The judge set a Tuesday release date to allow an appeal to be filed on Monday:
A judge ruled Saturday that the Fairbanks North Star Borough must release personnel records of U.S. Senate candidate Joe Miller.
In an unusual weekend hearing, retired Superior Court Judge Winston Burbank ruled that the public’s right to know about candidates outweighed Miller’s right to privacy.
“I hold that although Mr. Miller has a legitimate expectation of privacy in those documents, Mr. Miller’s right to privacy is indeed outweighed by the public’s significant interest in the background of a public figure who is running for the U.S. Senate,” the judge said. He noted that U.S. senator is among the highest elected offices in the nation.
Burbank ordered that nothing actually will be released until Tuesday afternoon, however, to allow for the ruling to be appealed to the Alaska Supreme Court.
Mr. Miller has been fighting this kicking and screaming, which implies that this his personnel file is packed with lots crunchy goodness.
If this is true, I would think that an appeal by Mr. Miller is likely though. All he has to do is delay the ruling by 7-8 days, and it becomes moot.
My sense is that he was not a model employee, since we have heard whispers from both the City of Fairbanks, as well as his old law firm, that they were not sad to see him go.
*A borough in Alaska is roughly equivalent to a county.
Replacing the 138 F-35B STOVL with somewhere around 50 of the F-35C carrier variant.
The two carriers will be built, but one will not be fitted with catapults or arrestor gear, and so will never carry airplanes.
Scrapping the nearly new Sentinel surveillance aircraft as soon as they are back from Afghanistan.
Reduce MoD civilian staffing by 25,000 and military staffing by 17,000.
Canceling the late and over budget Nimprod MRA4.
Delaying a new SSBN.
Significant cuts to the surface fleet.
Speeding up the return of troops based in Germany
From a pure perspective of governance, you have to give the Tories props: When they said they would cut the budget, they applied this to the Ministry of Defence as well, which is, at least consistent.
Realistically, these cuts mean that, outside of low intensity UN peacekeeping missions, the British will be incapable of engaging in an operation independently of the US, but that has been the political reality since Suez in 1957 anyway.
The ‘special sauce” for this system is that the fire control system on the round can set the round to detonate at a specific distance, so you can set it to detonate past the cover an opponent is using for protection.
The example here is to put a round through a window, where it is set to detonate 2m beyond the building facade, which will certainly spoil that guy’s day.
This was intended to be used on the FCS-RMV in the full auto and remote controlled XM307 Advanced Crew Served Weapon where it would take the place of a crew served machine gun.
Truth be told, it strikes me as a little complex to function well in the confusion and grit and grime of battle, we should be hearing reports in the next few months.
*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.
Meanwhile, EADS is flight testing its X3 (I wonder where they got that name) compound helo, which uses dual wingtip props, and it provides anti-torque by varying the pitch of the thrusters.
It’s far less ambitious than that of the X-2, but their selling point is reduced life cycle cost, which is probably more a shot at the expensive tilt-rotors out there than the X-2 advancing blade concept, which really doesn’t seem particularly different in the amount of bits that move.
One interesting twist is that the X3 will slow its rotor at higher speed, reducing drag, though I could see this added to an advancing blade helicopter as well, particularly if the aircraft has a wing.
My quick look at the demonstrator indicates that it is not a particularly useful helicopter.
With two props about a yard from where the entrance to the passenger/cargo area is, both loading and unload, as well as the use of a winch for a rescue mission, would appear to me to be highly problematic.
Of course, the X3 is a demonstrator cobbled together with bits of various existing helicopters, so an operational version would likely address these shortcomings.
Sikorsky is also pitching a replacement for the OH-58D, theS-97 X2 Raider, which is rather similar to the MI-24 Hind or the Augusta/Westland Lynx concepts for an attack helicopter which retains transport capabilities or the ability to carry its own reloads.
*Not that I’d know what pr0n movies’ sound tracks actually sound like.† †Not that there is anything wrong with that.
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.
By way of perspective, the UK Budget in 2-7-2008 was about £520 billion, and the job losses would be equivalent to the loss of over 2½ million jobs in the US, and that is just the direct losses, when one considers the follow on effects, essentially the jobs that are held by people who provide goods and services to these public employees, are likely to be even larger.
