They are expecting a “full and complete recovery,” but he’s 86, and a “full and complete recovery” is frequently predicted in cases that prove terminal:
Sen. Frank Lautenberg, the nation’s second oldest U.S. senator, has curable lymphoma of the stomach, his office said Friday.
Doctors for the 86-year-old Democrat found B-cell lymphoma that will require treatment over the next few months, spokesman Caley Gray said in a news release.
Mr. Lautenberg will undergo six to eight chemotherapy treatments and should make a “full and complete recovery,” said James Holland of New York City’s Mount Sinai Medical Center.
The Russian government vowed to “defend our rights” after French holders of czarist bonds valued at as much as 100 billion euros ($137 billion) threatened to sue the Kremlin and seize property it owns in Paris.
“May God help them,” Viktor Khrekov, a spokesman for the Kremlin Property Department, said by phone today from Moscow, after the Paris-based International Federative Association for Russian Bond Holders, or AFIPER, pledged to sue to recoup part of the century-old debt.
The empire of Russia has not existed since 1917.
That country was liquidated, along with Czar Nicholas and his family.
People are buying this stuff at cents on the dollar, and then attempting to get be enough of an annoyance to coerce some payments out of sovereign nations.
It’s particularly egregious behavior because France and Russia had a final settlement since 1996.
Surely, if terrorism statutes can be used against the reserves of Icelandic banks, it can be used against these extortionists.
Well, it’s not really the French, it’s the Nord-pas-de-Calais regional council, which will be assuming control as a part of a privatization scheme:
A plan to privatise the government-owned Port of Dover has provoked “outrage”, not least because the French are front-runners to take control of the facility.
According to the Daily Mail, the port needs money to fund an expansion plan, and selling it off could net £350m for our cash-strapped government. The harbour board expects to receive the go-ahead for the “voluntary privatisation”, which will likely see Nord-pas-de-Calais regional council, which also owns Calais, adding Dover to its roster of ports.
Chief exec Bob Goldfield explained: “The time is right for the voluntary privatisation of Dover. We want to invest around £400m on a second terminal and need to invest in the existing terminal, but are unable to because of public sector borrowing constraints. We want to throw off the shackles.”
I generally oppose privatization, even if it isn’t the French taking over Dover, and the justification, about avoiding “public sector borrowing constraints,” sounds to me like a recipe for a future bankruptcy and taxpayer bailout.
“Throwing off shackles,” in a finance context generally means, “Engaging in dodgy behavior.”
But still the short Frenchman is up there, or down there, having a good chuckle.
With the cancellation of the US Army’s FCS-MGV system, the 20 ton class (30 ton+ in operational use), the army has been cast about for a vehicle to fill the role, and they have found it in their ground combat vehicle (GCV) program, which is supposed to have, the “urban mobility of a Stryker, with the off-road capability of a Bradley and the survivability of an MRAP,” while being C-130 transportable. (see also here)
Truth be told, a slightly improved Bradley, particularly one that has the manned turret replaced with an external remotely operated one, which would allow for a single vehicle to carry a full 9 man squad, but the way that it is all phrased does seem to be an invitation to mission and cost creep juxtaposed with schedule slippage.
By “urban mobility,” they mean “road speed”, though I noted about 3 months ago that they were calling for the “sustainability of a Stryker”.
With improved tracks and propulsion, the road mobility can be achieved, though it would still be more maintenance intensive, and less fuel efficient than a wheeled vehicle.
My inclination would be to look toward improving existing systems, or purchasing and making minor modifications to foreign systems.
*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.
With Greece mired in a debt crisis of their own making, and coming to the EU for aid, perhaps one of the conditions for any aid should be for them to stop being so pissy about admitting Macedonia to the EU, because the Greeks want to claim Alexander the Great was “Greek.”
He was a Macedonian, who led a nation that did not speak Greek, though he, as a royal child, was tutored by the best Greek scholars, and doubtless spoke Greek, albeit with a foreign accent.
But, even if he were Greek, it was 2000 years ago, and the government of Greece needs to focus on the hear and now.
“Children, the law is nothing but a rag smeared with blood and sh%$.
“It is only for suckers, rubes and losers.
“Claw your way to the top — by any means necessary — and the law can never touch you.
“This is the American way.”
This is the message of Barack Obama and His Evil Minions™ determination not to prosecute, nor review in the smallest way by the bar association, the contemptible actions of the worst of the wrong doers amongst Bush and His Evil Minions™.
