We have a report that Denmark is withdrawing from the JSF program, and will instead purchase F/A-18 E/Fs.
Here is the Danish report translated.
I’m not surprised.
When you compare the $50 million F/A-18, with the let’s-be-serious-here $100 million + F-35, and the fact that with global warming and the potential opening of the Northwest Passage, the Danes will need to patrol around Greenland, it gives a 2nd engine has some real value.
Then again, we could have a denial tomorrow.
You see, it places the Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA) in the Federal Reserve, which means that a small regulatory firm intended to defend the consumer is in a really big organization that is intended to defend banks.
Remember: Consumer protection was the Fed’s bailiwick in the run up to the, so this clearly appears to be a sell out, only, as an equally confused Paul Krugman notes:
…But here’s my puzzle: the bill, as I understand it, calls for an independent Consumer Protection Agency, with a director directly appointed by the president, but one that is “housed” at the Fed.
………
Does it mean that the staff will all be long-term Fed employees? Then that would, to at least some degree, compromise the agency’s independence. Or is it purely a cosmetic issue? If so, who exactly is being diverted?
I’m not prejudging this — there’s a lot to look at. But I’m puzzled.
What it does have is:
I think that the real question here is two fold, transparency and independence.
As to transparency, the question is whether Freedom of Information Act laws apply to this organization as they do to other regulatory institutions, or is it a paranoid secret black hole like the Federal Reserve.
As to independence, the question is whether it gets to, under the limitations of civil service regulations, hire its own staff, and draw up its own budget.
If it does not have this authority, it is a paper tiger.
Once Again, Alan Grayson shows why he is on this list, with his response via press release to Sarah Palin.
It’s a PR, so I can quote it in full, and it’s brilliant so I will quote it in full:
On Friday night, Sarah Palin came to Orlando, and attacked Rep. Alan Grayson. This is what she said:
“I got to meet quite a few candidates who are lining up in a contested primary who want to take out Alan Grayson. And I think Alan Grayson — what can you say about Alan Grayson? Piper is with me tonight, so I won’t say anything about Alan Grayson that can’t be said around children. [Good one, Sarah!] But thank you, Florida, for allowing candidates in a contested primary to duke it out over ideas and principles and values, all with the same goal, and that is unseating those who have such a disconnect from the people of America. That’s what the goal is here in this race against Alan Grayson. Please fight hard, and do this for the rest of the country. Fight hard, and send a conservative to Washington, DC.”
Palin, the former half-term Governor, current-nothing and future-even-less, charmed the all-Republican audience with her folksy folksiness and her homespun homespunnery. Atypically, Palin was wearing clothes that she had paid for herself. At the end of the event, she shared her recipe for mooseface pie.
In response to Palin’s attack on Rep Grayson, Grayson actually complimented Palin. Grayson praised Palin for having a hand large enough to fit Grayson’s entire name on it. He thanked Palin for alleviating the growing shortage of platitudes in Central Florida. Grayson added that Palin deserved credit for getting through the entire hour-long program without quitting. Grayson also said that Palin really had mastered Palin’s imitation of Tina Fey imitating Palin. Grayson observed that Palin is the most-intelligent leader that the Republican Party has produced since George W. Bush.
When asked to comment about what effect Palin’s criticism might have, Grayson pointed out, “As the Knave’s horse says in Alice in Wonderland, ‘dogs will believe anything.'” Earlier, as the Orlando Sentinel reported, Grayson said, “I’m sure Palin knows all about politics in Central Florida, since from her porch she can see Winter Park,” which is part of Grayson’s district.
Grayson said that the Alaskan chillbilly was welcome to return to Central Florida anytime, as long as she brings lots of money with her, and spends it. “I look forward to an honest debate with Governor Palin on the issues, in the unlikely event that she ever learns anything about them,” Grayson added, alluding to Politifact’s “liar, liar, pants on fire” evaluation of much of what Palin has said .
Scientists are studying Sarah Palin’s travel between Alaska and Florida carefully. They hope to learn more about the flight patterns of that elusive migratory species, the wild Alaskan dingbat.
Let’s be clear here: I don’t think that every Democratic office holder or candidate talk this way, but I think that it is essential for some Democratic office holders or candidates to talk this way.
So, it’s official, the Texas Board of Education has excised Thomas Jefferson from their history books, and replaced him with religious fundamentalist John Calvin. (See also here)
We also have an attempt to rehabilitate red-baiter Joe McCarthy, and poster child for sex without partners Newt Gingrich, and it gets really, really, stupid.
