Rahm talking to the ‘Phants following Obama’s speech.
I think that he may be discussing the outburst.
H/t Neophyte at the Stellar Parthenon BBS for the pics.
Year: 2009
Not Sure About This
Is this cool, or evidence of a Mac user with way too much free time?
Deep Thought
Demotivator Edition
The Return of the Fixed-Price Development Contract
Case in point, the next iteration of the Small Diameter Bomb, the SDB II, will be have a fixed price development contract.
This represents a welcome change in philosophy:
The theory is that technologies should be mature enough (technology readiness level 6, or tested in an operationally relevant environment, in Pentagon parlance) to enable accurate cost and schedule estimates by industry bidders competing for a development contract. This approach shifts more responsibility to contractors to keep their proposal promises. For the Pentagon, however, there is also risk. Requirements must be well-articulated and not altered in order to reap the benefits of a fixed-price contract. Once change orders are requested, leverage over contract price is lost.
I would actually go further, and make cost and schedule unalterable requirements statutorily, and prohibit, and possibly criminalize, any effort made by contractors and procurement personnel from changing this.
The article notes that this change is, “Raising questions among some industry executives about how much risk they will have to assume as they compete for Defense Dept. business,” but this is not surprising.
Defense contracting under Bush and His Evil Minions™ was an exercise in all reward, no risk, for defense contractors, which resulted in skyrocketing costs, horrendous schedule slips, and a dearth of solutions for the Marines and soldiers on the ground.
Wicked Stupid
The Coast Guard had an exercise which apparently included simulated fire on the Potomac river in Washington, DC (not blanks).
No announcement to the press, who heard the chatter on the emergency bands, “10 Rounds have been expended,” and the press, along with operations centers in the area, who also had not been informed, freaked out.
On 911….What the hell were they thinking.
Olbermann’s Special Comment on Joe Wilson
Rob Miller has now raised $803,306 on act blue.
I think that Olbermann is wearing out the batteries on the special comments.
They are not so special any more. Rep. Wilson is a small venal asshole, now move on.
Special comments should be about saying that the emperor has no clothes, and Joe can’t even carry off being the village idiot.
Abortion Wingnut Shot Dead
James Pouillon is actually one of 2 people murdered, and the motivation wasn’t political, except that the person was settling scores, and the shooter was sick and tired of his habit of carrying, “Big signs with very graphic pictures of fetuses,” and showing them to children as they entered school.
That being said, the money quote is about the other victim, Mike Fuoss:
The police said the suspect told them that he had been involved in another shooting Friday at a gravel company, Fuoss Gravel, in nearby Owosso Township. The company’s owner, Mike Fuoss, 61, was found dead in his office around 8 a.m.
Prosecutors said Mr. Fuoss was not involved in abortion protests and had no link to Mr. Pouillon. The suspect was angry at him for another reason, Ms. Edwards said.
(emphasis mine)
So this is some crazy going postal and settling scores, but in 24 hours Pouillon will be a martyr to the Christo-Fascists will use it to call for retribution.
I expect to see one shooting a week, or more, by year’s end unless Obama and Holder go full patriot act on the whole movement today.
Zim Update
Well, it’s been about a month, so it’s time for another update on what is happening in Zimbabwe.
The two biggest pieces of news are Robert Mugabe’s health, he is 85 years old, and there are officially denied rumors that he has gone to Qatar for prostate cancer treatment, and he has missed some significant meetings.
Additionally, we are beginning to see senior ZANU-PF members vying for position, with, for example, someone having put up the party youth group (I assume that this mean young adults) to call for the removal of John Nkomo and Joyce Mujuru from the party presidium.
We are also seeing the situation with the Chiadzwa diamond fields get out of hand,with a threat by the world Diamond Council to suspend Zimbabwe from the Kimberly Process certification, which would label one of their few sources of hard currency “blood diamonds,” though threat comes with a statement which immediately backtracks from the threat, though they are making noise about revisiting the issue in November.
