Month: August 2010

10 August 2010, 8:50 PM

The Jet Blue Guy is Not the Best Resignation Today

Click for full size

Go and check out the rest, it gets better

You know, the one who quote by the emergency slide.

But that is far less classy, and less amusing than what one “Jenny” did.

She spent 2½ years as an assistant to one “Spencer” who apparently has a temper and bad breath, discovered that he let slip that he was keeping her around because she was a HOPA (Hot Piece Of Ass), and never intended to allow her to advance, so she turned in her resignation……

……With messages on a white board……

……On over 34 photographs……

……Which she emailed to everyone at the firm……

Brilliant

10 August 2010, 8:34 PM

Primary Night

Unfortunately, we just got money manager, and Corproatocrat Michael Bennet won the primary for Colorado Senate.

He’s bad on policy, and he was a money man who as superintendent, allowed the Denver School District in invest in disastrous interest rate swaps, when he should have known better, and that will be a real vulnerability.

In Connecticut, crotch kicker, and co-conspirator in steroid distribution, Linda McMahon won the GOP Senatorial primary, should make for a fun election.

Also, in the CT Governor’s race, Ned Lamont lost the primary to Dan Malloy, which makes me mildly disappointed, I still appreciate Lamont saving the Democratic Party in 2006 by showing that running against the Iraq war was a winner, but I really have not followed this race too closely.

In Minnesota, Keith Ellison, the only Moslem in the Congress, resoundingly wins renomination, good for the people of Minnesota.

Additionally, Bachmann ran unopposed, so we will have plenty we w the crazy from her as she continues to campaign.

10 August 2010, 8:07 PM

If There is the Slimmest Possibility of Making the Wrong Decision……

Then you can be certain that soon to be former New York Governor David Paterson will be in favor of it:

Gov. David A. Paterson said Tuesday that he would consider offering state-owned property to the developers of a $100 million Muslim center and mosque if they decided to build it farther from ground zero.

The governor, wading into a fierce national debate over freedom of religion, said “there is no reason why” the center, known as Park51, should not be built as planned, two blocks from the former World Trade Center.

Well, let’s see. We have:

Appealing to the basest of bigoted demagogues.
Just how far from ground zero do you have to be?
Why is it OK for a strip club to be located less than a block away from the mosque sites.
This a blatantly unconstitutional engagement of religion by the government. It’s both a subsidy, and a ban based on a the religion of those involved.
OK, I’m a Jew, when does my shul get its free real estate on Manhattan?

Seriously, this guy almost makes McConnell and Boehner look good.

10 August 2010, 7:56 PM

The Federal Open Market Committee Released its Statement Today

They kept interest rates at effectively 0%, which is not a surprise.

What was a bit of a surprise, though they did telegraph is were the facts that their statement was significantly more downbeat, and they effectively put a halt to their gradual monetary tightening:

Federal Reserve officials made their first attempt to bolster the economy in more than a year, saying they will maintain their holdings of securities to stop money from draining out of the financial system.

The central bank will reinvest principal payments on mortgage assets it holds into long-term Treasuries after judging that “the pace of economic recovery is likely to be more modest in the near term than had been anticipated,” the Federal Open Market Committee said in a statement after meeting today in Washington.

So, as opposed to simply retiring their securities, they will roll them over, though I would differ with their characterization of 2-year treasuries are “long term”.

It’s a mild improvement on their earlier position of gradual tightening, but I’m with Paul Krugman:

I know: it’s a heck of a way to make policy. In a better world, the Fed would look at the state of the economy and do what was right, not the minimum necessary. But wishing for that kind of world is like wishing that Ben Bernanke were running the place.

Heh.

Krugman worked with Bernanke at Princeton, and because of this, he has been rather gentle with him, but I think that he is losing patience.

Full statement after break:

Press Release

Release Date: August 10, 2010

For immediate release

Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in June indicates that the pace of recovery in output and employment has slowed in recent months. Household spending is increasing gradually, but remains constrained by high unemployment, modest income growth, lower housing wealth, and tight credit. Business spending on equipment and software is rising; however, investment in nonresidential structures continues to be weak and employers remain reluctant to add to payrolls. Housing starts remain at a depressed level. Bank lending has continued to contract. Nonetheless, the Committee anticipates a gradual return to higher levels of resource utilization in a context of price stability, although the pace of economic recovery is likely to be more modest in the near term than had been anticipated.

Measures of underlying inflation have trended lower in recent quarters and, with substantial resource slack continuing to restrain cost pressures and longer-term inflation expectations stable, inflation is likely to be subdued for some time.

The Committee will maintain the target range for the federal funds rate at 0 to 1/4 percent and continues to anticipate that economic conditions, including low rates of resource utilization, subdued inflation trends, and stable inflation expectations, are likely to warrant exceptionally low levels of the federal funds rate for an extended period.