Seriously let’s give them back to Mexico, and let the federales pry their guns from their cold, dead fingers.
OK, so I was rear ended today, and it’s the first Monday of Daylight Savings Time, and now, I’ve spent the last 1½ hours dealing with my wife having a flat tire.
Well, at least with that, we have our three bad things.
*Not my line, I am quoting insane comic book artist Dave Sim.
11 days ago, my wife’s car’s timing belt broke.
This morning, at about 7:10, while stopped behind a school bus, I was rear-ended, and pushed into the car in front of me.
If anyone saw a black 2 door small hatchback driving rapidly along Gwynnbrook east of Owings Mills Blvd with some damage to the grill (or so I assume, I never saw the front), please contact me.
I don’t hurt, at least not yet, and the car drives fine, though I am not sure if I can open the hood which is bent.
Still, on the assumption that these things happen in 3s, I’m expecting demonic possession of our lawn mower.
Posted via mobile.
And what’s more, explicitly uses the Citizens United decision to solicit corporate money.
Gee, I wonder if she is going to draw a salary from her 501(c)4, Liberty Central Inc.
My guess is probably yes, and as such, she would be cashing in on the court’s decision.
What a lovely exercise in ethics.
I would be remiss if I did not point you to Oliver Willis’ comment about this:
The brand of faux resentment and self-inflicted paranoia practiced by the tea party should remind her a lot of her husband.
It looks neat, but to this point, the Aussies at Woomera have gotten more done with a lot less money.
In any case, enjoy the video:
H/t Nathan Hodge
Because they don’t want the planes sold to the Iraqi Air Force, and this would take them off the market, so the Iraqis could buy F-16s:
This is an interesting rumor. While the Mirage F-1 has almost reached the end of the line as an operational asset with the AdA, it remains a capable fighter and should stay in service for about another decade with a few other air forces (Ecuador, Morocco, and Iran). The Iraqis have recently requested that France delivers the 24 pre-embargo F-1s ordered at the time by the regime of Saddam Hussein in 1985. The Iraqi air force has a long, and relatively successful, history with the F-1 and is particularly looking forward to rebuilding its air defense capability with an aircraft it knows well. However, things are somewhat more complicated; there has been a long standing rumor of F-16s going to the Iraqi Air Force instead and lately, it would also appear that the UAE Mirage 2000-9s have entered the fray.
Sorry, but if this is true, and note that it only a rumor, some heads should roll.
While I understand how US Air Force officers might favor the F-16, it is something that they are familiar with, the idea that they would purchase the aircraft in order to clear the way for a defense contractor is over the top.
This appears to be a decision driven by a desire by some Air Force officers to secure a cushy gig at Lockheed-Martin in retirement, not a decision driven by the real needs and capabilities of the Iraqi military.
The EM-2, the first modern Bullpup
And going with a Bullpup, which would allow for a longer barrel in a shorter weapon would not hurt either.
A monograph by Major Thomas P. Ehrhart (PDF) is raising a bit of a stir in the blogosphere, and mostly this is used as a stopping off point for the suggestion that the 5.56mm round be replaced with something bigger and heavier.
I think that looking at the abstract gives a good picture of the problem:
Operations in Afghanistan frequently require United States ground forces to engage and destroy the enemy at ranges beyond 300 meters. While the infantryman is ideally suited for combat in Afghanistan, his current weapons, doctrine, and marksmanship training do not provide a precise, lethal fire capability to 500 meters and are therefore inappropriate. Comments from returning soldiers reveal that about fifty percent of engagements occur past 300 meters. Current equipment, training, and doctrine are optimized for engagements under 300 meters and on level terrain. This monograph reviews the small arms capability of the infantry squad from World War I to present. It then discusses current shortfalls with cartridge lethality, weapons and optics configurations, the squad designated marksman concept and finally the rifle qualification course. Potential solutions in each of these areas are discussed.
(emphasis mine)
So, the current standard weapon, the M4 is inadequate beyond 300m, and somewhat marginal at lesser distances, but the M-16 serves ably in this role:
In the table of organization for a light infantry company only the six –M240B 7.62-mm machineguns, two– 60-mm mortars and nine designated marksman armed with either 7.62-mm M14 rifles or accurized 5.56-mm M16A4’s rifles are able to effectively engage the enemy. These weapons systems represent 19 percent of the company’s firepower. This means that 81 percent of the company has little effect on the fight. This is unacceptable.
