because the AN-124 is the only thing out there that could fulfill the requirements and be flying in 36 months.
The A380 comes close, but without a rear cargo door, and a low wing that will suck debris off austere fields, there are some problems with that.
If Charles Schulz did Watchmen.
Genius.