Year: 2008

Amity Shlaes is an Idiot

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As I have blogged before, Amity Shlaes is a complete pratt, which explains why this was published in the craptacular Washington Post OP/ED pages.

I have no clue as to her basic level of intellect, she could simply be that stupid, or be paid to say these things, but in either case, the effect is the same, that I would not trust her with any implement sharper than a bowling ball.

In this case, she is offering a full throated defense of Phil Gramm’s calling the US a nation of whiners, because people are worrying about the recession.

She offers a number of defenses:

  • That there is no recession because GDP grew in the last quarter measured.

Wrong when inflation is put in the measure, even the bogus core CPI that is used.

  • That Phil Gramm subsequently said that he meant only politicians.

Again, disengenous at best, he said nation of whiners, and Gramm would never miss an opportunity to go after the now Democratic controlled Congress.

  • She claims because people who lost their homes during the depression had only borrowed 10% of their home purchase, while people now borrowed more than 90% of that price.

Again, losing a home is losing a home, and the increased level of leverage is an artifact increases in the price of a home which have been driven upward by policies to “increase home ownership”. Losing your home is losing your home.

  • Claiming that unemployment is still at historic lows when anyone who studies unemployment knows that the U3 numbers has been massaged over the past 30 years to near statistical worthlessness.

Of course, as a wingnut, I would expect her to ignore that many of these problems came from legislation that was proposed by Gramm, so her ignoring the context, that the architect of the policies that created this crisis is complaining that we are “whining” about the economy, is part of her job description.

Federal Reserve Extends Cash for Crap Program to Fannie and Freddie

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So, the GSE’s have now been told that they may avail themselves of the Fed’s discount window, the same thing that has been done for the investment banks.

Additionally, we have the Treasury Department saying that it would increase its line of credit to them, and that they will try to get permission to buy shares in the GSE’s in an emergency from Congress.

Government support has always been implied with the GSEs, it’s why they are government chartered institutions, though this is unfolding sooner, and more quickly than I would have anticipated.

FWIW, it appears to have calmed things on the Asian markets…for now.

Stopped Rotor Still Being Pursued

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Boeing has been working on stopped rotor concept helos, where the rotor is stopped and functions as a wing at high speed, for years, despite the crashes of both of its prototype X-50 canard rotor wing (CRW) demonstrators.

Well, it looks like they folks at Boeing, Mesa* have come up with a a less ambitious take on this concept that has not yet crashed.

It is significantly simplified, dispensing with the tip jet power for the main rotor, and using a conventional tail rotor, and the wings pivot, so as to reduce the amount that they reduce lift during takeoff.

Here we have:

Takeoff


Transition to low speed forward flight.


High speed compound helicopter mode.


Stopped rotor

*Formerly McDonnell Douglas helicopters, formerly Hughes Helicopter. They make the Apache.

Updated Flanker Shown

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The Russians are now showing their SU-35 Flanker derivative prototype to air force officials and foreign representatives.

Note that, somewhat confusedly, this is the second aircraft designated Su-35.


It will feature a glass cockpit

Thrust vectoring to replace canards and nose strakes on earlier models for high AoA controllability.

The airbrake has been removed, with differential actuation of flight controls now handling the task reducing weight and allowing for more fuel

And the engines have been upgraded to the tune of about 4000 lbs more thrust each.

These changes, along with other weight reductions in the airframe are supposed to, among other things, give supercruise capability, and it is expected to be fitted with some form of phased array radar.

I’m inclined to believe that the supercruise will be meaningful in air to air mode, if just because the aircraft carries so much fuel internally anyway that it will only be carrying 8 or so missiles in that configuration.

I think that the desire for supercruise is what drove them away from canards, likely increased transonic and supersonic drag a bit, though I am not an aerodynamicist.

It’s also has a new fly by wire flight control system, and so I’m a bit surprised that they haven’t reduced the size of the vertical tails a bit to cut down on weight and drag.

It should be an impressive aircraft, and competitive, particularly on price, in the export market.

Pull size pics at link.

UN Zimbabwe Resolution Vetoed

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Well, the lede here has to be that both China and Russia vetoed sanctions on Zimbabwe. They claim that it is unacceptable “meddling” in the internal affairs of a sovereign nation.

The MDC and ZANU-PF have started negotiations on who negotiations should proceed, which has shades of negotiating on the shape of the table in the 1960s, though with the support of China and Russia (and South Africa which also voted against the sanctions), I rather imagine not much will come of all this.

Sukhoi as Red Headed Stepchild

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Bill Sweetman has in interesting insight into the corporate culture of Sukhoi.

The founder of the design bureau was not a member of the Communist party, and the deisgn bureau seemed to be routinely outmaneuvered in the Soviet era by the MiG deisgn bureau, Artem Mikgoyan was brother of senior politician Anastas Mikoyan, and Tupolev design bureau, which was always very tied in politically.

As a result, the Sukhoi design bureau is unlikely to be amenable to partnerships with its rivals, and tends to look outside the country for such deals, as evidenced with its recent work with India on the PAK-FA.

Spiral Development as the Latest Procurement Scam

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The CDI has a good review of the process, which gained much of its currency in missile defense, and has spread like Athlete’s Foot to infect the US defense procurement process.

Basically, the project is never done, and never needs to meet requirements, because there is always a “spiral” upgrade that takes care of some short coming.

The full report is a PDF, though the summary linked to is not.

I encountered this worthless bullsh%$ while working FCS.

