Not Enough Bullets

Transocean, the firm operating BP's oil rig that exploded and created a blowout that is threatening most of the US Gulf coast, will make $270m from the loss of the rig because it was insured for more than it was worth.

I thought that this has been illegal since the Marine Insurance Act of 1746.

This Won't End Well

Moody's just disclosed that it received a Wells notice from the SEC in March.

This means that they are in the SEC's cross-hairs, and that a potential "enforcement action," is likely.

You have to figure that once the SEC starts turning over rocks, they will find more, and for a company whose only capital is their credibility, it could be in trouble very quickly.

Seeing as how we already have evidence that all the major credit rating agencies are corrupt, there could be a domino effect.

This is going to make the collapse of the monoliner bond insurers look like a picnic.

The Similarities to Afghanistan Are Striking

This is not a substitute for sane or sensible policy

The army will be deploying the XM-25 Individual Airburst Weapon to Afghanistan, and many good things are expected of it.

I am not at all surprised that they have decided that a personal grenade launcher would be necessary for the conflict.

The Soviets came to the same conclusion when they were in Afghanistan, which is why the AGS-17 Plamya (Russian: Пламя) is a Soviet-designed automatic grenade launcher used in Afghanistan to such a degree that the unmounted infantry squad was largely built around the weapon in the same way that a squad is built around the LMG in US service.

The degree to which our experience in Afghanistan is a rerun of the failed Soviet script is striking.

Lena Horne, Dead at 92

She will be missed.

Quote of the Day

"I was also going to give a graduation speech in Arizona this weekend," he said. "But with my accent, I was afraid they would try to deport me."

--Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA) in his commencement speech at Emory University

We Have a Report that Elana Kagan Will Be the Scotus Nominee

Not surprising.

Basically, they are choosing her because of her ability to get ahead in legal academe without saying, or publishing much.

She was tenured at the University of Chicago, and later Harvard, where she became Dean of Harvard Law, but her record of publications is remarkably sparse, though I think that Paul Campos' comparison of her to Harriet Miers is a big much:

Yesterday, I read everything Elena Kagan has ever published. It didn't take long: in the nearly 20 years since Kagan became a law professor, she's published very little academic scholarship—three law review articles, along with a couple of shorter essays and two brief book reviews. Somehow, Kagan got tenure at Chicago in 1995 on the basis of a single article in The Supreme Court Review—a scholarly journal edited by Chicago's own faculty—and a short essay in the school's law review. She then worked in the Clinton administration for several years before joining Harvard as a visiting professor of law in 1999. While there she published two articles, but since receiving tenure from Harvard in 2001 (and becoming dean of the law school in 2003) she has published nothing. (While it's true law school deans often do little scholarly writing during their terms, Kagan is remarkable both for how little she did in the dozen years prior to becoming Harvard's dean, and for never having written anything intended for a more general audience, either before or after taking that position.)

On the other hand, the fact that she has not been a Federal judge, or worked as a US Attorney, and she made the prima-donnas at Harvard Law play nice.

Still, I think that it is her lack of a record that has put her in this position, which I think is a bad idea.

It will just push Obama's opponents to look harder, and they will find something eventually.

Appointing a real liberal would be day 1 news, but instead, we will have a drip, drip, drip, about her.

I also think that this is a real attempt to avoid a fight, and once again, because the Republicans understand that unreasonable opposition is their best political tactic, it will fail.

Color me unimpressed.

Specter is Toast

So says the latest tracking poll, which has Joe Sestak leading Arlen Specter by 46% to 42%. (PDF)

If you assume that the numbers go the wrong way for Sestak on the margin of error (±5%), and figure in the 2:1 undecideds going for the challenger, then Specter wins a 51%-49% victory, but this is really grim for Specter, and the numbers also now appear to imply that Sestak is stronger in the general election against Neanderthal Pat Toomey.^*

Basically, Sestak has started hitting Specter as being a political opportunist, and it works because it's true.

Here's hoping that Blanche Lincoln suffers the same fate.

^*My apologies to Neanderthals for the comparison.

I'd Call For Barack Obama to Fire Eric Holder, but

Obama would only replace him with someone even more hostile to the idea of the rule of law in the pursuit of terrorism cases.^*

Money quote:

GREGORY: So, let me-- let me unpack that a little bit. What you'd like to see happen is that Congress would pass a law that would say to judges, "Hey, look, in this environment, if we extract information that could be valuable intelligence about another terror plot, about who they're involved in. Whether they're connected to the Pakistani Taliban. We want to get all that without them lawyering up and still be able to use that against them in a court of law." And you need more flexibility to do that, you think?

HOLDER: Yeah, we certainly need more flexibility. And we want the public safety exception to be consistent with-- the public safety concerns that we now have in the 21st Century, as opposed to the public safety concerns that we had back in the 1980s.

GREGORY: So, that's news. I mean, that's an important development. Would you work with Congress to try to get that new law passed?

HOLDER: Yeah, we want to work with Congress to come up with a way in which we make our public safety exception more flexible. And again, more consistent with the threat-- that we face. And yes, this is in fact the big news. This is a proposal that-- we're gonna be making and that we want to work-- with Congress about.

GREGORY: So, a new priority for the administration.

HOLDER: It is a new priority.

It's clear that Barack Obama has made a purely political decision to ape the worst aspects of the Bush administration, because he thinks that it will defuse criticism from the right, which it clearly hasn't anyway.

This is venal, craven, and just plain un-American, as well as being stupid, because it does not work from a political perspective.

Would that we had some Democrats who were not a bunch of cowards.



H/t Crooks and Liars

^*But remember, the Cossacks work for the Czar.

Bad Day at the Office

Landing an aircraft with an engine gone is one thing, but with a wing gone?

That's what IAF pilot Tsvi Nedivi did, and he managed to land it safely.

Note that the live footage seems to be studio tricks, but the pilot's account is compelling.

New Analysis of Kent State Massacre Shows Order to Fire

Or more precisely, it shows an order to prepare to fire, which explains why the guardsmen wheeled in unison to turn on the demonstrators before opening fire:

"That's clear as a bell," Owen said at one point as he and Allen replayed the phrase "Prepare to fire" on two large wall-mounted loudspeakers.

The two audio engineers didn't add anything to the recording or fundamentally alter its contents. Instead, they boosted what was present to make it easier to hear. "It's like putting on eyeglasses," Owen said.

The order to prepare to fire is, according to the experts who analyzed the tape, "As clear as a bell," and there is an an "F" sound heard immediately before firing started, which might be the order to fire.

Of interest is the fact that he first 3 gunshots are probably from 45 caliber pistols, and the remainder from M1s, which would be consistent with whoever was in charge giving the order to fire, and firing himself, as sidearms would not have been carried by the grunts.

The enhanced audio is below, and I can hear, with ordinary hearing, "Guard," and "Prepare to fire," quite clearly.

A Brief, Incomplete, and Mostly Wrong History of Programming Languages

James Iry is a very funny man, here is a sample:

1964 - John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz create BASIC, an unstructured programming language for non-computer scientists.

1965 - Kemeny and Kurtz go to 1964.

