It’s 10:07, and well worth it.
Month: December 2009
The Never Ending Battle of Obama and His Evil Minions&trade Against LGBT Civil Rights Continues….
I Can’t, It Might Offend Bigots
Remember when I wrote that a political appointee at the Office of Personnel Management was instructing insurance companies not to write a policy for a woman’s wife in California, despite an instruction from the courts to do so?
Well, now Director of the Office of Personnel Management,and Obama political appointee John Berry is saying that he won’t follow the court order because he has no authority to do so.
Dude, when a court gives you an order, you cannot claim that you don’t have any authority.
You can appeal and ask for a stay, but that’s it. A court order is the authority to do so.
Don’t Let the Door Hit Your Ass on the Way Out
Senior executives at AIG are threatening to quit if the pay Czar cuts their salaries.
The appropriate response here is, “Fine …… Go …… But we will scrupulously enforce your non-compete contracts, so if you go to a competitor who has had dealings with AIG, or with a firm that would benefit from your knowledge of AIG we will go after you.”
Note that this means pretty much everyone in high finance world wide.
There is a Move in the Congress…
To reinstate the Glass-Steagall separation between commercial and investment banks, as well as a breakup of the largest banks.
This goes along with similar efforts in the Senate spearheaded by Bernie Sanders.
The coda to this, unsurprisingly, is that the Obama administration opposes the measure.
But of course…..
So, In Addition to Screwing With Healthcare Reform and Covering Up Pedophile Priests
The Catholic Church is laundering money:
The Vatican Bank is under investigation for alleged involvement in a money-laundering scheme using accounts at one of Italy’s largest banks, according to a weekly investigative magazine.
Panorama reports that officials from the Bank of Italy’s Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF) have identified transactions worth up to €180 million (£160 million) that allegedly violated anti-money-laundering regulations in accounts held at a UniCredit branch in Via della Conciliazione, next to St Peter’s Basilica. Prosecutors in Rome, led by Nello Rossi and Stefano Rocco Fava, are reported to be working with a special unit of the Guardia di Finanza, the Italian tax police, to investigate the bank — which is formally known as the Institute for Religious Works (IOR).
At this rate, I figure that we will discover that the Catholic Church will be fingered as the malevolent power behind the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) rating system that determines bowl games in NCAA football.
And If You Sprinkle It With Fairy Dust, It Will Fly
A400M Taxi Trials Video Pr0n
Yes, Airbus has revealed its plans for the first flight of the A400M military transport.
In fact they are anticipating that the the first flight will be sometime this week.
That’s one humongous sh%$ load of fairy dust.
I didn’t expect them to make it to serious taxi trials before January.
Ass Covering: Secretary of the Treasury Edition
So, now that there are an increasing number of people calling for his scalp, Timothy “Eddie Haskell” Geithner is talking tough about the banks:
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner disputed claims by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. executives that the bank could have survived the financial crisis without government help and said it and other Wall Street firms should show some restraint in handing out bonuses this year.
“It is very important that we change the way these executives are paid, the form of compensation, this year,” Geithner said in an interview yesterday for Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital with Al Hunt,” which is being aired throughout the weekend. “We have to end that era of irresponsibly high bonuses.”
So, the guy who, until now, said very little about bank pay, and:
- Continued to support front-running via high-frequency trading
- Supported naked naked credit default swaps (CDS) despite the fact that this sort of insurance were banned 367 years ago because of the danger they posed to the economy.
- Tried to get Sheila Bair fired
Now he’s saying that none of the banks were solvent, and that they all survived only through government largess, and that they are overpaying their staff.
This is all about the calls to can him getting louder, not any “road to Damascus” moment.
Elections Have Consequences
The EPA has officially declared that C02 is a danger to public health, which means that it can begin writing regulations to restrict emissions.
Honestly, I think that this is a better idea than waiting for either Congress, or the Copenhagen process to get their respective sh%$ together.
Wishing That I Was a Brit
Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling will be levying a tax on excessive bonuses:
Alistair Darling will try to force a “permanent culture shift” in the City as he announces a one-off punitive super-tax of more than 50% on the bonuses of tens of thousands of bankers as the centrepiece of the pre-budget report.
