Month: August 2010

I Place This Up There With Soviet Super-Chopper Claims

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Skylon is claiming that it will have its liquid air engine ready for test in 3-4 years.

Considering the fact that it’s really being run on a shoe string, I simply do not find this a credible timeline.

Additionally (top video) it’s reentry profile appears to be problematic to me. The knife edge canard appears to be in a weak shock on reentry, which means that the surface temperature would much higher than in something like a space capsule, or the relatively blunt edged shuttle wing leading edges, where much of the heating occurs in a strong shock that is some distance from in front of any structures, but I am not an aerodynamicist.

If you look at the bottom video, from a couple of years ago, where Richard Varvill, Technical Director of Reaction Engines Limited talks about a 12+ year development cycle with a demonstration of the heat exchangers in 3 years, that sounds rather more realistic.

The bottom vid is also a nice primer on the basic operation of the Sabre engine.

My earlier post on the vehicle and engine.

The Cat Food Commission* is At It Again

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Well, we already know that the Republicans on Obama’s “Deficit Reduction Commission” are marching lock-step against any meaningful tax increases, and now we know that when push comes to shove, they will cut military pay and benefits over any sort of sanity in weapons systems procurement:

A source familiar with the proceedings of the working group on discretionary spending tells TPM that some commissioners, including one military contractor, would prefer to save money by freezing military pay and scaling back benefits, rather than by eliminating waste in defense contracting.

……

According to the source, [Honeywell CEO David] Cote and other members, including the commission’s co-chair Alan Simpson, are focusing instead on “freezing military pay, making military people pay for their health care.”

Because that waste is what this “military contractor” calls his “annual bonus.”

It’s all about someone else taking the hit on this.

On the brighter side, this makes any adoption of any proposals from Cat Food Commission* that much less likely to be adopted, because this is a completely clueless move.

I would also note that the uniformed military personnel levels are near a post WWII low, so the reason that the budget is exploding is not that we have 8 million active duty servicemen.

One wonders though, who is leaking all of this to Brian Beutler, and why are they doing so?

*In the interest of health, I would suggest that people eat dog food, and not cat food. Cats because they are one of the few true carnivores, do not need the complex carbohydrates and fats that people, and dogs do. As such, dog food is better for you than cat food because it provides carbs and essential fatty acids. A dog can go blind if it is fed on cat food, but a cat lives just fine on dog food. The phenomenon is known as rabbit starvation.

Dutch Defer JSF Decision Again

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It looks like they might buy a 2nd test aircraft, in order to preserve some workshare for Dutch firms, but that it’s unlikely that they will sign a deal for a production run at this time.

Not surprising, they are undergoing austerity cuts to meet Euro zone budget guidelines, cutting, “education, healthcare and social security spending,” so why purchase an aircraft that costs (at least) 5 times as much as the F-15, and costs (at least) twice as much to operate?

H/t ELP Defens(c)e Blog:

No, And What Is He Smoking?

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James Pethokoukis, whose work I have not followed, but appears to have a fair amount of respect from the blogs that I read, is reporting that a number of sources in the Obama administration saying that the GSEs (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac), will, at taxpayer expense, engage in a massive program of principal reduction to underwater homeowners:

Main Street may be about to get its own gigantic bailout. Rumors are running wild from Washington to Wall Street that the Obama administration is about to order government-controlled lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to forgive a portion of the mortgage debt of millions of Americans who owe more than what their homes are worth. ……

The motivation, apparently, is electoral politics:

The move, if it happens, would be a stunning political and economic bombshell less than 100 days before a midterm election in which Democrats are currently expected to suffer massive, if not historic losses. The key date to watch is August 17 when the Treasury Department holds a much-hyped meeting on the future of Fannie and Freddie. …

If you go to the article, and I suggest that you do, because I am just relying on my gut, you also see that investment bankers are talking to their clients to insurance themselves against such a possibility.

I take the statements of investment bankers with a grain of salt. Their job is to make people buy and sell securities, since they profit each time.

That being said, here is my take:

  • HAMP is an abject failure, because, once again, Barack Obama, as well as Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dumber (Geithner and Summers) decided that banks were their “partners”, and they just needed some incentives and no oversight.
    • Additionally, the abject failure of HAMP is not beginning to hit the news, which might lead to damage control.
  • Obama is concerned about losses in November.
  • Notwithstanding what the teabaggers say, Obama is NOT a socialist, he is very much a corporatist, and the idea of this sort of massive government bailout to ordinary people is an anathema to him. He honestly does not want the government to be that activist.
  • Obama is, and remains, terrified of Republican accusations of socialism.

