Month: June 2017

Gripen E Makes Maiden Flight

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The upgraded Gripen, which is basically a completely new aircraft, jas just made its first flight:

Swedish aerospace and defense company Saab has completed the first flight of its prototype E-model Gripen fighter jet.

The prototype, coded 39-8, took to the air at 10:32 a.m. local time June 15 from the company’s development facility at Linkoping, flying for 40 min. and reaching an altitude of 13,000 ft. before touching down safely.

Video and imagery of the aircraft departing and inflight showed a relatively short takeoff run in dry power and revealed that the company retracted the landing gear inflight, a relatively rare occurrence in first flights. Two twin-seat JAS-39D Gripens acted as chase aircraft.

The aircraft took 10 years to develop, which by the standard of modern fighter development is a very short time, and while pricier than its it is still far cheaper to operate than its competitors.

Total employment on the program is less than that of just the program office for the F-35, and total development cost for the program was less than that of the most recent software release for the JSF. (link)

There is no reasonable justification for the protracted and expensive developments that have become the standard in western fighter programs.

Here is a PR video from Saab:

Where I Endorse a Company That I Try to Avoid

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It’s an auto body shop, and so it’s not a place where you want to go unless you have to.

Who wants to be rear-ended by some inattentive bloke in a Ford, but if you do I highly recommend Iggy’s Auto Body.

He is competent, timely, and above all, honest.

(on edit)

Contact information:
Iggy’s Auto Body
2929 Industrial Park Dr., # N
Finksburg, Maryland 21048

Phone    (410) 526-2900

Tories Are Lucky That the Grenfell Fire Did Not Happen Two Weeks Ago

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By now, you have doubtless heard of the Grenfell Tower fire in London, where perhaps as many as 100 people in a public housing tower died in a ferocious blaze.

The facts at this point are that the residents had been complaining about potential fire hazards for years, and the fire was likely made much worse by the addition of cosmetic cladding that was both flammable (so flammable that it has been banned in the US) and functioned as a chimney for the flames.

The indications are that the cladding was added because the building was located in the very tony Kensington borough, and they wanted to improve the views.

Theresa May should be thanking her lucky stars that this didn’t happen before the election, because her housing/fire safety minister specifically argued against better fire regulations, and when May initially went to the scene of the fire, she refused to meet with the former residents of the apartments.

By comparison, Jeremy Corbyn visited with the former residents, and promised that they would be told what happened.

Heck, even the singer Adele went to talk to the fire victims.

If this had happened a week before the elections, Jeremy Corbyn would now be the Prime Minister.

BTW, Corbyn has already made a proposal to help the people displaced by the fires, he wants to put them in the empty flats in the area that are owned by rich people who use London real estate to launder their money:

Empty flats in North Kensington should be “requisitioned if necessary” for people left homeless by the Grenfell Tower fire, Jeremy Corbyn says.

The Labour leader has also said he is “very angry” that so many lives were lost in a deadly tower block fire.

………

And he told MPs on Thursday: “The south part of Kensington is incredibly wealthy, it’s the wealthiest part of the country.

“The ward where this fire took place is, I think the poorest ward in the whole country.

“And properties must be found, requisitioned if necessary, in order to make sure those residents do get re-housed locally.

“It cannot be acceptable that in London you have luxury buildings and luxury flats kept as land banking for the future while the homeless and the poor look for somewhere to live.”

It a good solution, and it is precisely the sort of action that makes Tory heads explode, which makes it even more delicious.

Wells Fargo Again

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In addition to creating phony accounts for customers, it appears that Wells Fargo modified mortgages of people who had filed for bankruptcy, which is illegal in at least two levels:

Even as Wells Fargo was reeling from a major scandal in its consumer bank last year, officials in the company’s mortgage business were putting through unauthorized changes to home loans held by customers in bankruptcy, a new class action and other lawsuits contend.

The changes, which surprised the customers, typically lowered their monthly loan payments, which would seem to benefit borrowers, particularly those in bankruptcy. But deep in the details was this fact: Wells Fargo’s changes would extend the terms of borrowers’ loans by decades, meaning they would have monthly payments for far longer and would ultimately owe the bank much more.

Any change to a payment plan for a person in bankruptcy is subject to approval by the court and the other parties involved. But Wells Fargo put through big changes to the home loans without such approval, according to the lawsuits.

