It’s not great, Feinstein and Specter are suggesting ballots mailed into the NLRB to replace card check, but it would move the bill along, and might get the bill into 60 vote territory.
There may also be some changes to the arbitration.
I think that Specter, facing a likely primary challenge from Sestak, and possibly others, is desperate to find a way to not have labor campaigning against him.
First and foremost, it looks like GM will be dropped from the Dow Jones Industrial average, no surprise with GM trading at around a buck and a half.
For the same reason, GM is looking at a 1-For-100 reverse stock split, which is no surprise, as the troubled automaker was trading at over $50 a share just 2 years ago.
Seeing as how GM bled $6 billion in the last quarter, the reverse stock split is prudent.
Meanwhile, the Chrysler bankruptcy is proceeding rather smoothly, see here, and here.
The judge has generally ruled against the sanctimony of the “non-TARP lenders,” whose numbers has dwindled, and the fact that their names will be revealed has made think twice about being jerks.
Meanwhile Fiat has been busy after having taken a stake in Chrysler, and is now looking to purchase GM Europe, aka Opel, and spin off its own auto manufacture in Italy to incorporate in their new larger auto manufacturing concern. (See also here)
Barack Obama’s new budget eliminates abstinence-only funding and a kick back program to churches.
From Page 491 of the budget (PDF):
The 2010 Budget proposes a new Teen Pregnancy Prevention Initiative to support community-based and faith-based efforts to reduce teen pregnancy using evidence-based and promising models. In addition, a new Strengthening Communities Fund will help build the capacity of non-profit organizations and State, Local and Tribal entities to better serve low-income and disadvantaged populations. This Budget also proposes funding for (1) a new child welfare initiative, and (2) a human services case management system for Federally-declared disasters. This Budget eliminates funding for Community-Based Abstinence Education, the mandatory Title V Abstinence Education program, the Compassion Capital Fund, and Rural Community Facilities.
The items in bold are two abstinence only education programs, aka the Bristol Palin teen parent plan, and the Compassion Capital Fund is a slush fund for churches set up by Bush and His Evil Minions™.
Wicked cool!
So, the liberal part of the Blogosphere is all in a tizzy over the article written by CBS sports analyst, and former pro golfer, David Feherty on Bush moving back to Dallas, which contained this bon mot
From my own experience visiting the troops in the Middle East, I can tell you this, though: despite how the conflict has been portrayed by our glorious media, if you gave any U.S. soldier a gun with two bullets in it, and he found himself in an elevator with Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Osama bin Laden, there’s a good chance that Nancy Pelosi would get shot twice, and Harry Reid and bin Laden would be strangled to death.
Really, really classy, but I’m not outraged. Instead I’m perplexed.
This is what qualifies for humor in the conservative mind?
Seriously, for all the conservative complaints that humorists are biased against them, and the repeated abortive attempts by Fox News to come up with some sort of conservative political news-humor show, it all comes down to the fact that this sh%$ simply isn’t funny.
As Pablo Neruda said, “Laughter is the language of the soul,”* and conservatives are apparrently speaking pig-latin.
*Unlike Bart Simpson, I am not familiar with the works of Pablo Neruda, I just got the quote from the best Simpsons episode ever, Bart Sells His Soul.
Yawn, another day, another claim by the “healthier” of the big banks that they are going to repay the TARP money “any day now”.
Of course they are…..Really….Just as soon as they pay back the FDIC loans.
If you’ve been following the saga of the delays of the EADS A400M military transport program, it’s clear that the main thing holding up the testing of the aircraft is problems with its massive (10,000+ hp) turboprop engines.
It has now been revealed that this holdup is primarily the result of a bookkeeping error:
Although the A400M program has generally been running late, the pacing item since last year has been the engine – and the principal problem was a failure by Europrop International (EPI), the consortium behind the TP400-D6 engine, to recognize, until little more than a year ago, that the software in the full authority digital engine control (Fadec) did not meet European civil aviation standards.
EPI was basically working to military standards, in which Fadec software is considered to be validated by testing. Civil authorities additionally require a tightly disciplined software development process, in which every change, from the first line of the first version, is documented and traceable. Once the problem surfaced, there was nothing to be done but to go back and start again.
While I generally find system engineering, where you have some anal-retentive bloke going over the specs with a microscope, to be a pain in the ass, I acknowledge that they are needed now and again, but there don’t appear to have been any on this project.
But that is the standard used by the US Department of the Treasury in the stress tests to define properly capitalized.
Great googly moogly.
And externally, at least, it will look an awful lot like the canceled FCS manned ground vehicle family of vehicles. (FCS-MGV)
After all, if you are looking for something smaller and lighter than existing systems, you still have a box on treads.
