I am truly shocked by this. Given the political pushback that will result from all this, I can only conclude that the A330 was significantly superior in some area to the 767.
My guess is that the USAF sees more deployments in the Pacific, where the distances, and hence needs for tankers operating further from bases, are greater.
There will doubtless be an appeal by Boeing.
So, the House of Representatives has decided to hold Harriet Miers and Josh Bolton in contempt, and Michael Mukasey, the man that Chuck Schumer loves so much, has just told Congress that he is refusing to enforce the law, specifically 2 U.S.C. § 194 and 2 U.S.C. § 192.
There are so many people in the Bush admin who desperately need to go to jail.
Special assistant to the President in the White House’s Office of Public Liaison,, Tim Goeglein, has been found to have plagiarized 20 of 38 columns that he wrote for the The Fort Wayne News-Sentinel had been extensively plagiarized.
This seems the rule, rather than the exception, for the Bush administration clown show.
Well, Charlie had an individualized education plan (IEP) meeting today.
There is consensus, that he should be moved from Forbush, a private placement to Chatsworth, which is in the public school system.
Charlie is on the Autism Spectrum (Aspergers), but he’s also talented and gifted, he rates at least a grade above his age in reading and math, and Forbush, with its focus on the more severely disabled, has difficulties in providing sufficient enrichment.
The problem is that Chatsworth is still building its Aspergers program, and he would be the only person at his level in the class if he moved in the next month, and since his issues, except for hand writing, are with social interactions, and not academics, he would either be alone, or in a class of 20+ other students (with an aide) if he went over now, so we are suggesting that it be done in September, while BCPS wants it sooner (they are paying for Forbush, which is expensive).
At this point, they want to update some of his tests, so that they can make sure that he is in a properly challenging situation, as he is scary smart.
It looks right now like he will be doing some more visits to Chatsworth to see how he handles everything.
One thing disturbed me at the meeting. His teacher looked so young. When did that happen? Teachers used to be older than me.
I’m not entirely sure what her appearance will mean, but I’m planning to watch.
I’m not kidding. The GAO was investigating allegations of Civil Rights allegations, and their general council expelled them from the premises, and instructed Ag Dept. employees not to talk with them.
This is simply a mind %^$* beyond belief.
Well, I assume that most of you know that England’s Prince Harry, 3rd in line to the throne, was serving secretly in Afghanistan, and that his cover was blown by Drudge.
Must be something with conservative media. They just love to break confidences for no good reason to put brave people in danger, like Plame and Novak.
You know the drill. Credit Crises, housing crash, dollar at all time low.
Then we have Sam Zell, media mogul and drooling moron, saying that the reason that the exonomy is tanking is because Obama and Clinton are talking it down in their campaigns (H/t Will Bunch of Attytood).
Zell has it wrong. The savior of our economy is politics. With Clinton raising $35 million in February, and Obama having raised even more money, campaign spending is the only stimulus package out there.
If we have a contested convention, between the money spent on pundits, feting super-delegates, and advertisements, we should have full employment.
(please note snark tag)
There is a lot of news, so this one is just housing.
Mortgage rates are climbing, despite the Fed rate cuts. As I’ve said before, with the expectation of inflation and greater risk of defaults, there is nothing that the Fed can do to keep the rates down.
It does not help that Standard & Poors is looking at cutting ratings on new tranches of mortgage backed securities, this time Alt-A, to the tune of 1,887 classes, which are supposed to be higher quality than subprime.
In the San Diego area home prices are in free fall, having fallen 3% last month, and 9.14% in the last three months.
Finally, we are beginning to see foreclosure self help websites. The link is “You Walk Away” dot com.
Hillary is reported to have raised around $36 million, Obama somewhere around $50 million, and McCain, just $12 million in February.
This is not pretty for the Republicans. Even the Chamber of Commerce types are not opening their wallets.
This Report is very brief, and it’s from the Jerusalem Post which is pretty right wing, though they claim that the report came from the London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi.
They are asserting some sort of power struggle.
I have no clue what to make of it.
So reprots CTV News.
There are three possibilities.
The first is that these discussions never happened, in which case both Obama and Goolsbee deserve an apology.
The second is that Goolsbee did talk to the ambassador with the approval of the campaign, in which case everyone in the campaign deserves a dope slap and a severance notice.
This would be unnecessary and stupid, and I do not think that the members of Obama campaign are that stupid. (If they are, then they deserve to lose)
The third possibility is that Goolsbee decided to do this unofficially on his own.
If that’s the case, he needs to be dropped in an ostentatiously public manner, because you can’t afford to have someone freelancing like this on policy or diplomacy.
I do know that Mr. Goolsbee has occasionally read my blog, so if he wants to make a statement, I will post it unedited.
They cut prices on Vista.
People really hate this OS…a lot.
We have bad news on income and spending. If you go to the link it says that they are both up slightly, 0.3% and 0.4% respectively, but this is less than inflation, which means that it is a real drop.
We also have oil at or near all time highs, and the dollar at or near all time lows.
We have a new estimate of total losses among financial firms from the meltdown, $600 billion. I think that they are off by at least one zero.
Insurance is continuing to unwind in a most unpleasant manner.
MBIA is not doing much in the way of business, because bond issuers don’t trust them to be solvent in the future.
Perhaps of more concern is that this is beginning to effect the reinsurance market, with Swiss Reinsurance Company posting an 87% drop in profits.
If this market goes south, it takes most of the insurance market with it.
Of course, we have the Fed shoveling out more money to the investors. It will auction off another $60 billion in March.
I don’t even want to think what the money supply is doing right now.
The credit crunch is also interfering with things like reorganizations, with Delphi unable to find the loans necessary for it to reorg under bankruptcy.
Finally, earnings fell across the market, with the S&P 500 companies’ earnings falling 4.2%, as opposed to the 10% increase forcast at the beginning of 2007.
They got deals from the police and fire departments, so no bankruptcy…for now.
When property taxes take a hit from foreclosures, all bets are off.
Well, it appears that the House Ethics Committee is finally investingating Rep. Rick Renzi (R-Ariz.).
These clouds have been over his head for more than a year, so why did they have to wait until he was indicted on 30+ counts before starting an investigation???
Hale “Bonddad” Stewart makes this point on The Huffington Post.
Go read it.
The Navy is denying any potential sale of the soon to be retired conventionally powered super-carrier, but it would give an inside track to the US on a number of Indian arms deals.
Additionally, it would save significant decommissioning costs.
Still, I call bull%^$#.
Ummm that is more than any other nation on earth.
Do we have a lower crime rate? No.
I think that this is by some definitions a police state.
In the future, of course, only the criminals will be out of prison, because it’s the only politically palatable way to get state supported healthcare for everyone.