Explosive Bolt Pulled from Soyuz Docked to Space Station

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The Soyuz has had some issues with separation of the crew and re-entry modules, and so the has pulled the explosive bolt which is believed to have been responsible for the past two “anomalies”.

The failure of the joint to decouple smoothly led to two ballistic re-entries with much higher G-forces on re-entry and an off target landing.

Needless to say bringing an explosive device in for inspection, it has about the same boom as an M-80, is a non-trivial operation, and they have an explosion resistant container to transport it in once removed.

Still, I have to figure that the “pucker factor” is pretty high.

Heavy Lift Helo/Blimp Hybrid

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The idea of using balloons to make a helicopter arrangement lift more, because the rotors carry only the load, the airframe is neutrally buoyant, was tried before in the late 1986s, with the Piasecki PA-97, but it was a shoestring job with a seat of the pants attitude towards engineering, and on its maiden flight, a helo broke lose, and destroyed the aircraft, killing one of the 4 pilots.

This Boeing /Skyhook joint venture appears to be more thought out, and it offers good performance, with an estimated 200 mile range with a 40t payload.

That being said, I have always said that the first problem with lighter than air craft is that landing, even in a mild wind, becomes problematic.

When you consider that this is designed for operations in the, “niche market of commercial oil and mining companies operating in Canada’s far north,” I would also add the problem of operations in inclement weather.

I would also note that the cost of helium is going through the roof (been to a party supply store lately?), which will further crimp the project.

Saab Offers Supercruising Stealth to South Korea

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The ROK (South Korea) is looking at fielding its own advanced combat aircraft (Paid Subscription Required), EADS is pushing a Typhoon pushed somewhere past tranche 3, and SAAB is pushing a new stealth supercruiser, Boeing is pitching a significantly updated F-15, while Lockheed-Martin is pitching the F-35.

This is in parallel to the (IMHO overambitious) indiginous KFX stealth fighter program.

SAAB is proposing both a one and a two engine variant.

Honestly, the only two I see likely are the F-35 and Boeing’s proposal. The former because it is the 800 lb gorilla in the room, and the latter because they are currently taking shipments of the F-15K.

Note that in the competition that selected the F-15K, the Rafale was widely rumored to have won, but the fact that it was not a US product led to the selection of the Eagle.


Boeing Proposal


SAAB’s P106 Supercruiser

Today’s GSE Woes

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First and foremost, understand that Fanie Mae and Freddie Mac are responsible in some manner or another for about $5 trillion in debt, or a bit more than 1/3 of the gross domestic product of the USA, and they account for about 55% of all mortgages in the US.

Right now, we appear to be in the midst of a market panic, with their shares, and hence their ability to raise capital to cover bad debt, dropping.

As a result, the Treasury Department is drawing up plans for a government takeover if they prove insolvent, though they are denying any plans for an iminent takeover, though the lesson of Bear Stearns is that going concerns to flat broke can take less than 24 hours.

John McCain Adulterer AND a Bigamist?

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One of the less inspiring parts of John McCain’s life story was when, after coming back from Vietnam, he dumped his first wife Carole to marry rich beer heiress Cindy.

Now it appears that he has been lying about some of the specifics:

  • McCain wrote that he had separated from Carol before he began dating Cindy, but his divorce gives the date of separation as Jan 7, 1980, 9 months after staring to date his 2nd wife to be.
  • His divorce was granted April 2, 1980, but he got Arizona marriage license on March 6, 1980, while still legally married to his first wife.

Hmmmmm…….I’m sure that the press will find some way of making it “inspiring”.

Economics Update

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Well, it appears that it’s been an unsettled day, likely because of concerns about the GSE(s), which will get its own post, and as a result, oil hit a new intra day high, $47.50/bbl, before settling to $143.84/bbl.

Note that in addition to uncertainty in Iran and Nigeria, there is now a possibility of a strike in Brazil.

Gasoline prices fell though, finishing below $4.10/gal for the first time in a week.

In currency, uncertainty has driven the dollar down, but there is a bit of a bright side to all of this, because the falling dollar is pushing the trade deficit down.

The problem is that once the dollar settles down to a more sustainable level, there will be a high inflation interregnum where imports prices will go up, but there will be no domestic businesses to pick up the slack.

Nothing on US real estate today, but in the UK, their housing crash is the worst since the Great Depression.

Additionally, we have a monetary picture that appears to point toward a vicious deflationary recession spiral.

Chart pr0n:

International Committee of the Red Cross Reported Torture by US Forces

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Well, it turns out that the ICRC specifically warned members of the military and the Bush administration that they were engaging in war crimes:

Red Cross investigators concluded last year in a secret report that the Central Intelligence Agency’s interrogation methods for high-level Qaeda prisoners constituted torture and could make the Bush administration officials who approved them guilty of war crimes, according to a new book on counterterrorism efforts since 2001.

The book says that the International Committee of the Red Cross declared in the report, given to the C.I.A. last year, that the methods used on Abu Zubaydah, the first major Qaeda figure the United States captured, were “categorically” torture, which is illegal under both American and international law.

….Citing unnamed “sources familiar with the report,” Ms. Mayer wrote that the Red Cross document “warned that the abuse constituted war crimes, placing the highest officials in the U.S. government in jeopardy of being prosecuted.” Red Cross representatives were not permitted access to the secret prisons where the C.I.A. conducted interrogations, but were permitted to interview Abu Zubaydah and other high-level detainees in late 2006, after they were moved to the military detention center in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

The book says the C.I.A. shared the report, which Ms. Mayer first described last year in less detail in The New Yorker, with President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

I really hope that there is a prosecutor in The Hague getting his ducks in a row over this case now.