Major Suckage

Srsly.

My contract with BD ended on Thursday, so I'm looking for work with unemployment (U-3) approaching 10%.

Tonight, we went down to Catonsville to see fireworks, and our car got towed.

We're waiting for a cab to take us down to bail out our car.

July is not starting well.

Another Thought on Sarah Palin

My thoughts on Sarah Palin surprise resignation remains that she quit to run for President.

Simply put, I have been receiving reports of her hubris and self-important behavior from my dad since before the election, and I think that she really believes that God wants her to be President, and with what shee sees as the increasingly vitriolic campaign of the Republican establishment against her, she feels the need to "talk directly to the people," specifically the people of Iowa and New Hampshire.

I think that she honestly believes that if she can meet enough voters 1 on 1, then she can win the caucus and primary.

I should note that my position is not the consensus in the blogosphere, which is that there is either a major scandal or health issue about to rear its head.

Palin's bizarre performance at her announcement would indicate something sudden, but both the recent very public push-back from the DC 'Phants and a potential scandal falls in that category.

In either case, I long for the day when she goes on my They Who Must Not Be Named list.

Posted via mobile.

Lawsuit Alleges Faulty Stealth Coatings on F-22

Darrol Olsen alleges that Lockheed-Martin covered up problems with the stealth coatings on the F-22. (See also here.)

Considering this guy's pedigree, he worked on stealth coatings for the F-117 and B-2, and the considerable problems that the F-22 has had with its stealth coatings, it's readiness and maintenance requirements have underperformed, I'm inclined to believe that there is some merit in the lawsuit.

My guess is that LM will eventually settle with him, and we will hear no more of this.

Kyrgyz Airbase Reopens to US Use

For a payment of $60 million, and no doubt a delivery of desperately needed vowels, the Manas airbase at Kyrgyzstan will be re-opened to US military traffic to Afghanistan.

The new deal limits transport to only non-military goods though.

Warplanes: China Developing Dedicated Jamming Aircraft

China is apparrently developing a dedicated electronic attack aircraft based on its JH-7 attack aircraft.

The JH-7 is a fixed geometry attack aircraft similar in size to the Panavia Tornado, and it has been sighted bedecked with numerous jamming pods.

Boeing’s Looks at Re- Winging 777

It appears that Boeing is concerned about the threat that the Airbus A350 might be in the market.

It's larger than the 787, but is following Boeing's lead on propulsion and structural technologies to lower operational costs, and so the Seattle (Chicago) based manufacturer is worried that they might be facing a repeat of the 767/A330 fight that they had over a decade ago, which the A330 won decisively.

So, Boeing is looking at a significant stretch to the 787, and at re-winging the 777 with a lighter weight composite structure. (paid subscription required)

I'm not clear if this is just some blue-sky thinking, or if Boeing is really spooked by the repeated delays, and the cancellation of orders, on its 787 Dreamliner.

A Wacky Tilt-Rotor Concept From DARPA

It's called the Folding Advanced Stopped Tilt Rotor (FASTR), and the basic idea is that you have some sort of variable cycle engine which powers tilt rotors on takeoff, and after you get to speed, the rotors are stopped, folded back, and the engines convert to turbojets.

I'm inclined to believe that this won't amount to anything, as the weight penalties of a stop start folding rotor and variable cycle engine would likely make any advantages irrelevant, but it's DARPA's job to try out weird stuff like this, and see what happens.

Veto Threat on F-22 and F136 Authorizations

President Obama has threatened a veto on both programs.

I'm of a mixed mind on the programs.

While it is clear that the F-22 is overpriced, and does not address foreseeable threats, the F136 alternate engine for the JSF seems like a good idea.

The P&W F100/GE F110 engine competition saved a lot of money, and produced more reliable engines.

What's more, the F136 seems to have more growth potential than the F135, and this is needed, particularly for the STOVL F-35B.

Additionally, the funds to continue F136 development are about the cost of procuring just 2 more F-22s.

Wicked Cool, But the RIAA Will Sue Your Ass

Blowing bubbles with CD blanks.

Loving Kiwi Admen

Air New Zealand has a new ad campaign called nothing to hide, in which they note that they don't "tack extra charges on their fares," and they have flight staff clad only in body paint to demonstrate.

Here is the flight safety video....I guess the in-flight magazine can wait:

More On Palin Resigning

I just heard, from a message board, not my dad's friends in Alaska, that there has been a rumor of IRS troubles for Palin.

