They claim that they made the donations because that Emmer is “Business Friendly.”
It ain’t friendly to my business, which I will take elsewhere until they make an abject groveling apology.
Year: 2010
Signs of the Apocalypse, Republican Tax Cuts Edition
Who is the latest economics notable criticizing the Republican desire for never ending tax cuts?
Why it’s 1980s wunderkind David Stockman, who was Ronald Reagan’s director of the Office of Management and Budget.
Not only does he excoriate supply side, “Tax Cuts Pay for Themselves,” mentality, he lays the financial crisis at the feet of these policies.
We are living in Bizarro world when David Stockman is the voice of reason.
Economics Data Points for Last Week
So, GDP growth has fallen sharply, down to a 2.4% annual rate in the 2nd quarter, as compared to the anemic-for-a-meaningful-recovery 3.7% in the 1st quarter, which appears to indicate that the recovery is running out of steam.
What’s more, the base number is overly rosy to begin with, since it is driven by inventory restocking from industries that had drawn down to the bone, home builders rushing to beat the tax credit deadline, and a significant increase in government spending.
Consumer spending rose by only a 1.6% annual rate.
What’s more, initial unemployment claims remained above 450,000, at least 50K above a tepid recovery in employment.
I’m beginning to agree with Mohamed El-Erian of PIMCO, who says that employment has become a leading indicator, since it drives consumer spending.
Fun at Garage Sales
Charlie already has a snare drum and a glockenspiel, and today, when we were driving home, we passed a garage sale that had a nearly complete drum set, a bass drum, and 3 different sized tom-toms, and associated mounting hardware, at about 1/3 of their normal price.
We need to get a bass drum pedal, and a high hats, and some cymbals (crash, ride, and splash).
He’s already demonstrated the ability to use the drums in a Rock & Roll setting, he and his sister Natalie spent the past three weeks at Day Jams, a Rock and Roll day camp, so he’ll be able to practice his skills.*
He’s well on his way to be a heavy metal hebe.
We have videos from the concerts, and I will be posting them shortly.
Both of the kids were both very good.
*Yes, the idea of a child practicing drums does fill me with a bit of trepidation.
Goldman S@#54
We live in Bizarro World
Jon Stewart asks a question, “What is the appropriate response for a company that is selling its customers a sh%$ty deals, being caught on email calling them sh%$ty deals, and then being forced to pay a $550 million fine?”
Well if you are Goldman Sachs, the response is to ban profanity in employee email.
<Facepalm>
What a Repulsive Capitulation to the Forces of Bigotry and Evil
The Anti-Defamation League has, over the past few years, attempted to forge ties with the Christian Right, because they are perceived as “Pro-Israel.”
It should be noted that the fundamentalist Christian definition of supporting Israel means that they want Jews to be around to die horribly and painfully during the Armageddon that follows the rapture, which is a different definition of being “Pro-Israel” than I was previously aware of.
Well the latest big of demagoguery coming from our Christo-Fascist friends is their Jihad against an Islamic center being built in lower Manhattan, largely because they think that this is an act of bigotry that can play well for them politically.
In response, to these contemptible proclamations from Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, and the rest of the merry band of bigots, the ADL has come out against the complex with a bizarre statement saying that the people screaming are bigots, but that the screaming has upset 911 victims, and that any construction should therefore be stopped.
The ADL has affirmatively allied itself with the philosophical descendants of the bigoted thugs who lynched Leo Frank, which, ironically enough, was the event that led to the creation of the ADL in the first place.
53 Tons? What are They Smoking????
BAE* has released its proposal for the ground combat vehicle program, it’s a tracked vehicle with hybrid electric propulsion which weighs 53 tons in base configuration, though with bolt on armor, this can get as high as 75 tons, or more than an M-1 tank.
That is more than 10 tons more than a T-80 tank, and about 20 tons more than a Bradley, the vehicle which it is supposed to replace, before you bolt on the extra armor:
The base version is 53 tons. Going into a highly lethal environment? Then commanders may well want their troops to bolt on modular armor and storage pods that bring the weight up to 75 tons. Powering this vehicle that looks an awful lot like a tank, is a hybrid electric drive, technology that worries some in the Army who don’t believe it is sufficiently tried and true yet.
They are promising greater reliability and fuel economy, which is a lie.
The running gear needs to be designed for 75 tons, and the maintenance and fuel needs, even if marginally ameliorated by a hybrid propulsion system are going to be huge.
This is just nuts.
It’s unsupportable, and the logistical trail will be huge.
*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.
Silly Putty™ Armor
BAE Systems* has developed what it calls a liquid armo(u)r, that is supposed to be proof against bullets:
A liquid armour has been shown to stop bullets in tests carried out by UK scientists at BAE systems in Bristol.