If one assumes that the total job losses will be roughly double the civil service cuts, and this is a conservative estimate, with the UK’s workforce size of roughly 30 million, we would see at least a 3% increase in unemployment.
On the bright side, unlike their fellow wingnuts on this side of the Atlantic, they are also applying the cuts to their Defen(c)se establishment as well (more in a later post).
I think that Paul Krugman has a wonderful bit of snark on this, where he calls the people who will be hurt by this British Fashion Victims:
In the spring of 2010, fiscal austerity became fashionable. I use the term advisedly: the sudden consensus among Very Serious People that everyone must balance budgets now now now wasn’t based on any kind of careful analysis. It was more like a fad, something everyone professed to believe because that was what the in-crowd was saying.
And it’s a fad that has been fading lately, as evidence has accumulated that the lessons of the past remain relevant, that trying to balance budgets in the face of high unemployment and falling inflation is still a really bad idea. Most notably, the confidence fairy has been exposed as a myth. There have been widespread claims that deficit-cutting actually reduces unemployment because it reassures consumers and businesses; but multiple studies of historical record, including one by the International Monetary Fund, have shown that this claim has no basis in reality.
No widespread fad ever passes, however, without leaving some fashion victims in its wake. In this case, the victims are the people of Britain, who have the misfortune to be ruled by a government that took office at the height of the austerity fad and won’t admit that it was wrong.
I suggested that Rand Paul might be pushed into doing something stupid, but I missed an obvious point, one that Talking Points Memo‘s Josh Marshall got, which was that by making the attack, and by Paul responding with indignation, “How dare you,” rather than a strong denial and push-back, “My opponent is a liar,” he has shown himself to be weak, and the voters hate weakness.
Let’s call it the Republicans’ Bitch-Slap theory of electoral politics.
It goes something like this.
On one level, of course, the aim behind these attacks is to cast suspicion upon Kerry’s military service record and label him a liar. But that’s only part of what’s going on.
Consider for a moment what the big game is here. This is a battle between two candidates to demonstrate toughness on national security. Toughness is a unitary quality, really — a personal, characterological quality rather than one rooted in policy or divisible in any real way. So both sides are trying to prove to undecided voters either that they’re tougher than the other guy or at least tough enough for the job.
In a post-9/11 environment, obviously, this question of strength, toughness or resolve is particularly salient. That, of course, is why so much of this debate is about war and military service in the first place.
One way — perhaps the best way — to demonstrate someone’s lack of toughness or strength is to attack them and show they are either unwilling or unable to defend themselves — thus the rough slang I used above. And that I think is a big part of what is happening here. Someone who can’t or won’t defend themselves certainly isn’t someone you can depend upon to defend you.
Rand Paul was bitch slapped by Jack Conway, and now he’s acting like a bitch, not shaking hands and implying that he will skip the last debate.
…To say the least this is a chilling assault on free speech. The critical importance of honest journalism and a free flowing, respectful national conversation needs to be had in our country. But it is being buried as collateral damage in a war whose battles include political correctness and ideological orthodoxy.
Hint 1: If you think that you are entitled to be paid for spouting bigoted and stupid sh%$, you might be a wingnut.
This is evidence of one-party rule and one sided thinking at NPR that leads to enforced ideology, speech and writing. It leads to people, especially journalists, being sent to the gulag for raising the wrong questions and displaying independence of thought.
Hint number 2: If you think that people complaining about what you say is an assault on the 1st amendment on par with the Soviet political prison prison system, you might be a wingnut.
Well, this does explain his concealing his own issues when he vociferously attacked Anita Hill for her (not proven) allegations of sexual harassment while he was under suspicion for doing the same.
It also explains why he thought Michelle Obama’s work on organic food and nutrition somehow showed that she was, “Stokely Carmichael in a designer dress.”
For nearly two decades, Lillian McEwen has been silent — a part of history, yet absent from it.
When Anita Hill accused Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment during his explosive 1991 Supreme Court confirmation hearing, Thomas vehemently denied the allegations and his handlers cited his steady relationship with another woman in an effort to deflect Hill’s allegations.
Lillian McEwen was that woman.
