Year: 2014

It Appears that the Kurdish Word for August is “Tet”

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The US government is now officially sending weapons dirctly to the Kurdish militias:

The U.S. government has begun to funnel weapons directly to Kurdish forces fighting Islamist militants in northern Iraq, U.S. officials said Monday, deepening American involvement in a conflict that the Obama administration had long sought to avoid.

The decision to arm the Kurds, via a covert channel established by the CIA, was made even as Pentagon officials acknowledged that recent U.S. airstrikes against the militants were having only a temporary deterrent effect and were unlikely to sap their will to fight.

“I in no way want to suggest that we have effectively contained, or that we are somehow breaking, the momentum of the threat,” said Army Lt. Gen. William C. Mayville Jr., the director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

In a reflection of the administration’s reluctance to fight another full-fledged war in Iraq, Mayville said there are no plans to expand the limited air campaign, which President Obama ordered last week to prevent the massacre of Iraqi minorities and to protect U.S. military and diplomatic personnel in the northern city of Irbil.

………

In addition to the airstrikes, U.S. military officials have said they are conducting 50 to 60 reconnaissance flights a day over Iraq to get a clearer picture of the refu­gee crisis and movements by Islamic State fighters.

When the Gulf of Tonkin incident happened, I was just two years old, so I don’t know what that was like, but I my gut is feeling disturbing echoes.

What happens when (and it is when, not if) the first US pilot is shot down?

When I called Obama Bush with a Tan, I may have been wrong.

Perhaps a better analogy is that of LBJ, only with out the commitment to either social justice or civil rights.

Man Who Works Sucking the Marrow out of the Economy Is Hired to Suck the Marrow out of the LA Times

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At least, there is symmetry.

That sound that you hear is the legendary publisher Otis Chandler spinning in his grave:

The Los Angeles Times has named Austin Beutner, a former deputy mayor of Los Angeles and Wall Street banker, as its new chief executive and publisher.

 The appointment, announced on Monday, comes a week after The Times’s parent, the Tribune Company, spun off its newspapers into a separate publicly traded company called Tribune Publishing.

 Mr. Beutner, 54, a former partner at the private equity firm Blackstone Group and a co-founder of the investment bank Evercore Partners, most recently worked as Los Angeles’s deputy mayor of economic development. He also explored a run for mayor and was once reported to be a possible buyer of The Los Angeles Times alongside the billionaire Eli Broad.

 Jack Griffin, Tribune Publishing’s new chief executive, noted in a statement how these experiences would help Mr. Beutner in his new role.

 ………

 Mr. Beutner is taking over The Los Angeles Times at a major transitional point for its parent company, Tribune. After Tribune braved years of bankruptcy proceedings and threats of takeover by eager buyers, The Los Angeles Times, along with its fellow Tribune-owned papers like The Chicago Tribune, split from Tribune’s television stations into a separate company. But print institutions like The Los Angeles Times now face a brutal time for newspapers as more readers consume the news online.

And this guy won’t be helping.

He is there is to exsanguinate the LA Times, much like any vampire squid in finance.

Think what Mitt Rmoney did at Bain.

Why Documentation Sucks

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The essay, at Ask Slashdot speaks specifically to documentation for open source software, but I would argue that it could be applied almost anywhere:

Back when Sourceforge wasn’t a sh%$-heap of garbage in every possible way I did a lot of documentation for various programs. I’m not a programmer at all, but I can use the damn things and tell others how to do so as well. The biggest problems I had were ALWAYS at the hands of the developer. They’d have these posts desperately looking for documentation writers then treat us like total f%$#ing garbage when we had to ask questions. I can’t f%$#ing tell you how many times I was told to read the f%$#ing source, despite me being very up-front about my lack of coding ability. “If you can’t figure out how to use the program then how can you write documentation?”

MOTHERf%$#ER, IT DOESN’T WORK LIKE THAT. F%$# you in your goddamn asshole you f%$#ing arrogant f%$#ing pricks.