To help support the economic recovery in a context of price stability, the Committee will keep constant the Federal Reserve’s holdings of securities at their current level by reinvesting principal payments from agency debt and agency mortgage-backed securities in longer-term Treasury securities.¹ The Committee will continue to roll over the Federal Reserve’s holdings of Treasury securities as they mature.

The Committee will continue to monitor the economic outlook and financial developments and will employ its policy tools as necessary to promote economic recovery and price stability.

Voting for the FOMC monetary policy action were: Ben S. Bernanke, Chairman; William C. Dudley, Vice Chairman; James Bullard; Elizabeth A. Duke; Donald L. Kohn; Sandra Pianalto; Eric S. Rosengren; Daniel K. Tarullo; and Kevin M. Warsh.

Voting against the policy was Thomas M. Hoenig, who judges that the economy is recovering modestly, as projected. Accordingly, he believed that continuing to express the expectation of exceptionally low levels of the federal funds rate for an extended period was no longer warranted and limits the Committee’s ability to adjust policy when needed. In addition, given economic and financial conditions, Mr. Hoenig did not believe that keeping constant the size of the Federal Reserve’s holdings of longer-term securities at their current level was required to support a return to the Committee’s policy objectives.

1. The Open Market Desk will issue a technical note shortly after the statement providing operational details on how it will carry out these transactions. Return to text

10 August 2010, 7:41 PM

Ted Stephens is Dead

He died in a small plane crash in Alaska.

He was an SOB, and he reveled in it, though I think that he would argue that he was Alaska’s SOB.

My take on his career is that he was not a benefit to the United States, and at best mixed for Alaska, which he was largely responsible for making into a corrupt petro-state.

Additionally, I agree with Zachary Roth, that it is far too likely that we will see a full blown hagiography which ignores the fact that he was actually very corrupt, deriving significant personal benefit from his position, whether or not the government could have successfully retried him after he won a dismissal on prosecutorial misconduct.

9 August 2010, 10:19 PM

Your Moment of Eric Blair*

U.S. forces are staying in Iraq to prevent foreign powers from meddling with the new government Gen. Ray Odierno said Sunday.

Our occupation of Iraq will continue in order to prevent foreign interference in the ~~oil~~ nation.

Irony is dead.

^*George Orwell’s real name.

9 August 2010, 10:05 PM

How to Save the US Post Office

It turns out that the USPS makes much of its money from junk mail, and
Zac Bissonnette has a brilliant way to use this to make the big banks bankroll the Post Office, which is a good way to support Saturday service, and its flat rate for anywhere in the country:

Almost daily, I receive at least one pre-approved credit card offer from a big national bank that received bailout money from U.S. taxpayers. I hate big banks, and I hate bailouts, and I really hate it when my bailout money is used to send me junk mail I didn’t ask for and don’t want.

………

Instead, a grassroots bailout — this time, of the post office. This time, paid for by the bailed-out banks. We can do it. Here’s how: From now on, don’t just throw out those credit card offers. Instead, put the paperwork in the “postage will be paid by addressee” envelope (first removing anything with your name on it) and drop it back in the mailbox. You’ve just transferred the cost of mailing that letter from the not-so-needy Chase/Citi/Bank of America to the oh-so-needy USPS. Who needs Robin Hood when we have postage-paid envelopes?

The U.S. has 307 million people. If each person received an average of just one credit card offer a month (most adults get more than that, while children get none) and mailed it back to the bank without a signed application, at a cost to the bank of 44 cents postage, U.S. consumers could transfer $135 million a month from the banks to the Postal Service.

Truth be told, the net for the USPS is less than that, but it’s probably at least a dime, since much of what we pay is for maintaining the the postal infrastructure.

I’m not suggesting that you use it to send a brick, that would be abusive, but it is a good way to generate some additional revenue for your Postal Service.

It also has the advantage of raising the cost to junk mailers to sending you this crap, which might make them send you less crap.

9 August 2010, 9:51 PM

If They Believe It, It’s Wrong

Because they are always wrong about everything:

The U.S. economy will improve slowly and another round of fiscal stimulus probably wouldn’t be effective, former Treasury secretaries Paul O’Neill and Robert Rubin said.

Truth be told, I haven’t followed Paul O’Neill closely, but Bob Rubin should be on trial for a long history of fraud, and should not be taken seriously since he drove Citi into the ditch.

Mo stimulus, Mo stimulus, Mo stimulus!

Seriously, these guys are the Washington Generals of finance.

9 August 2010, 9:36 PM

Another Place Where Obama is Doubling Down on Bush Policies…

Education, where the Bush era assault on public schools and teachers unions continues apace, so despite the demonstrated fact that charter schools do not produce better results, and despite the fact that the focus on testing has produced widespread fraud, Obama is doubling down with privatizing education in the same way the Dick Cheney privatized core military functions.