In the 1980s, I was always rather contrarian, maintaining that Alexander Haig, who died today, was among the most competent and most sane of the members of Reagan’s cabinet, though that is damning with faint praise.
I think that he understood and appreciated our NATO allies more than most people in the foreign policy establishment.
One interesting note, he was a west pointer, and graduated 217 out of a class of 310, which may imply that success at the Point is orthogonal to success later in life.
I love this quote about him:
Never much of a politician, Gen. Haig in 1988 made a brief presidential run, often described by commentators at the time as “quixotic.” Borrowing a phrase from a supporter, the comedian Mort Sahl, he announced he was “throwing my helmet into the ring.” But he withdrew before the primaries.
Considering the fact that he was a Kissinger protégé, he was relatively non evil, which is again damning with faint praise.
What is interesting here is that the troops were supposed to return in 2008, but have remained deployed because no replacements could be found amongst other NATO members, and Labor pulled out as a result.
This means that elections will be held a year ahead of time, probably in May, and that the main issue is likely to be the deployment of Dutch troops to Afghanistan, and given the nature of the electorate in Holland, and Europe generally, I think that the parties who favor immediate withdrawal are likely to gain the upper hand.
This may have political significance to other nations deploying troops to the campaign.
The cost of living in the U.S. rose in January less than anticipated and a measure of prices excluding food and fuel fell for the first time since 1982, indicating the recovery is generating little inflation.
The consumer-price index increased 0.2 percent for a fifth straight month, led by higher fuel costs, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. Excluding energy and food, the so-called core index unexpectedly fell 0.1 percent, reflecting a drop in new-car prices, clothing and shelter.
And still, the Federal Reserve is full of people who are batsh%$ insane inflation hawks, and there are two seats open, but Obama has not bothered to appoint people who are, you know, saner, in what is clearly a deflationary environment.
Startup company American Dynamics Flight Systems has been developing a UAV to address the needs of the various services for high speed cargo UAVS most notably the Marine Corps VTOL Group IV Program and Medium Programs, the USAF Unmanned Cargo VTOL UAV Program, and the US Coast Guard’s VTOL UAV Program.
All of these programs are requiring fairly high speeds, a cruise at least 250 kts, which pretty much rules out a conventional helicopters which tend to cruise at less than 175 kts.
The solution that was adopted on the V-22 is a tilt rotor, where the propellers are pivoted from horizontal to vertical in the transition from horizontal flight to vertical takeoffs and landings.
The issue with a tilt rotor system is that, even more than in a conventional helicopter, managing the transition from horizontal to vertical flight can become difficult and complex.
In the V-22, this is handled with a cyclic type control system that mirrors the swash plate type setups that exist on helicopters.
While this is obviously a known quantity in vertical lift mode, issues in transition to wing-borne flight had to be resolved before the tilt-rotor could become viable, there is a cost in complexity, cost, and reliability in using a complex prop assembly for such a system.
ADF Concept
Moves in pitch and yaw
The solution for the AD-1 is different. A ducted fan which is controllable in pitch and yaw, but where the pitch of the fan is fixed is used, the High Torque Aerial Lift (HTAL).
Pitch is obviously a given in any tilt rotor, which theoretically makes the addition of yaw actuators for the propulsors less complex, and hence lighter, cheaper, and more reliable than going with a full up cyclic control system.
Fixed Aluminum Prop
This sort of control system has been used in the past, at the dawn of the development of helicopters, where the use of tilting rotor hub, rather than a swash plate style cyclic was, for example, used by Raúl Pateras Pescara used this on his early helicopters in the 1920s, where he pitched the hub forward to allow for forward flight without the need for a separate propeller to provide lateral thrust.
The application to a tilt-rotor aircraft, and the use of rotor hub in yaw, appear to be unique, and a patent is pending.
Propulsor shroud panel
Additionally, the use of a shrouded propulsor provides for greater thrust/lift for a given disk area, by acting as a nozzle to accelerate flow.
The shrouds themselves have composite skins. The panel shown is well under 10 pounds.
The use of a shrouded prop should also simplify deck handling, since it mitigates against the possibility of someone walking into a moving prop, and there are added efficiencies because the down wash in vertical lift mode does not impinge on the wing.
All moving ruddervators
It should be noted that the aircraft has been designed from the outset to be low cost, and so notwithstanding its appearance, it is not designed to be a low-observable (“stealth”) airframe.