The researchers have combined this “shear-thickening” liquid with Kevlar to create a new bullet-proof material.
The company is keeping the chemical formula of the liquid a secret, but it works by absorbing the force of the bullet strike and responding to it by becoming much thicker and more sticky.
The BAE scientists describe it as “bullet-proof custard”.
In theory, this is fairly simple, it’s a non-Newtonian fluid, and you can see this behavior with silly putty™ or water and corn starch.
Of course in practice, finding the proper characteristics, and my guess is that a lot of this has to do with the peculiarities of the interaction between the Kevlar fibers and the fluid, is the tough part.
Seeing as how a body part won’t be moving at more than about 20 m/s, and a bullet would likely be moving at more than 100 m/s even at the extremes of range, developing a material with the appropriate characteristics is certainly technically possible.
*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.
UK Unveils Stealth Drone
The UK has now unveiled its stealthy drone, the Taranis, and rather unsurprisingly, since the electromagnetic spectrum and aerodynamics work the same for the Brits as everyone else, even if they do drive on the wrong side of the road, it looks like just about every other flying wing type stealth drone.
You can see a few more pix here.
Deep Thought
H/t DC at the by invitation only Stellar Parthenon BBS.
It’s Bank Failure Friday!!!!
And here they are, ordered, and numbered for the year so far.
- Northwest Bank & Trust, Acworth, GA
- Bayside Savings Bank, Port Sainte Joe, FL
- Coastal Community Bank, Panama City Beach, FL
- The Cowlitz Bank, Longview, WA
- LibertyBank, Eugene, OR
It’s “only” 5 this week, which is less than either of the past 2 weeks, though above the average of 3.6/week for the year.
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.
Cooking With the Chef
The Swedish Chef, pumpkin pie:
It reminds me of that old Peanuts cartoon where Linus freaks out over Lucy eviscerating a pumpkin for a Jack-O-Lantern.
The Teabaggers Oregon Chapter is Doomed
Click for full size
The Stupidity, shortly followed by
The Groveling Apology
The Oregon division of the teabaggers, AKA the “Oregon Tea Party,” decided to steal the slogan of Anonymous on 4chan.
Anonymous is/are a group of people who took on the Church of Scientology, and pretty much won.
Anonyous took action: There was a flood of pr0n links and the like on the Oregon Teabaggers’ Facebook page, which has now been taken down, though not before the Teabaggers posted a sycophantic apology (see pic).
Heh.
Stuff like this is why 4chan is firmly on my list of People I Do Not Want to Piss Off.
Google™ Adsense™ Screws the Pooch Again
Yep, Fred Thompson, whose presidential campaign I called the Fred Thompson Clown Show, is now pimping a website dedicated to preserving George W. Bush’s tax cuts for the very rich.
And through the magic of Google™ Adsense™, they are buying ads on my blog to sell this scam.
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™.
A Clarification on Yesterday’s Post
On the whole, I think that Barack Obama’s administration is immeasurably better than George W. Bush’s. It is on the specific areas of immigration, the jihad against whistleblowers, the national security state, and Afghanistan where he is by all objective measures much worse.
Yesterday’s post, was about those specific areas, and in other areas he compares favorably:
- On healthcare, Obama is head and shoulders above Bush and His Evil Minions™. (But still pretty lame and timid)
- On Labor, Obama is head and shoulders above Bush and His Evil Minions™. (But still pretty lame and timid)
- On financial regulation, Obama is head and shoulders above Bush and His Evil Minions™. (But still pretty lame and timid)
- On the budget and taxation, Obama is head and shoulders above Bush and His Evil Minions™. (But still pretty lame and timid)
Huh, there appears to be a pattern.
Obama is Objectively Worst than Bush
In addition to increasing deportations of illegal aliens to a pace only dreamed of by the Bush administration, Barack Obama is looking to expand the FBI’s extrajudicial, and much abused National Security Letters beyond what Dick Cheney wanted in his most paranoid fantasies:
Today, The Washington Post reports that the Obama administration wants Congress to expand the type of data that can be gained through the use of National Security Letters:
The administration wants to add just four words — “electronic communication transactional records” — to a list of items that the law says the FBI may demand without a judge’s approval. Government lawyers say this category of information includes the addresses to which an Internet user sends e-mail; the times and dates e-mail was sent and received; and possibly a user’s browser history. It does not include, the lawyers hasten to point out, the “content” of e-mail or other Internet communication.
