H/t Maneggs
Year: 2010
It’s Put Up or Shut Up for Barack Obama
David Bahati, author of the Ugandan “Kill the Gays” bill, and Ugandan Ethics and Integrity Minister James Nsaba Buturo are expected to come to the United States to attend the National Prayer Breakfast.
Let’s be clear: These people are proposing genocide against gays in Uganda.
They should not be granted a visa.
If Barack Obama does not want a diplomatic dispute over this, I think that he is wrong, but he then has another option: Be the first President since Dwight Eisenhower not to attend the breakfast, saying that he will not break bread with them.
If he does neither, he is immoral, and he is a coward, and he does not deserve the public trust.
It is possible that Obama will take steps to prevent this, such as pressuring “The Family”, the secretive Christo-Fascist group that has organized the prayer breakfasts, to dis-invite them.
But if he sits down to break bread with people who are this deeply evil, he is giving his personal imprimatur to genocide, and anyone who supports gay rights should not support him.
Stephen Colbert is a F%$#ing Genius
He explains why we need to pay the banks, but the banks don’t owe us sh$#:
Missile Defense Agency Looks to Liquid Fuel for Land Based Standard Interceptor
Because the MDA is looking at ground basing, where the interceptor does not face the naval prohibition against hypergolic (liquid propellants that ignite spontaneously in each others presence) propellants, they are looking to integrate liquid propellant into the next generation kill vehicle. (paid subscription required)
Because the motor is completely throttlable, it allows for extended range, since the vehicle can coast and reignite the motor for terminal maneuvers, and it can perform more effectively at shorter ranges, because it can have a higher thrust for a shorter flight.
The downside is cost, complexity, and issues with storing the fueled missiles and propellants.
China Makes Missile Defense Test
China recently claimed to have successfully tested a mid-course ballistic missile defense system. (also here)
There are also murmurs of a sea based variant. (scroll down)
This raises a number of questions, most notably how the PLA defines “success”, my guess is that this means the interceptor passed within lethal distance of the target.
The technology could be hit to kill, but given the fact that the Chinese have successfully miniaturized nuclear warheads, my guess would be that it would armed with a nuclear warhead, either a sub kiloton neutron warhead, as was used in the Sprint, or a larger warhead as used on the Spartan (it was a 5 mt W71) that kills thermally, but I’m pulling these guesses out of my head, and they should be considered in no way authoritative.
Nuclear warheads make targeting easier, you do not have to get a as close, or pass off to a terminal seeker as you do in hit to kill, and they eliminate many of the problems with decoys, since they get everything within a fairly large radius, making decoys moot.
Moscow Russians Working on a Next Generation Bomber in 2025-2030 Time Frame
Unlike some of the other Russian programs (*cough* PAK-FA *cough*) which seem to have overly aggressive time frames, this program has a realistic time frame, and the technical requirements are rather modest (paid subscription required) :
“At the end of the first stage, we selected four options [for the future bomber] out of an initial 47 for further consideration and analysis,” [head of the Special Aircraft Division, Alexander] Bobryshev said during a Dec. 23 meeting with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Bobryshev committed to the design being completed in 2011-12, with development of the aircraft to be finished by 2017. Funding needs were not disclosed.
[Strategic aviation commander Maj. Gen. Anatoly] Zhikharev says the new bomber will be low-observable, using advanced materials and other technologies. However, he notes that it cannot be made “invisible,” signaling Russia will not pursue the all-aspect, multi-signature stealth performance the U.S. is considering for its next-generation bomber project.
Part of this is, I think, the understanding that if they were to go up against a highly integrated ground bases air defense system, it would be based on their technology, where they would have intimate knowledge of the technology and capabilities, as NATO relies more heavily on aircraft for this sort of defense.
Additionally, they are no doubt aware how expensive the full up stealth is, and they know how improvements in processing and the combination of signals from various sensors have the promise of negating stealth to a significant degree in the next few years.
Also, the Russians do not have the need for the extremely long range power projection capabilities that the US does. They are primarily concerned about their “near abroad”, basically former Soviet Republics and Warsaw Pact nations, with a special focus on Georgia and Ukraine, where NATO membership is unlikely in the foreseeable future.
Weird
I was going through the job boards, and came across an opening for an engineer for a non-line of sight weapons system to go on the US Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) outside of DC.
Since it’s rather similar to work that I have done on the Future Combat Systems (FCS), I clicked through to apply, and it takes me to the jobs page of Ukpeaġvik Iñupiat Corporation.