I stopped bothering when I stopped using Linux, which is a story in itself. The fact of the matter is the majority of programmers are assholes that have no business operating in normal society. Lock them in the f%$#ing closet and let them read the f%$#ing source until they jizz all over their crusty beards while fantasizing about Stallman’s brown pucker. Maybe THEN the people that make documentation will give enough of a sh%$ to try to do so again.

BTW, that is a comment, not the main post, but I think that he “gets” it.

When the programming community, whether open or closed source, holds documentation writers in abject contempt, the loser is the user.

H/T E-Cop at the Stellar Parthenon BBS.

This is Not at All Surprising

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We are now seeing reports that the word “Peacekeeper” is being painted on the sides of Russian military vehicles near the Ukrainian boarder:

But there’s some frightening evidence that Moscow intends to invade mainland Ukraine.

“The probability of invasion is much, much higher than it has ever been,” James Miller, managing editor of The Interpreter, told War is Boring in an e-mail. The Interpreter translates media from the Russian press and blogosphere into English for use by analysts and policymakers.

The Russians reportedly have moved military vehicles with “peacekeeping” insignia to the border—a first since the crisis in the Ukraine began. Earlier this month, NATO warned that the Russians could mount an incursion into Ukrainian territory under the guise of a peacekeeping mission.

The Interpreter reports that it has found several pictures and a video showing Russian armored vehicles bearing the insignia “MC,” an abbreviation of the Russian words mirotvorcheskiye sily or “peacekeeping force.”

Given that the Ukranian military appears to be ramping up an already indiscriminate artillery barrage on Donetsk, it I would not be at all surprised seeing some sort of “peacekeeping” operation or “no fly zone” from the Kremlin.

Su-25 Attack Aircraft Production May Resume

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I do not see a big export market, so I gotta figure that new production is intended for use in what the Russians call the “Near Abroad”, and what Americans call the “Former Soviet Union”:

The Ulan-Ude Aviation Plant (UUAP) may resume the production of Sukhoi Su-25 fighter jets, the plant’s managing director Leonid Belykh said.

“We used to produce the Su-25 jets and today our equipment is still in good condition, so the question is under consideration. Some serious investment will be needed, and it is likely that another factory will take up the production. But if the government orders us to do it, we shall do it. If the production is to be transferred to somebody else, so be it,” Belykh told RIA Novosti.

Su-25 is a heavily armored subsonic strike attack aircraft designed for the close air support of ground forces in daytime and at night, the targets being within visible range. It is also used for the support of installations with given coordinates on a 24-hour basis in all weather conditions.

To be clear, this is not a formal request from Moscow, but rather a sales pitch made to Moscow from a defense plant.

Still, it does say something about the mindset on the side of both Russia’s defense industry and Russia’s military.

Pass the Popcorn

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The judge reviewing the collusion among Silicon Valley firms to suppress high tech wages has just ruled the settlement to be inadequate:

The judge overseeing the landmark Silicon Valley wage theft antitrust lawsuit has struck down the $324 million settlement reached between most of the class action plaintiffs and the defendants — Apple, Google, Intel and Adobe.

 In her 32-page order striking down the settlement terms, issued just moments ago, US District Judge Lucy Koch writes:

“This Court has lived with this case for nearly three years, and during that time, the Court has reviewed a significant number of documents in adjudicating not only the substantive motions, but also the voluminous sealing requests. Having done so, the Court cannot conclude that the instant settlement falls within the range of reasonableness. As this Court stated in its summary judgment order, there is ample evidence of an overarching conspiracy between the seven Defendants…”

This is stunning news, and it means that we still may get a trial after all, and learn more about the Techtopus wage theft conspiracy.

 Judge Koh bases her rejection by comparing the $324 million sum to the earlier settlement in 2013 with three other defendants in the wage-theft lawsuit: Intuit, LucasFilm and Pixar. Judging by that metric, Judge Koh argues that the settlement figure should have been at least $380 million. She also cites the “strength” of the plaintiffs’ case against the Big Tech defendants, and rejects the plaintiffs’ attorneys’ argument about the difficulties in winning an antitrust wage theft lawsuit of this scope.