The chancellor intends his targeted, one-off levy as a clear message that the City has to “start living in the real world” as the financial sector prepares to lavish hefty payouts on its staff.
The new super-tax rate will be aimed at any bonus above a fixed rate, rather than the basic salary of the employee. It is intended to hit many thousands of bankers, but low-paid staff in bank branches will be exempt.
The tax will be set higher than the 50% income tax rate coming in from April for those earning more than £150,000 a year, sources indicate.
Needless to say, the bankers don’t like this, calling the measure, “populist, political and penal.”
I think that they meant the statement as a condemnation, but I found it to be a complement, though I do like the alliteration.
The details are not clear, but I would suggest something on the order of 93% of anything in excess of £400,000.
You Know, This Might Bother Me Too…… If I Were an 8 Year Old
8 Year old, see Emotional Maturity of
So, when Barack Obama gave his speech on Afghanistan, he preempted a showing of A Charlie Brown Christmas, and the Mayor of Arlington, Tennessee decided to throw a hissy fit on his Facebook page:
“Ok, so, this is total crap, we sit the kids down to watch ‘The Charlie Brown Christmas Special’ and our muslim president is there, what a load…..try to convince me that wasn’t done on purpose. Ask the man if he believes that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and he will give you a 10 minute disertation (sic) about it….when the answer should simply be ‘yes’….”
Yes, A Charlie Brown Christmas was on that Tuesday, and yes, it was preempted, and yes, it’s among the most sincere of the Christmas specials out there, but this sort of crap is beneath maturity level of a 9-year old, particularly when it’s showing tomorrow and next Tuesday too.
Economics Update
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Falling Consumer Credit, H/t Calculated Risk
So, consumer credit continues its decline, down $3.51 billion in October, a 1.7% annual rate, so the 70% of the economy that is consumer spending is still contracting in what exonomists call the “paradox of thrift.”
In energy, oil fell to less than $74/bbl, while in currency, the dollar hit a 5-week high, largely on the employment numbers from last week.
Good News for Me
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H/t Calculated Risk
It appears that there has been a surge in temporary hires, which, considering that I have been doing technical temping over the past 16 years, is a very good thing™:
A surge in temporary employment was one of the encouraging aspects of a Labor Department report issued [last] Friday. The U.S. unemployment rate dropped to 10 percent in November. Overall job losses fell to just 11,000 while temporary jobs grew by 52,000 in the fourth consecutive monthly increase in this bellwether category.
Temp help tends to lead changes in permanent employment, and I’ve noticed an uptick in submittals, despite it being the post-Thanksgiving doldrums.
Hopefully, this means that I will shortly have less time for my blog.
If You’ve Ever Had a Client Who Wants Your Services Without Payment
Fun With Google Autocomplete
H/t Nick, of Tales From The Server Room.
Sellout
I think that what is more interesting is not what he said, but what he did not say:
“Well, he didn’t mention either abortion or the public option,” said Harkin, a strong backer of the public option and a chairman of the health committee. “He just laid out in very stark terms for us what the future would be if we didn’t pass [health care reform]. I think he’s right. I think it would be devastating. Not just for us as a party, I think for the hope that people have that we’re going to actually make these changes. To fail at this would just again be another one of those things where people say, ‘See, Washington doesn’t work. Washington can’t get anything done. We gave the Democrats all that power and nothing happens.’ And it would be depressing to people. We want to be more hopeful, we want to give people hope. So I thought his message on that was right on target.“
I think that the idea of relying on Barack Obama for meaningful healthcare, or for that matter support of abortion strong abortion rights, is a losing proposition.
He is more interested in signing something (keep him away from toilet paper) with the mane “healthcare reform” on it.
On the matter of abortion, as I noted 2 years ago, he is not willing to lend anything more than lip service to defending abortion rights.
He will do the right thing only if the pressure from his own party leaves him no other alternative.
I Love Arlen Specter Since He’s Turned Democrat
Or, more accurately, I like him since he’s had a primary challenger, thank you Joe Sestak.
