The Broad Area Maritime Surveillance (BAMS) has just been awarded to NG, beating Lockheed-Martin/General Atomics and Boeing/General Dynamics.
BAMS! Northrop Wins Billion-Dollar UAS Deal | Danger Room from Wired.com
Basically it’s a large drone and sensor suite optimized for maritime work. NG and LM/GA’s bids were fairly typical (see picture below), and Boeing/GD had presented an “optionally manned” modified Gulfstream biz jet.
As the norm these days, I expect a challenge
I don’t care what the calculus behind this is, his decision to appear on Fox News Sunday is very very stupid.
Because top line Democrats no longer appear on their show, Fox has lost credibility, and they know it, and now Obama is sitting down because he thinks that he’s somehow going to charm them into liking him.
Even if they weren’t dishonest excuses for journalists, this would not happen. Journalists are small people who hold grudges over stuff like this, and they buy ink by the hogshead,* so this is a lose-lose.
It’s sh%$ like this that makes me wonder if he’s not ready for prime time.
*OK it’s hundreds of TV stations, but the analogy holds….
Well, SAAB has rolled out its Gripen demo, with more thrust*, more fuel, and more carrying capacity, see here and here.
There should be a meaningful (i.e. carrying a meaningful air-to-air load) supercruise, in addition to the greater payload and range in the strike configuration.
Additionally there are some developments in parallel in avionics, most notably an AESA radar.
Here you can see how the landing gear has been moved outboard to the win root to allow for more internal fuel and a second pylon on the fuselage.
Also here:
In addition to being the best value of the current generation of fighters, I also think that it’s just plain cool:
*Cheaper engine too. The RM-12, a GE F404 derivative is actually more expensive than the roughly 25% more powerful GE F414.
It appears that both the Treasury Department and Congress are bedcoming concerned about the increasing exposure of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to a potential meltdown, and are looking at increased regulations to prevent this.
Considering the fact that they are the 2nd and 3rd largest borrowers in the world, after the US government, the effects of their needing a bailout are enormous.
On the other side of this are people who want to bolster the housing market, and tighter GSE regulation goes in the other direction, and the fact that they have been aggressively lobbying Congress for years.
Hopefully, this time the bears win, or we may see a trillion+ dollar bailout.
I saw this article on BAE Systems selling Family of Medium Tactical Vehicle (FMTV) trucks to Jordan, and I saw, Sealy, TX, and realized that I worked there when they were Stewart and Stevenson Tactical Vehicle Systems.
Unemployment claims fell again, note my standard caveat about noisy measures though.
Note also that new-home sales are unbelievably grim. An 8.5% drop month to month is falling off a cliff, but this is following the numbers being revised downward for the month of February.
If that doesn’t scare you, there is a Credit Suisse research report that suggests that there will be 6.5 million foreclosures by 2012:
The foreclosures could put 12.7 percent of all residential borrowers out of their homes, Credit Suisse analysts, led by Rod Dubitsky, said in the report. That compares with a foreclosure rate of 2.04 percent in the last quarter of 2007, they said, citing Mortgage Bankers Association data.
That is one out of 8 residential borrowers.
That’s too bearish for even me, and I’m the biggest bear out there.
In terms of non-residential real estate measures, we have the Architecture Billings Index (ABI) dropping to its lowest level ever, suggesting that commercial real estate’s about to tank too, and orders for durable goods, items expected to last 3 or more years, fell 0.3% from February, worse than expected.
The drop in unemployment claims triggered a drop in treasuries and a strengthening of the dollar, because it makes it less likely that the Fed will cut rates at its next meeting.
Truth be told, the Fed cutting rates won’t do much anyway, as is shown by mortgage rates continued upward path.
The Fed has lowered rates below the effective inflation rate, and so their rates have decoupled from the commercial rates.
Well, it looks like China has backed down, and the An Yue Jiang will be heading back without having offloaded its weapons shipment to Mugabe and his goons.