What’s more, a former George H.W. Bush Assistant Secretary of Education, Diane Ravitch, is now denouncing these policies:

DIANE RAVITCH: Well, I think that what happened in New York City is—shows that the direction he’s taking is wrong, because everything he is proposing in Race to the Top and also in his blueprint will rely on exactly the kinds of methods that led to a massive fraud in New York state—that is, that Race to the Top is requiring states to judge teachers by the student test scores, and we now know, based on this immense fraud in the city and in the state of New York, that the test scores are not reliable. So teachers will be judged by unreliable data, and we’re going to dismantle the teaching profession in pursuit of this mechanical fix that won’t work.

If there is lower class of scum than the war profiteers like Halliburton, who profit off our wars, it’s the Education profiteers like the Edison schools, who profit off our children.

There might be an excuse if this crap worked, but it doesn’t, and since No Child Left Behind was implemented, the racial and economic gaps between children have widened, because the educational reform establishment believes that the only thing that needs to be done to fix schools is to f%$# teachers.

9 August 2010, 9:23 PM

Our Man in Afghanistan

Afghan President Hamid Karzai is attempting to seize control of the anti-corruption probes in Afghanistan (also here):

Obama administration officials fear that a move by Afghan President Hamid Karzai to assert control over U.S.-backed corruption investigations might provoke the biggest crisis in U.S.-Afghan relations since last year’s fraud-riddled election and could further threaten congressional approval of billions of dollars in pending aid.

I wonder why? It couldn’t be that anyone that he knows, or is close to him, is corrupt, could it?

For this puke, we lost 3 soldiers today.

9 August 2010, 8:24 PM

I Love General J. C. Christian*

He has come up with Burn the Confederate Flag Day, to be held on September 12:

Burn The Confederate Flag Day

Burn the Confederate Flag Day is a protest against the right’s exploitation of racial prejudice for political gain. We urge you to burn the Confederate flag, a long-time symbol of racial hatred, on Sept 12, the date when the racially-divisive Tea Party holds its annual hate fest.

Brilliant.

^*In a 110% purely heterosexual kind of way, of course, as the General would say.

9 August 2010, 7:52 PM

Naomi Campbell Should Go to Jail

I understand that she’s a model, and so I really don’t care all that much about her flirting with former Liberian dictator, and accused war criminal, Charles Taylor, and getting gifts, in this case blood diamonds, as a result.

That being said, she testified in front of the war crimes trial at the Hague about the diamonds, and what happened, and her former agent and actress Mia Farrow contradicted her on every point. (also here)

I’m sure that Ms. Campbell is embarrasses about (almost literally) playing footsie with a murderous dictator, but it’s clear that she is perjuring herself for no good reason.

9 August 2010, 7:28 PM

I Am Not a Finance Guy, But I Have Some Warning Signs………

And they are:

Opaque markets where ask and bid prices are not known by the participants.
Opaque financial instruments that seem to generate return and safety at the same time.
Minimal disclosures.
Promises from the sellers that they will take care of clients without regulation.

So we see all of this in so-called structured notes:

Wall Street banks are creating the “next investment bubble” by selling opaque and unregulated structured notes to investors hunting for yield, according to Christopher Whalen, managing director of Institutional Risk Analytics.

Using the same “loophole” that allowed over-the-counter sales of collateralized debt obligations and auction-rate securities, firms are pitching illiquid structured notes whose value is partly derived from bets on interest rates, Whalen wrote today in a report.

What’s even worse:

Individual investors, who “love the higher yields” on structured notes, will lose money when benchmark interest rates climb, according to Whalen.

“We already know of two hedge funds that are being established specifically to buy this crap from distressed retail investors as and when rates start to rise,” said Whalen, a former Federal Reserve Bank of New York official and co-founder of the Torrance, California-based research firm.

What this means is that when the economy starts to recover, and interest rates rise, we will see another bubble pop and push us down.

Lovely.

9 August 2010, 7:06 PM

Kidnapped, Made to Smoke a Bong, and Worship Aqua Buddha?

We have a report that as a some sort of twisted college prank, while an undergraduate at Baylor, Rand Paul and his friends kidnapped a coed, and then made her take bong hits worship “Aqua Buddha” in a stream.

This is whack, and I hope that Paul doesn’t do drugs any more, but it raises a question: If he was into this, why did he go to Baylor, where they ban premarital sex because it might lead to dancing.

This is a weird news day.

