It was launched today, and it appears that its Vista Compatibility Center is ALREADY BROKEN.
At least it was when I checked the link.
Month: July 2008
Damn!!! Telco Amnesty and Surveillance State Bill Passes
According to FDL it was 69:28.
Of my senators, Cardin voted nay, Mikulski voted aye.
Barbara Mikulski will never get my money or my vote again.
As to the Democrats, to paraphrase a book I read decades ago from memory:
In the old days, there was an operation performed on young boys.
They would either die, keep a lovely singing voice into adulthood, or become a Democrat in Congress.
Sistani Rejects US-Iraq Security Deal
I know nothing of the accuracy of the source, but if Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani has made this statement publicly, we need to pack our bags and be out in the next few months.
I will note that Juan Cole has reported that Sistani has made similar statements in private to Iraqi leaders in private, so there is some confirmation on his position.
Onward Christian Soldiers
Well, we have found another American hero, Army Spc. Jeremy Hall, Atheist, who has experienced a systematic program of harassment and threats since choosing this path.
He has now filed suit, without any claim to financial damages, to stop this:
His sudden lack of faith, he said, cost him his military career and put his life at risk. Hall said his life was threatened by other troops and the military assigned a full-time bodyguard to protect him out of fear for his safety.
In March, Hall filed a federal lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Defense and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, among others. In the suit, Hall claims his rights to religious freedom under the First Amendment were violated and suggests that the United States military has become a Christian organization.
“I think it’s utterly and totally wrong. Unconstitutional,” Hall said.
Hall said there is a pattern of discrimination against non-Christians in the military.
Lets make this clear, the bigotry against him is contrary to the good discipline and order of the military, and should have consequences, but it won’t, because over the past 30 years, a number of organizations, such as the Christian Embassy and the Officers’ Christian Fellowship, have successfully infiltrated the military with the goal of creating an “Army of God” (Arabic translation: Hezbollah).
Honestly, I believe that many of the people doing this are laying the groundwork for an Evangelical Christian coup, and should removed from the military immediately.
Legal Funnies
It appears that Judge Ronald Leighton was unamused at a 465 page filing in a racketeering lawsuit, including an 8 page title (!), and invoked a rarely used rule requiring short and plain statement of allegations sent it back to be redrafted with the following instructions in limerick form:
Plaintiff has a great deal to say,
But it seems he skipped Rule 8(a).
His Complaint is too long,
Which renders it wrong,
Please rewrite and refile today.
This is why I am not a judge. My limerick would have been far more blunt:
An eight page long title will fail,
regardless of the complexity of the tale,
I hope you don’t mind,
you’re in contempt I do find,
get your toothbrush because you’re going to jail.
Investment Bank Solution to Toxic Financial Instruments: Rename, Repackage, Resell
Remember the toxic Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDO) that no one wants to buy anymore?
Well, investment banks are repackaging them and selling them as Re-Remics (REsecuritizations of Real Estate Mortgage Investment Conduits):
Goldman Sachs Group Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and at least six other firms are repackaging unwanted mortgage bonds as sales of CDOs composed of asset-backed securities fall to less than $1 billion this year from $227 billion in 2007 because of the global credit crunch. Re-Remics contain parts that are structured to guard against higher losses on underlying loans than most CDOs, allowing holders to sell or retain other sections at lower prices that can translate to potential yields of more than 20 percent.
So this stuff is so toxic that sales have dropped by more than 99.6% year over year, and the solution is a new name and a new obscure mathematical model.
Of course, the banks will claim that Re-Remics are different, because they don’t have subprime loans, just Alt-A.
Of course, as I’ve noted repeatedly, those are swirling around the bowl on their way down too.
It should be noted that there is a discount, but it still sounds like another CDO shell game:
While CDOs are backed by more than a hundred bonds, Re- Remics typically combine fewer than a dozen, allowing holders to more easily analyze the debt.
…
A bond trading at 40 cents on the dollar could be split into a piece worth 80 cents and another piece that could then be sold cheaply enough to offer returns as high as 20 percent, Dachille said. Banks advised by First Principles bought lower-yielding senior pieces and some are also considering buying the bonds for their pension funds, he said. The firm is also starting a fund for pension clients that would invest in the debt, Dachille said.
If you are willing to take the investment houses’ word on this, you are too stupid to be trusted with any device more complex than a bowling ball.
Of course, the likely idiot customers would be pension funds, municipalities, and, of course, investment bankers.
Once Again, Bush and His Evil Minions&trade Stun Me Into Sputtering Rage
It seems that it happens every month, and when I say, “That’s it there is no way it could get any worse,” and each time I am wrong.