I am not a computer programmer, and I get the humor and find it funny.

H/t Economist J. Bradford DeLong

OK, Now I've Seen Everything

Click for full size

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The US 170th Infantry Brigade rehearsing for its march at the Victory Day parade in Red Square

Active duty units of the US, British, French and Polish military will be marching in Red Square tomorrow in the Victory Day parade:

Never before in history have active-duty American troops been invited to march in the Victory Day parade, according to the United States military. The occasion is the 65th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, a date that carries an almost sacred meaning in Russia. Russian leaders have taken pains to explain that the Americans — along with contingents from Britain, France and Poland — were invited as representatives of the “anti-Hitler coalition.”

It would have been inconceivable that the Russians would have invited American troops, and it would have been inconceivable that the Pentagon would have accepted, just a few years ago.

Rumsfeld and Cheney were trying to recreate the threatening "Russian Bear" for political advantage, and the entire foreign policy of the Bush administration was about unilateralism and boneheaded hostility.

George Orwell Would Be Proud Appalled

The 4 most knowledgeable journalists at Guantanamo Bay have been banned for "revealing" the identity of one of the witnesses, "Interrogator #1".

The reason that I put "revealing" in quotes is because the individual in question's name has been public knowledge for years:

Now the military has taken another great step toward enhancing the credibility of the proceedings by booting four reporters for violating a judge’s secrecy order. Their violation? Publishing the name of a former military interrogator who was a witness at the hearing. The Pentagon has now barred Miami Herald reporter Carol Rosenberg, Toronto Star reporter Michelle Shephard, Globe and Mail reporter Paul Koring and CanWest news service reporter Steven Edwards from covering future military commissions at Gitmo.

And here’s the kicker: The identity of the interrogator had been widely reported before the trial. The name of the individual — known as “Interrogator No. 1″ in the courtroom at Gitmo — had been published during a 2005 court-martial in which he pleaded guilty to prisoner abuse in Afghanistan. And he had also allowed the use of his name in an interview with Shepard (!) in 2008.

BTW, it should be recalled that in the case in question the military is trying a child soldier.

Omar Khadr was 15 when the events in question took place.

Seriously, we have the gang that can't shoot straight, or more accurately, the gang that is so concerned about managing the message that it's making the "military tribunals" about as meaningful as Stalin's show trials.

Welcome to our Gulag in the Caribbean.

Quote of the Day

I really really hope the ECB staff are huddling right now, nerving themselves up to do some serious quantitative easing. Otherwise Anno Domini 2010 is shaping up to be Anno Domino instead.

---Paul Krugman on the fate of the Euro with the bond vigilantes going after Portugal now

I'm nos sure taht I approve of the use of the term "Anno Domini" by a nice Jewish boy, but it is damn funny.

Teabaggers Win One

Bob Bennett, one of the most conservative members of the Senate, has lost the party caucus in Utah, which means that he will not be in the primary ballot.

He could mount a write-in campaign, but this is highly unlikely.

Seeing as how Utah is not only thoroughly Republican, but foaming at the mouth red-conservative, it's unlikely that this would give us a Democratic Senator, as happened in that New York Congressional race.

Best Baby Announcement Evah!

This is better than when I used Karaoke, and the song, "You're having my baby," to announce that Sharon was preggers with Natalie.

It's Bank Failure Friday!!!!

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

65. The Bank of Bonifay, Bonifay, FL
    
66. Access Bank, Champlin, MN
    
67. Towne Bank of Arizona, Mesa, AZ
    
68. 1st Pacific Bank of California, San Diego, CA
    

Full FDIC list

And here are the credit union closings:

7. St. Paul's Croatian Federal Credit Union, Eastlake, OH

Which was closed last Saturday. (Saturday?)

Full NCUA list

So, the numbers seem a bit more "normal", at least compared to the 8, 7, & 7 over the prior 3 weeks.

So, here is the graph pr0n with trendline (FDIC only):

Economics Update

Click for full size

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Unemployment Population Ratio: Still Not Back

The lede here has to be the non-farm payroll (NFP) numbers for April, which were very, very, good.

There was in increase in payrolls of 290,000 , which was the largest increase since March of 2006, and manufacturing added 44,000 jobs, the largest increase in 12 years.

Additionally, as Paul Krugman observes, "My favorite indicator from the household survey isn't the unemployment rate, it’s the employment-population ratio — and that’s up, from 58.6 to 58.8."

It's been rising since December.

Unfortunately, unemployment worsened, though part of this was discouraged workers returning to work:

But. Keep an eye on those unemployment rates. The headline figure is back up at 9.9%, the highest it’s been this year. The U-6 underemployment rate is a gruesome 17.1%. And U-4, which is total unemployed plus discouraged workers, has hit a new high of 10.6%."

Even at nearly 300,000 new jobs a month, it will take years for these people to find work again.

Additionally, we have the short-term good/long-term bad news that consumers are using credit once again. Consumer borrowing rose by $2 billion in March.

In energy and currency, it appears that Greece, and the recent UK elections have created uncertainty, which has driven oil prices lower, and the dollar was mixed, up slightly versus the Pound, and down slightly versus the Euro.

The Muppets Go Classical

Ode to Joy

Democratic Senate Primary Poll Update

These are obviously daily tracking polls, and only reflect last night's sentiment, so they are just snap shot.

Arlen Specter is tied with Joe Sestak at 43%, which cannot be good for Specter.

Lincoln seems to be in better shape. She is leading Bill Halter by 44% to 32%, which, if you use the rule of thumb that undecideds go 2:1 to the challenger, has her winning by 52%-48%, though it is still close.

Both primaries are on May 18, so I expect these numbers to move over the next 11 days.

I'm rooting against both incumbents.

Jon Stewart Makes a Very Good Point

See profiling comment at 4:20

As always.

Actually, he makes a number of them, with the big one being, "What are we going to do in this country when we get attacked by someone who's not one of the Home Alone burgers?"

But there is the little point that he makes that I find far more trenchant.

He runs an ad put out by a Teabagger candidate running against Alan Grayson, Dan Fanelli, talking about profiling terrorists, and brings out two men, one swarthy and bearded, and one white and old, which asks "Where's Waldo" which one is the terrorist?

This leads the doyenne of late night news to ask the question himself, "Which one? Doctor Kevorkian on the left, or the cast member from The Jersey Shore on the right?"

Stewart's answer is that the terrorist who flew his plane into the IRS building in Texas looked an awful lot like Congressman wannabe Fanelli.

A Take I Trust on Audit the Fed

Dean Baker, co-director of the CRPR, looks at the deal that Bernie Sanders cut with Chris Dodd, and declares it a victory for the little guy and a big step to making the Federal Reserve accountable, though he does also note the downside of the compromises:

Sanders did make some compromises. The audit has an arbitrary cutoff date of December 2007. The special facilities date from the summer of 2007. It also only has the audit as a one-off proposition, rather than establishing GAO audits of Fed operations as an ongoing principle. The compromise also explicitly exempts open market operations - the Fed's daily buying and selling of short-term assets to control interest rates - from GAO scrutiny.