It means that we’ll get 18 months of him being a loyal party player….Unfortunately, for the other 54 months of his Senate term, he’s still a contemptible grandstanding untrustworthy jerk.
Case in point, now that he’s running ferociously to the left in order to out-flank Representative Sestak, he dissed Senators Lieberman and Snow regarding their misrepresentations of the public option at a mutual press conference:
“I do not support…a government owned, government run insurance company,” Collins said.
“I have only to look at the experience of my own state in establishing a government run plan to see the problems that arise.”
Collins was referring to the Dirigo health agency, which provides subsidized insurance to poor people in Maine who don’t quite qualify for Medicaid.
“I think we have learned a lot from the Maine plan,” Specter retorted. “We know what not to do. We’re not going to adopt a Maine plan. That experience will stand us in good stead. We won’t make the same mistake.”
Specter went on: “And when Senator Lieberman talks about single payer, I think he’s putting his finger on the pulse of it. That’s what people have concluded [but] the public option isn’t single payer, and it is not going to add to the deficit, it’s going to be a level playing field. So I would like everyone to read the fine print and [for my colleagues] to re-read the fine print.”
(emphasis mine)
By the standards of the Senate, this is actually a pretty nasty slam.
Yet me note that this is not an endorsement of him. When you get 12-18 months of non wankertude out of a 6-year term, and so it’s not really worth it pulling the lever for him.
Oopsie!
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Fail!
So we see a front page editorial in the Mobile Press-Register calling for Northrop-Grumman/EADS to be given a fair shake in the tanker competition, which is far from surprising, since that is where the tanker would be assembled if the A330 wins, but they also have an editorial cartoon showing the “customers” of the tanker.
Notice anything?
Like the model of the aircraft?
It’s an F-15 Eagle made by Boeing whose 767 is competing against the A330 for the contract.
Considering the fact that there are 3 fighters currently in front line service with the USAF, and two of them are not made by Boeing, the choice here seems a big….Inopportune.
Israel Looking at Adapting ATBM to AAM Use
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Python 5 and Derby
Stunner with 2nd stage
Rafael’s video Pr0n, H/t ELP Defens(c)e Blog
Israel is looking at using its Stunner anti-missile interceptor as a starting point for follow-ons to their Python 5 and Derby missiles.
The Python is a 6″ diameter short range (20+ km) infrared guided dogfight missile, and the Derby is a slightly lengthened version active radar guided version with with an ogive nose, and other aerodynamic cleanups (and possibly a longer motor) to achieve a range of about 50km, so replacing both of these with one derivative of another missile is certainly in the realm of possibility.
On the basis of the pictures here, and not much else, it appears that the 2nd stage of the Stunner is about the same size as the Python/Derby.
I’m not sure how much would be gained by developing a Python replacement on this platform, the as the missile already has excellent kinematics, as shown by the marketing video, though marketing videos should always be taken with a bit of a grain of salt.
That being said, given the Stunner’s configuration, the 2nd stage has a dual pulse motor, the 1st stage that would not be carried in an air launched version, could give significant increases in range and lethality for any potential Derby successor.
Here is my earlier post on the Stunner missile.
Now, This is a Rant
What’s Up With This Pink Tie Thing?
The gentlemen in question is Nigel Farage, Member of the European Parliament (MEP), and former head of the UK Independence Party, which makes him a very heavy duty wing asshole.
That being said, I’m struck by just how well spoken he is. He’s an asshole, and as the defacto head of the UKIP, he is implacably opposed to the EU doing anything, ever, but he is well spoken and thoughtful in a way that is miles beyond people like Boehner, or McConnell, or Bush, or Dick “the Human Snarl” Cheney.
Stephen Fry on the Effect of Religion in the World
He makes a very good argument against organized religion in general, and against the Catholic Church while supporting individual faith.
It’s a good point, though I find it a bit jarring, as my previous experience with him was in his roles on Blackadder, where he played the role of British pratt to perfection.
It’s well worth a listen.
Part 1 (10:42)
Part (9:95)