This is on the heels not only of the administration blocking reasonable restrictions on what has objectively been widespread misuse of NSLs, but of the FBI recently beginning to investigate whether or not “hundreds” of agents cheated on the exam meant to “ensure that they could follow aggressive investigative guidelines without intruding on Americans’ privacy rights.” That’s on top of threatening to veto the meager intelligence-oversight reforms being proposed by Congress. As Gene Healy wrote yesterday, “Our interminable war on terror sometimes seems designed to justify every bad thing libertarians have ever said about government.” Having acted irresponsibly with the surveillance power it already has, and blocked reform that would have made the government more accountable, the Obama administration now wants even more power to violate the privacy rights of American citizens. When it comes to national security, there’s nothing like failed government performance to justify giving the government more power.
My sense on these matters is that there are a number of issues which are driving this:
- Barack Obama feels that he and his administration are good people who can responsibly handle this authority, and so he, and his administration, do not need to constrained by constitutional checks and balances.
- Which would put former adjunct Professor Obama in serious running for “Worst Constitutional Law Professor ever.”
- Barack Obama has been successfully cowed by the professional state security apparatus in the United States, which is doubtless feeding him alarmist horror stories, and so he is giving them their wish list.
- That, much like he is in the case of expanded deportations, and the war in Afghanistan, he sees this as a way to inoculate himself against attacks from the right in 2012.
- If this one is true, it means that Dick Cheney has more ideological integrity than does Barack Obama, as scary as that sound.
- Because he can, which, as former President Bill Clinton noted is the worst possible reason.
It is really remarkable how despite my low expectations, he continues to manage to disappoint.
To a large degree I blame those who protested the excesses of Bush and His Evil Minions™ who are not largely silent, because Barack Obama is the leader of their party.
Another Way That the FIRE* Sector Cheats Ordinary Americans
If you get a large insurance payout, they won’t send you the money, they just send you a “check book,” and keep your money in an account that they hold.
Only the “check book” is not a check book, because it’s not a bank, and it’s not FDIC insured, and they pay you 1% for an account that earns them 5%:
Lohman, a public health nurse who helps special-needs children, says she had always believed that her son’s life insurance funds were in a bank insured by the FDIC. That money — like $28 billion in 1 million death-benefit accounts managed by insurers — wasn’t actually sitting in a bank.
It was being held in Prudential’s general corporate account, earning investment income for the insurer. Prudential paid survivors like Lohman 1 percent interest in 2008 on their Alliance Accounts, while it earned a 4.8 percent return on its corporate funds, according to regulatory filings.
Note that her son was a soldier killed in Afghanistan, so they are stealing from the bereaved families of fallen soldiers.
At this point, I normally say, “Not Enough Bullets,” but I’ve used that a bit too much lately, so I will go with the apocryphal end of Marcus Licinius Crassus, who was made to drink molten gold by his captors as punishment for his greed.
*The Finance Insurance and Real Estate sector.
I’m Buying Futures in Fig Newtons and Ice Cream Sammiches
It appears that California’s Proposition 19, which would legalize and tax marijuana in the state has support fairly consistently polling ahead of opposition.
It should be noted that on human mediated polling, the initiative is down by between 1% and 4%, while in automated polling it is ahead by 10% and 16%, which Nate Silver thinks this is largely because people do not want to tell another person that they are voting for pot, though automated polls might miss minorities who tend to be more opposed to legalization.
I think that it will pass, because it is being sold on unrealistic magical thinking: If you vote for pot, and it is taxed, then California’s fiscal crisis is washed away by a font of “potro-dollars”.
This argument has a grain of truth, reduced costs of enforcement and the resulting criminality, along with the tax revenue, are not insignificant, but it’s not enough to fix the state that was ruined by the California voters and their initiative petition process.
Rob Simmons Reenters CT Republican Senate Primary
With Worldwide Wrestling doyenne Linda McMahon polling well behind Democrat, along with her being dogged by real evidence of complicity in steroid abuse, Rob Simmons has reentered the Republican primary, he suspended his campaign in the face of the millions that McMahon was spending on herself, and was promptly endorsed in the primary by the Hartford Courant.
Pass the popcorn.
Spineless Weasels
So, because of the threat that Republicans will not say nice things about them, Democrats are preemptively taking the possibility of any meaningful legislative activities following the elections, during the lame duck session:
The head of House Democrats’ campaign committee tried Tuesday to tamp down speculation that the party would try to push through major legislation during a lame-duck session of Congress this fall.
Rep. Chris Van Hollen (Md.), the assistant to the Speaker and chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), said “no one should think there’s some secret plan for after the election on big issues.”
Yeah, like rolling over and exposing your belly will keep them for going for your throat.
I’m with Howard Dean, when he says, “No More Apologies — It’s Time to Stand Up for Our Convictions.”