The top mounted inlet is intended to minimize the possibility of FOD damage to the engine, the all moving ruddervators were developed after it was determined that a rear moving flap on a conventional rudder fin would not provide sufficient control authority, and the wing configuration is designed to minimize pitch changes during transition from vertical to horizontal flight.
Wind tunnel model
AD1 Development
ADF is relying heavily on computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to determine the characteristics of the, and according to Paul Vasilescu, VP of Engineering, their experiences at the Paul Vasilescu Glen L. Martin wind tunnel at the University of Maryland have been closer to the calculated predictions than any prior systems tested at the facility.
The simulations are run on 64 bit Linux rack mount systems, with some of the more complex simulations, which are being modeled in 6 degrees of freedom.
Instrumented Test Rig
The propulsors have been modeled, both in full size, and at the reduced size in which they will be tested in the wind tunnel, which should serve to further validate the mathematical modeling.
It is anticipated that the propulsors will be tested in full scale on an “iron bird” instrumented test rig at Aberdeen Proving Ground, where ADFS hopes to, “Confirm CFD performance data for hover in ground effect (HIGE) and hover out of ground effect (HOGE),” later this year, using a T53 turboshaft, used on the original UH-1 models, but flight models will use the T700, which is currently in use on the AH-64 and UH-60.
The mechanical design is done in SolidWorks®, which I’ve used extensively, and should be more than capable of generated the required geometries, though it’s associated FEA package, Cosmos®, is intended for less intensive analysis.
AD-1 Manufacturing Capabilities
Applied Dynamics Flight Systems has a 14,700 square foot manufacturing facility at the Jessup headquarters with 3 & 4 axis CNC mills, and anticipates being able to assemble 12 units a year upon receipt of a contract.
Manufacturing workshare
Paths not taken
At this point, the company does not believe that there is a reasonable market for civilian applications for UAVS, the FAA has not yet come up with a coherent regulatory environment, and the technology to allow UAVs to operate in civilian airspace, so called “sense and avoid” technology, is immature.
They believe the situation to be rather similar in terms of ambulance applications on the battle field, an area where the Israeli firm Urban Aeronautics’ similarly sized Air Mule is attempting to carve out a niche, there are serious issues with landing aircraft into unprepared areas, as many of the cues that a pilot has in a cockpit are lost on a remote display, and so additional technology needs to be developed in terms of automated imaging and auto-landing systems before one can expect a UAV
The first rule of Investment Banking Club is, you do not talk about Investment Banking Club.
You generally know where to look for selfishness and an immature sense of entitlement, but Moe Tkacik finds something that makes the folks at CPAC looking like Mahatma Ghandi.
Rather unsurprisingly, she finds it on wall street, where the bankers are, “As mad as hell,” about all the nasty things that people say about them ……… All while sucking down 7 figure salaries and bonuses.
You see, the bankers had a get together, and they invited her:
Still, I had heard of no plan for any sort of public up-close-and-personal plutocrat-on-plutocrat spectacle to give voice to the inchoate counterrevolution, no Millionaire’s March offering group catharsis to the angry wealthy white. But on Tuesday, Jan. 26, I received a mass e-mail from Schwartz Communications with the subject: “Wall Street Strikes Back at White House.”
It was held the trading floor of John Thomas† Financial, and (yet again) it defies belief, but suffice it to say that there was a Republican candidate for the US Senate, the bald guy is the head of the firm, Anastasios (Thomas) Belesis, who is a piece of work all on his own:
Belesis’s FINRA profile is similarly alarming. Investors have accused him of churning, fraud, excessive trading, breach of contract and other violations. Regulators have ordered him to repay investors more than a million dollars.
So, he’s mad as hell, and he’s not going to take it any more.
Of course, in a just world, he would be banned from the securities industry for life.
This story continues with epic tails of sexual harassment and the disposal whipped cream.
Just go read it.
*Conservative Political Action Comittee †Yes, “John Thomas” is a bit of slang in Britain for a portion of the male anatomy, and it’s very apt here, and yes, there is a real investment bank by that name.
Software giant Microsoft will begin outsourcing general legal work to India after signing a deal with legal process outsourcing (LPO) company CPA Global. The news comes as CPA outlined plans to expand its Indian workforce from 600 to 1,000 by the end of 2011, and hinted at opening another outsourcing centre.
Outsourcing to India: It’s not just for engineers any more.
What I want to see is outsourcing applied to investment bankers and brokers.
In a good way.
I have to admit that