It looks like the General Dynamics is developing a lightweight .50 cal machinegun to replace it.
It’s supposed to be about ½ the weight of the venerable M2HB.
If the new weapon is better, then it’s better, but the retirement of one of John Browning’s many classics is melencholy.
It appears that because the Poles are getting cold feet, or demanding more for the base, they are talking with Lithuania about locating the missiles there.
This means a number of things:
The last point is simple: If you have a sub optimal location, one that is too far north to protect parts of Turkey, Greece, and Italy, starting negotiations with a country that is further north, and hence less well suited to intercepting Iranian missiles, but just as well suited to intercepting a Russian strike.
What is going on is simple: This is Republicans trying to recreate the cold war, because it benefits them politically.
Seriously…Not joking here…and hopefully, neither isNewsweek magazine.
Their latest poll has Obama at 51%, and McCain at 36%.
Well, whatever the sick old man is doing, he should keep doing it.
He donated $1000 to the McCain primary campaign, which the good people at Housing Panic found through the NEWSMEAT campaign contribution search engine.
So, the tanned one supports McCain? So not surprised.
So we have a child soldier, one who, in a civilized society, would be sent for help and deprogramming, but the our military first tortures him and now sets a trial date of October 8.
Politic much?
Originally, it was supposed to happen in September, but now a BofA spokesman is saying July 1.
I don’t know if this is because things are going well, or they are trying to finish the deal before the sh&% really hits the fan, but my gut tells me the latter.
I have no idea what the authorities used to get the Swiss bank to turn over its data, but kudos.
Big people should pay taxes too.
Swiss bank UBS AG said Friday that it will disclose any instances in which rich American clients may have broken U.S. tax reporting rules by channeling assets through offshore shell companies.
Damn.
Give to Regina Thomas and Blue America PAC vs Retroactive Immunity.
This is a betrayal of the whole country.
Beat on the Senate now, and let’s see what Obama does. He says the right things, and it stops.
What I find remarkable is that even with the violence and criminality of ZANU-PF in the runoff, they are still not sure that they can win an election, because there are now reports that there are arguments among the leadership as to what should be done if he loses.
Seriously, it appears that they are running up against their limits as vote riggers.
It has apparently gotten so bad that Mbeki is actually starting to propose solutions, specifically something similar to what happened in Kenya, with a PM and a unity government.
I think that this is unlikely, as Mugabe’s government is proceeding with the trumped uptreason trial of Tendai Biti, the secretary-general of the MDC.
Normally, I don’t do presidential polls, the little electoral vote count icon down on the right does that at a glance, but the fact that we have a poll in Georgia showing Obama and McCain in a statistical dead heat is un-bloody-believable.
I’m lazy, so let’s just say, Oil up, retail gasoline up, and dollar down.
I’m beginning if I should stop covering the above swings daily….day-to-day has too much noise to signal.
On the other hand, the rumors of massive writedowns at Citi over mortgages, LBO loans, CDOs, etc. is probably more significant, as is the fact that Moody’s finally cut MBIA’s credit rating.
Moody’s Investors Service on Thursday stripped the insurance arms of Ambac Financial Group and MBIA of their AAA ratings, citing their impaired ability to raise capital and write new business.
….
Moody’s cut Ambac Assurance three notches to “Aa3,” the fourth highest investment grade, and downgraded Ambac Financial three notches to “A3,” the seventh highest investment grade, from “Aa3.”
MBIA Insurance was cut five notches to “A2,” the sixth highest investment grade, and MBIA Inc was cut five notches to “Baa1,” three steps above junk, from “Aa2.”
This is actually more significant than just making their borrowing money more expensive, it means that some of the holders of insurance contracts the right to terminate or require the additional collateral from the company.
It’s what Atrios calls, “Another Jenga Piece” coming out.
There were crumbs in the trenches that Phoenix dug, and they appear to have melted.
Cool.
I am not surprised, except for the fact that Congress has been so complicit in this coverup:
“The continuing cloud of suspicion is not something I can remove because I only one part of the story,” McClellan said in his opening statement before the House Judiciary Committtee this morning. “Only those who know the underlying truth can bring this to an end. Sadly, they remain silent.”
It’s been filed by Abdul Rahim Abdul Razak al Ginco who is demanding that the US government show cause as to why he is detained.
According to the article, before he was detained and tortured by us as a potential terrorist, he was detained and tortured by the Taliban as a US spy in Afghanistan.
I think that we will be discovering that we tortured a bunch of innocent people, and now Bush and His Evil Minions™ are afraid that if we let them go, they will be angry at us…well, duh.
He was talking to a the Jewish Federation of South Palm Beach County. He called it, “wedge politics at its worst”.
I’m impressed.
So now he is saying that Nafta is, “not so bad after all,” in an interview in Fortune magazine.
This is no surprise to me. One of his chief economic advisers has been Austan Goolsbee, and most of the rest have been seriously “Chicago School” too.
If you are surprised, you were played for a sucker.
The BBS has been down for a at least 8 hours now.
I’ve set up an announcement email list on Yahoo, which will hopefully allow for people to be updated.
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Or is that a “frog march”?
In any case, Two down, more than ten thousand to go.
If we aggressively and fairly investigated Wall Street for criminal wrongdoing, I figure that at least 10% of the actors there would get arrested.
On the Today Show, Cindy McCain goes back to the months old quote from Michelle Obama on pride in country to attack her patriotism.
I approve his campaign’s decision to eschew public financing and the associated spending limits.
He will get a lot more money from his donors for the general.
The only thing that I argue about is that they missed an opportunity to attack McCain. They could have given the reason for this as, “John McCain is in felony violation of the campaign finance law that he wrote, so it’s not reasonable to expect good faith in his negotiations.“