FCS MGV on Chopping Block

The Future Combat System Manned Ground Vehicles (FCS MGV)^* are on the chopping block, though it still looks like the howitzer version, the NLOS-C (shown) will still be procured.

The program is over budget and behind schedule, and the vehicles, originally in the 17 ton class (stripped for transport) and C-130 transportable, and now a 27 ton concept requiring larger transports, so this is not unforeseen.

The supporters of the program are claiming that :The development of the FCS network is linked to the development of FCS Manned Ground Vehicles. Each MGV acts as a node in the ground based aspect of the network. So cutting MGVs reduces the viability of the network," but truth be told, if the communications suite can be developed, it can be retrofitted to the legacy fleet and give the desired situational awareness.

There are really only 2 downsides that I see, that the troop carrier FCS MGV, the ICV, carries more troops than the Bradley, which has always been light in that department, and the legacy systems require more fuel and maintenance (the specs for the FCS MGV on maintenance are pretty amazing).

Canceling the MGVs would also serve to put the Pentagon, and the defense industry, on notice about cost and schedule creep, which is desperately needed because the weapons system development process is completely broken.

^*Full disclosure, I worked on the Future Recovery and Maintenance Vehicle, FRMV, "wrecker" variant of the FCS-MGV^† from 2003-2006 at United Defense (later BAE Systems after the Carlyle Group sold me to buy Dunkin Donuts).
^†Yes, I have worked everywhere. Maybe I can't hold down a job, but more likely this has been my role as "technical hit man", where you are parachuted in to take care of a specific need.

Obama Depressed, Distant Since 'Battlestar Galactica' Series Finale | The Onion - America's Finest News Source

Man, I just love The Onion - America's Finest News Source

12 Dead In Another Shooting Rampage

This one at an immigration services center in Binghamton, NY.

What the hell is going on here? There have something like a ½ dozen of these over the past month.

Federal Home Loan Board Chairman Resigns Over Changes in Mark to Market Rules

FHLB Chairman Charles Bowsher has resigned, saying that under the new rules, he would be unable in good conscience to vouch for the accuracy of the various FHLB banks financial statements following the relaxation of rules by the Federal Accounting Standards Board (FASB) on illiquid assets, and he talked with Jonathan Weil about it:

I was not comfortable as an audit-committee member in signing off on the financial statements, after I became aware of the standards and processes for valuing the mortgage-backed securities

An honest banker, who knew?

A broken, corrupt, and dishonest system....everyone knows that.

Gay Marriage News

The Iowa Supreme Court rules gay marriage legal, and the Vermont house passed a same-sex marriage bill, though the governor is still talking about vetoing it, because it's a distraction during the economic crisis.

Of course, the only way that it is a distraction is if he vetoes it, but he has to win a Republican primary with lots of bigots voting.

The idea that Vermont, which is highly dependent on tourism, would eschew this, which would give a boost to that industry, is, of course, nuts, but the Governor Jim Douglas is a 'Phant, after all.

The down side to this is that we are going to be spending a lot more on wedding gifts.

But seriously, it stuns me how quickly the forces of reason and hope are beating back the voices of fear and bigotry.

Compared to the black civil rights movement, this is light speed.

Banks Are Already Gaming Geithner's Bad Bank Plan

Gee, this is a surprise, banks are looking to buy each others' mortgage backed securities, essentially swapping their own crap for someone else's crap plus a 50+% subsidy.

For once, I find a Republican who has a clue

Spencer Bachus, the top Republican on the House financial services committee, vowed after being told of the plans by the FT to introduce legislation to stop financial institutions ”gaming the system to reap taxpayer-subsidized windfalls”.

Mr Bachus added it would mark ”a new level of absurdity” if financial institutions were ”colluding to swap assets at inflated prices using taxpayers’ dollars.”

I have to say, in reviewing Geithner's history, I do not believe that this was an error, but rather something that he intended.

I believe Geithner is Wall Streets bitch, and that this is just another instance when he strapped on the knee pads.

Massive Rally in Ukraine Triggers Yuschenko Backdown on Elections

I'm not sure how much of this is gamesmanship and how much is unrest over an economy falling at a double digit rate, but Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko has now said that he is open to new elections, which is a big walk back, seeing as how he is at 3% in the former Soviet Republic.

Honestly, Ukraine needs to develop a slightly less adversarial relationship with Russia, even if they are not fond of Russians themselves, a stance which the more pragmatic (and less batsh^% insane) Prime Minister, Yulia Tymoshenko, Yushchenko's chief rival understands while he does not.