The article also notes that Jendayi Frazer, the assistant secretary of state for African affairs is saying that Tsvangirai was the “clear victor” in the race, but given the credibility of the US foreign policy apparatus, this means next to nothing for the principals or the surrounding government.
The recount continues apace with ZANU-PF being awarded one MCD seat so far. If they flip 9, and I think that the electoral commission is doing their level best to make that happen, then the MDC loses its parliamentary majority.
We are starting to see proposals for a unity government being floated, but I see that foundering on the shoals of control of the state security apparatus, which Mugabe will not give up.
Jacob Zuma is one of the people floating this, but he is also ratcheting up the rhetoric with regards to Mugabe and the ZANU-PF too.
I’m not sure how much of this is internal ANC politics, truth be told.
Over the past month, I appear to have gotten about 10 visits from South Africa and Zimbabwe, so if someone has a local perspective, I would appreciate it.
Sounds familiar *Cough* Iraq *Cough*? Don’t worry, we have video taped evidence, so there can be no question that…what????
Oh, we don’t have a video tape. We have a video presentation of a PowerPoint presentation, so what we have is something that is very close to Colin Powell’s infamous UN presentation (full disclosure, I know people who were involved int he technical end of the production):
A US official, requesting anonymity, told AFP: “There are still photographs of the facility as part of the video, but it’s a video presentation, like a Powerpoint presentation. It’s not a video of the facility.”
Just to remind everyone, we have no credibility on this:
Syrian Ambassador Imad Moustapha yesterday angrily denounced the U.S. and Israeli assertions. ‘If they show a video, remember that the U.S. went to the U.N. Security Council and displayed evidence and images about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. I hope the American people will not be as gullible this time around,’ he said.
From your mouth to God’s ear.
First, we have Clinton raising $10 million in the day after the Pennsylvania, and from a few days before, we have reports of significant indebtedness to her coterie of advisors.
This picture is just the amount owed to Penn’s firm, which is money that has been supremely poorly spent.
I think that it is highly unlikely that Clinton will outraise Obama through the rest of the primaries, and so this sh$# needs to stop for her to be viable.
Truth to be told this this sh$# needs to stop for all Democrats.
There is a professional parasite class inside the beltway, and it is paid on commission, so we get too much advertising, not enough ground game, and no interest in being more efficient, since increases in efficiency reduce their paycheck.
Their names are Penn, Shrum, Brazile, Begala, Grunwald, Trippi, etc.
They go on press shows where they puff themselves, and their overpriced consultancies, up and do little for candidates.
They don’t have faces for TV. Mark Penn looks like a bloody poster child for sex without partners.
If there is one good thing about Karl Rove, it’s that when he worked for Bush and His Evil Minions™, he stayed in the background.
These people are part of the corrupt, venal, self serving, elitist, and incompetent DC beltway community, and the elected leaders Democratic party need to put a leash on these idiots.
The Republicans have done so for some time, starting well before Ed Rendell got purged for his walking around money comments.
It’s time for Democrats to start winning because of their senior campaign staff, not in spite of their senior campaign staff.
First, it appears that Steny Hoyer is working a capitulation compromise on a FISA update, but interestingly enough, the Vichy Blue Dog Dems are not in the least bit interested in talking to Republicans about immunity.
What the Vichy Blue Dog Democrats realize, and what the Quisling Hoyer does not, is that their constituents have their back.
When the Vichy Blue Dog Dems went home, they were not inundated by angry phone calls, they were given high fives for standing up to the least popular president ever.
Not one step back.
This is about health insurance, and obviously these policies, whose payouts typically max out at less than a million dollars, are smaller than the monoliner’s policies, but this is the tip of the iceberg.
UnitedHealth Group is taking a major hit because fewer and fewer employers can afford to buy its product.
The healthcare crisis is real and ongoing, and we are going 90mph towards a brick wall.
I guess the part of the story we expect is this:
The rising prices are “threatening to plunge more than 100 million people on every continent into hunger,” Josette Sheeran, executive director of the United Nations’ World Food Program, said on the agency’s Web site Tuesday.