This should get interesting for a number of reasons:

  • The documents make it pretty clear that the plaintiffs’ claims are airtight. (They also prove that Steve Jobs was a sociopathic @sshole, but that has been common knowledge for decades within the tech sector)
  • If the case proceeds, discovery should create even more damning information.
  • The blatant illegality of the behavior is such that the insurance carriers for the tech firms may end up suing them, claiming that the behavior is covered under the “deliberate acts” exclusions that almost all liability insurance policies contain.

This should be entertaining.

Someone Runs the Actual Cost of an F-35 JSF

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And the numbers are horrifying:

The F-35 is not just the most expensive warplane ever, it’s the most expensive weapons program ever. But to find out exactly how much a single F-35 costs, we analyzed the newest and most authoritative data.

 Here’s how much we’re paying.

 A single Air Force F-35A costs a whopping $148 million. One Marine Corps F-35B costs an unbelievable $251 million. A lone Navy F-35C costs a mind-boggling $337 million. Average the three models together, and a “generic” F-35 costs $178 million.

 It gets worse. These are just the production costs. Additional expenses for research, development, test and evaluation are not included. The dollars are 2015 dollars. This data was just released by the Senate Appropriations Committee in its report for the Pentagon’s 2015 appropriations bill.

Let’s go into the methodology for this article:

The methodology for calculating these F-35 unit costs is straightforward. Both the president’s budget and each of four congressional defense committees publish the amounts to be authorized or appropriated for each model of the F-35, including the number of aircraft to be bought.

 The rest is simple arithmetic: Divide the total dollars for each model by the quantity.

 ………

 There are just two things F-35 watchers need to be careful about.

 First, it’s necessary to add the funding from the previous year’s appropriation act to the procurement money the government allocated for 2015. This is “advance procurement” for 2015 spending, and pays for “long lead” components that take longer to acquire.

 Second, we have to add the cost of Navy and Air Force modifications.

 For the F-35, these costs are for fixing mistakes already found in the testing process. With the aircraft still in its initial testing, the modification costs to existing aircraft are very low. But the 2015 amounts for modifications are surrogates for what the costs for this year’s buy might be. If anything, this number can be an under-estimate.

 ………

 In a briefing delivered to reporters on June 9, F-35 developer Lockheed still advertised the cost of airplanes sans engines. Highly respected Aviation Week reported on July 22 that taxpayers put up $98 million for each F-35A in 2013.

 In reality, we actually paid $188 million.

 Some of these numbers are for the airframe only. In other cases, you get a “flyaway” cost. But in fact, those airplanes are incapable of operative flight. They lack the specialized tools, simulators, logistics computers—and much, much more—to make the airplane useable. They even lack the fuel to fly away.

 ………

 Here’s another curious fact. The unit costs of the Marines’ short-takeoff, vertical-landing B-model and the Navy’s aircraft-carrier-capable C-model are growing.

 The cost of an F-35B grew from $232 million in 2014 to a bulging $251 million by 2015. The cost of the Navy’s F35C grew from $273 million in 2014 to a wallet-busting $337 million by 2015.

 The quantity numbers for the F-35B have not changed, remaining at six per year. The number of F-35Cs to be produced has slipped from four to two, but surely learning processes on the F-35 line have not been going so far backward as to explain a 23 percent, $64 million per unit cost increase.
………

 Next time an advocate tells you what the current unit cost is for a program, ask: “What is Congress appropriating for them this year?” And, “How many are we buying?” Then get out your calculator. The result might surprise you.

At these prices, I cannot see how the United States can afford to buy this aircraft, much less the partners in the program, as well as other customers.

BTW, to run some numbers, the F-35A has an empty weight of 13,199 kg, the price of gold is $42.01/gram, and the price of silver is $0.64/gram.

Running the numbers then, a similar weight of gold would be $554 million, and for silver, it would $8.4 million.

So, it costs about 1/5 of its weight in gold, and pretty much every fighter since the F-4 Phantom II has cost more than its weight in silver.

That is kind of depressing.

Tinfoil Hat Time!

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Much to the delight of sky-watchers in Nevada, it appears that there is some major construction at Groom Lake (aka Area 51):

In the latest satellite imagery released to the public, dated June 30th (partial) and June 2nd (full), Area 51 continues to undergo changes, and one of them is significant in nature. This new construction project is of especially high interest, not just because of its physical size, but also because of its very peculiar location and timing.