Now, they are using the Cuba embargo and anti-Terror regulations to prevent the Guantánamo Bay defense attorneys from being paid or reimbursed for expenses.
Note that these guys are billing at $250/hour when their normal rate would be north of $500 an hour, but they aren’t even getting that:
When U.S. law groups announced in April that they were hiring the nation’s top criminal defense lawyers to defend alleged al Qaeda terrorists at the war court here, one executive called the lawyers “The A Team.”
Now, they’re the No-Pay Team.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which has pledged to cover costs of civilian lawyers defending alleged arch-terrorists, is in a struggle with the U.S. Treasury Department over a permit to pay $250-an-hour fees and other expenses to attorneys who have been shuttling to this remote U.S. Navy base from as far as Boise, Idaho.
….
I can do nothing but look at the screen with an expression on my face resembling that of a cow that just stepped on its own udder.
SEC Gives Poor Marks to Ratings Agencies
They are saying that S&P, Moody’s, and Fitch do not manage conflicts of interest well, fail to follow internal procedure, business pressures to right highly, and so the ratings are generally a mess.
Of at least as much concern is the finding that the complex securities outstripped the agencies abilities to rate these instruments.
We literally have an economic system where no one, even the most tuned in and experienced operators, know what they are actually handling. It has gotten so far removed from real equities, and cut and diced and resold so many times, that only mathematical models which are unverifiable present any sort of model for value.
We aren’t even half way down the credit crunch slope. This is 1929 on crack.
Flip-Flop Old Man
So, John Sidney McCain favored immigration reform and amnesty for illegals, but then opposed it when he saw that it was killing him in the primary contest, and now he’s back to amnesty when talking in front of the League of United Latin American Citizens. (LULAC)
I Want that Muthaf$#@ing Snake in the Muthaf$#@ing Ocean!!!!!!
In any case, that’s what I think that Samuel L. Jackson would say about this new energy technology.
Basically, a team in the UK has developed a floating rubber tube that is squeezed by the waves as they travel along. It resembles a seawater filled sausage.
When the squeeze reaches one end of the tube, a turbine converts the energy into electricity.
They are testing scale models now, but a full size version would be 7 meters in diameter, and 200m long and produce 1 MW, somewhat better, and much less expensive, than rigid wave catching systems and buoys.
A film of it in action is below.
H/t Gismodo.
Would Cardinal Walter Kasper STFU
Obviously, I have made comments regarding the problems in the Anglican church over whether or not to ordain out gays. I feel that it involves me for two reasons:
- The Christian Dominionist religious right (not Anglican) has aggressively spewed lies and hate on this issue as a part of a their larger agenda of establishing a fundamentalist theocracy in the US, which I consider a personal threat.
- Because in the 3rd world you have people who not only object to ordination, but they also call for bigoted crusades against gays that are arguably genocidal under UN definitions, which we are obliged as human beings to oppose.
That being said, on the matter of whether or not to make women Bishops in the chruch, it’s not my business, and neither is it the business of the Catholic Church, where Cardinal Walter Kasper, head of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity, has officially condemned this decision.
I understand his perspective, that this might be an impediment between the future reunification of the churches, but the schism between the Church of England and the Church of Rome is 474 years old. There will never be a reunification. Not only has it been to long, but the people of England would never put themselves under the authority of Rome again out of nationalism.
So please, would people in all religions other then the Church of England who feel inclined to make official statements on this matter shut the F@#$ up! It’s none of anyone else’s damn business.
Your Moment of Zen
World leaders enjoy 18-course banquet… then discuss how to solve global food crisis.
I got nothing to add here.
Fed Partially Closes Barn Door, Cows Still Missing
They are adopting new rules to protect home buyers.
A promising sign is that the mortgage industry hates the proposal.
Bullet points:
- A requirement to show that borrowers could realistically afford the mortgages.
- Disclosure of all fees.
- Restrictions on advertising.
- An expansion of loans to whom the regulations apply. It had been more than 8% above T-Bills, and it will more than 3% above T-bills.
I agree with the consumer advocates who think that it’s not enough, but it’s a start.
Indian Communist Party Withdraw Support Over US India Nuke Deal
The arrangement is odd, the Communists are not formally a part of the government, but they have supported the government on confidence votes, but they are now withdrawing their support because of the US-India nuclear deal, which they feel violated Indian sovereignty.
They don’t object to the nuclear cooperation. They object to signing the NNPT and negotiating with the IAEA.