……
She has written a memoir, which she is now shopping to publishers. News broke that the justice’s wife, Virginia Thomas, left a voice mail on Hill’s office phone at Brandeis University, seeking an apology — a request that Hill declined in a statement. After that, McEwen changed her mind and decided to talk about her relationship with Thomas.
……
However bizarre they may seem, McEwen’s recollections resemble accounts shared by other women that swirled around the Thomas confirmation.
……
“I have no hostility toward him,” McEwen said. “It is just that he has manufactured a different reality over time. That’s the problem that he has.”
(emphasis mine)
Gee, Ginny, not turning out the way that you wanted it.
I think that I get it: She is raking in big bucks as a teabagger AstroTurfer, and she suddenly thought that she could alter reality with her new successes.
Reality has a way of not cooperating.
The fact that Clarence Thomas perjured himself 19 years ago is moot.
While Congress could impeach over this, they have done so over charges which have resulted in acquittals, they won’t.
It is an important thing to remember though: Republican court nominations lie when questioned, and Democrats should treat them has hostile witnesses in hearings.
The Obama Administration is entirely predictable. It ever and always sides with large corporate interests, while trying to create the impression that it is actually concerned for the welfare of the average citizen. Admittedly, the occasionally tough talk with little follow through feeds a perverse spectacle of plutocrats sulking, pouting, and claiming that they are really, really badly treated.
……
There are so many people on the internet who write, and think, gooder than I do.
My only addition on this is her there are limits to looting without productive activity, and when we run down that string, things will get very ugly very quickly.
Maryland has a week of early voting, and since I will not be in town on Nov 2, I voted.
I voted straight Democratic Party, except for Barbara Milulski, because of her vote on the telecom immunity bill. I wrote in my Congressman, John Cardin (D).
As to various constitutional amendments, state and county:
I voted no on question 1, which would have required a constitutional convention every 20 years. This is a recipe for mischief and mayhem.
I voted no on question 2, which would have raised the bar for a jury in a civil trial from $10,000 to 15,000.
Voted against requiring that Orphans’ Court judges be members of the Maryland Bar. It’s a lay court, and has been for over 200 years, and the Maryland Bar is a private organization, and I do not believe that a private organization, particularly one as insular and secretive as the Bar should determine this.
As a corollary, I oppose the use of private bars for licensing of lawyers period. It should be public.
The county wants to change its charter to force binding arbitration and a no strike clause on its workers. I voted no. (It will probably win though, since arbitration sounds fair, and the no strike section is at the end, where people will not see it)
I mean, look, Bill, I’m not a bigot. You know the kind of books I’ve written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.
It’s actually more than that, because while this seems to be an admission that is an admission that he will sometimes judge people by color of their skin rather than by the content of their character, it actually followed a bigoted rant by Long Island Klansman Bill O’Reilly about the “Muslim dilemma”.*
So it was not just an admission of personal weakness, it is an active endorsement of O’Reilly’s bigoted screed.
His explicit endorsement of bigotry is not surprising. He is Fox News’ “House Slave,” to quote Harry Belafonte, and he has his tongue so far up Billo’s ass that he is tasting tonsils.
He was on the Long Island Klansman’s (O’Reilly), and Billo had been launching into his bigoted screeds. and his seemingly mild statement validated those screeds.
I think that context and venue matter. This was not Nightline, or Jon Stewart. This was Bill O’Reilly, and fellow hater Mary Katherine Ham, in a full blown hate-fest, and they Williams basically said that it was OK.
As to the effect on NPR, I think that his leaving will be good for the network.
Williams has always been a hack, and a stupid one at that, as his truly pitiful tenure as Talk of the Nation host showed.
He has been coasting on his work writing the companion book to the PBS documentary Eyes on the Prize for decades.
Additionally, he has always been ethically challenged. During the Clarence Thomas Supreme Court nomination hearings, he was a vociferous defender of Clarence Thomas during his Supreme Court nomination hearings, but he neglected to disclose that he himself was the subject of credible allegations of sexual harassment of a subordinate the Washington Post.
I do find the fact that we now have two echos of Clarence Thomas’s sexual harassment and perjury in the same week rather odd. Synchronicity, neh?
I’m so glad that I won’t have to listen to him any more. Hopefully they can send Cokie Roberts away too.
* Which has eerie echos of people 70 years ago talking about the “Jewish Problem.”
That harassing phone call to Anita Hill is