There are two reasons for this, the M4 has a 14½ inch barrel, and as velocity of the round drops, so does stopping power. The M16, with its 20 inch barrel can effectively engage at the longer distances.
The second problem is that the US Army is does not place sufficient emphasis on marksmanship:
The U.S entered World War I with a small professional Army trained in marksmanship. It filled its ranks with volunteers and conscripts and traditional marksmanship training took too much time. Between World War I and the end of the Vietnam War, the U.S. Army was a conscript Army that relied on suppressive fire, not marksmanship, and trained accordingly. The problem is suppressive fire does not do well with a light, barely lethal bullet at the distances of engagements in Afghanistan.
Note again that the bullet is “barely lethal” when fired from a 14½ inch barrel.
Most of the other western armies have moved to Bullpup, and additionally use a gas driven piston to operate the bolt, as opposed to the gas tube system used on the AR-15 family of weapons, which is sensitive to the accumulation of grime and combustion residues.
While changing the weapon and training is a non-trivial course, it is far more straightforward than a adopting a new round, particularly when there would still be issues with accuracy under the current doctrine, particularly when it is likely that our NATO allies would be disinclined to make the change in a timely manner: It took nearly a decade for the 5.56 to be adopted as NATO standard, and a decade after that for it to become the standard round for infantry weapons.
H/t Defense Tech.
Keith Olbermann’s father died this afternoon.
My condolences to the family.
As I have before, I think that increases in computing power may have the effect of making stealth less effective.
Well, Wired has an article about a new and very powerful algorithm for imaging, called compressed sensing, which uses the simplicity as a way to enhance images, the example they give is a non-military one, specifically the need to image the bile ducts of a small child to see if they were blocked, which required that he be heavily sedated and that his ventilator be shut down so as to keep him still.
With conventional imaging, it would take over 2 minutes and risk brain damage to get the resolution required, but with the new algorithm, it took only 40 seconds.
While this is an interesting possibility for many areas, I can see how this technique, when combined with data from multiple sensors could give a high resolution solution for an air defense system.
In fact, going around the web, you see examples of single pixel cameras producing decent imagery.
These guys see the primary application being low power, and non visible light, where massive arrays become impractical, but I think that military applications will come, and anti-stealth is a likely direction.
We’re Number 3!!!! (From the bottom)
According to the the Grauniad,* the OECD has looked at social mobility in the developed nations, except for Japan for some reason, and determined that the UK has the least generational mobility of any of these nations.
I don’t find that surprising. I tend to think of class strata when I think of British society, what is surprising, at least for some, I already knew this, is that the United States is almost as bad at providing opportunity to people from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Essentially, look at the graph pr0n, the US is not a, “Horatio Alger makes good,” kind of place: You get where you are because of who your parents are.
It’s an artifact of a war on unions, both in the US and UK, which makes the sort of decent working-class jobs that parents could use to create upwardly mobile lives for their children are increasingly rare.
Additionally, a war on the safety net, and on public education has done more to make it difficult for someone on the bottom to get a well enough grounding in the basics to outperform someone on the top, regardless of innate ability.
To conservatives, the idea that their children can succeed by virtue of who their parents are, is, of course, a feature, not a bug.
Me, I think of it as a deep flaw in society.
*According to the Wiki, The Guardian, formerly the Manchester Guardian in the UK. It’s nicknamed the Grauniad because of its penchant for typographical errors, “The nickname The Grauniad for the paper originated with the satirical magazine Private Eye. It came about because of its reputation for frequent and sometimes unintentionally amusing typographical errors, hence the popular myth that the paper once misspelled its own name on the page one masthead as The Gaurdian, though many recall the more inventive The Grauniad.”
Not a surprise
There have been a number of initiatives geared toward getting consumers to move their funds from the too big to fail banks.
All in all, this is likely a good thing, but one of the things that people have not generally noted is that moving your money to a smaller bank also personally benefits you, because smaller banks charge lower fees, and generally treat small customers better.
The promise that has always been made with bank deregulation has been that larger banks would be more efficient, and so pass the savings onto consumers.
The reality is the opposite. Large banks use their oligopoly positions to extract more money from consumers.
Too big to fail banks are also banks that do not serve the consumer, so let’s break them up.
H/t James Kwak
Basically, he has an idea so good, that I don’t care that he wrote it in The New Republic.
He notes that obvious, that the various ways that the government has attempted to deal with home foreclosures are inadequate, and what’s more, the banks aren’t cooperating with the program in any significant way.