The changes are part of a trial loan modification process from Wells Fargo. But they put borrowers in bankruptcy at risk of defaulting on the commitments they have made to the courts, and could make them vulnerable to foreclosure in the future.

Seriously, what does a bankster need to do to get arrested in the USA?

Here’s Hoping that Someone Rolls on the Governor

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There have now been manslaughter charges filed against senior officials in Michigan over the poisoning of Flint.

Given that the water change appears to have largely been driven by Governor Snyder attempting to benefit political supporters from the fracking industry, so if this gets followed to the top, Snyder may find himself in the dock:

Michigan’s health department director and four other officials involved with Flint’s lead-contaminated water were charged Wednesday with involuntary manslaughter, the most serious charges to date in the criminal investigation.

Nick Lyon was accused of misconduct in office and involuntary manslaughter, becoming the highest-ranking member of Gov. Rick Snyder’s administration to be targeted in the criminal probe. The manslaughter charges carries a penalty of up to 15 years in prison and a $7,500 fine, while the misconduct charge carries a prison sentence of up to five years and a $10,000 fine.

Lyon, former Flint Emergency Manager Darnell Earley, former Michigan Department of Environmental Quality Drinking Water Chief Liane Shekter-Smith, state Water Supervisor Stephen Busch and former Flint Water Department Manager Howard Croft are accused of failing to alert the public about an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease in the Flint area. Earley, Shekter-Smith, Busch and Croft already have been charged with less-serious crimes.

I am so hoping that Snyder ends up in the dock.

Pass the Popcorn………

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I have always said that the whole Russian conspiracy thing is bullsh%$, with the actual crime, at best, being a violation of campaign finance laws.

That being said, the cliche, “It ain’t the crime, it’s the coverup,” does apply.

It turns out that attempting to instruct an investigation of a crime is still obstruction of justice, even if the underlying crime turns out not to have happened.

It appears that Bob Mueller is investigating Trump for obstruction of justice:

The special counsel overseeing the investigation into Russia’s role in the 2016 election is interviewing senior intelligence officials as part of a widening probe that now includes an examination of whether President Trump attempted to obstruct justice, officials said.

 The move by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III to investigate Trump’s conduct marks a major turning point in the nearly year-old FBI investigation, which until recently focused on Russian meddling during the presidential campaign and on whether there was any coordination between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin. Investigators have also been looking for any evidence of possible financial crimes among Trump associates, officials said.

 Trump had received private assurances from then-FBI Director James B. Comey starting in January that he was not personally under investigation. Officials say that changed shortly after Comey’s firing.

Normally, this would alarm me, but when this news is coupled with the fact that Mike Pence is lawyering up over the same investigation, which implies that even if the Vice President expects to be the target of investigation as well:

Vice President Pence has hired outside legal counsel to help with both congressional committee inquiries and the special counsel investigation into possible collusion between President Trump’s campaign and Russia.

The vice president’s office said Thursday that Pence has retained Richard Cullen, a Richmond-based lawyer and chairman of McGuireWoods who previously served as a U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia.

Pence’s decision comes less than a month after Trump hired his own private attorney, Marc E. Kasowitz, to help navigate the investigations related to the Russia probe, and a day after The Washington Post reported that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III is widening his investigation to examine whether the president attempted to obstruct justice.

“I can confirm that the Vice President has retained Richard Cullen of McGuireWoods to assist him in responding to inquiries by the special counsel,” said Jarrod Agen, a Pence spokesman, in an emailed statement. “The Vice President is focused entirely on his duties and promoting the President’s agenda and looks forward to a swift conclusion of this matter.”

I am amused.

You’re an Imbecile

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There are not a whole bunch of discussions where I think that the only response is to immediately dismiss its proponents as stupid and engage in no further dialog.

It’s not that my don’t quickly judge others’ intelligence, it’s that generally I like to argue.

But sometimes, something is so f%$#ing stupid that I just wash my hands.

Pretty much any argument that includes the phrase, “Cultural appropriation,” and not only do I stop listening, and simply go all Drax the Destroyer and walk away.

And now the forces of evil have captured Canada, and there is an international effort to criminalize “Cultural Appropriation” which originates from the Great White North:

Indigenous advocates from around the world are calling on a UN committee to ban the appropriation of Indigenous cultures — and to do it quickly.