These concessions are unfortunate, the Fed is a creation of Congress and for that reason it should be subject to the same investigative procedures as any other federal agency, but they certainly are secondary compared with getting a full accounting of the money lent out through the special facilities. It is also important to note that in one very important way the Sanders compromise goes beyond the original Paul-Grayson language. Under the compromise, the information about the lending facilities will be made fully public where everyone can scrutinize it. The original bill would just have this information made available to the relevant congressional committees. They would then have to make a further decision about what information, if any, would be made public.

My guess is that the December, 2007 cutoff date is not "arbitrary", and that even as we speak, the Fed is frantically backdating transactions to November 2007, but if this is a step in the process, then it appears to be a good thing.

Previous post here.

Looks to be a Hung Parliament in UK

Unsure of the numbers, but it appears that the Conservatives will have the most seats, but will fall short of the 326 necessary to have a majority government, and that Labour and the Lib-Dems together don't make 326, so it comes down to either a minority government, or one in which the small fry parties make up the majority.

In any case, Labor got pummeled, and the Lib-Dems appear to have gained votes but lost seats, but the numbers are still not complete.

The Demon Sheep is Back

For a sequel, it's pretty good.

A while ago, I, and pretty much everyone else in the blogosphere, along with the inestimable Rachel Maddow, pointed out just how remarkable, in a Plan 9 from Outer Space way, Carly Fiorina's demon sheep campaign ad against Tom Campbell was.

Well, the California Democratic Party and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee riffed on that bit of political agitprop, and came up with a "sheep" ad of their own.

It's actually amusing, or it is if you've seen the original in all its ghastly glory, though I'm concerned that this is not a good allocation of resources. After all, amusing me, a voter who does not live in California, and would sooner gnaw off my own leg than vote Republican, does not help Barbara Boxer get elected.

A Good Idea that India Should Outsource to Us

The former governor of the Indian Central Bank is suggesting that the nation tax speculative and volatile capital flows:

India should tax foreign capital inflows into the equity market that stay invested for less than two years to protect its financial system and sustain economic growth, said former central bank governor Bimal Jalan.

“If you have unstable, unpredictable, volatile capital flows which are affecting financial stability as well as the real economy’s stability, then you have to find a way of handling them so that they are not free for all,” Jalan, who headed the Reserve Bank of India between 1997 and 2003, said in a telephone interview. “I’m in favor of tax on profits earned from capital flows which are going to the stock market.”

The problem is that this is a really nasty bit of musical chairs, and when the music stops, the IMF takes your house and children.

We should implement something similar in the US. It would also serve to shrink the financial sector, which would be a good thing.

Since it is a really good idea, it won't be seriously considered here.

Barack Obama is Tired of Your Motherf%$#ing Sh%$

April Winchell, the "21^st funniest person in Los Angeles," has uncovered a gem.

In Barack Obama's memoir, Dreams From My Father, he quotes some of his friend Ray, who, "Cursed like a Motherf^%$er."

Well, that's not special, except for the fact that Barack Obama recorded the audiobook, so you can go to Ms. Winchell's site, and hear Barack Obama saying things like, "There are white folks, and then there are ignorant motherf%$#ers like you."

Snerk.

Senate Finance Debate Developments

We have the good:

• The Senate defeated Richard Shelby's amendment to gut consumer protection.
• The CFTC gets more authority on derivatives.

The bad:

• The Senate defeated Sharrod Brown's amendment to force the big banks to shrink.

And the confusing:

• The Audit the Fed amendment appears to be on track to pass, though Bernie Sanders has agreed to narrow its scope, getting Chris Dodd as a cosponsor:

The audit sought by Mr. Sanders would scrutinize an alphabet soup of programs that injected liquidity into the markets, ranging from commercial paper to money market funds. Under the proposal, the accountability office will not question whether the loans should have been made but will focus on operational integrity and accounting practices.

The audit, however, would explore “whether the credit facility inappropriately favors one or more specific participants over other institutions eligible to utilize the facility” and “whether there were conflicts of interest with respect to the manner in which such facility was established or operated.”

It appears that Obama/Geithner/Summers still oppose the audit provision, and are implying that they might consider such a provision worthy of a veto.

As I've said before, Summers wants to be Fed chair, so he hates it, Geithner is afraid of being forced to resign in disgrace or of criminal prosecution, and they have Obama's ear,^* so we continue to here noise from the White House in support of opacity as policy.

^*But remember, the Cossacks work for the Czar.

Economics Update

It's jobless Thursday, and initial unemployment claims fell slightly, 7K to 444K, with a 4 week moving average dropping 4,750 to 458,500, and continuing claims fell 59,000 to 4.594 million, though filings for extended claims rose.

Still, we are not seeing numbers that show a recovery in the job market, and the fact that April retail sales disappointed won't help.

In Yuro land, the European Central Bank held its benchmark steady at 1%, whihc had the effect of pushing the dollar up, which in turn drove oil down.

Basically, Greece trumps the oil disaster.

Obey's Explanation

Yesterday, he announced his retirement, and today he explains himself.

Basically, he's sick and tired of the,"the ridiculous, accountability destroying rules of the Senate to confused, angry, and frustrated constituents," though he also mentions the recent deaths of the his former colleagues John Murtha and Charlie Wilson.

His full statement is below the break.

May 5, 2010

Statement by Congressman David R. Obey
In December I will have been in public service for 48 years – over 6 years in the Wisconsin State Legislature and almost 42 years in the U.S. Congress. I have served in the House longer than anyone in Wisconsin history. God and my constituents have been incredibly good to me.

When I was a kid growing up in Wausau I never dreamed that I would have even one-tenth of the opportunities that have come my way. I hope that I have used those opportunities to do the most that could be done for the causes I believe in: fairer taxes; greater economic opportunity; better schools; affordable health care; expanded education and health care benefits for veterans; research that will help us fight diseases like cancer, diabetes and Parkinson’s; better health, safety, and economic security for workers; cleaner air; and water and preservation of National Parks and public places.

The people of Northern Wisconsin have given me the honor and the privilege of representing them on the great issues of our times, ranging from Vietnam to Watergate, the Iranian hostage crisis, the Reagan deficits, Iran-Contra, the collapse of communism, two Gulf Wars, the economic and budget reforms of the early 1990s, the government shut down, 9/11, and the economic meltdown of the past decade.

For a decade, as Chairman of the Foreign Operations Subcommittee, I had the privilege of helping lead the effort to meet our responsibilities to our fellow human beings around the globe who share this planet with us, but do not share our same good fortune. During that time, we consistently moved foreign aid money away from support of military dictators to the expansion of long-term development activities and through programs like UNICEF contributed to saving millions of children’s lives.