We Are Doomed

Remember what Jon Stewart did to Jim Cramer and CNBC's predictions, well that hasn't stopped Jim Cramer from making more predictions, and now he is predicting that the "depression is over".

We are unbelievably screwed.



H/T Option Armageddon.

Mr. Obama, Tear Down That Wall!

In his meeting with bank presidents, he said, "My administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks."

True, and perhaps you would get better results if these people felt fear, rather than smugness.

Economics Update

Scare Pic of the day courtesy of Calculated Risk

Today's lede has to be the unemployment numbers with non farm payrolls dropping 663,000 in March and unemployment (U-3) hitting 8.5%.

It should be noted that if you use the broader U-6 metric, then unemployment is 15.6% up 6.3% from last March's 9.3%.

We also have the number of involuntary part-time workers increasing from climbed by 423,000, to 9.0 million, and the contraction of service industries is accelerating.

The best metric of the employment situation may be the employment-population ration, and it fell to 59.9%, the lowest level since 1985.

BTW, remember when I posted about UK house prices going up for the first time since 2007 in March? Not sop much, alternate data shows another fall in prices.

The dollar rose on a flight to safety after the crappy jobs report, and oil fell for the same reason.

How to Know When Your Ideas are Completely Stupid

When Sarah Palin endorses them.

She's jumped on the let's have a new Senate election in Alaska, bandwagon.

Jon Stewart on Limbaugh Leaving New York

What can I say, but "you go girl," funnier than Governor Paterson, but Stewart is a professional.

Brilliant

Blagojevich Indicted

Not a surprise.

Hopefully, there will be only one or 2 more times when I'll have to spell his damn name again.

link

Is All of AIG a Scam?

Or maybe it's the whole damn system.

The folks at Institutional Risk Analytics have concluded that AIG's reinsurance business was little more than a Ponzi scheme well before it set up its Financial Products division that took down the firm with its credit default swaps (CDS) business:

One of the first things we learned about the insurance world is that the concept of “shifting risk” for a variety of business and regulatory reasons has been ongoing in the insurance world for decades. Finite insurance and other scams have been at least visible to the investment community for years and have been documented in the media, but what is less understood is that firms like AIG took the risk shifting shell game to a whole new level long before the firm’s entry into the CDS market.

In fact, our investigation suggests that by the time AIG had entered the CDS fray in a serious way more than five years ago, the firm was already doomed. No longer able to prop up its earnings using reinsurance because of growing scrutiny from state insurance regulators and federal law enforcement agencies, AIG’s foray into CDS was really the grand finale. AIG was a Ponzi scheme plain and simple, yet the Obama Administration still thinks of AIG as a real company that simply took excessive risks. No, to us what the fraud Bernard Madoff is to individual investors, AIG is to the global financial community.

The crux of this accusation is that they reinsurance contracts that they did not have the resources to back up.

So their reinsurance, essentially insurance bought by insurance companies to insure themselves against a catastrophe, was essentially meaningless, and all the parties involved knew this:

One of the most widespread means of risk shifting is reinsurance, the act of paying an insurer to offset the risk on the books of a second insurer. This may sound pretty routine and plain vanilla, but what most people don’t know is that often times when insurers would write reinsurance contracts with one another, they would enter into “side letters” whereby the parties would agree that the reinsurance contract was essentially a canard, a form of window dressing to make a company, bank or another insurer look better on paper, but where the seller of protection had no intention of ever paying out on the contract.

My guess is that both the CDS and reinsurance business functioned the same way, which means that neither had legally binding contracts.

Essentially, it means that much of the insurance industry, whether reinsurance or CDS, is simply an attempt to deceive regulators, and defraud investors.

This raises an obvious question: if what was largely thought to be the largest insurer in the world was little more than a Ponzi scheme, how many other huge fraudulent enterprises are out there.

H/T The Big Picture.

Bagram Detainees Allowed to Petition for Habeas

Basically, the judge drew a distinction between people caught "on the battlefield" in Afghanistan and those caught elsewhere and transferred to Bagram.

Simply calling it a POW camp, particularly when you are not treating the detainees as POWs didn't cut it for the judge.

Needless to say, the Obama administration is expected to appeal this decision, in yet another case of going to the wall to support Bush era assaults on civil rights.