His solution is brilliant, use eminent domain to purchase the mortgage backed securities that have locked homeowners into their unsustainable home loans:
The Obama plan, by contrast, has misunderstood the calculus faced by homeowners facing foreclosure. An underwater homeowner has little incentive to save their home from foreclosure, even if the monthly payment is reduced. Mortgage modifications that reduce the principal are far more successful than modifications that reduce the interest rate. A homeowner with equity to protect will find a way to pay the mortgage. In contrast, for underwater homeowners a mortgage payment is just expensive rent.
…………
Also, roughly half of troubled mortgages now have “second liens,” a second mortgage or a home equity line of credit. Second liens are secured by the value of the home in excess of the first mortgage. Home values in many markets have declined by well more than the amount of most second liens. A reduction of principal on the first mortgage would often just be a gift to the second lien holder, still leaving the homeowner with negative equity in their home.
…………
That’s why there’s a need for a much stronger government role in this crisis. Some in the financial industry may be more willing to sell mortgages to the government at a discounted price than they are to modify mortgages themselves. Servicers fear that if they offer affordable mortgage modifications to struggling homeowners, many more homeowners will stop paying and wait for an offer. Selling a mortgage to the government may avoid that problem because the government would modify the mortgage, not the servicer.
But for many of the same reasons that the financial industry has not modified mortgages voluntarily, others in industry would not likely sell many mortgages voluntarily either, at least not at a realistic discount. So how can a new HOLC
[Home Owners’ Loan Corporation, an entity created by Roosevelt to help homeowners by buying and managing mortgages duringthe Great Depression] work if mortgage holders will not voluntarily sell mortgages?The new HOLC could buy mortgages by eminent domain. Eminent domain powers are most commonly used to purchase land for highways or public buildings, but also to renew “blighted” neighborhoods or clean up contaminated land. And existing law allows the use of eminent domain to purchase property interests other than the outright ownership of land.
Some uses of eminent domain have resulted in public wariness and resentment. The Supreme Court’s 2005 decision in Kelo v. City of New London allowed the condemnation of family homes for an “economic development” project from which private developers profited. A mortgage in a securitized pool is no one’s castle.
The toxic assets backed by mortgages are impossible to value. The concern that taxpayers would get fleeced buying toxic assets from the financial industry was well justified. Whole mortgages are not hard to value at all. There are frequent, well-publicized auctions of mortgages with a sufficient number of informed, sophisticated buyers. The auctions are an almost perfect pricing mechanism. The problem for the financial industry is not the difficulty of valuing troubled mortgages; the problem is that many mortgages are not worth much. There are obviously many considerations in the price, but distressed mortgages generally sell for about 30 to 50 cents on the dollar at auction. And any honest valuation of many second liens would be pennies on the dollar.
Your mouth to Obama’s ear.
He is right on the law: In eminent domain, one is obligated only to pay market value, not par.
It won’t happen though, because Geithner and Summers would shoot it down, even it is legal, because, of course, it’s bad for the banks, and what’s bad for the banks is, to them, bad for America.
To be fair though, it should be noted that while Geithner and Summers may be financial Cossacks, it is also true, as Professor Delong is wont to say, “The Cossacks work for the Czar.”
These are your friends
The International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA), a private group which is the demon spawn of the RIAA, the MPAA, and other evil organizations referred to by their acronyms, has submitted recommendations to the State Department for countries to be placed on a watch list for ineffective protection of IP, a so called “Special 301” list, and one of their criteria is now encouraging the use of open source software:
I am neither surprised nor upset by the addition of Costa Rica to the list, to be fair our enforcement is atrocious. Similarly, I am not surprised by most of the other recommendations, which seems like a rehash of past offenders. What I found rather surprising is that the IIPA seems to be using their Special 301 submission to attack open source software. According to Digital Copyright Canada, several countries are being included in the Special 301 watchlist because they have open source-friendly policies, or in their words, the IIPA would rather people “pirate” than switch to legal competitors.
This is quite a claim, so I have been going through the reports to verify it myself. The country reports for Brazil, India, Philippines, Vietnam and Thailand certainly contain some comments about open source software. Particularly, the IIPA seems to be concerned that these countries have enacted or are in the process of enacting legislation that will make it obligatory for public entities to choose open source software over its proprietary counterparts. I have to admit that I somewhat share the IIPA’s concerns in this regard. I have never believed in open source procurement legislation, I think that forcing institutions to use a specific technical solution is wrong. Open source is an organic, bottom-up movement, and making it state policy seems not only counter-productive, but contrary to the very same principles of openness. Open source should not be imposed, it should win on its own merits.