I’m especially proud of the role I paid in resisting American colonialism in Central America, working with people like James Baker, Dave Bonior, Jim Wright, Lee Hamilton, Matt McHugh, Joe Moakley, and Tom Foley to end the Contra War in Nicaragua. Probably, the most important historic role the committee played was the bipartisan work we did with the George H. Bush Administration and officials like Secretary Lawrence Eagleburger in helping Eastern European countries to transition from communist authoritarianism to Western capitalist democracies after the fall of the Berlin wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Although it happened a long time ago, I am especially proud of the losing fight that I helped wage with Congressmen Henry Reuss and Mo Udall to prevent the passage of the fiscally irresponsible Reagan budgets, which at a time of devastating inflation cut taxes at the same time the defense budget was being doubled, all paid for with borrowed money, more than tripling the long-term budget deficit picture. The Obey-Udall-Reuss alternative budget was a progressive alternative to the budgets of both parties, which spent less, borrowed less, and produced smaller deficits than either the Democratic or Republican base bills, and won the support of a majority of Democrats. At the time our actions were hugely unpopular. About 70% of the voters in my district supported Reagan’s budget, but time has proven us right.

Today, I am similarly proud that I was the principle author of the much maligned but absolutely essential Economic Recovery Act of 2009, which in the midst of the deepest and most dangerous economic catastrophe in 70 years, has pumped desperately needed purchasing power into the economy to cushion the fall and reduced the number of families whose breadwinners were thrown out of work. When it was passed last year, the American economy was losing 750,000 jobs per month. Last month, by contrast, the economy added 162,000 jobs, the largest increase in three years. That corner could not have been turned without the Recovery Act. My only apology is that it should have been larger, but it was the most that the system would bear at the time.

I am especially pleased to have had the privilege of presiding over the House when it passed the historic health insurance reform legislation three weeks ago. I have been waiting for that moment for 41 years and its arrival – finally – made all the frustrations of public life worth it.

During my Congressional service, I have also tried to do what I could to keep us out of misguided wars and I have fought to reform the political institutions – especially, the Congress – to improve the quality of their work and to strengthen public confidence in them. And despite the misguided and disastrously destructive decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court that have put the system of American elections on the auction block, I have worked to limit the influence of private money in elections that by definition should be public events.

I think that along the way I have made a difference for the district and state that I represent and for the country.

But there is a time to stay and a time to go. And this is my time to go. I hate to do it. There is so much that needs to be done. But, frankly, I am bone tired. When I first put my name on the ballot for the State Assembly in 1962, I was 23 years old. Now, 48 years later, I will soon be 72. When I went to Congress in 1969, I was the youngest member of the House of Representatives. I’m not anymore. Since that first day in 1962, I have gone through 25 elections and engaged in countless battles.

I’m ready to turn the page, and I think, frankly, that my district is ready for someone new to make a fresh start. Not someone who poses as a fresh face, but would in reality take us back to the “good old days” of Bush tax cuts for the rich and a misguided Iraq war. Not someone whose idea of a fresh idea is to say: “Let the market do it,” which translated means: “Let the corporate elites, big banks, and Wall Street big shots and insurance company CEO’s do anything they want with no regulation to protect investors and consumers.” There is nothing fresh about that. No, what the 7th district deserves and what the country deserves is for someone to step up who can be counted on to put working people first, someone who will bring fresh eyes and fresh energy to the battle, someone who won’t use slick words and an actor’s ability to hide the fact that he is willing to gut and privatize Social Security and Medicare and abandon working people to the arbitrary power of America’s corporate and economic elite.

When I first ran for Congress I wanted to do three things:

1) The first was to help make our economic system more fair for the poor and for middle class working families. Unfortunately, powerful economic and political forces have largely frustrated that effort. Over the last 30 years we have seen the largest transfer of income up the income scale in history. In fact, for six straight years under George W. Bush, over 90% of all the income growth in the country went into the pockets of the wealthiest 10%. The other 90% of the population – the regular people of the country – got table scraps. I regret not being able to do more to turn that around. That, and the inability of the political system to achieve the public financing of political campaigns, represent the biggest disappointments of my public life.

2) My second goal was to expand federal support for education in order to expand opportunity for every American. That has been a hard slog, but, especially in the last three years, we have been able to move a large amount of federal resources to do just that. Just this last year, we were able to greatly enhance federal support for student aid. It is not enough, but it makes a difference.

3) My third goal was to help move this country into the ranks of civilized nations by making it possible for almost every American to receive quality health care without begging. For years I despaired of ever getting that done. But last month, I had the great privilege of presiding over the House of Representatives as it finally completed action on historic health insurance reform legislation.

Over the past few years, whenever a member of the press asked if I was contemplating retirement, I would respond by saying that I did not want to leave Congress until we had passed health care reform. Well, now it has. And I can leave with the knowledge that thanks to Speaker Pelosi and President Obama and so many others, we got the job done. I haven’t done all the big things that I wanted to do when I started out, but I’ve done all the big things I’m likely to do.

Frankly, I had considered retiring after the 2000 election, but I became so angered by the policies of the Bush administration that I decided to stick around as long as he was here. In 2002, after a year-long reapportionment struggle, which devoured my time and the time of my colleague Jim Sensenbrenner, I publicly stated I would not be around for another one. That is exactly what I would face if I returned to Congress next year. I simply don’t want to do it.

Many years ago, in an interview with Richard Cohen, I told him that the way I looked at public service, I believe the job of a good politician was to be used up fighting on behalf of causes you believed in, and when you are used up, to step aside and let someone else carry on the battle. Well, today I feel used up.

In the last months, two colleagues, Charlie Wilson and Jack Murtha, have died. Both were 76. For me, that is only four years away. At the end of this term I will have served in the House longer than all but 18 of the 10,637 men and women who have ever served there. The wear and tear is beginning to take its toll. Given that fact, I have to ask myself how I want to spend the time I have left. Frankly, I do not know what I will do next. All I do know is that there has to be more to life than explaining the ridiculous, accountability destroying rules of the Senate to confused, angry, and frustrated constituents.

I absolutely believe that, after the economy returns to a decent level of growth, we must attack our long-term budget deficit. But, perhaps I expect too much because, in addition to an attack on the federal budget deficit, I also want to see an equal determination to attack the family security deficit, the family income deficit, and the opportunity deficit which also plague the American people.

I am, frankly, weary of having to beg on a daily basis that both parties recognize that we do no favor for the country if we neglect to make the long-term investments in education, science, health, and energy that are necessary to modernize our economy and decline to raise the revenue needed to pay for those crucial investments. I do not want to be in a position as Chairman of the Appropriations Committee of producing and defending lowest common denominator legislation that is inadequate to that task and, given the mood of the country, that is what I would have to do if I stayed.

I am also increasingly weary of having to deal with a press which has become increasingly focused on trivia, driven at least in part by the financial collapse of the news industry and the need, with the 24-hour news cycle, to fill the air waves with hot air. I say that regretfully because I regard what is happening to the news profession as nothing short of a national catastrophe which I know pains many quality journalists as much as it pains me. Both our professions have been coarsened in recent years and the nation is the loser for it.

Let me close by thanking some people.

First, let me thank my wife, Joan, who has put up with so much and endured so much so that I might follow my dream of public service. When she agreed to marry me, she thought she was getting a college teacher. Instead, she got stuck with the “charms” of political life. Whatever good I’ve done, I could not have done without her.

Let me also thank my two sons, Craig and Douglas, who have also shared in the burden of public service. Craig has spent his adult life trying to bring health care to people who needed it, trying to protect workers in the work place, and trying to protect our precious public lands from abuse by special interests and their mouthpieces in government. Doug has spent his life as a working journalist, first covering Capitol Hill, and then informing his readers about the realities of the politics of environmental protection and the interaction between science and politics on the profoundly important issue of global climate change.