Senate Budget Bill Forces Fed to Name Names

In response to the Federal Reserve impeding attempts to get information as to the institutions that they have aided, the Senate has inserted a provision in the budget that would, "require the Fed to identify each firm it has given assistance to, how much the assistance was worth, and what the firm is doing with the money.."

Unfortunately, it appears that it won't make it to the President's desk, at least not according to a, "senior Democratic Senate aide," but it would be a good thing.

Signs of the Apocalypse

David Whorowitz (Horowitz) is making sense loony toon, fellow traveler with cop killers, and all-around bigot, is saying that the right wing attacks on Obama have been profoundly unhinged.

When this man is the voice of reason in a discussion, the rapture, or at least some helium filled blow up sex dolls, is not far off.

OK, So Fire Away

In an interview with Katie Couric, Tim Geithner said that firing bank CEOs is an option if they are not properly managing their firms.

Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis is not properly managing his firm.

Even if you ignore the disaster that is Merrill Lynch, the purchase of the toxic waste dump known as Countrywide Mortgage was his doing, and an unmitigated disaster, what's more, he's been calling you, and the whole Obama administration a bunch of C%&$suckers, saying that he will repay the TARP money to be done with you...Only not right now, because BoA is a bit short on folding green at the moment:

In his latest media appearances, including an interview on CNBC, Lewis said that BofA would repay taxpayers for the $45 billion in TARP proceeds his bank received. Eventually. (Lewis also said he ”regrets” having taken that much, saying the bank took more than it needed, describing the total as ”his mistake.” From this vantage, seems like the government’s … but po-tay-to, po-tah-to, right?)

But he quickly added that the economy will have to rebound. And then several quarters will have to pass.

Seriously, it's like that bit in Bull Durham, when Crash is ejected from the game for calling the ump a c%&$sucker.

You call the ump a c%&$sucker, and you are ejected.

Eject Ken Lewis, the self-important, pampered, anti-union, incompetent prima donna from the game, or ask for the full $45 billion back tomorrow, and initiate an investigation of how AIG unwound their swaps at 100%.

Video of interview here.

Alaska Republicans: Go Cheney Yourselves

In the wake of the DoJ's decision to drop charges against Ted Stevens, Alaskan Republicans are calling for Mark Begich to resign so that they can get a new election for Senate.

Because, you know, some people probably voted for Begich because Stevens was a convicted felon, because, you know, no one ever votes on information that might not be 100% accurate.

Let's be clear, Ted Stevens is still a completely corrupt son of a bitch, even if the Beltway Bozos and their Evil Minions^™ are now wringing their hands over the injustice, as Zachary Roth ably makes clear:

But even leaving criminal wrongdoing aside, no one disputes that Stevens accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of home renovations and gifts (remember that massage chair?) from a supporter who had a slew of business interests that Stevens was in a position to affect as a powerful federal lawmaker and appropriator. That's what we call "corrupt".

I would add that he also did this supporter a lot of favors.

If the DoJ had done its job, Ted Stevens would die in a jail cell, and he still deserves that.

FASB Re-Enables Crooked Incompetent Bankers

Under pressure from bankers, and their lackeys in Congress, the Federal Accounting Standards Board has relaxed mark-to-market rules.

This means that bankers can go back to creating more of the big sh$#pile, and calling it a pony:

Changes to fair-value, or mark-to-market accounting, approved by FASB today allow companies to use “significant” judgment in gauging prices of some investments on their books, including mortgage-backed securities. Analysts say the measure may reduce banks’ writedowns and boost net income. Firms could apply the changes to first-quarter results.

The FASB just got pressured to allow liars accounting again. This is a bad thing.

"Significant judgement", my ass. Wall Street has no judgment at all.

Credit Where Credit is Due

In response to Rush Limbaugh saying that he would sell his condo and leave New York because of the income tax increase, Governor David Paterson has told him Don't let the door hit your butt on the way out:

If I knew that would be the resultI would’ve thought about the taxes earlier.

I still think that David Paterson is a tool, but I have to give him credit for the perfect response.

Good riddance to bad rubbish.

Economics Update

We have the weekly unemployment claims report, and it is not pretty, with 669,000 new claims, an increase of 12,000, the 4 week moving average was up 6,500 to 656,750, and the continuing claims hit 5,728,000, up 161,000.

Note that the initial claims number constitutes a 26½ year high, and continuing claims are at the 9th all time record level in 9 weeks.