Delegates from 189 countries, including Canada, are in Geneva this week as part of a specialized international committee within the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), a United Nations agency.

Since it began in 2001, the committee has been working on creating and finishing three pieces of international law that would expand intellectual-property regulations to protect things like Indigenous designs, dances, words and traditional medicines.

The meeting takes place as concern grows worldwide about the rights of cultures to control their own materials. In the U.S. this week, designer Tory Burch agreed to change the description of one of her coats for women after Romanians protested that it had been described as African-inspired when it actually appropriated a traditional Romanian garment.

The only cultures that do not incorporate the characteristics of of other cultures over time are dead cultures.

What’s more, this whole thing runs counter to the very concept of a cultural commons, which is essential for a living society.  (Of course, it is coming from WIPO, which makes the US Patent Court look like Karl Marx.)

I would also add that the cultures in question are in no way harmed by this.  They still have their, “Designs, dances, words and traditional medicines,” even if, for example, Richard Simmons decides to do an aerobics video using the traditional dances of the Masai.

My apologies for the image of a Richard Simmons doing an aerobics video using the traditional dances of the Masai.

It isn’t pretty, but it needed to be said.

H/t Angry Bear, who is just as disgusted as I am.

Linkage

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Fake journalist Jonathan Pie on the Brexit

UPS Employee Goes Postal

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Is it just me, or does anyone else see the irony in a UPS guy going Postal?

We live in strange times:

A gunman shot and killed three people at a United Parcel Service facility in San Francisco on Wednesday morning before fatally shooting himself in front of police officers, authorities said.

Two others were wounded by gunfire, according to San Francisco police, and five had injuries that were probably sustained during the rush to evacuate.

The lone gunman, identified by police as Jimmy Lam, 38, shot himself in the head, Assistant Chief Toney Chaplin said. Two guns were recovered at the scene.

Authorities said the incident was not believed to be connected to terrorism. Police Chief William Scott told The Times that investigators were uncertain about Lam’s motive.

………

UPS spokesman Steve Gaut said Lam was a driver who was wearing his uniform when he opened fire inside the four-story shipping facility. At the time, workers were gathering for their morning meeting before departing to deliver parcels, he said.

Lam, a resident of San Francisco, had filed a grievance in March complaining about excessive overtime, Joseph Cilia, a Teamsters Union official, told the Associated Press. The Teamsters local represents UPS workers in San Francisco.

It appears that workplace shooters never follow my advice, which is to target upper management.

This whole “Going Postal at UPS” thing is kind of ironic, the protestations of grammar Fascists notwithstanding.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

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Troof!

Violence of any kind is unacceptable in our society and I condemn this action in the strongest possible terms. pic.twitter.com/hyfmmpgXML

— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) June 14, 2017

Right thing to say

In a political season characterized by death threats against candidates, (here & here) it is lamentable, but foreseeable that someone would take those threats to the next level.

Today, in the 154
sup

mass shooting in the United States so far this year, a man opened fire at a baseball practice (there is an annual charity game) for Congressional Republicans:

A man angry with President Trump unleashed a barrage of gunfire Wednesday morning at Republican members of Congress as they held a baseball practice at a park in Alexandria, wounding House Majority Whip Steve Scalise and four others in a frenzied scene that included a long gun battle with police.

The gunman, James T. Hodgkinson, a 66-year-old unemployed home inspector from southern Illinois, died after the shootout. Two Capitol Police officers assigned to Scalise’s security detail were wounded.

Hodgkinson, who had been living in his van in Alexandria for the past few months, had posted anti-Trump rhetoric on his Facebook page and had written letters to his hometown newspaper blaming Republicans for what he considered an agenda favoring the wealthy.

This is the culture that we have created, and this does not bode well for the future of our society.

As an aside the gunman volunteered for the Sanders Campaign in 2015, and Sanders immediately condemned his actions, and he was defended by Sarah Palin (Breitbart, so no link).

They Have Developed a Robot that Does Ass-Kissing

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This may not be true, but it was the first thing that I thought when I read a headline that said that, “Robots are doing the work of $326,000-a-year Goldman Sachs employees.”