The Parliament has also opened an investigation into the accusations of brutality, corruption, and slave labor, and the World Federation of Diamond Bourses has made a call for the prompt release of the Kimberly report.
The reason that this is significant is because it is a sign of loss of control by Mugabe. It’s fairly clear that he feels that he cannot give the order for the Zimbabwean military to stand down in Chiadzwa because it would eliminate one of the few remaining means that he has to bribe reward loyalists, and it is unclear if the army would obey if he were to give the order.
This is an indication that Mugabe is losing power within ZANU-PF as people look to his exit.
On a more prosaic level, it looks like Mugabe is trying to kill Tsvangerai again: He has had to sack somemembers of his security team for “misplacing” transport for a significant portion of his security detail, which left him ill-protected…..Then again, maybe I’m just a cynic.
Meanwhile, the Mutambara faction of the MDC appears to be in the process of self destructing, with conflicting claims as to who leads the MDC-M, reports that the party has split in 3 parts, 3 MDC-M MPs moving to join the MDC-T, and Mutambara being unable to convince an MP from his own party to step down and take an ambassadorship in order to allow deputy president Gibson Sibanda to keep his position on cabinet as Minister of State for National Healing and Reconciliation. (The constitution prohibits a cabinet post being held by someone not an MP for more than 3 months)
We had Zuma taking over for the completely useless and biased Mbeki as mediator, and while we got some strong language, such as Zuma calling Mugabe’s behavior in negotiations deviant, but the results, despite Tsvangerai’s pleas for action, have not gone beyond a SADC call for an extraordinary summit.
Most notably, you have the issues of Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor Gideon Gono and Attorney General, Johannes Tomana, both tremendously corrupt and incompetent ZANU-PF loyalists, which means that the power of the purse and state violence (though both the police and military) remain firmly in the hands of Mugabe.
With the elimination of the $Z as a currency, this has reduced Gono’s power to pay off people, but he is once again attempting to reintroduce the local currency, though Finance Minister Tendai Biti is fighting him tooth and nail on this.
The harassment of MDC members of parliament continues, with police making trumped up arrests of opposition MPs.
It’s clearly an attempt to reduce the MDC majority in parliament, since once convicted, they can no longer serve, and so there would have to be by-elections.
The problem for the ZANU-PF with this strategy is that they are polling in the single digits, (also here).
ZANU-PF has proposed 5-year extension on the current 1-year freeze on elections, but the MDC has made it clear that it has no interest in such a proposal.
The 2nd of ZANU-PF is to make elections impossible, either by pleading poverty, or by refusing to staff the election board created by the unity government agreement.
Meanwhile, the IMF has issued $400 million in foreign currency reserves, which would be good news, except for the fact that Gideon Gono (remember him?) is insisting that he is in charge of disbursing all these funds.
I’d sooner have Bernie Madoff managing that money.
Cruising Wiki For Information on South Carolina’s 2nd Congressional District
Just in case you want to get the lay of the land of SC’s 2nd Congressional district, I checked out recent electoral history for the district.
Truth be told, it’s a tough row to hoe:
| Year | Democrat | Votes | Pct | Republican | Votes | Pct | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2000 | Jane Frederick | 110,672 | 41% | Floyd Spence | 154,338 | 57% | |||||||||||||
| 2001 | Brent Weaver | 14,034 | 25% | Joe Wilson | 40,355 | 73% | <Special Election | ||||||||||||
| 2002 | (no candidate) | Joe Wilson | 144,149 | 84% | |||||||||||||||
| 2004 | Michael Ellisor | 93,249 | 33% | Joe Wilson | 181,862 | 65% | |||||||||||||
| 2006 | Michael Ellisor | 76,090 | 37% | Joe Wilson | 127,811 | 63% | |||||||||||||
| 2008 | Rob Miller | 158,627 | 46% | Joe Wilson | 184,583 | 54% |
Though the best performance against Wilson to date was Rob Miller’s loss by 8%, so it is entirely reasonable to consider this race to be competitive, particularly since Miller has raised about $¾ million, $733,608.00 on Act Blue alone at the time of this post (below break), and Mr. Miller has name recognition from his last run, and he has generated a lot of buzz in the past 36 hours or so.