Let me thank all those who have worked with me as staff through the years – those who have worked in my district offices in Wisconsin, in my personal office in Washington, my Joint Economic Committee staff, and my Appropriations Committee staff. Your ability, your decency, and your fierce loyalty to me are gratefully appreciated. You have been not just my counselors, but my protectors, and my understanding friends.

Let me thank those special friends who have helped me get through 25 elections and everything that has happened in between. You know who you are. By giving me your political and emotional support, you have sustained me through the pressures and the ups and downs of political and public life. I will not forget. I hope you feel that your support helped to make possible whatever good I have done through the years.

Let me thank Bob Huber, Frank Nikolay, Dick Bolling, and Gaylord Nelson for teaching me how to be a legislator – in Madison and in Wisconsin. And let me express a special thanks to Speaker Nancy Pelosi whose heart, guts, and soul have provided the steel necessary to accomplish some extraordinary things.

Let me also thank so many of my Congressional colleagues, past and present, who have worked shoulder to shoulder with me in pursuit of so many causes – some won, some lost, and who have on occasion forgiven me for my excessive passion. It has been said that in life our strength can also be our weakness as I have demonstrated on more than one occasion.

And let me profoundly thank everyone who has ever cast a vote for me for the privilege of representing you in Madison and Washington all these years.

I hope that in whatever years I may have remaining, I will still find occasion to help move the needle forward. But for now, after 48 years, it is time to pass the torch.

Software Design that is Bad Stupid Bordering on Criminal

OK, my wife has a domain for her special education business, SEDRA, and it comes with email.

Yesterday evening, we started getting timeouts when trying to send mail. Receiving worked just fine.

We finally discovered that the registrar and host, HostMonster, had changed the configuration to prevent virus infected machines from spamming. They changed the port used from 25 to 26.

OK, no big deal, it took me 5 minutes talking with tech support to figure that one out.

Unfortunately, there appeared to be no way to change the port number in Eudora^®.

So I used Microsoft Mail to change the port, and I could post from that, but not from Eudora^®, because it was not available in the options.

Well, I thought that this was stupid, how can you not be able to change the SMTP port in an email program?

Obviously, we could go to a new client, but that would mean hand holding Sharon^* through learning a new email client, something that I view with no small amount of dread. I hate being the family call to Bangalore.

So, I Google, figuring that there is probably a setting in the .ini file that I can tweak

What do I find? I find this:

Eudora for Windows

Eudora has chosen to hide the Port change option in version 6.0 and up, making it more difficult to make this change. If you have purchased Eudora, we would suggest contacting them about making this option available by default again. To enable changing ports:

1. Navigate to your Eudora install directory.
2. Look in the Eudora directory for the directory "extrastuff".
3. In this directory is a file named "esoteric.epi". Drag (copy or move) this file into the main Eudora directory. There will now be options extra listed, including a Ports page.

[they neglect to mention that you have to restart Eudora here if it is already open]

To change the outgoing mail port from 25 to 26:

1. Launch Eudora
2. Drop down the Tools menu, and choose Options
3. Click on Ports
4. Change the port from 25 to 26
5. Click OK
6. Restart Eudora

So, they had scrupulously hidden these options, and required you to manually move a file in order to be able to access these options.

Not only that, this was not an oversight, it was a deliberate decision to change the program so that you had to do this, and they made this decision when ISPs are increasingly moving away from ports 110 (incoming) and 25 (outgoing) so as to deal with botnets.

I can understand putting this under "advanced", and popping up a warning, as Firefox does with "about:config", or perhaps requiring someone to set "advanced menu mode." or somesuch but deliberately burying the features and requiring that someone track down this obscure fix which involves moving an extensions file to the home directory of the account is stupid.

Actually, it's more than stupid, it's stoopid, really, really, really stoopid.

This is a level of deliberately stoopid that makes Sarah Palin look like Albert Einstein.

In any case, I found the fix, and I implemented it, and it works, but it took about 6 hours more than it should have.

^*Love of my life, light of the cosmos, she who must be obeyed, my wife.

What the Hell is This?

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1000+ point move in under an hour

Normally, I don't follow the stock market, and I follow the imperfect Dow Jones Industrial Market even less, but over the space of what looks to be about ½ an hour, the Dow fell 600 points, and then rose by 400 points.

In percentage terms, that's about 5½% down and about 4% up in a very short time frame.

I'm wondering if the whiz kids with the high frequency trading robots just screwed the pooch somehow.

(Update)

We now have a potential cause, sloppiness and lack of controls:

In one of the most dizzying half-hours in stock market history, the Dow plunged nearly 1,000 points before paring those losses in what possibly could have been a trader error.

According to multiple sources, a trader entered a "b" for billion instead of an "m" for million in a trade possibly involving Procter & Gamble , a component in the Dow. (CNBC's Jim Cramer noted suspicious price movement in P&G stock on air during the height of the market selloff. Watch.)

Sources tell CNBC the firm in question that handled the erroneous trade is Citigroup . The bank said it has no evidence of a bad trade but is investigating the situation

We now have some hard numbers:

Here is the time frame, courtesy Scott (from MarketWatch):

2:38 PM: Dow down 360

2:48 PM: Dow down 600

2:51 PM: Dow down 900

Dow is now down around 500 [around 3:40 pm]

Whatever is going on here, it appears that Bloomberg News Service got absolutely hammered, and is now (about 4:30 pm) inaccessible.

Quote of the Day

Courtesy of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid:

The Republicans are having difficulty determining how they're going to continue making love to Wall Street.

FCC to Reclassify Broadband Providers as Telecommunications

A recent court decision said that the FCC lacked jurisdiction to regulate broadband providers regarding things like net neutrality,^* because the Bush era reclassification of broadband as "information" rather than "telecommunications" services meant that they had no statutory authority.

It also meant that if they reclassify broadband as "telecommunications," again this is a finding of fact, which gives them jurisdiction.

Well, the Chairman of the FCC, Julius Genachowski, has now detailed plans to reverse this finding, which is a good thing, but he seems determined to find a "3^rd way", where he would use "forbearance," basically not doing all that they could, to create a, "a light regulatory approach that would still encourage investment in broadband."

I guess that Genachowski misses the point that the light touch doesn't "encourage investment in broadband," instead it creates a situation in which the incumbents use their resources to keep competitors out, not to improve service, which is why the US has the worst broadband penetration, and worst broadband performance, in the industrialized world.

If you want better broadband in the US, you need your foot on the neck of the cable companies and the baby Bells. Period, full stop.

^*Sorry for linking to a Declan McCullagh story, it was the first that I found. He is, as Andrew Orlowsky notes, a "Draw by crayon libertarian,"^†and so he quotes uncritically industry-funded astroturf groups in his article.
^†He is also the guy who created the, "Al Gore claimed to have invented the Internet," myth, and he remains proud of that bit of hackery.

Google™ Adsense™, Still F%$#ing Clueless

Once again, I see an ad on my site that espousing a position that I not only explicitly oppose, but actually ridicule.