So, I’m looking at the name, and saying, “Gee, it sounds like Inuit,” so after I fill out the application, I click the “about us” page, and get:
Ukpeaġvik Iñupiat Corporation (UIC) is headquartered out of Barrow, Alaska – the northernmost point of North America. Barrow is home to more than 4500 people, a majority of which are Iñupiat Eskimos.
As an Alaska Native Corporation, UIC provides social and economic resources to its 2,100 shareholders, and their descendents, who primarily reside in Barrow, Alaska. UIC is ranked 8th among Alaska Business Monthly’s 2008 survey of Alaskan-owned companies. UIC employs over 1,400 people worldwide, with over 750 in Alaska.
My first thought was, “How Odd.”
My 2nd thought was, “Was dad involved in some level in the early days of this corporation,” as he was on Governor Bill Egan’s cabinet as director of planning, but he said that the native corporations were created with the money from the oil revenues, which started to flow in after we left the state.
Still it’s kind of strange how these things tie together.
Japan Developing Supersonic Anti-Ship Missile
Click for full size
A translation from the Japanese would be appreciated
French ASMP from Wiki
The missile is supposed to have a 200 km range and supersonic speed.
Looks like the French ASMP, which has a similar range, and a Mach 3 speed at altitude, and Mach 2 down low, so my guess would be similar performance, though it appears to have a solid fuel, rather than a liquid fuel ramjet motor.
I have no clue as to what the blue windows are.
LCS 2 Marketing Video Pr0N
Meh….What’s more, the driving guitar line sounds like something that a 60 year old ad man came up with because he thought it sounded like heavy metal.
Jon Stewart is a F%$#ing Genius
Banker bonuses:
H/t Calculated Risk.
A Loophole in the Bribery Statutes
So, Chris Dodd, after a disastrous run for the Presidency, and 2 banking scandals, one of which was created by Tim Geithner, acknowledged reality, and announced that he was not running for reelection.
The question would then be how would this change his positions on banking reform?
One possibility is that, no longer needing the campaign donations, he would get harder on banks, and the other would be that he would go easier on banks, because he would be looking for post-Senate employment.
Well, we have our answer, and it’s the latter.
The murmurs are that Dodd is looking at dropping an independent consumer financial protection agency entirely from the Senate banking reform bill the excuse is that he is looking for bipartisan support, but the fact is that anything that republicans will support will be completely toothless.
This isn’t just a “rearranging deck chairs” thing. If the agency is not independent, then it will be attached to another agency, most likely Treasury, which is largely an arm of the banks by design, and they will have no control over the budget and personnel requests.
So, Chris Dodd is well on his way to getting a high paying gig with a bank, or a law firm for the banks.
It’s depressing. He was my 1st or 2nd choice in the 2008 primaries, but much like Edwards, it appears that he has feet of clay.
Here’s a Shocker
Monsanto’s genetically modified corn has been linked to organ damage:
In a study released by the International Journal of Biological Sciences, analyzing the effects of genetically modified foods on mammalian health, researchers found that agricultural giant Monsanto’s GM corn is linked to organ damage in rats.
When you give enormous guaranteed monopoly profits by allowing the patenting of genes and species, those profits guarantee that safety is a secondary concern.
Quote of the Day
It’s from the “about” section of a blog called Paul Kedrosky’s Infectious Greed:
Even further back in time, Dr. Kedrosky was one of the first technology equity analysts at a major brokerage firm. Back before there were such things as credit default swaps, collateralized debt obligations, and subprime mortgages, we vandalism-loving greed-heads on Wall Street were forced to take down capitalism the hard way — by selling over-valued technology companies to an unsuspecting public via initial public offerings. While it eventually worked out (c.f., the tech crash of 2000), the next generation of Wall Street-ers learned from our inefficiency and took down the global money grid in half the time it took us to mess up Nasdaq. Lesson learned.
Needless to say, I put him in my feed reader.
H/t The Big Picture for the catch.
Quote of the Day
Courtesy of Stephen Colbert, but Colbert the person, not the character that he plays on his show.
He was at a reunion of Second City comedians, and they had a panel on comedy and politics:
As for Glenn Beck, the panel discussed the challenge of maintaining a separation between reality and satire when so many TV pundits are simply, premeditatedly over-the-top.