Foreign starvation, hand wringing over biofuels, etc.
Nothing to worry about here, we’re Americans…right???
We are seeing severe shortages of rye flour, with no domestic supplies being available around July, and there are currently only 27 days wheat supply.
Additionally, we are seeing panic buying, which is forcing big box retailers to restrict bulk purchases of rice, so that they don’t run out.
We already have hunger in the US, just look at our overburdened food pantries, and it is going to get worse.
This is no surprise. Bigots are the core constituency of the Republican party, so they killed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which would have eliminated the loophole which allows employers to discriminate against their employees on the basis of race, sex, religion, and national origin risk free.
That sound you hear is Abraham Lincoln spinning at 57,423 rpm.
Great. This is a man who has staked his personal reputation in Iraq, and now they want him to allocate resources between Iraq and Afghanistan. I wouldn’t expect much perspective here.
Even more disturbing are his lies regarding Iran, which implies that Bush and His Evil Minions™ now have someone who be willing to attack Iran without question.
Furthermore, this will create a problem for an eventual Democratic nominee, because It’s clear that Petraeus will be a voice for Iraq forever, otherwise he looks like the charlatan he is, and there will be political blowback if they try to remove him from the post.
My hope would be that the hearings for his appointment would be scheduled for sometime in late January, 2009.
This time, they are going after the Republicans, and McCain for killing improvements in the GI bill.
The got one right 2½ weeks ago too, in addition to one in 2007.
H/t Brad Delong.
This time, it’s Robert Coughlin, former deputy chief of staff of the DoJ criminal division, who has pled guilty to accepting bribes.
My guess is that it’s going to go much higher, at least if the next Prez decides to pursue it.
GMU Professor Jeremy Mayer suggests that it will be an overseas arrest for war crimes of some prominent Bush administration official.
While I think that they are war criminals and should be tried, the reaction of the American public will be bellicose and jingoistic, playing to the base lizard brain of hatred, bigotry, and fear of the other that is at the core of Republican electoral success.
Remember Lt. William Calley. A poor officer and a murderer who shot a little boy in the back, but to the American public, he was a hero.
The US has 5% of the worlds population, and 25% of the worlds prisoners.
We imprison a greater proportion of our population than the despots of the world.
Are our streets safer? Nope.
Is crime less??? Nope. (and that’s not considering the high dollar value of the Wall Street variety).
Lower taxes? Only if you’re rich.
I guess as Americans, we just need someone to hate.
This time, it’s the $20 million high-tech fenceless border fence, which is now being dumped less than three months after being implemented as a technology demonstrator.
Morons.
Once upon a time, there was a company called Microsoft, and it was a bad company.
One day, they created a music shop, called MSN music, which was even worse.
Then the bad people at Microsoft created the the Zune* store, anddecided to Dump MSN Music.
So, effective August 31, 2008, Microsoft is pulling the DRM keys on the music:
MSN Entertainment and Video Services general manager Rob Bennett sent out an e-mail this afternoon to customers, advising them to make any and all authorizations or deauthorizations before August 31. “As of August 31, 2008, we will no longer be able to support the retrieval of license keys for the songs you purchased from MSN Music or the authorization of additional computers,” reads the e-mail seen by Ars. “You will need to obtain a license key for each of your songs downloaded from MSN Music on any new computer, and you must do so before August 31, 2008. If you attempt to transfer your songs to additional computers after August 31, 2008, those songs will not successfully play.”
This doesn’t just apply to the five different computers that PlaysForSure allows users to authorize, it also applies to operating systems on the same machine (users need to reauthorize a machine after they upgrade from Windows XP to Windows Vista, for example). Once September rolls around, users are committed to whatever five machines they may have authorized—along with whatever OS they are running.
So you bought it, you paid† for it, and now you have nothing.
This isn’t just Microflaccid, this is what the music and movie industries want to be their business model.
You buy the music, and then they change the rules, and make you buy it again.
*Yes, this was bad too.
†And probably overpaid for it.