Meanwhile, the credit news is not good, with Calculated Risk's Credit Crisis Indicators somewhat improved, though still at pretty awful levels, but Moody's downgraded $1.76 trillion in corporate debt in the first quarter of 2009, and both credit card charge-offs and home equity loan delinquencies have climbed to record levels.

In real estate commercial real estate defaults hit a new record, and the formerly unassailable real estate of Manhattan is sales volume falling 48%, though house prices rose in the UK for the first time since 2007.

Additionally, the Feds efforts to lower mortgage rates appear to be working, with the 30 year fixed mortgage rate hitting a new low.

In the meantime, auto industry analysts are doing handsprings over the March auto sales figures, because annualized sales figures rose to 9.86 million up from February's rate of 9.12 million, though dealer incentives also rose 5%.

Your call as to whether an 8% increase of awful, the normal annual sales runs at about 16 million, is something to crow about.

In either case, other manufacturing had an uptick, with Chinese manufacturing increasing for the first time in 4 months, and US factory orders rising for the first time in 7 months.

In Yurp, the European Central Bank cut its rates by only 25 basis points (¼%), less than expected, and as a result the Euro strengthened vs the US dollar, though the ECB President has said that more rates might be forthcoming

In energy, the rising stock market (Dow above 8k for the first time in about 7 weeks) has driven oil higher.

Reviewing Dick Cheney's Security Clearance

So I was reading this account of a Seymour Hersh interview on Fresh Air in which he says that Cheney loyalists have been "burrowed" into sensitive government positions, and continue to feed him information:

"I’ll make it worse. I think he’s put people left. He’s put people back. They call it a stay-behind. It’s sort of an intelligence term of art. When you leave a country and, you know, you’ve been driven out the, you know, you’ve lost the war. You leave people behind. It’s a stay-behind that you can continue to have contacts with, to do sabotage, whatever you want to do. Cheney’s left a stay-behind. He’s got people in a lot of agencies that still tell him what’s going on. Particularly in defense, obviously. Also in the NSA, there’s still people that talk to him. He still knows what’s going on. Can he still control policy up to a point? Probably up to a point, a minor point. But he’s still there. He’s still a presence."

(Audio at bottom)

And the first thing that went through my head was, "People from the NSA are talking to a guy who orchestrated the outing of a covert CIA agent?"

Then I realized that the real question was, "Why does Richard Bruce Cheney still have a security clearance?"

Based on my reading of the entire Lewis "Scooter" Libby case, it's clear that Patrick Fitzgerald had concerns that Cheney was aware of the leaks on some level, though he lacked any hard evidence (missing emails anyone?) to go any further.

That being said, a security clearance is not a legal procedure, it's an administrative procedure, and to a significant degree, it is necessary for the holder of this clearance to show that they not a security risk, either intentionally or through negligence.

There is also an additional duty to report any credible potential security violations to the appropriate authorities.

This is a lower standard of proof than, for example, the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, or obstruction of justice statutes.

There is therefore a significant concern that Dick Cheney violated the terms of his clearance, and pending an investigation, his clearance should be suspended pending an investigation.

Unlike a government employee whose livelihood is dependent on having a clearance, this should not provide an undue burden, and a hearing, with witnesses, including Lewis "Scooter" Libby and Mr. Cheney, testifying under oath, would be an appropriate venue to decide whether or not he was either deliberately or negligently cavalier with sensitive intelligence data.

Of course, if Mssrs Cheney or Libby were to make untrue statements in the process of giving their testimony, that would be a matter for the federal prosecutors.


Youtube link

File Under: I Used to Be Disgusted, Now I Try to Be Amused

It appears that the Treasury Department is stonewalling the body charged with monitoring the various bank bailouts.

But "without a clearer explanation" about parts of the program, "it is not possible to exercise meaningful oversight over Treasury's actions," said Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard Law School professor who leads a special congressional oversight panel monitoring the TARP program. Her comments came in a Senate Finance Committee hearing on the bailout program.

Noting that TARP passed Congress six months ago, Warren said that her group has repeatedly called on the Treasury Department to provide a clear strategy for the program — and that "the absence of such a vision hampers effective oversight."

Dr. Warren, this is not a but, it's a feature.

Geithner is a former Federal Reserve Bank of New York president. Opacity and secrecy are how they think that it's supposed to work.

That's the whole idea behind the Federal Reserve system.

