They are threatening to, “cut off financing for as-yet-unspecified programs in Iraq that are not directly in support of U.S. troops,” but in the end, they will once again collapse like a bunch of overcooked broccoli to George W. “@9% Approval” Bush.
Even though it is clear that these deals would “deepen political tensions in Iraq and put our service members in even greater danger,” when push comes to shove, I expect more capitulation from the Dems.
Consumer confidence plunges to the 5th lowest level ever, 50.4, as opposed to the predicted 57, from 58.1 last month.
Considering that home prices are down yet again, this time the Case-Shiller index was down 1.4% from March, and 15.3% year over year, it’s natural that people won’t feel confident.
These numbers spooked the currency markets too, with the dollar trending down.
Oil prices are up again, largely because of concerns of instability in Nigeria, though retail gas prices are down $0.003 from yesterday.
And just in case you are wondering, energy inflation is hitting prices more generally, with Dow Chemical raising prices 25%, even though it raised prices 20% last month, and UPDATE: Lowe’s is seeing “unprecedented” price hikes from its suppliers.
Stagflation, here we come.
As to the “stag” part, the fact that Toyota is scaling back its sales goals because of weakness in the economy, even though there are are months long waiting lists for the Prius, would indicate that no one is making good sales right now.
In the interest of fairness though, there are reports that Toyota is cutting back on Prius shipments to the US, because they can get more money in Europe.
I get it. Israel agrees no offensive action against Hamas in Gaza if Hamas stops firing missiles into Israel.
So then Hamas lets Islamic Jihad (and yes, Hamas has a lid on the place, this does not go down without their making the decision to be inactive) fire rockets into Israel because of a in the West Bank, Nablus specifically, against militants who were not members of either Hamas or Islamic Jihad.
I give the truce another 3-4 weeks before a complete collapse.
Kevin Drum got a press release via email describing side by side interviews of Obama and McCain.
What do you see as the gravest long-term threat to the U.S. economy?
Obama: If we don’t get a handle on our energy policy, it is possible that the kinds of trends we’ve seen over the last year will just continue. Demand is clearly outstripping supply. It’s not a problem we can drill our way out of. It can be a drag on our economy for a very long time unless we take steps to innovate and invest in the research and development that’s required to find alternative fuels. I think it’s very important for the federal government to have a role in that process.
McCain: Well, I would think that the absolute gravest threat is the struggle that we’re in against Islamic extremism, which can affect, if they prevail, our very existence. Another successful attack on the United States of America could have devastating consequences.
A noun, a verb, and 911 from McCain. Truly pathetic.
Big surprise…..not.
It turns out that whenever someone who was not one of Dick Cheney’s butt boys suggested that there were limits to executive power, and getting congress to pass legislation supporting at least part of what they wanted.
Note that this is not moral objections we are talking about. This is professional lawyers saying that the courts will bounce this before the ink is dry.
I am referring to Lynn Adler’s Reuters story U.S. Housing Rebound to Be Prolonged: Harvard Study.
The problem is not Mr. Adler.
The problem whoever wrote the headline, because the study does not say that the housing rebound will be prolonged, but that the housing crash will be prolonged, because of high foreclosure rates and rising interest rates.
3 coalition soldiers were killed when they were fired upon by a member of the al-Madaen city council, a town about 40 klicks south of Baghdad.
Heck of a job there, Bushie….A member of the city council opening up with an AK on our troops.
Hazaifa Parhat, a Uighur (pronounced weeger) was declared an “illegal enemy combatant” because the Uighur separatists are occasionally friendly with people who are friendly with al Queida, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that this was insufficient in a unanimous vote.
Note that this was not under the Supreme Court’s habeas corpus ruling. It was under the “Detainee Treatment Act” that the Republithug congress passed in 2006 stripping everyone of habeas corpus rights.
There was no evidence. Not even after Bush and His Evil Minions™ declared them terrorists at the bidding of the Chinese government, and then tortured these guys on behalf of the Chinese Communists.
No evidence. And the only reason to call them “illegal enemy combatants” was because Bush wanted to make nice with the Chinese commies.
The specifics of the non-existent evidence are still not public, as the judgement has to be scrubbed of classified data, but that’s why a bunch of Republithug appointed judges.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
This has gone from challenge to fiasco.
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.”
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.
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.
This strategy is not at all surprising.
They look to have a geared turbofan (GTF) in development in the 18-23 thousand pound thrust range for customers Bombardier and Mitsubishi, and once that proves itself, the advantages in terms of fuel economy and noise would apply equally well up the thrust range.
In the US Navy’s F/A-XX program, an unmanned combat air vehicle (UCAV) is looking increasingly attractive.
In comparing the loiter time at 925 KM from a carrier, a manned vehicle has a 1/2 hour loiter time, and the unmanned vehicle had a 20-1/2 hour loiter time.
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.