So, it ain’t gonna happen. We may see something to fix HAMP, my suggestion would be bankers arrested and made to do the perp walk, but it will be something relatively minor.

Devaluing the dollar, as Roosevelt did, or massive debt forgiveness is simply not in the cards.

Heck, he can’t even bring himself to bring back bankruptcy cramdown for home mortgages.

What a Remarkably Unambitious Goal

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After much study, the Congressionally mandated to review the Pentagon’s Quadrennial Defense Review has determined that it takes too long to develop and deploy new weaopons, and so there should be a 7 year limit to developing weapons systems:

To avoid this problem in the future, Perry and co-chair Steven Hadley want defense contractors to be held to a tight five to seven year development phase. “Past experience indicates that, with proper management authority and accountability, it is possible to deliver relevant military capabilities for current operations in weeks and months, and to deliver longer-term and broader increments of military capability in 5 to 7 years,” noted the pair in the report. “The 5- to 7-year time span is consistent with the march of technology, changes in the operational environment, and changes in operational needs to shape and respond to that environment.”

Sorry, but that is at least twice as long as it should be.

This is a remarkably timid conclusion, kind of like saying that you should not exceed 70 mph in a school zone.

US Aerospace/Antonov Out of KCX Competition

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Rather unsurprisingly, they missed the deadline, which is not surprising, since they seemed not ready for prime time.

Equally unsurprising is the fact that they have filed a protest with the GAO.

The cynic in me wonders if that was not the intention the whole time, to kinda file, and then use a GEO protest as a way to generate some ransom money.

Then again, now that the details have come out, the messenger showed up at the gate at 1:30, was delayed there, and then given bad directions by the gate guards, resulting in a 2:05 stamp, 5 minutes late, perhaps it is incompetence, or maybe the USAF had enough of this crap, and decided to play some hardball as US Aerospace claims.

Pass the popcorn.

You might as well watch. Your tax dollars are paying for this.

The Trippiest Russian Military Demonstrations Ever

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Them Russkies Know How to Drive a Tank


Seeing a tank do motocross jumps is almost as weird as the guys with the flaming helmets

Courtesy of Danger Room.

I do have a couple of geek notes about these displays:

First, look at the main gun: They have a larger bore (125 mm vs 120 mm in the west) and a longer length, which implies to me that, probably for metallurgical issues related to wear, they operate at a lower pressure than the western (German) guns, and make up for it with barrel length and bore diameter.

Also, Russian tank suspension ant track designers take a back seat to no one.

I half expected one of the tanks to throw a track.

Finally, is it just me, or did the tanks curtsy at the end of the top video?

Israel’s Iron Dome Completes Testing

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Click for full size


Launcher

Israel has completed tests on its Iron Dome defense system, successfully intercepting rockets and mortar targets:

Iron Dome is developed and produced by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems. During the final testS in Southern Israel, Iron Dome successfully engaged salvos of live rockets and mortar shells. With participation of teams from the IAF Iron Dome air defense battalion, the system repeatedly engaged rocket salvos and mortar shells in increasingly complex scenarios.

The system demonstrated effective detection and intercept of targets above and below cloud cover, while maintaining “keep-out zones” for integration with air traffic over the protected area. Iron Dome detected, tracked and selectively engaged only those targets presenting a threat to the area being protected. This feature – unique to the Israeli active defense system – is attributed to the multimode radar (MMR) and battle management and weapon control (BMC) system developed specially for the Iron Dome.

Obviously the first two locations for deployment would be on the Gaza border, near Sderot, and the Lebanese border.

Then again, it may not be deployed, because it is so damn expensive:

Yet, the IDF is reluctant to buy it, grumbling over the cost of each Iron Dome intercept, estimated at nearly $50,000, compared to the estimated $500 cost of a Palestinian rocket. Press reports put Iron Dome development costs at $250 million, with each battery costing about $50 million.

Truth be told, I think that the number for a Katyusha or Kassam is a bit high, and the mortar round is probably under %59.

There are also rumors that the system was actually developed for export to Singapore, with defense to be conducted by installations of land based Phalanx Gatling guns. (See also here for more on export customers, as well as a potential co-installation with Spike-NLOS SSMs, which I assume are for counter-battery fire)

Once again, we have missile defense running into a very simple brick wall: It’s something on the order of 100 times more expensive than the threat it is intercepting.

It’s Bank Failure Friday!!!!

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And here they are, ordered, and numbered for the year so far.