In this case, it's from Stop the CFPA dot com, and it's run by the explicitly pro big business at the expensive of small business and implicitly Republican US Chamber of Commerce.

They are attempting to convince people that the CFPA is a an assault on small businesses, which is a flat out lie.

The CFPA puts burdens on lenders not debtors, and small businesses are overwhelmingly the victims of complex financial packages marketed by the big banks.

It would be nice if the Dems realized just how much the Chamber of Commerce is a Republican front group, and dealt with them accordingly.

Please note: once again, that I do not vet, nor do I endorse any ad that appears on my site, and I reserve the right to mock both the ads that appear on my site, as well as the advertisers.

Also, please note, this should be in no way construed as an inducement or a request for my reader(s) to click on any ad that they would not otherwise be inclined to investigate further. This would be a violation of the terms of service for Google™ Adsense™.

Economics Update

The ADP private job report for April is out today, and it reports that 32,000, but since the private non-farm workforce needs to grow somewhere in the neighborhood of 130,000 a month, this means that unemployment is still increasing.

Additionally, the Institute for Supply Management's Non-Manufacturing Index was 55.5, for the 4^th straight month with any number above 50 indicating expansion, though the employment component of the index fell.

All in all though, better numbers are getting better.

In real estate, mortgage applications rose, with the refinance index falling, and the purchase index rising, so this is likely an artifact of the tax credit.

And its the same story as yesterday with regard to Greece and oil and currency, with people fleeing to safety driving the dollar up, and the rising dollar pushing oil down.

When Glenn Beck is More Reasonable than You…

Bummer of a birth mark, little Johnny

It's game over, dude.

In this case, it's John McCain, who is suggesting that mirandizing the alleged Times Square bomber is somehow evil and wrong, and Glenn Beck, yes, Glen Beck, who is suggesting that we need not shred the Constitution, and give American citizens their constitutional due.



So John McCain is being called a demagogue, by the tag team by Jon Stewart and Glenn Beck.

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This is one big shark that he jumped.
With Frikken

Lasers!Jumping C. Megalodon<sup>*


*</sup>The largest shark, and likely largest predator fish ever. It died out some 1.5 million years ago. The Genus is still in dispute, between either Carcharodon (Great White) or Carcharocles (broad toothed Mako). But in either case, you are jumping C. Megalodon, you have jumped the biggest shark ever.

Dave Obey Will Retire

The powerful, and senior, head of the House Appropriations Committee has announced that he will not stand for reelection.

Wisconsin's 7^th district has a D +3 PVI, so I think that its likely that the seat will remain in Democratic hands, but given the late date of this decision, it's likely that the party leaders in Madison, and the DCCC, and , of course, Rahm, will do their best to ensure that a squish will run.

It appears that the deaths of Charlie Wilson and John Murtha led him to make this decision.

Taibbi's latest on Goldman

Just go read it.

He is a national treasure.

12%?!?!?!?

Analysts at Morgan Stanley have determined that 12% of all mortgage defaults in February were from people who afford to pay, i.e. they were "strategic defaults" from people who decided that their home mortgages were just a bad investment that they needed to walk away from.

If you think that home prices are on their way to a serious rebound, the fact that there are a huge number of people who are far enough underwater that they are walking away, even with the cost to their credit rating and social pressure, should make you pause.

The Shrill One Speaks

He notes that Gordon Brown, in the political fight of his life, should use his actions as Chancellor of the Exchequer to bolster his attempt to remain British Prime Minister:

Really, that should be Gordon Brown’s slogan: “He kept us out of the euro.” And that’s the saving grace of the situation.

True dat.

So Predictable

Because Larry Summers is too arrogant to realize that he will never be Chairman of the Federal Reserve, and because Larry Summers has Barack Obama's ear,^* the White House has all but threatened a veto if the finance reform bill passes with an amendment to audit the Federal Reserve:

Right now Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is trying to round up 60 or more votes to overcome a likely filibuster and include an "audit the Fed" provision in the Senate's bill. There are just a few small obstacles: the White House, major financial institutions, and the Fed itself. Their resistance is fierce--but the measure is so popular that killing it will be difficult for them and that, in their eyes, threatens to put a grenade at the center of efforts to to tighten the rules on Wall Street.

The pushback is reminiscent, in a way, of the executive branch's institutional opposition to oversight of the nation's intelligence agencies and operations. The Fed has always been shrouded in secrecy, and its leaders (in both the private and public sector) continue to insist on keeping their activities opaque, in order, they say, to protect complicated monetary policy from the political process.

……

It's likely, in fact, that the Obama administration will be under intense pressure to veto the entire financial reform bill if "audit the fed" survives.

This is nuts. I know that Ben Bernanke will be upset, but to the degree that any voter cares about this, they support this idea, and the audit specifically exempts the inflation fighting functions of the Fed, where independence really matters.

It's pretty clear that the Fed bent (and likely broke) its own rules, and possibly the law, and we need to know how they handled this, and how they screwed this up in the first place, before we make any decisions on what authority they might hold.

^*And Timothy "Eddie Haskell" Geithner's testicles.

Economics Update

Well, generally good news today, with bankruptcy filings dropping 4% between April and March.

Additionally, there was a spike in pending home sales, though that was likely the now expired home buyer tax credits, and factory rose unexpectedly in March.

In energy and currency, it's all playing off of Greece, which is pushing the dollar up, which in turn pushes oil down.

Sestak-Specter Primary Battle Closes

Date	5/2	5/3	5/4
Arlen Specter	48%	49%	46%
Joe Sestak	40%	40%	42%
Undecided	12%	11%	12%

The latest tracking polls have the Arlen Specter Joe Sestak primary race too close to call.

If you use the rule of thumb that undecideds break against the incumbent by 2:1, Specter still appears to have the advantage, but it is a lot closer than it was a last, when Specter had a 20+% lead, 53%-32%.

I would be surprised if Specter wins by more than 3% when the primary is held in 2 weeks.

Note that the polls here describe Specter's popularity among Democrats, and he is severely damaged goods, so the general, against the antediluvian Pat Toomey, he will have a very tough road to hoe.

Basically, he switched parties because he wants to stay a senator, and everyone knows it, and it's unseemly, and no one trusts him, though the Senate Incumbent Protection Program Democratic Senate Campaign Committee (DSCC) is spending heavily on advertisements in his behalf.

This is yet another reason why I implore my readers not to give to the DSCC the DCCC, or the DNC (Post Dean): they are first and foremost an incumbent protection program.

Economics Update (a Day Late)

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Miles Driven


Sales of cars and light trucks (the notch is the cars for clunkers program), H/t Calculated Risk

Yesterday was a mixed day for news.

On the plus side, we had:

• Institute for Supply Management's Manufacturing index rose sharply.
• April auto sales Rose.
• Personal spending rose for the 6^th straight month.

On the minus side:

• Private construction spending fell in March, though overall construction spending rose because of public spending (stimulus).
• The latest Fed survey shows weaker loan demand, even though banks were not tightening lending standards.