 ………

 In 2007, the biggest addition in some time was added to the base’s southwest corner, hidden partially behind a giant dirt berm. This fairly massive and modern hangar was fitted-out with extensive office space and a pair of 175 foot doors, one on each side of the structure. The facility was clearly purpose-built for something, and that something, or some things, were not small in size. The width of the doors alone added to the mounting evidence that what was contained within was an asset, or assets, that were strategic in nature.

 ………

 At the time that this new structure was completed, it was thought to house a proof of concept demonstrator for the Next Generation Bomber (NGB) program and/or a deep penetrating and very stealthy High Altitude Long Endurance (HALE) reconnaissance drone, basically an aircraft with similar capabilities as the RQ-4 Global Hawk but much more survivable and even more autonomous.

 ………

 With this background in mind, we now return to the new developments at Area 51. A new engine test cell located towards the northern part of the base appears to have been finalized since the last images were available, and there are some other small improvements that are noticeable around the sprawling installation, but the massive hangar being constructed far south of the aforementioned hangar built in 2007 is quite literally, a big deal.

 The location of this new structure, measuring about 225 feet across, is interesting as it is located right off the end of the runway, far south of the rest of the base. This location would keep it out of the immediate view of the general apron area, and would also allow for quick access to the runway, resulting in minimal taxi times.

 The fact that this new hangar will have doors on each side, evidenced by the taxiway emanating out from both sides of the structure, means that pre-flight checks, and possibly engine starts, could be executed while under the structure’s protective cover. This is beneficial when trying to avoid satellite flyovers.

 Although the times when flyovers occur are all known, and operations are planned around them accordingly, such planning is no guarantee that the aircraft will not experience problems while taxing, taking off or landing, thus leaving it exposed to prying eyes in low earth orbit. So having a hangar as close to where the aircraft launches and recovers is beneficial if that aircraft is of an especially sensitive nature.

I think that we can be reasonably certain that it’s directly connected to a specific project, I don’t think that the USAF builds massive hangars just to F%$# with aviation buffs.

My guess is that this is associated with the next generation bomber, the successor to the B-2, but that is just a wild-assed guess.

This is a Remarkably Valid Point

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In various discussions of what the US should do to “fix” the Middle East, no one has asked a more basic question, whether the US should be involved at all: (as an aside, this also applies to the “West” more generally)

In case you hadn’t noticed, the Middle East is going from bad to worse these days.

 ………

 A string of events like this attracts critics and Cassandras like yellow jackets to a backyard picnic. In the Washington Post, neoconservative Eliot Cohen laments the “wreckage” of U.S. Middle East policy, blaming everything on Barack Obama’s failure to recognize “war is war” and his reluctance to rally the nation to wage more of them. (Never mind that the last war Cohen helped get the United States into — the invasion of Iraq in 2003 — did far more damage than anything Obama has done.) A far more convincing perspective comes from former Ambassador Chas Freeman who surveys several decades of America’s meddling in the region and comes to a depressing conclusion: “It’s hard to think of any American project in the Middle East that is not now at or near a dead end.”

………

 Since World War II, the meddling that Freeman recounts has been conducted in partnership with various regional allies. These alignments may have been a strategic necessity during the Cold War (though even that could be debated), but the sad fact is that the United States has no appealing partners left today. Egypt is a corrupt military dictatorship with grim prospects, and Erdogan’s AKP regime in Turkey is trending toward one-party rule, while its ambitious “zero problems” foreign policy has gone badly off the rails. Working with the Assad regime in Syria is out of the question — for good reason — but most of Bashar al-Assad’s opponents are no prize either. Saudi Arabia is a geriatric, theocratic monarchy that treats half its population — i.e., its women — like second-class citizens (at best). [Me: actually, when you count the Shia in Saudi Arabia, it’s more like 65% of the population] Iran is a different sort of theocratic state: it has some quasi-democratic features, but also an abysmal human rights record and worrisome regional ambitions.