  1. Ravenswood Bank, Chicago, IL

Full FDIC list

So it is a slow Friday for bank closings, but the credit union closings mostly make up for that:

  1. Norbel Credit Union, Fort Collins, CO
  2. Certified Federal Credit Union, Commerce, CA
  3. Kappa Alpha Psi, Addison, TX

The NCUA has been busy over the past week.

Full NCUA list

So, here is the graph pr0n with trendline (FDIC only):

I would note that are now at the point where the utility of the least squares trendline is diminishing, but I’m keeping it here for historical purposes.

The NFP is Out

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And Non-Farm Payroll fell by 131,000 last month, though that is because the US Census cut 143,000 temp jobs.

In the private sector, the seasonally adjusted private payrolls rose 71,000, less than the predicted 90K, and well under the 125-150K necessary to keep up with workforce growth.

Additionally, the May and June numbers were revised down by about 97K.

Why people aren’t running around with their hair on fire about this, I simply do not understand.

Funeral for a Friend

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Click for full size


The Truck is Here


It Hooks Up


It’s Pulls It Up


Ready to Roll to the Bone Yard

Play It Off, Elton

As I mentioned a month and half ago, my wife’s Honda Odyssey died, and we got a new car.

Well, we finally completed arrangements, and donated the car to Kars4Kids, and they picked up the car, a 1994 Honda Odyssey.

If I recall correctly, we picked it up in 1998, used, and when it breathed its last, it had 262,930 miles, so it was not a bad run.

I’m glad that this is finally over and done with, but there is a bit of melencholy associsted with the event.

In any case, scroll down for your dose of Elton John.

Why Yes, The Obama Administration is Paying to Offshore Your Job

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It’s called the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO),and USAID is spending $30 million dollars to train workers in Sri Lanka in order to outsource IT jobs from the United States:

Under director Rajiv Shah [an Obama political appointee], the United States Agency for International Development will partner with private outsourcers in Sri Lanka to teach workers there advanced IT skills like Enterprise Java (Java EE) programming, as well as skills in business process outsourcing and call center support. USAID will also help the trainees brush up on their English language proficiency.

USAID is contributing about $10 million to the effort, while its private partners are investing roughly $26 million.

“To help fill workforce gaps in BPO and IT, USAID is teaming up with leading BPO and IT/English language training companies to establish professional IT and English skills development training centers,” the U.S. Embassy in Colombo, Sri Lanka, said in a statement posted Friday on its Web site.

“Courses in Business Process Outsourcing, Enterprise Java, and English Language Skills will be offered at no charge to over 3,000 under- and unemployed students who will then participate in on-the-job training schemes with private firms,” the embassy said.

Oh, I forgot to add, they are also doing this in Armenia.

I don’t think that Barack Obama really wants to send your jobs overseas, but I do think that there are people in his administration are “strongly free trade” and they think that being “strongly free trade” means that agencies of the US government have an obligation to move jobs out of the country in this manner, on the theory that one day, eventually, these countries will develop a middle class that will buy the sh%$ that we make.

Still, if this is not on the front page of some right wing blogger in the next 3 days, I would be very surprised.

It betrays a level of political incompetence and arrogance that positively boggles the mind.

I’m going to check and see if it is on Slashdot, and if not, I’ll do some blog whoring with the story.

Clovis’s Lobotomy Scar! What the F%$#?

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Remember when I posted about Barry Ritholtz’s masterful take-down of the ongoing scam that is the Glen Beck Goldline scam?

What? You don’t?

Look at my last post, including the informative graphic.

That’s it, just scroll down a bit……Do you see it not?……Good!

Now, look to your left, where the tall banner ad is.

What do you see? Why it’s an ad from the scamming pig-felching rat bastards at Goldline!

If you don’t see it, here is the add, with the phone number obscured.

You see, Google™ Adsense™ is at it again.

I’m beginning to think that they don’t use computers, but instead they use trained monkeys to determine which ads to serve!

If they aren’t serving scammers, or right wingers like Fred Thompson pitching extension of the Bush Tax cuts, then they are pitching spammers like Constant Contact.

Unfortunately, I am way too small a fish to attract anyone else…………I dream of the day when I qualify for Blogads.

<Banghead>………</Banghead>

Again, as always, please note: once again, that I do not vet, nor do I endorse any ad that appears on my site, and I reserve the right to mock both the ads that appear on my site, as well as the advertisers.

Also, please note, this should be in no way construed as an inducement or a request for my reader(s) to click on any ad that they would not otherwise be inclined to investigate further. This would be a violation of the terms of service for Google™ Adsense™.