Here is what the IIPA says:
“While IIPA has no issue with one of the stated goals of the circular, namely, “reducing software copyright violation,” the Indonesian government’s policy as indicated in the circular letter instead simply weakens the software industry and undermines its long-term competitiveness by creating an artificial preference for companies offering open source software and related services, even as it denies many legitimate companies access to the government market. Rather than fostering a system that will allow users to benefit from the best solution available in the market, irrespective of the development model, it encourages a mindset that does not give due consideration to the value to intellectual creations. As such, it fails to build respect for intellectual property rights and also limits the ability of government or public-sector customers (e.g., State-owned enterprise) to choose the best solutions to meet the needs of their organizations and the Indonesian people. It also amounts to a significant market access barrier for the software industry.”
Let’s see, the countries are saying that as a matter of policy, free and open is cheaper, and reduces the risks of violation of IP rules, which could result in US sanctions, so as a matter of policy, wherever possible, go with software that carries a “public license.”
According to the IIPA, that’s the same as piracy.
There is no right for private firms to demand that anyone buy their products, particularly not sovereign governments.
It a wave off involving an Su-33 and the Admiral Kuznetsov :
What is interesting is just how much excess thrust is available to the Flanker, because once he started the go-around, his nose was very high.
In either case, it’s a neat vid.
Canceled!
Available at 1/80 the cost
The US Navy has, for some time, been working on the Advanced Seal Delivery System (ASDS),* indended to deploy navy Seal teams from submerged submarines to shore.
The program has delivered one prototype, at a cost of $885 million, well above the initial cost of $80 million a boat, and so the program was finally canceled after a fire broke in the lead unit out when the batteries were being recharged.
Well a private firm, the Submergence Group, is offering their private venture proposal, which is smaller, about 1/3 the displacement, but only costs about $10 million.
And, by the by, that $10 million is a firm number. They have already built one, and it works.
What’s more it fits in the existing Dry Dock Shelter that he seals use for their current delivery vehicle, the Mark 8 Mod 1 minisub, only it has a dry environment, which means that transiting, or waiting over long periods of time won’t, as is the case with the Mk 8, require hanging out in wet suits in the water.
*Full disclosure, while I never worked on this program, I worked at the company that designed the Lithium-Ion battery packs for the ASDS, and talked with a few of the people who worked on its design.
A while ago, I wrote about the F-35’s exhaust being so hot that it required modifications to carrier and LPD decks.
Well, as Ron Popeil says, “but wait, there’s more/”
It is now likely that the exhaust will be hot enough so that the aircraft will be unable to operate from austere fields in STOVL mode, and by, “Austere,” we mean, “just about any non-military airfield in the world,” as well as a lot of the military ones:
But a Navy report issued in January says that the F-35B, in fact, won’t be able to use such forward bases. Indeed, unless it ditches its short take-off, vertical landing capability and touches down like a conventional fighter, it won’t be able to use land bases at all without some major construction efforts.
The newly released document, hosted on a government building-design resource site, outlines what base-construction engineers need to do to ensure that the F-35B’s exhaust does not turn the surface it lands on into an area-denial weapon. And it’s not trivial. Vertical-landing “pads will be exposed to 1700 deg. F and high velocity (Mach 1) exhaust,” the report says. The exhaust will melt asphalt and “is likely to spall the surface of standard airfield concrete pavements on the first VL.” (The report leaves to the imagination what jagged chunks of spalled concrete will do in a supersonic blast field.)
What’s more, if you make an appropriate landing area, it has to be in one slab, without joints, because there are current no existing sealers that can take the heat, and if the aircraft is waiting for clearance with its APU (the Integrated Power Pack or IPP) running, that can burn holes in the runway too.
Bill Sweetman is correct when he notes, “Worst case or not, there is a very big difference between a solid slab of high-grade concrete and the kind of surface you are apt to find anywhere ending in -stan.”
And then there is cost, where the JSF unit cost is up 50% from its 2002 number, shattering the Nunn-McCurdy barrier, and that is assuming that the purchase numbers remain the same, something is about as likely as Obama pursuing war crimes prosecutions against Dick Cheney.
The F-35 has gotten down to about 40 kts on its STOVL tests, and it appears to be performing well.
The video is from Pax River, about 85 miles from me.
H/t ELP Defens(c)e Blog.