Don't know if it's true or not, but resigning mid term to run for president makes no sense when she could just not run for reelection in 2010.

Well, This is a Weird 5-Way

Justices Antonin Scalia, John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer formed the majority on "Cuomo vs. Clearing House Association, (Eliot Spitzer originally brought the case) where they affirmed a states right to enforce laws against unfair lending practices.

If you had told me that a 5-4 decision in the Supreme court would have this makeup, I would have thought that you were pulling my leg.

While the Supreme Court did limit the scope of state Attorneys General, they do not have the right to simply demand documents, as federal regulators do, they have to get a court order, this is a big victory for consumers, and Scalia authored it.

Reality is sometimes odd.

Paulson to Testify On Merrill Deal

I figure that he will be sworn in before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and lie about what he and his staff did, because he's Goldman Sachs, and knows that there are no consequences for this if you are Goldman Sachs.

Economics Update

Slow news day on the economic front.

We are seeing a big drop in lending by the SBA to small businesses, largely because in the SBA guaranteed program are refusing to lend.

Additionally, we are seeing the Federal Reserve's plan to purchase mortgage backed securities opening much smaller than originally stated, $20 billion, as opposed to more than $100 billion.

I think that a lot of this is because the relaxation of accounting rules make it easier for executives to write themselves big pay checks with all the crap remaining on their books priced as gold, or if not gold, at least copper.

In any case, the dismal job numbers, are driving concerns that the economy has not yet hit bottom, which drove the dollar up, and oil down.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!?!?

Palin is resigning as governor of Alaska to focus on running for President effective July 25. (see also here)

It appears that she thinks that she needs more than 2 years to run for President, her term expires in 2010.

3½ more years of Palin....Great googly moogly!

I cannot imagine that anyone out there with a smidgen of sanity views this with anything but dread, except, perhaps, Jon Stewart, Dave Letterman, Jay Leno, Conan O'Brien, etc. and their staffs, who find writing satirical monologues that much easier.

Eric Boehlert and Bill Kristol Are Both Wrong

Eric Boehlert agrees with William Kristol when he says that Todd Purdum's piece must be wrong when he says that Hit's simply not possible that multiple individuals would have concluded that she had Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

First, my background: I lived in Alaska from 1963 to 1969, I was 7 when I left, and my father worked at various levels in the state and local government, being the head of planning for Governor Bill Egan, and head of the State Charter Commission.

He maintains the friendships that he made there, and as such, he is in touch with many people who are very much a part of the political scene there, particularly on the Democratic Party side.

The other thing to realize is just how tiny the political scene is there. Everyone knows, and meets, everyone else on an almost daily basis when the legislature is in session, so if one person made a comment, like "I was looking through the DSM IV, and 'Narcissistic Personality Disorder' matched Palin to a 'T," it could rapidly become a talking point.

This makes this story likely, but the email that I got forwarded to me by my dad pretty much makes it a almost certainly true.

I would note that my dad quoted this individual to me in October saying essentially the same thing.

----- Forwarded Message ----
From: -------
To: Mr Ron Saroff <-------->
Sent: Thursday, July 2, 2009 8:31:38 AM
Subject: FW: Politico.com:

Further amusement --this time amongst the R's. Lots of bad substantive stuff to say about Palin, but frankly I think the sexism is disgusting from both parties and elsewhere.

Check out this page:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0609/24392.html

I was one of the people who told TP [Todd Purdum] Sarah had a narcissistic personality disorder! And he told me I wasn't the first to say it.

Thank you,
THE POLITICO
Politico.com

This once again shows that you cannot go wrong betting against William Kristol.

Jon Stewart is a F%$#ing Genius, Part e∫ee

John Stewart noting that Dick Cheney is objecting to Dick Cheney's Iraq pullout plan.

It's Bank Failure Friday on Thursday!

Great Googly Moogly! 7 Banks, 6 of them in Illinois, shuttered by the FDIC on one weekend.

July 2 is literally the middle of the year, day 183, and we are now on a pace to break 100 for the year.

And here they are, ordered, and numbered for the year so far.

46. John Warner Bank, Clinton, IL
47. First State Bank of Winchester, Winchester, IL
48. Rock River Bank, Oregon, IL
49. Elizabeth State Bank, Elizabeth, IL
50. First National Bank of Danville, Danville, IL
51. Millennium State Bank of Texas, Dallas, TX
52. Founders Bank, Worth, IL

Full FDIC list

Least Surprising News of the Day

Banks hate the idea of a financial consumer protection agency.