That being said, there are some lessons learned here, and hopefully they will be fixed:
*Full disclosure, I worked on the Future Recovery and Maintenance Vehicle, FRMV, “wrecker” variant of the FCS-MGV† from 2003-2006 at United Defense (later BAE Systems after the Carlyle Group sold me to buy Dunkin Donuts).
†Future Combat Systems-Manned Ground Vehicle. These are the ones that are the tanks and APCs. As opposed to the various unnmanned vehicles, networking technologies, etc. that form the full FCS along with the MGVs.‡
‡Yes, I have worked everywhere. Maybe I can’t hold down a job, but more likely this has been my role as “technical hit man”, where you are parachuted in to take care of a specific need.
Israel has just been denied access to the computer systems of the F-35 JSF that would be required to maintain the aircraft.
Israel maintains that they need they need access to these systems, because in a wartime scenario, that they would need to repair the systems in real time, while the US maintains that there will be spares that can be replaced under those circumstances.
So Israel is now making noises about looking at the F-15 Silent Eagle upgrade as an alternative to the JSF, which I think is just blowing smoke.
I also think that both sides are talking around the real issues, the first being sticker shock, with a reporter $20 billion for 75 aircraft giving a $266 million price tag, but the second one, and perhaps the one that the Israelis are more concerned with, is the ability to independently integrate their own weapons and their own systems into the aircraft.
There is also the concern, at least amongst those of us who watched the recent Battlestar Galactica series, that there may be an “off” switch somewhere in those millions of lines of code.
Sam Keller, a former quarterback for Arizona State University, is suing Electronic Arts and the NCAA over their licensing his image for their college sports game:
Electronic Arts Inc. and the National Collegiate Athletic Association were sued by a former college football player who claims athletes’ images are used in video games without their permission and in violation of NCAA rules.
Electronic Arts, the second-largest video-game publisher, circumvents the rules by allowing customers to upload player names directly into games and creating images that closely resemble student athletes to increase sales and NCAA royalties, according to the complaint filed by Sam Keller, a former quarterback for Arizona State University.
Normally, I fall on the side of rather open use of such things, and in the case of statistics for things like fantasy, I would do so anyway, but the fact that thee NCAA is a revolting organization does color my view here.
The equation here, at the top levels of sport anyway, is that the schools will pretend to provide an education, and in exchange the athletes will provide their services for free, and have no part in the billions that the schools rake in for the privilege.
When people complain about things like the lack of a playoff system in college football, they ignore the slave labor upon which this system is built.
Well, wonder no more. Treasury negotiated the results of the tests with the banks.
Of course if you were a student, and attempted to browbeat your teacher into improving your grade, they would just laugh in your face or demand a bribe, but if you are Ben Bernanke and Timothy “Eddie Haskell” Geithner, they can do it for you for free, or as Joe Btfsplk wrote in the comments section of this story, “Maybe next time, they could give the banksters multiple choice tests,” because they certainly failed the true-false test:
The Federal Reserve significantly scaled back the size of the capital hole facing some of the nation’s biggest banks shortly before concluding its stress tests, following two weeks of intense bargaining.
Bargaining?
This is supposed to be a test administered by the Treasury and Federal Reserve, not a negotiation.
The banks are in hock to the Treasury and FDIC for hundreds of billions of dollars, and to the Federal Reserve for Trillions, and they negotiated with the banks?
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?
In addition, according to bank and government officials, the Fed used a different measurement of bank-capital levels than analysts and investors had been expecting, resulting in much smaller capital deficits.
Again, this is not grading on a curve, this is is everyone getting a gold star.
Yes, Wells threatened a lawsuit, but that was an empty threat, because of the response of the market to their suing the FDIC, Treasury, and Federal reserve would have turned their shares into penny stocks.
So, the details are out, and we have a big, confusing, and sprawling story from a big confusing, and sprawling building, the Pentagon.
Here are some links, and some things that I find noteworthy.
Specific programs:
With $439 million budgeted, the USAF is definitely going full speed on the tanker replacement bidding.
The Next Generation Bomber and the F-136 alternate JSF engine are on the chopping block, and the Gerald Ford class aircraft carrier has been delayed a year to work out the bugs on its electric catapults.
Star Wars takes a hit, with both the multiple kill vehicle and the airborne laser being canceled.
UAV’s did very well, with the Raven (shown) getting over 700 orders.
Aviation:
The DEW Line has a rundown.
Classified:
The Pentagon classified budget is now, up above $50 billion, which, on its own, makes the black programs something like the 3rd largest military budget in the world.