Reports that GM Wants to Force GM Into Bankruptcy

We have reports that appear to be leaked from the White House that say that they want to see GM go through some sort of preplanned bankruptcy here, and here.

I don't see this happening, and I tend to agree with Yves Smith's analysis that says that this would be next to impossible, because you would have to essentially get all the creditors to agree ahead of time.

Smith suggests that a realistic timetable for a bankruptcy would be over a year, and the analysis of the cascade effect on auto parts suppliers is that no one in the United States, including Toyota, Nissan, and Honda, would be able to make automobiles for something on the order of a year, because it would force the already tightly strapped auto parts suppliers into bankruptcy too.

I see this as primarily a way to apply pressure to two parties, the UAW and Pimco, who runs the world's largest bond fund.

I think that Pimco is particularly a problem. Their behavior in the GMAC bailout was to dig in their heels, and make everyone else take a haircut, and all indications are that they are doing the same thing with GM.

25 Votes In NY-20

That's how much Murphy(D) is leading Tedisco(R).

2 Weeks before absentee and provisional ballots will be counted, and Tedisco has already filed suit.

Nobel Laureate Stiglitz and Black Swan Author Blast Obama and Geithner

Joseph Stiglitz calls the plan, "Obama’s Ersatz Capitalism," in a New York Times OP/ED, where he runs the numbers and shows that the plan is at least a 50% subsidy to the private buyers, and Black Swan author Nassim Taleb says Geithner’s bank recovery plan will fail, and simply socialize losses and privatize gains.

They are both good reads.

Legislation to Curb NSL Abuse Introduced

Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) and Jeff Flake (R-AZ) have introduced legislation to curb the widely abused National Security Letters (NSL) and significantly increases the standards, and the opportunity for judicial review.

It still allows FBI field supervisors to issue them, but it is still an improvement.

Colman-Franken: The Fat Lady is Warming Up

The election court has ruled against the Coleman campaign's request that 1,400 absentee ballots be reviewed, instead allowing only 400 to be reviewed, many of which were stricken by the Coleman team.

With a 225 point vote gap, this comes very close to being "game over" at least in the state courts.

I think that one of the interesting subtexts here is that the 'Phants have donated very large sums of money just to tie this up, and that Cornyn is suggesting that they will continue to refuse to seat Franken, which does not bode well for Republicans in Minnesota.

But, great googly moogly, make it stop!

I'm Not Sure if This is an April Fool's Gag

But Dickipedia is prize:

Dickipedia is a monolingual (English), Web-based, free content encyclopedia project with information about people who are dicks. The word "dickipedia" is a portmanteau of the word "encyclopedia" and the word "dick." Dickipedia does not contain information about people who are detectives.

Economics Update

Well, the job loss report from payroll processor ADP is out, and according to them, there were 742,00 job losses in March, well above the 655K forecast.

Part of this is driven by continued declines in construction spending, as Calculated Risk notes and graphs (see graph pr0n).

As he notes, non-residential construction spending is following residential spending off a cliff.

There was also an increase in the NAR's pending home sales index, though it remains firmly in the horrible range, at 82.1, up from 80.4, with 100 being the average level of pending home sales in 2001.

Still, mortgage applications are up again, though this is largely still refi activity.

The Institute for Supply Management's Manufacturing Index mirrors the pending home sales index, in that it is up, to 36.3 from 35.8, but still in a firmly contracting posture, as 50 is neutral.


On the other side of the Pacific, we are seeing Japanese business confidence numbers fall to record lows.

The news in the auto industry, whether foreign or domestic is grim, with sales numbers for GM, Toyota, Ford, Chrysler, Honda, and Nissan all falling significantly.

We also see the Fed printing money to buy $6 billion in Treasuries, so as to keep the interest rates down.

In currency, the dollar is up on risk aversion again. Investors are concerned about the G-20 meeting, though I'm not sure if the concern is about nothing being done, or something being done....Maybe it's a bit of both.

In energy, oil fell on strong inventory reports.

Aprils Fools Jokes: A Sampling

Here is a sampling.

The biggest whopper is Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Montana, saying that using budget reconciliation to pass healthcare or environmental reform though dispite his, ""repeated concerns that doing so would damage bipartisan cooperation in the Senate."

Bipartisan cooperation in the Senate....That's a good one....What? He was serious????? Never mind.

Then we have Grauniad newspaper dropping paper, and going all twitter.

A sample from the archives, "JFK assassin8d @ Dallas, def. heard second gunshot from grassy knoll WTF?"

