Month: June 2008

Wingnut Heads Exploding

While the main stream media
studiously ignores John McCain’s campaign finance felonies, wing nut heads are exploding over the fact that Obama will opt out of public financing, and bury McCain with cash.

In the times, we have David Brooks’ head exploding over the fact that Obama is not going to take public campaign financing, revealing that *gasp* Obama will work to gain maximum political advantage, and on CNN, we have Leslie Sanchez, director of the White House Initiative on Hispanic Education from 2001-2003, and hence a professional lier saying that money doesn’t mean anything because after all, the American public can’t be swayed with glitzy ad campaigns.

Yeah…right…

Heh.

Supporting Lawyer-Client Confidentiality

There has been a problem of late, with Federal prosecutors using coercive techniques to make companies waive confidentiality on discussions with lawyers, but there is now Attorney-Client Privilege Protection Act of 2007, which codifies the oft-ignored McNulty Memorandum into law, and so would reduce the leverage that prosecutors might have to make companies waive confidentiality.

I support the change, it’s a basic bedrock principle of our legal system, but it also removes a tool in white collar crime, and we need a whole bunch more CEOs and Wall Street types doing the perp walk, because they are guilty as hell, which does not make me an enthusiastic support of the bill.

Tsvangirai Takes Refuge in Dutch Embassy, but Here Comes Mbeki to the Rescue

While he has not formally requested asylym, it’s clear that Tsvangirai believes that his life is in danger, which is why he’s sleeping there.

We also have Thabo Mbeki traveling to Zimbabwe, to make a “final plea” to Mugabe about doing the right thing. We can be sure that Mbeki’s effort will be ineffectual, and will be full of enabling language. That is what he’s done for the past 10 years.

Economics Update

I missed this when it was announced late Friday afternoon, but two moremonoliners hit junk status, FGIC and XL Capital and XL Financial.

I wonder when all of the monoliners will be junk rated, and I also wonder why this is not true now.

This means more than just that these insurers can no longer realistically write policies. These downgrades come with significant penalties, as MBIA’s statement that’s it downgrade will force it to make $4.7 billion in payments to creditors.

When they got downgraded, the terms of their loans changed.

In energy we have oil up despite the Saudi meeting, and retail gas prices falling. Hopefully this will bring a few months of stability at the pump.

The dollar strengthened, largely on crappy growth in the Euro zone, which would suggest that the ECB will hold off rate hikes for a while.

In real estate, we have Lehman predicting more losses for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which should come as no surprise at all.

After when ¼ of Bay Area home sales in May had been in foreclosure, and statewide home sales hit a 13-year low, it’s not like there will be a whole bunch of players making money.

It’s why George W. Bush’s ownership is becoming a Pwnership society, with home ownership falling to below where it was when he announced the initiative to get people to buy houses.

BTW, if you think that this won’t effect you, you are wrong. We now have an estimate of properties falling by $1.46 Trillion, which, by my quick envelope calculation, means that state and local governments are looking at revenue shortfalls on property taxes on the order of $1.5 billion/month.

The Republican Party in Staten Island is Having a VERY Bad Year

When I heard the news that Francis H. Powers, Republican candidate for Congress in Staten Island had died was :

My condolences to his family, but the sequence of events was:

  • The incumbent was busted driving drunk to his mistress, who bore him a daughter, and decided not to run for reelection.
  • When Francis H. Powers (Frank), was chosen as the Republican candidate, his son Francis M. Powers (Fran) decided to run for election against him, making Frank the but of the late night talk shows.
  • And now Frank Powers is dead, and Republicans cannot find anyone else interested in running.

This has gone from challenge to fiasco.

Tsvangirai Withdraws from Zimbabwe Runoff, Calls for International Intervention

Basically, he’s saying that any election would be a sham because of the levels of violence.

Needless it does not help that Mugabe is claiming rule through divine right:

“Only God, who appointed me, will remove me, not the MDC, not the British,” Mugabe declared in the city of Bulawayo on Friday. “Only God will remove me!”

Tsvangirai is also calling for international intervention, though it is clear that as long as Thabo Mbeki is involved in the process, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) will do nothing, so any meaningful intervention will have to go through the UN, as South Africa is the colossus of the region, but Thabo Mbeki, South Africa’s president, is the functions as the moral pygmy shielding Mugabe.

Thankfully, he should be succeeded by Jacob Zuma in the less than a month.

Hopefully, individual countries will go the route of Australia, and impose tough sanctions, such as, “financial sanctions and suspending non-humanitarian aid, and defence and ministerial links, besides travel bans on members of the Zimbabwe regime.”

Barack Obama Sells Us All Out

And so did Pelosi, Hoyer, Emmanuel, and all the rest of them.It does not matter if you are a Democrat, or a Republican, black, white, or polka dotted. He sold you out, he sole me out, he sold out George Washington, and Ben Franklin, and Alexander Hamilton, and Abraham Lincoln.

They sold out every last one of us.

Glenn Greenwald nails it when he says that, “Telling Americans that we have to give up basic constitutional rights — and allow rampant lawbreaking — if we want to save ourselves from “the grave threats we face” sounds awfully familiar. He says he will work to remove amnesty from the bill, but once that fails, will vote for the “compromise.” Obama has obviously calculated that sacrificing the rule of law and the Fourth Amendment is a worthwhile price to pay to bolster his standing a tiny bit in a couple of swing states. The full Obama statement is here.”

What Glenn Greenwald does not note, and I will, is that the behavior of this administration shows that this is about their spying on political opponents, not about security, because that is the only thing that would have them freaking out like this, because it’s the only thing that would send them to jail.