US Army:
spending on Helos is up, as are both unmanned vehicles and the number of active duty soldiers.
Navy:
We already know the story, cancellation of the DDG-100, restart of the Brukes, and continued procurement of the LCS, more here, here, and here.
Short version, it’s a generally down, but the Navy has done OK.
USAF
Basically, talk to the deer.
The USAF did not fare well, with the end of the F-22 and C-17 production lines, underfunding of the Air Force One replacement, the Joint Dual-Role Air Dominance Missile (JDRADM), and the follow on to the Predator drone, and the cancellation of the TSAT satellite system.
Cost Guard:
Not the Pentagon, it’s technically in the Department of Commerce, but its budget is up by about 3%.
Well, we now have a new theory on the fate artist Vincent Van Gogh’s ear, that rather than having cut it off himself, that it was as a result of a fight with fellow artist, and friend Paul Gaugin:
According to official versions, the disturbed Dutch painter cut off his ear with a razor after a row with Gauguin in 1888. Bleeding heavily, Van Gogh then walked to a brothel and presented the severed ear to an astonished prostitute called Rachel before going home to sleep in a blood-drenched bed.
But two German art historians, who have spent 10 years reviewing the police investigations, witness accounts and the artists’ letters, argue that Gauguin, a fencing ace, most likely sliced off the ear with his sword during a fight, and the two artists agreed to hush up the truth.
This is a definition of friendship of which I was previously unaware.
*You really didn’t think that I could pass up this pun.
I assume no responsibility for any trampling, birdshot removal, or ingested cow poop.
First, we have the return of a variant of Spanish Influenza (Swine Flu), and now we have reports of a spike in volcanic activity at Anak Krakatau, which in Indonesian, means “son of Krakatoa,” the small volcanic island that is the the volcano that emerged from the explosion of Krakatoa.
It’s kind of creepy when you think about it, stock market crash, Spanish Influenza, and now this.
What catastrophe is due to revisit us again? The Black Death? The 100 Years War? The Partridge Family?
Zachary Roth at TPMMuckraker uncovered this little gem from Newsweek in 2004:
Until a few weeks ago, Patrick Murray was just another ambitious Capitol Hill staffer. As a top aide to Rep. Porter Goss, the Republican chairman of the House intelligence committee, Murray had a reputation as a sharp-tongued partisan lawyer. When Democrats on the committee asked the CIA for information, Murray would cut them off, reminding the agency that only requests backed by the Republican majority should be honored. “He was just impossible,” says one staffer who dealt with him. “He was sarcastic, snide and had this uncanny ability to push people’s buttons.” One former CIA official told NEWSWEEK that Murray leaned on him more than once to declassify information so he could use it to “embarrass the Democrats.” Murray was irritated when the agency declined. He regarded much of the CIA as a nest of obstructionist bureaucrats, time-servers who had schemed to undermine the administration’s policies–especially in Iraq.
(Emphasis mine)
It is best to remember that Bush and His Evil Minions™ had 8 years to politicize the state security apparatus, driving out all but hardcore loyalists who would use the levers of the state in pursuit of their own political, partisan, and personal gain.
They have done their level best to poison the bureaucracy.
As such it is best to wait until a report is fully vetted and final before taking it at face value.
So then, what do we make of the reports that she was briefed in 2002 on the use of torture enhanced interrogation techniques in 2002 (here and here)
After Pelosi’s non-performance regarding even considering impeachment investigations after the Dems took Congress in 2006 (see pic), I’m not generally inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt, but in this case, with a document that Leon Panetta felt compelled to include a cover letter noting that this is very preliminary.
Additionally, as Emptywheel (link above) notes, this “report” almost instantly hit both the mainstream and wingnut press (HumanEvents dot com).
Additionally, Greg Sargent notices that while there might have been a discussion of torture techniques, it is not clear in the document as to whether the Congress critters were told that the techniques were being used.
I do rather believe that Pelosi knew what was going on, and I would guess that it is at least even money that she was specifically briefed about it being done in an ongoing manner: It would explain her recalcitrance on impeachment, because the scandal could pull her down too.
I would also note that involving members of Congress in torture in this manner, so that they would be inclined to oppose any investigation or punitive action, sounds like SOP for Bush/Cheney.
I never saw Dom or his brother Joe play, but there is many an older Red Sox fan who would maintain that Dom was a slightly better player, though I think that both Joe and Dom would insist that the best player was Vince, who had a 10 year career in the NL.
Be, all I can say is go Sox.
In honor of the late Steve Gilliard, “F%$# the f%$#ing Yankees.”