Why Do Right Wingers Hate America

Former CIA employee, and torture apologist, Michael Scheuer goes on Glenn Beck's show on Fox, and says that Americans need to die from a terrorist attack:

Scheuer: The only chance we have as a country right now is for Osama bin Laden to deploy and detonate a major weapon in the United States. Because it's going to take a grass-roots, bottom-up pressure. Because these politicians prize their office, prize the praise of the media and the Europeans. It's an absurd situation again. Only Osama can execute an attack which will force Americans to demand that their government protect them effectively, consistently, and with as much violence as necessary.

Beck: Which is why, I was thinking this weekend, if I were him, that would be the last thing I would do right now.

As Adam Serwer notes:

But understand, this is not unpatriotic. You can wish all manner of horrors on this country, but as long as these horrors might serve a specific political agenda, you're not being unpatriotic. Unpatriotic is a public health care plan. Unpatriotic is a judge modifying subprime mortgage loans to keep a roof over someone's head. Unpatriotic is phosphate free detergent. Patriotic is wishing for a terrorist attack on the United States.

Why should we listen to these people about anything. They hate America and Americans.

Osama, Take Me Now!

Have Americans become so slovenly that the mere act of flicking one's wrist while holding a laser pointer.

(Click pic for vid)

Why Americans Favor the Public Option

Monty Python Explains:


H/T Fighting Liberals for the vid.

Goldman Pushes Back on Taibbi

Felix Salmon looks at the response from "the top flack at Goldman Sach" (his words), and basically goes with Taibbi's assessment.

Matt Taibbi's response is even clearer: he notes that Goldman does not actually deny anything in their "denial", and further notes that Goldman refused to respond ot his inquiries.

One Penny on the Dollar

United Western Bancorp just sold mortgage backed securities with a face value of $47.3 million for less than that, $378,000.00 was paid, whcih comes to 0.88%.

Great googly moogly.

How Barack Obama F%$#s the Progressive in Congress

Case in point, freshman Representative Tom Perriello, who was aggressively lobbied to vote for the cap and trad bill, he thought that it was a sellout, and originally intended to vote against it, and is now being targeted by the GOP on this vote.

On the other hand, blue dogs, like Gene Taylor, were allowed to vote their campaign dollars "conscience", and were not aggressively lobbied.

Perriello's margin in his campaign, just 727 votes, while Gene Taylor, "He won 74.6% of the vote in 2008, and 79.8% in 2006."

This is about campaign money. Rahm Emanuel and His Evil Minions^™ think that the blue dogs are critical in getting big money campaign donations, and that if you have to sacrifice a few progressive Dems to secure that, they don't raise the big bucks, so screw them.

Economics Update

Scary Picture of the Day
H/T Calculated Risk

Today is the official unemployment numbers, and they are worse than expected. Non-Farm payroll fell by 467K, and unemployment (U-3) rose to 9.5%.

For those of you following the more expansive, and to my mind, more accurate, U-6, it rose to 16.6%.

Unemployment is hitting new highs in the Euro zone too, which is why the ECB is keeping its rates at 1%.

It's no wonder that a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey showed that people are getting more pessimistic about the economy.

We do have a bit of good news, with factory orders rising in May, and
mortgage rates falling this week.


In energy, both crude oil and wholesale gasoline prices fell, on the weak employment numbers and expanding inventory.

The investor flight to safety has strengthened the dollar.

Time for a Blogger Ethics Panel

It appears that the Washington Post is selling access to, for sums in excess of $25,000.00, access to the "powerful few" in DC:

For $25,000 to $250,000, The Washington Post has offered lobbyists and association executives off-the-record, nonconfrontational access to "those powerful few": Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and — at first — even the paper’s own reporters and editors.

The astonishing offer was detailed in a flier circulated Wednesday to a health care lobbyist, who provided it to a reporter because the lobbyist said he felt it was a conflict for the paper to charge for access to, as the flier says, its “health care reporting and editorial staff."

It appears that WaPo executive editor Marcus Brauchli has circulated a memo saying that members of the news department are prohibited from attending, which is unsurprising, since they got caught.

Normally, I wouldn't expect journalists to turn down free food.