It looks like both the Bush and His Evil Minions™ and the Indian Congress party are rushing to get this deal signed before January 21, 2009.
Economics Update
Bernanke is saying that the Federal Reserve’s money for crap loan program to the investment banks may continue well into next year.
In energy, we have generally good news, with oil falling to $136.04/bbl and
retail gasoline prices unchanged.
Not unsurprisingly the dollar strengthened a bit.
Housing, on the other hand just took another hit, with pending home sales falling 4.7% from last month and 14% from a year ago.
Al Maliki Demands Timetable for US Withdrawal from Iraq
If John Sidney McCain, III is president, we’ll just ignore them.
Fair’s Fair: Obama Has Been Consistent, and Consistently Right on Bankruptcy Laws
He is now proposing reversing some of the more draconian portions of the 2005 bankruptcy law.
Specifically, he is talking about specific fast tracking for medically caused bankruptcy, military deployments, predatory lenders, and people over 62.
I think that he should come out in favor of applying bankruptcy law to primary residences too, but it’s a nice first step.
Another Couple of Seats Become Competitive
This time, it’s the brothers Lincoln and Mario Diaz-Balart, the wingnuttiest of the anti-Castro wingnuts, who appear to be vulnerable.
Remembering that undecided tend to break for the challenger 2:1 ratio:
Lincoln Diaz-Balart leads former Hialeah mayor Raul Martinez 41 percent to 37 percent in the poll, with 22 percent undecided. Mario Diaz-Balart leads Joe Garcia, former chairman of the Miami-Dade Democratic Party, 44 percent to 39 percent, with 17 percent undecided.
Margin of error is 5% which puts both candidates within the margin of error.
I would also say that the undecides are likely to break even harder against them than the normal trend, as the Diaz-Balart’s are the unelected royalty of the right wing Cuban emigre community, and that community is likely already fully plumbed, while the undecideds are likely non-Cuban Hispanics and whites who have increasingly become, particularly since the Elian affair, disgusted with the anti-Castro whack job community.
The FISA Vote is Tomorrow
Contact your Senators, any friends of the Senators, any pets of the Senators, and tell them that a vote for this bill is a betrayal of the basic values of this nation.
Note that in addition to an amendment to strip immunity, there is also an amendment to make immunity contingent on the final Ispector General report as to whether government agencies broke the law, which Mukasey and McConnell say is worth vetoing the whole bill.
Also, please give to the Blue America/FISA fund, which will punish Dems who capitulate on basic American rights and value when no capitulation is necessary.
They are running this full page ad in the WaPo today.
Also help Regina Thomas defeat John Barrow, one the most reactionary Democrat in Congress, and one of the most prominent supporters of the FISA capitulation in the primary a week from today in Georgia’s 12th Congressional district.
The Bush Blue Dogs need to be shown that their votes against America have consequences.
No more Vichy Dems.
New York Times Slams Senate and Obama Over FISA
Mostly it’s the Senate, that they condemn, though the distinguished Senator from Illinois is mentioned. It is a remarkably full throated condemnation of Senate, and Democratic cowardice:
Democratic Senators Patrick Leahy, Russ Feingold, Christopher Dodd and Jeff Bingaman plan to offer amendments to do that, but there is little chance they will pass. The Senate should reject this bill and start over with modest legislation that makes the small needed changes and preserves Americans’ fundamental protections.
Senator John McCain, the presumed Republican nominee for president, has supported the weakening of FISA. Senator Barack Obama vowed in January (when he was still fighting for the Democratic nomination) that he would filibuster against immunity. Now he says he will vote for an “imperfect” bill and fix it if he wins. Sound familiar?
Proponents of the FISA deal say companies should not be “punished” for cooperating with the government. That’s Washington-speak for a cover-up. The purpose of withholding immunity is not to punish but to preserve the only chance of unearthing the details of Mr. Bush’s outlaw eavesdropping. Only a few senators, by the way, know just what those companies did.
Restoring some of the protections taken away by an earlier law while creating new loopholes in the Constitution is not a compromise. It is a failure of leadership.
We know that the Times is right about this, because Fred Hiatt, the editor of the end worst OP/ED page in the nation™*, finds flip flopping by Obama, specifically on Iraq, to be laudable, , and believes that the FISA bill is just ducky thank you, which proves the NY times correct.
If you go against the WaPo editorial pages, you will be right an embarrassing amount of the time., and the Times is right this time; there is far more to hate about the bill than telco immunity.
*The undisputed champion of wanktacular OP/ED pages, by a knockout, is still the Wall Street Journal.