………

 Faced with this unpromising environment, what would be the sensible — or dare I say realistic — thing for the United States to do? The familiar answer is to say that it’s an imperfect world and that we have no choice but to work with what we’ve got. We hold our noses, and cut deals with the least objectionable parties in the region. As Michael Corleone would say, it’s not personal; it’s strictly business.

But this view assumes that deep engagement with this troubled area is still critical to U.S. national interests, and further assumes the United States reaps net benefits from its recurrent meddling on behalf of its less-than-loyal partners. In other words, it assumes that these partnerships and deep U.S. engagement make Americans safer and more prosperous here at home. But given the current state of the region and the condition of most of our putative allies, that assumption is increasingly questionable.

 In fact, most of the disputes and divisions that are currently roiling the region do not pose direct and mortal threats to vital U.S. interests. It is admittedly wrenching to watch what is happening in Syria or Gaza, or to Israel’s democracy, but these events affect the lives of very few Americans directly. Unless, of course, we are foolish enough to throw ourselves back into the middle of the maelstrom.

………

 Some will argue that we have a moral responsibility to try to end the obvious suffering in different places, and a strategic imperative to eradicate terrorists and prevent the spread of WMD. These are laudable goals, but if the history of the past twenty years teaches us anything, it is that forceful American interference of this sort just makes these problems worse. The Islamic State wouldn’t exist if the neocons hadn’t led us blindly into Iraq, and Iran would have less reason to contemplate getting nuclear weapons if it hadn’t watched the United States throw its weight around in the region and threaten it directly with regime change. [I would also add, that if we hadn’t overthrown Iran’s democracy in the 1950s at the bequest of the BP oil company, there would not be a  theocracy there at all, and a prosperous and democratic Iran might have forced the House of Saudi to be a bit less repulsive over the years.]

So instead of acting like a hyperactive juggler dashing between a dozen spinning plates, maybe the best course is to step back even more than we have already. No, I don’t mean isolationism: What I mean is taking seriously the idea of strategic disengagement and putting the whole region further down on America’s list of foreign policy priorities. Instead of constantly cajoling these states to do what we think is best — and mostly getting ignored or rebuked by them — maybe we should let them sort out these problems themselves for awhile. And if any of them eventually want American help, it should come at a steep price. {I’d kind of like to know what sort of price he is suggesting that we should be demanding]

Among other things, the policy I’m suggesting would mean the United States would stop its futile efforts to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I’ve argued against such a course in the past, but it is now obvious to me that no president is willing to challenge Israel’s backers here in the United States and make U.S. support for Israel conditional on an end to the occupation. Until that happens, even well-intentioned efforts to broker a peace will keep failing. Instead of continuing to squander valuable time and prestige on a fruitless endeavor, the U.S. government should disengage from this thankless task until it is ready to do more than just palaver and plead. If Israel’s leaders want to risk their own future by creating a “greater Israel,” so be it. It would be regrettable if Israel ended up an apartheid state and an international pariah, but preventing that tragedy is not a vital U.S. interest. (If it really were, U.S. policy since Oslo might have been rather different.)

………

 To be sure, the course of action I’m sketching here is likely to leave the Middle East in a pretty messy condition for some time to come. But that is going to be the case no matter what Washington decides to do. So the question is: should the United States squander more blood and treasure on a series of futile tasks, and in ways that will make plenty of people in the region angry and encourage a few of them look for ways to deliver some payback? Or should the United States distance itself from everyone in the region, and prepare to intervene only when a substantial number of American lives are at risk or in the unlikely event that there is a genuine and imminent threat of regional domination?

………

One final thought: this argument would not preclude limited U.S. action for purely humanitarian purposes — such as humanitarian airdrops for the beleaguered religious minorities now threatened with starvation in Iraq. That’s not “deep engagement”; that’s merely trying to help people threatened with imminent death. But I would not send U.S. forces — including drones or aircraft — out to win a battle that the Iraqi government or the Kurds cannot win for themselves. The United States spent the better part of a decade chasing that elusive Grail, and the end result was precisely the sort of chaos and sectarian rivalry that has produced this latest crisis. We may be able to do some limited good for the endangered minorities, but above all, let’s do no further harm: not to the region, and not to ourselves.