Additionally, we had US Treasurys falling, and their yields rising, but that is largely on reduced concerns about Greece following the successful implementation of a bailout package.

OK, Maybe Not Getting the Washington Post Gig Wasn't So Bad

I while back, I applied to, and did not make the cut for, the Washington Post's America's Next Great Pundit contest.

Maybe it was the best outcome, though I could use the money, because it appears that the paper is now going to blogs and asking for links to their blogs post, as well as the authority to give said bloggers their assignments, for the princely sum of $0.00 (€0.00):

Five weeks ago, I received an unsolicited offer from the Washington Post. They asked if they could post my picture and biography on their website and link to every new blog post appearing here if I agreed to produce regular original content for them at their request. I turned them down. Why?

Because they wanted me to work for them for nothing.

The Post is organizing a “local blogging network” linking to selected blogs from their website and asking bloggers to submit original content, which would be edited by them. The Post’s rights to that content would be enforceable under a written agreement. That agreement was written as follows:

…………

The Post is also demanding the, "non-exclusive right to republish the Work (in whole or in part) on the Site in real time simultaneous with Your own publication of the Work, as well as the right to adapt, edit, display, store, and promote the Work in connection with such republication on the Site."

This deal sucks worse than a coupon for a week of sessions at John Boehner's favorite tanning salon, though it might not suck worse than a coupon for two weeks at John Boehner's favorite tanning salon.

Deep Thought

Click for version with full "f-bomb".

You Keep Using That Word. I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means.

It appears that BP neglected to take precautions on the oil platform, because, "BP did not build containment devices before disaster because it 'seemed inconceivable' the blowout preventer would fail."

Tell me that this is not an Inigo Montoya moment.

OK, Maybe it Wasn't a Glenn Beck Fan

It appears that authorities are looking for a person of interest with extensive ties to Pakistan regarding the abortive bombing attempt on Times Square.

It is, of course, terrorism, whether it's an Pakistani-American, or someone who can trace their lineage back to the Mayflower, because, after all, blowing up a bomb in Times Square is terrorism.

The question now is whether it was Mayflower type, or someone with ties to the Islamic world.

In either case, it was someone who did not know how to do it right, so we can pretty much cross off going to one of those al Qaeda training camps, because he clearly did not take IED making 101.

A Thought on Barack Obama's Most Likely Supreme Court Choice

Current Solicitor General, Elena Kagan, is on the short list to be the Supreme Court Nominee to replace John Paul Steven.

She has a long and distinguished record, though she has never been a judge.^*

Perhaps her 2^nd most prestigious position, after being Solicitor General was as Dean of Harvard Law School, where she made special efforts to "broaden the ideological diversity" of the institution by hiring conservative legal scholars.

Needless to say, this sort of thing would clearly play well with Obama, who has clearly drunk his own Koolaid on his post-partisan thing.

The thing is, her definition of "diversity" is pretty narrow, and it appears taht she did not hire minorities or women:

Granting that we know very little about Kagan, what do we make of the facts that we do know? Here are some data that gives me pause about Kagan. When Elena Kagan was Dean of the Harvard Law School, she hired 29 tenured or tenure-track faculty members. But she did not hire a single black, Latino, or American Indian faculty member. Not one, not even a token. Of the 29 people she hired, all of them with one exception were white. Under Kagan's watch Harvard hired 28 white faculty members and one Asian American.

One of Kagan's purported qualifications for the Supreme Court is that she is a consensus builder. The chief evidence for that contention is that she broke the hiring logjam at Harvard and made it possible for Harvard to hire conservatives. It might sound absurd to some, but I will accept the point that one of Kagan's chief selling points is that she assured that Harvard did not discriminate ideologically. I am personally gratified that Harvard Law School is not closed to conservative faculty members. I support ideological diversity and would not want to see qualified individuals discriminated against on the basis of ideology.

But what about people of color? How could she have brokered a deal that permitted the hiring of conservatives but resulted in the hiring of only white faculty? Moreover, of the 29 new hires, only six were women. So, she hired 23 white men, 5 white women, and one Asian American woman. Please do not tell me that there were not enough qualified women and people of color. That's a racist and sexist statement. It cannot be the case that there was not a single qualified black, Latino or Native-American legal academic that would qualify for tenure at Harvard Law School during Elena Kagan's tenure. To believe otherwise is to harbor troubling racist views.

I am unaware of the dynamics at Harvard Law School, but having a stepmother who is both a former college president, and a Harvard grad, I do know that the politics at Harvard can be unpleasant, and produce less than optimal results.

Still, 28 hires, 27 of whom are white, and one of whom is of Asian extraction seems to me to indicate some very real issues, whether it's just conflict avoidance/cowardice, or something more.

It seems to me that in an environment like Harvard Law, hiring 28 faculty and hiring only 1 non-white actually takes a lot of work.

H/t BTD.

^*I think that the practice of appointing Federal judges is overrated. Every current justice was a Federal judge, which was not the tradition. The last non Federal judge appointed was O'Connor, and you have people like Warren, Douglas, Fortas, Marshall, Brandeis, Black, Frankfurter, etc., as well as people like Holms and Cardozo, who were judges, but not Federal judges.

Well, Here is a Blast from My Web Past

Around 1995 0r so, I really do not recall when exactly, I decided that the web was just too useful for me to compete on utility, so I would compete on uselessness.

So I created, hand coded, because that was the way then, a web page dedicated to bad hair days.

Originally, it was just me, you've seen the picture, it's in the right column, and Al (Einstein, that is, the patron saint of bad hair).

Well, I realized that not only did the Internet completely out-class me in useful things, but it completely outclassed me in useless things, so it never went that far.

That being said, I did add one other public figure, just 12 days before September 11, 2001, James Traficant, who had arguably the worst hair in the 200+ year history of Congress.

Mr. Traficant was subsequently tried and convicted for matters unrelated to his hair, corruption, and expelled from Congress.

Well, He's back!!!!!!

After serving 7 years for bribery, he is running for his old seat as an independent in his old district in Youngstown, OH.

Same as it ever was……

Federal Reserve Continues Its Full Court Press Against Transperency

Once again the Fed is trying to cover up its role in bailing out the financial bigwigs.

I think that they know that they will lose if it goes before the Supreme Court, so they are delaying in the hope of getting a "Get out of jail free" card from Congress in the financial regulation bill.

Their latest delaying tactic is that, after having lost at the Federal district and appeals courts, they are asking for an en banc (Full Appeals Court) review:

The Federal Reserve Board asked an appeals court to reconsider a ruling requiring the agency to disclose documents identifying financial firms that might have collapsed without the largest U.S. government bailout ever.

Attorneys for the Fed yesterday asked the full U.S. Court of Appeals in New York to reconsider a unanimous ruling by a three-judge panel. If the court refuses, the Fed can appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“The decision is of exceptional importance,” the Fed’s lawyers wrote in a legal brief. “The real-world consequence of the panel’s decision will be serious, perhaps irreparable harm to the institutional borrowers whose information will be revealed.”

Nope. Everyone knows this information by now.

What they don't know is just how much the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, are in the pockets of the financial industry, and how far they went to protect their buddies in Wall Street.

It's time for the Fed to man up and fess up.