9 August 2010, 6:49 PM

Obama Consensus Building: The Incumbent Oligopolies Win, We Lose

Google and Verizon have released the details of their carve up the internet among the big players proposal:

Google Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. on Monday called for equal treatment of most Internet traffic while at the same time saying fast-growing cellular networks and yet-to-be-developed broadband services should be exempt from such restrictions.

Google and Verizon released a proposal arguing that broadband providers shouldn’t be able to discriminate against Internet content providers. Marcelo Prince and Amy Schatz discuss. Also, Dennis Berman discusses why bond investors are giving up on recovery and jobs.

The ideas outlined in the proposal put forth by the Internet search giant and one of the largest broadband providers stand in contrast to the Federal Communications Commission’s recent proposals on “net neutrality” rules, which would prevent companies from giving preferential handling to certain types of online traffic.

In Google’s case, the proposal’s endorsements of two-tier Internet service and a hands-off approach to cellular-based Web services represent a break with many other online companies, which have argued for strict neutrality in how Internet traffic is treated. Google itself previously expressed general support for rules prohibiting discrimination among forms of Web traffic.

This is a direct consequence of the tenor and approach of Barack Obama. It is clear that in internet access, the incumbents have taken billions of government subsidies, and used this money to cement their monopoly positions, rather than improvement access.

It’s why US internet performance and penetration^* is the worst in the developed world.

These are not people who you partner with to get the outcome you want, these are people you defeat to get the outcomes you want.

As to the long term consequences, I’ll go with what Atrios says:

I’m one who thinks that ultimately the forces of light will prevail and the repeated attempts to carve out internet walled gardens will, over the long run, fail as killing the internet would… kill the internet. But the long run is a long time and companies will likely screw and gouge us over the not very short run unless the FCC acts.

So not hopey changey, and as I have said before, this sort of craven acquiescence to the incumbent players who screwed everything in the first place appears to be a core philosophy of Barack Obama and His Clueless Minions^™, whether it be telecommunications, finance, healthcare, etc.

^*That sounds dirty, doesn’t it?

9 August 2010, 6:33 PM

This is Not The Onion

E=mc²: Could it be ………… Satan?

Andy Schlafley, daughter of noted wingnut Phyllis, has declared that Einstein’s theory of relativity is a liberal conspiracy:

The theory of relativity is a mathematical system that allows no exceptions. It is heavily promoted by liberals who like its encouragement of relativism and its tendency to mislead people in how they view the world.

……

See, e.g., historian Paul Johnson’s book about the 20th century, and the article written by liberal law professor Laurence Tribe as allegedly assisted by Barack Obama. Virtually no one who is taught and believes relativity continues to read the Bible, a book that outsells New York Times bestsellers by a hundred-fold

Seriously, you cannot make this sh$# up.

9 August 2010, 1:13 PM

I Would Never Endorse Computer Hacking…

But this bit of hacking is prize:

Somewhere in the world, someone must have woke up, went to his computer and thought to himself, “I’m going to hack Fox News today.” At least that’s how I imagine things started out today for the currently unnamed hacker who gained access to the Fox News online radio newscast dashboard.

He’s either got a lot of time on his hands, is incredibly skilled or received help from others. If you look at the above photo, you’ll see a screenshot of the Fox News Radio popup that you get when you try to listen live to the online newscast on http://radio.foxnews.com/. It says the title of the next radio program is. “Glenn Beck Raped And Murdered A Girl In 1990.” And there’s more.

The entire list of shows has been tampered with. Right now, the Fox News Radio popup shows that the next newscast is going to be “Naruto.” Everything on the list now is an anime of some sort.

I can’t approve the Anime bit, but this is prize.

H/t Vonbecks Temper

8 August 2010, 11:20 PM

Meteor AAM Video Pr0n

It highlights the better endgame kinematics and range available with a ramjet powered missile.

One of the things that surprises me is just how much smoke the initial booster puts out relative to the AMRAAM, which would increase launch platform visibility in visual range.

This implies to me that the European militaries planning to purchase this expect anticipate that its use in relative short range engagements, so I would expect that at least doctrinally, the minimum engagement distance for the missile would be a lot greater than that of the AMRAAM. (Reportedly 2km)

The music is a little bet better than most of these promotional videos:

8 August 2010, 6:05 PM

Another Solution to Limited Look Angles of AESA Radars

One solution, which I have posted about before, is the swash plate radar (also here), and the Russians are looking at mounting an AESA Radar on a conventional (though likely beefed up) radar actuators, and now we have radar mount that uses two oblique rotary bearings, rather like the 3 bearing nozzle on the STOVL version of the F-35 engine exhaust, to get off axis performance approaching that of conventional planar array radars.

One of the advantages appears to be that it avoids antenna polarization issues, and another advantage would be that conventional connectors for power, signal, and cooling could be used.

The original concept would have required slip rings and rotary fittings, which would likely have been maintenance headaches.