(emphasis mine)

This is an interesting idea, and one that is further reinforced by the hyperactive bellicosity of our current Secretary of State, John Kerry.

I do not think that we have seen a positive intervention by the United States, or by its former colonial rulers, France and the UK, in the past 100 years.

When you consider how poorly their actions compare to those of the prior power in the region, the Ottoman Empire, it boggles the mind.

And the Bombs Drop in Iraq

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To quote Michael Corleone, “Just when I thought I was out… they pull me back in.”

We are now bombing targets in Iraq, any guess as to when we start seeing special forces, CIA paramilitaries, and mercenaries private military contractors end up involved in ground combat?

U.S. warplanes bombed Islamist fighters marching on Iraq’s Kurdish capital on Friday after President Barack Obama said Washington must act to prevent “genocide”.

Islamic State fighters, who have beheaded and crucified captives in their drive to eradicate unbelievers, have advanced to within a half hour’s drive of Arbil, capital of Iraq’s Kurdish region and a hub for U.S. oil companies.

They have also seized control of Iraq’s biggest dam, Kurdish authorities confirmed on Friday, which could allow them to flood cities and cut off vital water and electricity supplies.

The Pentagon said two F/A-18 aircraft from an aircraft carrier in the Gulf had dropped laser-guided 500-pound bombs on the fighters’ artillery and other airstrikes had targeted motar positions and an Islamic State convoy.

Obama authorised the first U.S. air strikes on Iraq since he pulled all troops out in 2011, arguing action was needed to halt the Islamist advance, protect Americans and safeguard hundreds of thousands of Christians and members of other religious minorities who have fled for their lives.

And Maliki remains Iraqi PM, and almost as much of a problem as ISIS, remains determined to stay in power:

Maliki, a Shi’ite Islamist accused by foes of fuelling the Sunni revolt by running an authoritarian sectarian state, has refused to step aside to break a stalemate since elections in April, defying pressure from Washington and Tehran.

Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, a reclusive 84-year-old scholar whose word is law for millions of Shi’ites in Iraq and beyond, has repeatedly pushed for politicians to break the deadlock and reunify the country. His weekly sermon on Friday, read out by an aide, was his clearest call for Maliki to go.

Though he did not mention Maliki by name, he said those who cling to posts were making a “grave mistake”.

The fact that al-Sistani pretty much told Maliki to resign is telling.

He has studiously kept out of Iraqi politics, but even he has had enough of Nouri al-Maliki.

This is a Classic Case of Regulatory Capture

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After the public outrage over the NYPD choking a man to death for allegedly selling single cigarettes, the Civilian Complaint Review Board wants to have fewer investigations:

With New York in an uproar over the death of Eric Garner after police put him in a chokehold, the new chairman of the group that handles public grievances about the NYPD floated the idea yesterday that his agency should stop listening to people who complain about police stops.

“I’m not sure stop-and-frisk is still appropriate for this agency,” Richard Emery, the head of the Civilian Complaint Review Board said at his first board meeting. “So many other people are working on it.”
NYCLU Associate Legal Director Chris Dunn—who last month accused the board, then in its sixth month without a chairman, of being “on life support”—strongly disagreed.

“There’s no way this agency can walk away from stop-and-frisk,” Dunn said. “There are more interactions around stop-and-frisk than any other interaction in the police department….I’m just telling you: When you as the incoming chair of the CCRB say something like ‘We should get out of the business of stop-and-frisk,’ that is sending the wrong signal.

This isn’t the first time the CCRB has appeared to try to back away from stop-and-frisk issues. In May, Dunn confronted board members about a leaked memo that seemed to suggest that frisks conducted when cops issue a summons can’t be subject to review by the board.

Any civilian police review board must have not just an adversarial role with the police department, but it must have an adversarial mindset, because no organization can be trusted to police itself.

If the Police do not hate a civilian review board, then that civilian review board is simply not doing its job.

The sentiments expressed by Richard Emery are literally those of a petty bureaucrat in a police state.

Nerdgasm!!!!!!!

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Kewl!!!

I just came across a Kickstarter for a new Star Trek movie:

Axanar is the independent Star Trek film which proves that a feature-quality Star Trek film can be made on a small budget.