Entering the Last Decade

I've hooked up a webcam, and installed Skype.

I just confirmed that it worked with my brother, who uses both a lot, he has a D&D run that involves players from the west coast and China.

I'll be having a video interview some time this week.

Daniel's advice, "Remember to look at the camera."

My Skype ID is "msaroff."

5,113

The number of nuclear warheads currently in the US inventory.

This is the first time that the number has been released, and it is well down from, "22,217 in late 1989."

This does indicate a modicum of compliance with the NNPT, which requires nuclear powers to draw down, and is good news.

Felix Salmon on Robert Rubin

It's a beautiful and well deserved take-down of the man who deregulated derivatives and took hundreds of millions of dollars from Citi and let them drive themselves into the ground.

Just go and read it.

More Evidence of Chinese Naval Ambitions

The Chinese Navy is building a 2^nd demagnetization facility at Maocao Nong.

This is significant, because while ships may be flashy and show the flag, you need support infrastructure in order to be able to maintain a reasonable level of operations, and this is yet another example of how the Chinese are building their naval power from the ground up.

On a related note, it's amazing what you can find on Google Earth.

Greece Bailout Finalized

The bottom line is €120 billion in loans and guarantees, along with some fairly brutal austerity measures.

Of course, the problem is not that the Greek government is profligate, it has amongst the most meager safety net in the EU, but rather that the populace aggressively evades taxes, and the tax collection authority is inefficient and corrupt.

Estimates have the Greek government, "losing as much as $30 billion a year to tax evasion."

The solution here is very simple. While the German people may object to lending money to the Greeks, which is one of the reasons that Angela Merkel dithered, I don't think that the German people would object to lending a few hundred to a few thousand of their nastiest most aggressive tax collectors to Greece.

As it stands not, Greek austerity is being carried on the back of the lower and middle classes, while the wealthy will continue to avoid paying their share. Only a few thousand of the 11 million Greeks claim an income above €100,000.00, and this is clearly not true.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot: Car Bomb Found in Times Square

Thankfully, it did not go off, but it was sitting there smoking away:

The police discovered a car bomb in a smoking Nissan Pathfinder in the heart of Times Square, prompting the evacuation of thousands of tourists and theatergoers from the area on a warm and busy Saturday evening.

There was no explosion.

“It appears to be a car bomb left in a Pathfinder between Seventh and Eighth” Avenues on 45th Street, said Deputy Commissioner Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman.

The device, he said, contained “explosive elements” that included “propane tanks, some kind of powder, gasoline and a timing device.”

………

The explosive materials were discovered about 6:30 by a mounted police officer who saw a box with smoke pouring from it in the back of the Pathfinder, Mr. Browne said. The officer called for backup, and the Fire Department and bomb squad.

The Pathfinder’s back window was broken out, Mr. Browne said, and the police sent in a “robotic device” to “observe it.”

Mr. Browne said gunpowder had been found in the vehicle, but not a high-grade explosive. The timing device was a clock attached to wires. The gasoline was in cans and there appeared to be two or three propane tanks.

Apparently, had it worked, it would have been more of a woosh (followed by a weenie roast) than a boom, but still, it's unsettling.

The composition was gunpowder, unclear if they mean black powder or modern smokeless powder, cans of gasoline, and propane tanks, which sounds to my, "Haven't blown sh%$ up since I was in my teens," mind to be a pretty amateur operation.

Still, WTF?!?!?

PAK-FA/T-50 Video and Photo Pr0n

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This shot shows that the fan face is visible.
(Note, full size pic is humongous)


Detail of inlet


A variable geometry radar blocking technology.


Russian with subtitles


A useful PowerPoint from public sources

In terms of the development of the aircraft, it appears that both the Salut and United Engine Corp. (UEC) will work jointly to develop the a 2^ndproduction engine for the aircraft, (paid subscription required) in addition to the engine being developed by Saturn, the prototype is flying with a variant of Saturn's AL-31-F.

This indicates I think that the Russians are placing a lot of importance on the timely service entry of this aircraft, and I think is a far more sensible course of action than the jihad the Pentagon has had against the F136 alternate engine for the JSF, which may lower development costs in the near term, but almost certainly raises costs, and risks in the longer term.

As to stealth, it's clear from the top two pictures that the engine fan face is clearly visible from a fairly wide (15°+) angle, which implies that some sort of radar blocker must be present. (H/t whoever posted them online)

If you look at the first video (3^rd item on right), it looks like they may have a variable geometry radar blocker, which would provide a helical path for air, and signal, under some circumstances, non-maneuvering subsonic CAP, for example, and would provide a straight path when more airflow is desired, such as during a dogfight or supercruise.

Additionally, the bottom video lets drop an interesting manufacturing technology at about 2:25.

The fixtures for composite construction that that they are using have a very different philosophy than those used with US aircraft.

With US aircraft, Invar, which has a low coefficient of expansion, is used, where the Russians are going with tooling that is made from the same composite that is used on the airframe, so it will expand and contract with the underlying structure during the autoclaving process.

I just find this interesting as an engineer.

H/t Bill Sweetman for both vids.


Finally, there is a PowerPoint, h/t Stephen Trimble, which assembles most of the publicly available data on the PAK-FA, and serves to paint a rather more complete picture of the program and its capabilities.

India Restructures MMRCA Competition

It appears that because of an inability of the Indian defense bureaucracy to evaluate proposals in a timely manner has required that the schedule for the downselect to 3 competitors for the Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) program be pushed back an indeterminate length of time, (paid subscription required) which, under the terms of the contract, requires a rebid from the competitors.

FWIW, my money is still on MiG winning, the Indians already fly the aircraft, and the Eurofighter, Rafale, and Superhornet are really too large to be "Medium," the F-16 is also operated by the Pakistanis, and the Gripen, by virtue of being Swedish, does not have the requisite geopolitical pull.

Then again, the final selection still appears to be at least 3 years off, and my powers of prognostication are in serious doubt.

And the Tanker Saga Continues………

It's official

There was much hemming and hawing, but the Pentagon offered a 60 day extension for EADS to make the the bid, which will will slip the award of the contract to some time next year and French President Nicolas "Bling Bling" Sarkozy leaned on them to make the bid, so EADS moved forward.

They have entered into entered into negotiations with L-3 as a key supplier, which is basically a way for them to put a bit of a US front on the program tanker.

So, EADS has decided to go it alone, without a US partner, and bid for the contract.

I think that a lot of this is really about maintaining a presence, so as to keep lines of communication open with the members of Congress and the Pentagon staff for future bids, but as Stephen Trimble notes, they do seem to be doing their best to play to win, as evidenced by the talking points they are sending out to Congress, which are a harsh slam of Boeing, noting the fact that their plane is flying, and works, while Boeing's proposal is not flying, and that the 767 tankers sold to the Italians and Japanese still have issues with their hose and drogue systems.

Because the new contract gives very little in the way of credit for exceeding the basic requirements, this means that their best chance to win this is to show that Boeing cannot be expected to fulfill a contract on time and on budget.

Considering Boeing's record, this is probably true, but considering EADS' record **cough** A400M **cough**, it is also true for them.