God Bless the Onion
This is the best way that I can imagine to commemorate 911.*
Americans Observing 9/11 By Trying Not To Masturbate
*By “This”, I mean watching this video, not any action, or non action, regarding one’s genitals.†
†September 11, 2001 was the start of a period of prolonged insanity for the United States, and while there are indications that psychological recovery is on the way, we really need to stay on our meds.
Quote of the Day
It Looks Like Campaign Finance Limits Are Dead
At least, that is my take on reading Dahlia Lithwick’s observations in court.
We will be seeing corporate sponsored electioneering in 2010, but I expect the 5-4 decision to add a twist which will allow labor unions, which are outspent under today’s rules, to continue to remain in their straight jacket.
We have some profoundly deceitful and venal men on the bench.
This will likely be the 2nd most disgraceful decision in the past 9 years.
Vote Fraud Discovered in Afghanistan
I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on here!
Shaded Regions Indicate FraudIt appears that the level of vote fraud is so bad that even the Afghan Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC), a group of Karzai toadies, has admitted to widespread vote fraud:
There was “clear and convincing evidence of fraud” in Paktika, Kandahar and Ghazni, areas that largely backed President Hamid Karzai, it said.
Earlier this week results from 600 stations where there were suspected irregularities were “quarantined”.
…
The ECC said in a statement that its investigations in Ghazni found “a number of indicators of fraud”.
Those included unfolded ballots, votes for candidates inserted inside bundles for other candidates, miscounted ballots, missing material, uniformity of markings, seal numbers which did not match numbers on the record of seals and lists of voters with numerous fictitious card numbers, the statement said.
All from Karzai strongholds. (Bottom pic, darker regions)
What a surprise.
How Utterly Appropriate
John Stossel is moving to Fox News.
I imagine the this is best for everyone. ABC gets rid of a guy who wouldn’t know accuracy or journalism if it bit him in the butt, but whose well deserved termination would generate needless outrage from the first-cousins married for twelve generations brigade, and any network that employs Glenn Beck cannot have its reputation sullied by hiring him.
Cramdown Has Returned
And it is about bloody time.
Barney Frank has announced plans to reintroduce a bill to give bankrputcy judges the ability to modify mortgages, it appears that the banks got cocky, and promptly forgot promises of voluntary mortgage mods, as the picture (from here) shows.
It appears that members of Congress are shocked that banks are not willing to do mortgage mods, when they:
- Cost them money.
- Require them to post the losses to their balance sheets immediately, as opposed to marking them to face value for the next few years.
Campaign contributions and lobbyists are a much better investment than helping people.
The Gun Market Likes Obama
2009 Sales (not shown) Even BiggerBut not in the way that you thing.
There has been much written about how Barack Obama inspired paranoia is boosting gun sales.
Well, we are now seeing some indications that this string is playing out in the handgun market. On June 22, Smith and Wesson was talking about a huge backlog:
Our firearms backlog continued to increase dramatically during the quarter, and reached its peak at $268 million dollars by the end of April. That level is $218 million dollars higher than the same quarter one year ago.
(emphasis mine)
That’s a 436% increase in backlog.
But on September 9, the news is not quite so rosy:
Our firearms backlog was $177.5 million at the end of the first quarter. Cancellations reduced backlog by approximately 10% during the quarter. It is important to note that our backlog always represents product that has been ordered but not yet shipped. As a result, it is possible that portions of the backlog could be canceled if demand should suddenly drop.
(emphasis mine)
As John Hempton notes, speaking from an investors perspective:
The backlog dropped from $268 million to $178 million – a drop of 90 million. Ten percent of that (say $27 million) was order cancellation – but a net $63 million of sales came from the backlog. Total sales were 102 million – and less than 100 million in firearms. The rate at which Americans are placing orders for new Smith and Wesson handguns is collapsing.
The company did not tell us the current forward order book. At that rate of collapse what they are facing is a disaster.