After all, by the standards of the Vampire Squid, these are rather low level employees who would be disinclined to speak truth to power, particularly given that these positions are in their IPO division:

Goldman Sachs is automating the work previously done by associates earning $326,000 a year, and Bloomberg reports that half of the tasks needed to prepare for an IPO can be done by algorithms as well.

According to a recent study by the bank, half of the 127 tasks done to prepare for initial public offerings of stock can be automated.

The standard way of managing an IPO is probably the most sycophantic area of investment banking.

It’s largely about buttering up potential clients, and passing out undervalued stock to institutional investors, so the degree of lingual gluteal interaction is pretty high.

Quote of the Day

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One day we will look back at what will hopefully be the smouldering wreckage of Kalanick’s career and ask how a person so lacking in basic human and corporate ethics was allowed to run a company for so long.

—Kadhim Shubber at the Financial Times

It looks like the story that Travis Kalanick either tacitly or actively approved the theft of medical records of a rape victim by one of his executives in an apparent attempt to discredit her account.

It should be noted that the Uber driver who raped her had a record before he began driving, and was convicted of the rape and sentenced to life in prison.

Of course, we’ve know what Kalanick was ever since he embezzled tax withheld from employee paychecks to keep  an earlier startup of his afload.  (Why didn’t he go to jail?)

It looks like this might finally catch up with him though, given that the Board of Directors has fired his chief lieutenant and put him on an indefinite leave of absence.

They are promising to fix the psychopathic culture of the company, but given that a member of the all hands meeting at which the changes were announced, a board member made a blatantly sexist joke, I’m not inclined to believe that there will actually be any change.

Uber is not a company which has a cancer in its culture, it is a company where cancer IS its culture.  (My opinion is shared by many current and former Uber employees)

The thing is that sh%$ flows downhill, and not only has this amoral culture thoroughly captured the executive suite, it has worked its way down to the drivers.

Case in point: Drivers has taken to colluding to trigger surge pricing by simultaneously logging out of their apps in order to stick it to “The Man”, which conveniently ignores the fact that this actually increases Uber profits by screwing the customers.

As a final note, read Paul Carr’s essay on this.  It is brilliant.

While We are on the Subject of Trump and Shakespeare………

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As I noted earlier, I think that Trump as Caesar is not particularly imaginative or interesting.(additionally, Julius Caesar is not my favorite Shakespeare play)

On the other hand, doing a Trump like King Lear has the possibility of being truly interesting.

The juxtaposition of a slightly delusional king and the mother of all dysfunctional families  with the Trump clan sounds like it has some real artistic potential.

Oh You Delicate Snowflakes………

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I am referring, of course, to the right wing butt hurt over the use of a Donald Trump character in the Shakespeare play Julius Caesar by the Public Theater of New York.  (AKA Shakespeare in the Park)

I will note that that casting someone who resembles the President as Julius Caesar in this play is a tired cliche that has been done to death going at least as far back as Reagan, which might justify a bad theater review, but the political outrage is 6 pounds of sh%$ in a 5 pound bag.

Seriously, the Republicans need to grow the f%$# up.

Not a Surprise

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British police have now announced that the Manchester suicide bomber did not have aid in manufacturing his device, all 22 people originally taken into custody without charges being filed:

Manchester bomber Salman Abedi was likely to have built the device that killed 22 people alone at his flat, police have said.

 Officers said there was now a “deep understanding” of Abedi’s movements in the weeks leading up to the attack.

 The head of counter terrorism said it was “less clear” whether he had obtained and stored all the materials or if others were “complicit”.

 All 22 people arrested over the attack have been released without charge.

Det Ch Supt Russ Jackson said Greater Manchester Police now had details of Abedi’s movements in the weeks leading up to the Manchester Arena bombing.

These included how the chemicals to build the bomb were obtained and where he put the device together.

Reports are that the bomber used the explosive TATP, which seems to be a favorite of would be bombers because:

  • Instructions on its manufacture are easily available on the internet. (Don’t Google it. You will probably end up on some TLA’s watch list)
  • Its precursors are readily available, and their purchase does not raise red flags as a result.
  • Manufacture is less difficult than making beer from from the original grains.
  • It is not detected by common explosive detection, because it contains no nitrogen. 

I would however note that TATP what is best described as some truly nasty sh%$, as it is extremely unstable, and even if you don’t accidentally blow yourself up, it degrades over a relatively short period of time without some sort of post processing with a stabilizing compound, so its use in conventional military or commercial explosives applications are extremely limited.