Google has CADIE: Cognitive Autoheuristic Distributed-Intelligence Entity, which includes printable 3-D glasses and a CADIE powered submarine.

Also Gmail Autopilot^™ by CADIE. Never have to read email again, CADIE will reply to all your email for you. (I actually want something like this)

Expedia has $99 Flights to Mars.

Qualcomm has new wireless convergence models, like the WolfPigeon, CrocodEagle, and SharkFalcon

Technologizer’s First Forty-Five Fabulous Years!:

Not everybody remembers that Technologizer began as an online service. When we launched in April of 1964, there were only three IBM mainframes in the world powerful enough to receive us, we charged an hourly access fee of $15,000, and our network ran at 300-bpw (bits per week).

Opera Face Gestures: 'nuff said.

And Amazon is appealing to the Ron Paul crowd with Floating Amazon Cloud Environment(FACE), "Using the latest in airship technology, we've created a cloud that can come to you."

Stevens to go Free

The DoJ is dropping charges because of rampant proprietorial misconduct.

That does not mean that Ted Stevens is not guilty as hell, though.

Now, how about looking at Don Siegelman?

Obama May Be Close to Settling Bush Missing Emails Case

It's not clear if this means that many of the emails will be retreived, or if it's just closing the barn door after the cow has left the barn, but the mutual agreement to withdraw motions on both sides for 3 months.

My money is on the cow-barndoor thing, because Bush and His Evil Minions^™ were doubtless working overtime on destroying incriminating information.

Where the Bailout Money is Going

CNN has a handy interactive chart, though Bloomberg, using slightly different math, gives us a figure of $12.8 Trillion, or over 90% of last year's GDP.

Meanwhile, as has been noted earlier, AIG has been cutting sweetheart deals with the banking giants, and now the GAO, the investigative branch of Congress, is saying that the Treasury Department is being too lax in its policies on repaying AIG counterparties, confirming once again that Tim Geithner is the large banks', and large Wall Street firms' bitch.

There is no need for AIG to pay off at 100¢ on the dollar here, and the insistence that they do so is an excuse to pump more money into insolvent banking giants.

OK, More Wheels Within Wheels

We now have Barney Frank calling for laws giving resolution authority for systemically important firms, which means FDIC style receivership powers to, "take over and unwind the businesses of big non-bank companies", which could apply to bank holding companies like Citi and BoA, as well as their banks, and Peter Boone and Simon Johnson (the former chief IMF economist who is calling for kicking the corrupt banking elites out) are suggesting that are suggesting that this is exactly what Geithner's plan is.

Honestly, I do not think that the White House is sandbagging the Congress and the public over this.

As I have said before, past is prelude, and for Geithner and Summers to sign off on such a thing would run completely counter to their entire professional lives.

I hope that I am wrong, but I fear that I am not.

Banks are Now Walking Away From Houses

It looks better on their balance sheets to evict the residents, and then put off foreclosure.

As a result of this problem, a Cleveland nonprofit has taken the banks to court as a public nuisance, and they have won the first round of litigation, which puts the decision in the hands of the local housing court, as opposed to federal court.

This is Not An April Fools Joke

It looks like one Republican may actually vote for Obama's budget.

Of course, it's Rep. Joseph Cao (R-La.), who beat William "Dollar Bill" Jefferson in the general election after he was indicted for corruption.

Of course, the district that elected him went 74% for Barack Obama, and he is probably still hearing complaints about allow Eric Cantor to twist his arm into voting against the stimulus.

I, for One, Welcome Our New Robot Overlords

Honda has developed a EEG based controller for its Asimo robot.

It's currently has a, "90% success rate at recognizing and then carrying out four commands," so the capability for "mind reading" is really pretty rudimentary, but it is of interest.

Of course, it is only a matter of time before our robot friends become our robot masters, and this technology is used to monitor and punish us, so it's the end of humanity.

On the bright side, if our new lords and masters look like the bottom picture, it will take some of the sting off the soulless regime which will soon dominate our existence.

Noting that the date has flipped to April 1, let me state that the story is not an April Fools gag, though obviously I am milking the news for laughs.

Special Election in NY 20 Too Close to Call

The margin is significantly less than the number of absentee ballots, and possibly smaller than the number of provisional ballots, so a final count may be weeks off, and then there will be the challenges.

IIRC, the provisional and absentee ballots will be counted in about 2 weeks.