 (PLEASE NOTE: Kickstarter will not charge your pledge till the end of the campaign on August 31. So you have that much time to save up!)

 Our 20-minute short film, Prelude to Axanar, premiered Saturday, July 26th, 2014, at San Diego Comic Con and features Richard Hatch, Tony Todd, Kate Vernon, JG Hertzler and Gary Graham, who reprises his role of Soval from “Enterprise”. The makeup was done by Academy Award winner Kevin Haney and Star Trek veteran Brad Look and Make Up Effects Lab. Top that off with the amazing visual effects of Tobias Richter and The Light Works, and sound by Academy Award winner Frank Serafine, and the result is Prelude to Axanar: something unlike anything you have ever seen before. We have our loyal donors to thank for this!
This Kickstarter is for the full-length feature Axanar. Unlike the short film, which we shot in two days and cost $75,000, the 90-minute Axanar feature will take about 20 days and cost about $650,000. So we are breaking up our costs into discreet sections which should allow us to reach significant milestones, as we don’t expect to raise all $650,000 at once. This first Kickstarter will be for the sound stage and set construction. Anything over what we need for that will be applied to the feature production costs. Full details are below.

It should be noted that they have already raised $207,447 of their goal of $100,000 with 16 days to go, so I do not think that their funding goal is unrealistic, though I cannot see how they can do a whole feature length film for $650K.

The CGI might not be that much, what with the realitiess of Moore’s law, but I cannot see how they could do this on such a low budget.

I do not think I could even to decent set design for their whole budget.

Still, enjoy this nerd pr0n.

Not My Choice, but It’s a Start

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This post was corrected on 26 January, 2016.  

Dr. Dirk Markus has no connection to Aurelius Capital Management LP, the vulture fund in question.  

He is  the CEO of Aurelius Equity Opportunities, which is a completely unrelated financial firm, and is not involved with the attempted looting of Argentina in any way.

My apologies. 

Argentina is going to the International Court of Justic in the Hague:

Argentina has asked the international court of justice (ICJ) in The Hague to take action against the United States over an alleged breach of its sovereignty as it defaulted on its debt.

Argentina defaulted last week after losing a long legal battle with hedge funds that rejected the terms of debt restructurings in 2005 and 2010.

A statement issued by the ICJ, the United Nation’s highest court for disputes between nations, said Argentina’s request had been sent to the US government. It added that no action will be taken in the proceedings “unless and until” Washington accepts the court’s jurisdiction.

The US has recognised the court’s jurisdiction in the past, but it was not immediately clear if it would do so in Argentina’s case.

I guess that this is one avenue to take, though I think that the Argentinean investigation into possible violation of their laws by the vulture funds would likely be a better course of action:

Argentina’s markets watchdog on Monday launched an investigation into what it believes may have been unlawful speculation by holdout creditors whose litigation against the country for repayment of their defaulted bonds pushed it into a new default last week.

………

The head of Argentina’s Securities Commission Alejandro Vanoli said it had asked its U.S. counterpart for information on trade of Argentina’s sovereign debt and credit default swaps (CDS), derivatives used to insure against default.

The watchdog wanted to check if holdouts who rejected Argentina’s restructuring in the wake of its 2002 default held or traded CDS while they took part in negotiations with Argentina which could trigger a default.

“The use of insider information, which would be the case here, and market manipulation are crimes in Argentina, they are crimes in the United States, and they imply economic sanctions and eventually criminal sanctions,” Vanoli told a news conference.

While they might prevail at the ICJ, it is by no means a certainty, and it is also an open question as to whether or not the US government will obey that foreign court.

On the other hand, a prosecutor can indict a ham sandwich, and once they have file for extradition of the vulture funds senior staff.

Additionally, they could put a bounty on their heads, and if they were to promise a few million dollars for the apprehension and rendering of these people back to Argentina, you could be guaranteed that the pucker factor would skyrocket.

Additionally, it would be legal under US law, which grants extraordinary powers to bounty hunters.

If Argentina can win this, we deter from vulture fund f%$#ery, particularly if Mark Brodsky is delivered to Buenos Aires in chains with hoods over their heads.