To be completely fair, he does say in his statement that he will, “work in the Senate to remove this provision so that we can seek full accountability for past offenses,”, but as Digby says, this translates to, “maybe show up to vote on some amendment that will surely be struck down and then whimper away.”

Atrios gives him a wanker of the day award.

I have post dated this so that it will show at the top of the blog for the next few days.

CFM Proceeds With Accellerated Development of Open Rotor Engine

They are looking to have a model in test this year, and a decision on if/how to proceed in the 2009-2010 time frame.

Seeing as how the open rotor, it’s a lot like an advanced turboprop, would give something like a 25% improvement in fuel economy, the advantages are clear. The question is whether or not the related issues, particularly mounting and noise, can be resolved in an advantageous manner.

New Developments in DARPA Hypersonics Research

DARPA has now revealed one of its hypersonic research programs,the Vulcan engine.

The test vehicle, see below, is about the size of the Have Blue stealth prototype (smaller than a F-5)


As shown in the slide, this would use conventional fuels.


There would be a common inlet and exhaust nozzle with the flow path varying depending on speed and altitude. A turbojet would be used for takeoff and low speed, and as speeds increased, the inlet air would be diverted to a pulsed combustion ram/scram jet type system.

India Working on BMD System

They are looking at a two tiered system, and have some demonstration vehicles for their missile defense system.

The two tiered system mirrors that of the US Safeguard system of the late 1960s, and has me wondering if their system, like Safeguard, uses nuclear warheads.

In Safeguard, the upper tier had an exoatmospheric interceptor, Spartan, with a megaton sized warhead that killed thermally, and an endoatmospheric interceptor, Sprint, with a kiloton sized warhead that killed through neutron pulse.

In either case, they have purchased Israeli phased array radars for the system, along with Raytheon and Lockheed, and there is either some Russian involvement, or an extensive marketing effort by the Russians to get their foot in the door.


The Thielert Diesel Aircraft Engine Soap Opera Continues

Relations between Thielert, and Diamond, its largest customer, who has had to halt production for lack of engines continues to be poor.

Diamond continues the rapid development of its aircraft diesel engine, the Austro, and even though Thielert has resumed production, Diamond is not taking any shipments, even though Thielert has moved to the next step of insolvency.

Diamond has a statement out on the situation. It’s basic points are:

  • Thielert has not involved Diamond in investment discussions (Thielert claims that Diamond has declined to be involved)
  • Recent issues with the clutch/reduction gear of serious concern.
  • Diamond has serious concerns with prompt delivery of spares, even when money is paid up front.
  • Even when spares are available, the prices are high, due to the captive nature of the market.
  • Diamond is working to develop it’s own support infrastructure for Thielert engine for existing infrastructure.
  • Diamond is looking at integrating a Lycoming AvGas engine into its DA-42.

This is an unbelievable mess.

A Case Study: The Problem With Defense Procurement

Over the past few years, the Swedes have looked at developing an advanced wheeled combat behicle, the SEP, developed by BAE* subsidiary Hagglunds.

About 6 months ago, after a few demonstrators had been fielded, massive budget cuts came out for the Swedish military, and there was not enough money to buy a new class of vehicles.

They decided to go “off the shelf”.

Well, now BAE and Hagglunds are declaring that the SEP is really off the shelf, because there are 4 pre-productions vehicles under construction….Yeah, right.

It’s the iron triangle, also called the military industrial complex, at work.

Still, it’s some pretty neat tech, doing 6×6, 8×8, and tracked on the same basic chassis.

It also has an active protection panel armor (see pics below):

*Full disclosure, I worked at another division of BAE in 1995 and 1996 when the Carlyle Group sold me to buy Dunkin Donuts
Yes, I have worked everywhere. Maybe I can’t hold down a job, but more likely this has been my role as “technical hit man”, where you are parachuted in to take care of a specific need.

The AMA: Part of the Problem, Not Part of the Solution

Yes, the American Medical Association just voted to lobby to outlaw home births, because midwives are taking too much of OB/GYN’s business.

I would never have used a midwife or done home delivery with my wife, and if she had wanted it, I would have done everything in my power to make her go to a hospital instead, because she is a poster child for major birthing complications.

But that’s our choice. It’s not a profit center for doctors.

An Interesting Development in Lightweight Armor

The material is called Dyneema, which is an ultra high molecular weight polyethylene.

I’ve seen high strength polyethylene used for bullet proof garments and butcher’s gloves, where it has a real advantage over Kevlar® in that it does not degrade in a washing machine.

They were showing at a show what happened when a 500g high speed (about 1500 m/s) projectile at it.

It looks like the projectile had a low sectional density, but it’s still impressive.

Here is a test stand with penetration of multiple layers:

With the detail of the final layer stopping the projectile:

Definately neat.

Sarko Runs into Buzz Saw Over Defense White Paper

Nicolai Sarkosy has proposed a massive restructuring of the French military. He would cut about 1/5 of the military’s manpower, tie the military much more tightly into a pan-European framework, close African bases, and rejoin the NATO integrated military command.

This is a very big deal, and I think that I agree, at least partially, with Robert Fox’s analysis, that a large part of this is about creating a more European framework, which would reduce US influence. (See also here)

This will, however, create a firestorm. The independence of the French military command from the US has been a centerpiece of the center-right Gaullists in France, the center-left Socialists always being more friendly to the US, so he is moving against his base, and the generals are flipping out, having published an anonymous essay in Le Figaro under the pseudonym of Surcourf, “attacked the new defence policy as amateurish, incoherent and full of gimmicks.”

Alain Juppé objected strenuously too, noting that, “Gaullism is not dead, at least in the minds of some people.”