(emphasis original)
It appears that the right wing is running out of hate.
I’m shocked, I thought that it was an inexhaustible commodity.
The Problem With Higher Education in the United States
This picture really says it allFelix Salmon uses this chart to suggest that colleges are using these prices increases to become dropout factories, since it’s cheaper to educate a freshman than a senior, but you get the same tuition.
I think that problem comes down to a number of things:
- Federal aid for college education, particularly the guaranteed student loan program, has been subsidizing increases in tuition and fees for years.
- The program was introduced in the Higher Education Act of 1965, at the height of the Vietnam war, so the alternative to going to college was to go to the ‘Nam and get shot.
- When your product is competing against going to war, people will buy your product.
- The top end schools have been colluding on tuition and fees, along with student aid awards for decades, and this monopolistic behavior is inherently inflationary.
- In the interest, my step-mother, a former college president, has always maintained that this is not an issue, it’s just a way of “freeing” students from making the choice on anything but quality, and that colleges supply a lot more than they did in, say, 1960.
- I have always responded that this is classic monopoly theory. It’s not that competition ends, it’s that price competition ends, so you end up with gold plating. It’s one of the reasons that professors’ salaries have skyrocketed: Without financial constraints, you get bidding wars.
The real solution is to implement cost growth containment measures in order to show price increases, to require with excessive endowments (Harvard, Yale, etc.), and to keep government aid flat until inflation catches up.
Of course, this won’t happen, because the Ivy league has a death grip on governance in Washington, DC, and because business likes to have its employees in debt peonage.
Economics Update
Unemployment Chart Pr0n Courtesy Calculated RiskWell, we have the initial unemployment claims out now (government link), and it appears to point to improvement. Initial claims were 550,000, a decrease of 26,000 from the revised figure of 576,000 (but the initial figure was 570,000, so the drop is 20K, not 26K apples to apples), the 4 week moving average was 570,000, down from 572,250, and the continuing claims number(seasonally adjusted) was 6,088,000, down 159,000 from last week’s revised level of 6,247,000 (only continuing claims were revised up from 6.23m, so the apples to apples drop is actually 142K, not 159K).
Anyone else knowing a pattern in revision numbers, or is it just me?
BTW, note that the continuing claims number drops as people lose benefits or move to emergency unemployment claims.
In any case, with foreclosures up 18% year over year, and poverty rate hitting an 11 year high, 13.2%, things really don’t indicate a rapid improvement.
The weekly claims number needs to be below 400K before we will start seeing increases in employment.
Additionally, we have a leading indicator in Japan, machinery (capital) orders are in the toilet, with orders being the lowest since the start of the survey in 1987.
I’d also stay out of the stock market, as insiders selling continuing to go crazy, and when people sell their own stocks it’s because they know something, even if this knowledge is not sufficient to trigger an criminal or civil investigation.
In the world of central banking, the Bank of England is leaving its benchmark unchanged, and continuing with bond purchases (quantitative easing).
Bonds did fairly well today, with the yields on mortgage backed bonds and US treasuries prices rising, which means that the yields are falling………Unless, of course, you are talking about Polish government bonds, which look to be heading into the world of hurt that their Baltic Republic neighbors are feeling.
Meanwhile, a week inventory report has pushed crude oil up, and the US dollar was up marginally, though whether this is a turn, or just a breather, is unclear.
GM Bails Out Angela Merkel’s Reelection Hopes
They decided to sell to Magna, whose bid had been anointed by Merkel and the CDU party.
I’m not sure that Merkel can lose now.
Of course, with the SDP categorically refusing to form a coalition with the Left Party, we’re likely to end up with the status quo after elections anyway: The SDP gets the most seats and votes, but by refusing to ally with the Left Party, it means that the CDU-FDP coalition has more seats than the SDP-Green coalition, and the SDP is once again forced to be a junior coalition member.
This may have been “responsible” in 2005, when the last elections happened, but in 2009, after pretty much every single complaint of the LP about the excesses of capitalism have proved true, it’s just stupid.