What Digby Said

Seriously:

Today the ACLU and many bloggers who are concerned with the fact that the United States tortured prisoners and apparently has no intention of holding anyone responsible for it are blogging about a little known fact about the issue: the US Government didn't just torture a bunch a prisoners, as bad as that was, and as horrible as it remains for those who survived it. The United States tortured many prisoners to death. This does not seem to be common knowledge, but the evidence is quite clear that this happened. Torture and death by torture was not isolated.

It should be noted that if the prisoner died, they were violating even the repulsive standards of Bybee and Yoo.

Why We Love The Rude Pundit

Just go read his takdown of Governor Sanford.

It is even better than Jon Stewart's take-down of the Governor.

RIP Usenet

I don't have the full details, but it appears that the RIAA has won a major court case against Usenet.com.

Based on the description in the article, it would appear that any ISP hosting Usenet would be deemed infringing.

Latest Phony GOP SH%$ Storm

They are claiming that the EPA is suppressing climate warming skeptical reports from one of their employees, Al Carlin.

There are, however, a few problems:

• He's an economist not a scientist.
• He was never asked the reports, this is a hobby that he does on the side, and then he writes memos about them.
• The report has been by a NASA climatologist as, "a ragbag collection of un-peer reviewed web pages, an unhealthy dose of sunstroke, a dash of astrology and more cherries than you can poke a cocktail stick at."
• He's never been a part of the climate change working group.

So basically, he's the nutcase you ignore on an email listserv.

She's persona non grata in Palm Beach

Pity Ruth Madoff. She's going to have to live the rest of her life on just $2.5 million in cash:

Ruth will be left with just $2.5 million in cash by federal authorities under that deal.

"In the deal, she lost everything. She's lost everything she holds dear," said one source. "She's lost her husband. She has no friends."

"She's persona non grata in Palm Beach, everywhere she cared about. She's a beaten woman. There's nothing left on the carcass to take," the source said.

(emphasis mine)

$2½ million and PNG in Palm Beach!

The horror.

On Having 60 Democrats

OK, so Al Franken is finally going to be seated.

The question is two fold, what does this mean, and what should this mean?

Ignoring the health issues of Byrd and Kennedy,^* which means that Democrats are theoretically able to get cloture in the event of a Republican filibuster.

The question is, "Will they?"

Obviously, managing Senators is like herding cats, so one cannot expect them, particularly on the Democratic side of the aisle, to vote for every bit of legislation.

Voting on cloture, however, should a different thing, though I've very little confidence in Senate Leader Reid enforcing this.

As voters, and potential campaign contributors, I would suggest not contributing to the DSCC and instead contributing to individual campaigns, with Dem Senators who vote against cloture healthcare or global legislation getting nothing.


^*Which is a lot like saying, "Other Than That, Mrs. Lincoln, How Was the Play?"

Economics Update

Unemployment Rate Actual data vs. the Summers-Geithner Stress Test Assumptions
H/T Calculated Risk

The obvious lede is the various corporate measures of job cuts, with ADP Employer Services saying that there were 393K private-sector jobs cut, Challenger, Gray & Christmas saying that planned job cuts in June were 74,393, and the Monster Employment Index (PDF) moderating somewhat for June.

These are a bit better than May, but only in "the 2^nd derivative is improving" way.

Jobs are still being cut, when you need to job growth to match the growth of the work force.

In related "2^nd derivative" news, there is CNN trumpeting the fact that the Institute for Supply Management's (ISM) manufacturing index rose for the 6th straight month:, while Bloomberg correctly notes that what this really means is that Manufacturing in U.S. Shrank at Slower Pace in June.

Falling less slowly is not improvement.

I am so sick of hack Panglossian journalists.

We also have mortgage applications falling to a 7 month low, which indicates that right now the housing market is in a death dance with economic recovery.

Any recovery will bump interest rates a few points, but that will kill any recovery in real estate......Catch 22.

If you want some good news, industrial sentiment rose in Japan, but it's a "2^nd derivative" thing too, with the index rising to minus 48 in June from minus 58 in March.

The only really good news, is that Calculated Risk's June Economic Summary in Graphs is out, so there is some good chart pr0n for the wonks.

In energy, we have US Diesel inventories up, along with both oil and gasoline falling on increasing inventories.

Finally, the dollar fell, though I can't tell if this is China's suggestion of an alternate reserve currency, or because all the "2^nd derivative" stuff make investors feel less of a need for a safe haven.

You Know that the Recession is Bad When

The makers of pr0n are complaining about how the downturn has hit the bottom line.

When people don't have money for erotica, people just don't have money.

Or so I've been told. I never touch the stuff myself......