To make a deal with the United States you have to push thru a treaty, ratified by the Senate. Otherwise you don't have a deal. As the Iranians are finding out. Obama knew he could never get the Senate to agree to the Iranian deal, so he never sent to to the Senate for ratification, which means it is not a deal binding upon the United States. And probably Obama knew that the Iranians would never agree to the kind of terms that the Senate would ratify. So Obama settled for a not-treaty scrap of paper that was only good as long as Obama remained President. The ever sucking up newsies gave Obama the same good publicity as if he had gotten a real treaty, which was all Obama really cared about.
Anyhow, if you don't get a treaty ratified by the Senate, you don't have a binding deal.
The real trick will be to get the Europeans and Boeing to forgo all those sales to Iran. The Iranians have good money from crude oil sales to buy a lotta stuff. They want to buy a flock of jetliners from Boeing (many $billion in sales) and about the same number from Airbus. Plus a lot of other stuff. It's gonna be hard to get everyone to forgo all that Iranian money.
Wednesday, May 9, 2018
Tuesday, May 8, 2018
Turning point in history 1782
The American Revolution is just won. The British have capitulated and will sign a peace treaty giving the Americans just about everything they fought for.
Thirteen Colonies, now thirteen independent sovereign states. Each one possesses a state government, state courts, a state code of law, an army, a navy, a state establishment that runs things to their liking and wants to keep it that way. They all have conflicting claims to western lands, their original charters tended to claim all the land clear out to the Pacific Ocean. Each new state, born in battle, has plenty of reasons to want to retain every scrap of their hard won liberty. Each new state was plenty big enough by the standards of the 18th century to be an self sufficient independent nation.
How did these thirteen independent states manage to bury their various hatchets and form the Union? It helped that they all spoke the same language, and had fought side by side against the British. It also helped that they all correctly viewed Britain as a super power, who was just itching to get even for loosing the Revolutionary War, and the slightest sign of American disunity would bring the Redcoats back in force.
As it was, each American state had to give up important pieces of sovereignty, like the right to have armies and navies, to negotiate with foreign powers, to levy tariffs against each other, and accept laws passed by the new Federal government. Somehow, they managed to come up with a long lasting deal, the US Constitution, that they all bought into, and which has lasted to this day. They could have so easily got into a large variety of petty squabbles or not so petty squabbles like slavery, and all gone home mad and determined to go it alone. Which would have seriously changed history.
Thirteen Colonies, now thirteen independent sovereign states. Each one possesses a state government, state courts, a state code of law, an army, a navy, a state establishment that runs things to their liking and wants to keep it that way. They all have conflicting claims to western lands, their original charters tended to claim all the land clear out to the Pacific Ocean. Each new state, born in battle, has plenty of reasons to want to retain every scrap of their hard won liberty. Each new state was plenty big enough by the standards of the 18th century to be an self sufficient independent nation.
How did these thirteen independent states manage to bury their various hatchets and form the Union? It helped that they all spoke the same language, and had fought side by side against the British. It also helped that they all correctly viewed Britain as a super power, who was just itching to get even for loosing the Revolutionary War, and the slightest sign of American disunity would bring the Redcoats back in force.
As it was, each American state had to give up important pieces of sovereignty, like the right to have armies and navies, to negotiate with foreign powers, to levy tariffs against each other, and accept laws passed by the new Federal government. Somehow, they managed to come up with a long lasting deal, the US Constitution, that they all bought into, and which has lasted to this day. They could have so easily got into a large variety of petty squabbles or not so petty squabbles like slavery, and all gone home mad and determined to go it alone. Which would have seriously changed history.
Sunday, May 6, 2018
Gina Haspell for CIA director
She is Mike Pompeo's choice to replace himself. She is a new name to me. Apparently she is an old CIA hand, been with the agency for 30 plus years. Actually worked in the field, collecting intelligence, rather than being a paper shuffling desk weenie back at Langley.
Democrats have been trashing her because some of the intelligence she gathered came from vigorous interrogation of,(possibly waterboarding of) Al Quada prisoners back right after 9/11. I'm perfectly OK with this, it shows she was actually gathering intelligence rather than opining without facts. Or leaking to the NY Times.
If I was going to criticize Ms Haspell, I would ask her about her views on past CIA disasters, such as the failure to predict the fall of the Soviet Union, their prediction that Saddam Hussein had nuclear weapons, their prediction that the Iranians had stopped their nuclear weapons program, the Valerie Plame case, and leaking the story of Bin Laden's satellite phone to the New York Times. Bin Laden must read the Times too, after the satellite phone story broke, Bin Laden got rid of his phone and ran Al Quada by messengers. This probably extended his life by five years.
Democrats have been trashing her because some of the intelligence she gathered came from vigorous interrogation of,(possibly waterboarding of) Al Quada prisoners back right after 9/11. I'm perfectly OK with this, it shows she was actually gathering intelligence rather than opining without facts. Or leaking to the NY Times.