“I said, ‘Let’s start doing some Glenn Beck stuff but in praise of Glenn Beck,'” said Colbert. “But every time we do one, he will have done something dumber. He raised the stupid bar and now it’s nearly inapproachable.”
(emphasis mine)
Another Report on How We are Destroying Ourselves-
It appears that methane is leaking from the arctic permafrost at rapidly accelerating rates, and methane is a significant contributor to the greenhouse effect.
Of course, it also includes one of my pet peeves:
The discovery follows a string of reports from the region in recent years that previously frozen boggy soils are melting and releasing methane in greater quantities. Such Arctic soils currently lock away billions of tonnes of methane, a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, leading some scientists to describe melting permafrost as a ticking time bomb that could overwhelm efforts to tackle climate change.
(emphasis mine)
Frequently, you have people saying that methane is 20 times more effective at trapping greenhouse gasses than CO2, and while technically true, it leaves out an important fact, that methane’s persistence is far less than that of CO2.
Methane, CH4, has a molecular weight of 16, far less than that of the atmosphere, roughly 30, so it tends to migrate towards the upper atmosphere, where ultra-violet light breaks it down.
Here is the equation:
CH4 + 2O2 ⇒ CO2 +2H2O
Methane’s persistence is far less than CO2, on the order of a 1-2 decades, as opposed to the centuries for a CO2 molecule, which needs to go through the Byzantinely complex biochemistry that is photosynthesis.
So, basically, methane is something on the order of 10% worse, a short period in which that carbon atom part of a methane molecule, followed by a longer period in which it is CO2.
Global warming is real, and methane is an issue, though it is one roughly the same as CO2. There really isn’t a need to go all “20 times” (2nd link) do describe the issue. It is imprecise and disingenuous.
Our planet is going to hell in a hand-basket in either case.
Spot the Cancer Victim
High heels and Bathing Suits? WTF?*Actually, it’s a trick question, neither of the women have had cancer, they were just two contestants on the British reality show Make Me a Supermodel.
Guess which one the judges preferred?
Yes, they preferred the one on the right, Marianne Berglund, while the viewers preferred the 5’11” 154 pound Jen Hunter, who won the show, but then could only find employment with a “plus size” model agency.
As an FYI, their relative body mass indices (BMI) were 16.5, well into emaciated, and 21.5, slightly below the 21.75 mid point of the 18.5-24.9 normal index.
It should be noted that during the show, Hunter was rididuled by the judges for her being “too fat:
During its five-week run, Make Me a Supermodel provoked fury from health experts after Ms Hunter, a size 12, was repeatedly attacked, and reduced to tears, by judges who accused her of being too fat. But the last laugh belonged to the British public, who voted in their tens of thousands for her to be their female winner.
Jen hunter nails it when she says, “People need to realise that to be beautiful doesn’t mean you have to be the size of a 13-year-old boy.”
The problem is that for many years, a lot of designers have seen “13-year old boys” as their aesthetic ideals, and it permeates the media.
One final note, send the woman on the right a cheesecake.
*But that’s another rant.
My Sister In Law Just Died
My brother Dan’s wife, Denise.
Perspective on the Late Night Kerfuffle
Craig Ferguson on the late night shenanigans at NBC, and on Haiti, and on Rush Limbaugh’s drug driven paranoid delusions. (3:37)
Brilliant!
JAGM Video Pr0n
Intended as a replacement for the Hellfire, Maverick, and TOW missiles.
I’m still a bit dubious of replacing the Maverick with the missile, seeing as how the warhead for the Maverick is heavier than the whole JAGM, and so I cannot see how the JAGM won’t be at a disadvantage against fortifications and military naval vessels (i.e. bigger than drug-runner’s speed boats).
10%?
That is the current charge-off rate for Capital One US Credit Cards.
This means that today, with no sign of unemployment abating, over 10% of their debt portfolio is deemed to be uncollectable:
Capital One Financial Corp’s U.S. credit-card charge-offs rose to double digits in December, showing consumers became increasingly stressed in the holiday shopping month.
In a regulatory filing on Friday, Capital One said the annualized net charge-off rate — debts the company believes it will never collect — for U.S. credit cards rose to 10.14 percent in December from 9.60 percent in November.
I used to think that the banks couldn’t lose money when they paid 3% on savings accounts and got 18% on credit cards, but now that it’s 1½% and 28%, it looks like they are going under.
To quote The Hunt for Red October, “You arrogant ass. You’ve killed us! “