Still, it’s just about perfect for a not particularly well trained lone wolf suicide attacker, because it’s an easy to make yourself dead with a very loud noise.

Bummer of a Birthmark, Sam

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I don’t know which is more surprising, the fact that the the Kansas State House and Senate have overridden Governor Sam Brownback’s veto of their bill raising taxes, or the fact that even the most die-hard of Kansans Republicans are ecstatic over the the fact that taxes are being raised, because they actually want the Government services, and they recognize that the fairy dust of the Laffer curve doesn’t work:

The five men, most retirees, had been friends far too long to hold back.

“Brownback? That dumb…,” Larry Craig, 68, exclaimed, laying into Kansas’ Republican governor, Sam Brownback, now in the third year of his second and final term. “He screwed up everything since he became governor.”

Craig, a Republican, was sipping coffee at 7 a.m. Thursday at Mom’s Kitchen in Olathe with his buddies — another Republican, two independents, one Democrat. A lawyer, a business owner, a retired truck driver among them. They’ve been meeting up for 20 years.

“No Brownback fans in here,” declared Larry Hurt, 68, the lone Democrat and a retired Teamster.

The topic on the table: the governor’s 2012 tax plan, the most sweeping tax cut in state history. The governor called the cuts a “real live experiment” of the principle that slashing taxes and cutting government spending would spur economic growth that would power the state.

But over the last five fiscal years, that plan has failed to create enough jobs and businesses, leaving Kansas’ overall revenue — the money it spends on the mass of state services from fixing roads to schools to social services — down by some $3.6 billion.

The Republican-led Legislature, weary of severe budget shortfalls, handed Brownback a new tax plan aimed at reversing the state’s sinking fortunes by raising $1.2 billion more over two years. Income tax rates would go up, and 330,000 owners of “pass-through” businesses such as law firms and family farms would start paying taxes again.

 ………

The governor vetoed the plan. But on Tuesday, in a stunning rebuke, the Legislature overrode the veto, wiping away the centerpiece of Brownback’s conservative agenda.

If the voices of these Kansans are any indication, the mood of many people seems to be one of relief. The overall sentiment: “What took so long?”

It appears that everyone in the state realizes that Sam Brownback’s experiment, where he suggested that tax cuts would trigger economic growth to outpace the loss in tax revenues, has been an abject failure.

Only the truly delusional, for example one Samuel Dale Brownback, haven’t yet realized this.

Linkage

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Here is the Strontium Dog fan film:

Pass the Popcorn

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The head of the Scottish Conservative Party, Ruth Davidson, is a lesbian, and as such is none too pleased about the alliance that Theresa May is making with homophobic medieval bigots in the Irish DUP party, and so is considering a breakaway Conservative party in Scotland:

Ruth Davidson is to defy Theresa May’s plans for a hard Brexit and tear her Scottish party away from English control after the UK Tories’ disastrous General Election result.

Amid a growing clamour among senior Tories in London for Ms Davidson to be given a top position in the UK party, her aides are working on a deal that would see the Scottish party break away to form a separate organisation.

………

Although it has been mooted for some time, the imminent split between the Scottish and English parties is a direct result of a dramatic deterioration in relations between the Scottish Tory hierarchy in Edinburgh and 10 Downing Street.

Fresh from her success in winning an extra 12 Scottish seats in Thursday’s election, at the same time as the Prime Minister was losing 21 constituencies in England, Ms Davidson also vowed to use her Commons votes to prioritise the single market over curbing immigration.

………

Ms Davidson also signalled her opposition to Mrs May’s deal with the DUP in blunt fashion by tweeting a link to the same-sex marriage lecture she gave at Amnesty ‘s Pride lecture in Belfast last year.

She is engaged to Jen Wilson, an Irish Catholic Christian who campaigned during the Republic’s same-sex marriage referendum, is a practising Christian herself and has said she would like to get married in a local church.

Her views could not be further from those of the DUP, a staunch opponent of same-sex marriage and supporter of the “traditional” definition of marriage. Last night, Ms Davidson said she had sought and received assurances from the Prime Minister that she would try to advance gay rights in Northern Ireland despite the DUP’s record.

You lie down with digs, and you get up with fleas.