If I was going to criticize Ms Haspell, I would ask her about her views on past CIA disasters, such as the failure to predict the fall of the Soviet Union, their prediction that Saddam Hussein had nuclear weapons, their prediction that the Iranians had stopped their nuclear weapons program, the Valerie Plame case, and leaking the story of Bin Laden's satellite phone to the New York Times. Bin Laden must read the Times too, after the satellite phone story broke, Bin Laden got rid of his phone and ran Al Quada by messengers. This probably extended his life by five years.
Facebook's New "feature"
In the last few days, Facebook began placing tags on news articles that they force onto your Facebook feed. Click on the tag and you get a short writeup containing the name of the source of the article (useful) and Facebook's opinion of that source. For Breitbart News, their opinion went on for two lines calling Breitbart right wing extremists and screwballs. Neutral it was not.
Question for Facebook. If you think Breitbart is alt right trash, why do you push Breitbart articles onto my Facebook feed?
Question for Facebook. If you think Breitbart is alt right trash, why do you push Breitbart articles onto my Facebook feed?
Saturday, May 5, 2018
Ford wants to drop out of the car business
Ford announced this change of course last week. They are going to concentrate on pickup trucks, SUVs, crossovers and similar stuff. They will keep making Mustangs and one new sedan design. But Fiesta, Focus, Taurus, and a couple of other econoboxes will be dropped.
Ford didn't give reasons for their plan. At a guess, they like the higher margin in pickups and SUVs as opposed to the close to zero margins in the little econoboxes. At the time, I thought it was short sighted to abandon the bulk of the car market to the Japanese. I think the big boys, Ford, GM, and Chrysler/Fiat need to compete head on for a share of the biggest part of the car market. Driving to work, or anywhere, the bulk of the vehicles I see on the road in my part of the USA are little econoboxes. There may be be much margin in econoboxes, but there is real volume.
Now this week some new info comes to light. According to the Wall St Journal, both Honda and Toyota are having trouble moving their Accords and Camrys, despite new redesigns on both models, and excellent reputations going back many years. And on Saturday, an article speculating that the sedan as a product is going away for ever, just like the station wagon did.
Hmm. Maybe Ford is onto something?
Ford didn't give reasons for their plan. At a guess, they like the higher margin in pickups and SUVs as opposed to the close to zero margins in the little econoboxes. At the time, I thought it was short sighted to abandon the bulk of the car market to the Japanese. I think the big boys, Ford, GM, and Chrysler/Fiat need to compete head on for a share of the biggest part of the car market. Driving to work, or anywhere, the bulk of the vehicles I see on the road in my part of the USA are little econoboxes. There may be be much margin in econoboxes, but there is real volume.
Now this week some new info comes to light. According to the Wall St Journal, both Honda and Toyota are having trouble moving their Accords and Camrys, despite new redesigns on both models, and excellent reputations going back many years. And on Saturday, an article speculating that the sedan as a product is going away for ever, just like the station wagon did.
Hmm. Maybe Ford is onto something?
Friday, May 4, 2018
$130K Bimbo Hush Money
Did anyone, for even a minute, think that Trump's lawyer paid off Stormy Daniels out of his own pocket? $130K may be pocket change to billionaires like Trump, but for ordinary folk like New York lawyers, $130K is real money, far too much to just kick in out of friendship.
Apparently it's a big surprise to the TV newsies. They have been talking about little else ever since Rudi Guliani said that Trump reembursed the lawyer for it yesterday. I mean, what else did you think happened?
Apparently it's a big surprise to the TV newsies. They have been talking about little else ever since Rudi Guliani said that Trump reembursed the lawyer for it yesterday. I mean, what else did you think happened?
Speed up your computer. Uninstall Avast
Computer had been getting sluggish and flaky. So bad that I dared to run ComboFix, world's most aggressive anti virus. Combo Fix didn't find much, but it did demand I shut down Avast's active virus scanner, 'cause it was interfering with ComboFix. The only way I could find to shut down Avast was to uninstall it. The Avast uninstaller whined a lot and took forever, but it did get Avast off the machine.
After killing off Avast, Trusty Desktop is perceptibly more lively. He is an older machine, but he has a 2.19 gigahertz processor and nearly a gigabyte of RAM, not too shabby, even today. He is still running XP, which is leaner and meaner than the later Micro$oft offerings.
These virus scanners hook onto the network port, and inspect every packet, in coming and out going, which slows your internet a lot. It was really showing up running Firefox. Downloads were flaky, and Firefox would freeze for long enough to irritate the bejesus out of me. Getting rid of Avast cleaned up a lot of that.
After killing off Avast, Trusty Desktop is perceptibly more lively. He is an older machine, but he has a 2.19 gigahertz processor and nearly a gigabyte of RAM, not too shabby, even today. He is still running XP, which is leaner and meaner than the later Micro$oft offerings.
These virus scanners hook onto the network port, and inspect every packet, in coming and out going, which slows your internet a lot. It was really showing up running Firefox. Downloads were flaky, and Firefox would freeze for long enough to irritate the bejesus out of me. Getting rid of Avast cleaned up a lot of that.
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