#3
What is a "hate crime?" The definition is: A hate crime (also known as a bias-motivated crime) is a prejudice-motivated crime, often violent, which occurs when a perpetrator targets a victim because of his or her membership (or perceived membership) in a certain social group.
"I especially want to point out that what happened on the bus was not a 'hate crime,'" University Police Chief Frank Wiley said in a statement, according to the Albany Times-Union. So Chief Wiley, are you still sticking with your statement?
[ABC] Three university students who claimed they were victims of a racially-motivated attack on a bus in Albany, New York, will now face charges for assault and misleading police about the alleged incident.
The three black, female students at the State University of New York in Albany told authorities they were called racial slurs and "harassed and assaulted" by a group of 10 to 12 white men and women on a city bus just after 1 a.m. on Jan. 30, according to a statement from SUNY Albany President Robert J. Jones released at the time.
All three said they were injured during the alleged attack and one of the students was transported to a local hospital with unidentified injuries, according to NBC affiliate WNYT.
But the University Police Department announced plans to charge the women --Ariel Agudio, 20, Alexis Briggs, 20, and Asha Burwell, 20 -- on Thursday with assaulting a passenger on the bus and falsely reporting an incident.
Police said in a statement that evidence gathered during their three-week investigation showed the students' initial claims "that they were victimized, were false" and that the women themselves allegedly assaulted a 19-year-old female passenger.
The U.S. Navy has a serious problem. After a decade and a half of focusing on supporting land wars, its basic ability to sink other ships is seriously lacking. To reverse that trend, the sea service wants to buy the new Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM)--and it wants it ASAP.
Admiral Harry Harris, commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, wants the Navy to put LRASM into service ASAP to counter surface threats in the Chinese, Russian, and North Korean navies. In comments to the Senate Armed Services Committee, Harris described LRASM as a "great capability we need to bring online fast."
For decades, the U.S. Navy relied upon the Harpoon missile as its primary ship killer. Introduced in 1977, Harpoon could fly to ranges of 67 miles at sea-skimming altitudes, cruising just above the waves to decrease radar detection range. On impact, Harpoon would smash into an enemy ship, detonating a 468-pound high explosive warhead with devastating effect. Harpoon was adapted to ships, aircraft, and submarines, and is used throughout NATO navies and allies such as Japan.
While Harpoon was a great missile for its time, the end of the Cold War and the lack of any competing navies meant the United States had little interest in upgrading or replacing it. A focus on land wars since 9/11 further delayed the upgrades to the Navy's anti-ship firepower. But now it's 2016, and suddenly the People's Liberation Army Navy--the official name of the Chinese Navy--has new ships quickly rolling off the assembly lines. China built 44 destroyers, frigates, and corvettes in just the last 10 years--and that's not counting other surface combatants, an aircraft carrier, submarines, amphibious ships, and the ships of the China Coast Guard.
LRASM, the Navy's next great hope, is basically an anti-ship cruise missile. The ship version is launched from the Mk.41 missile silo, standard on all U.S. Navy destroyers and cruisers. Rising on a pillar of flame and smoke, a rocket booster carries LRASM to a pre-set altitude, whereupon it is ejected and the missile's turbofan engine kicks in. A pair of wings pop out of the missile's flanks to steer it.
LRASM's range is currently classified. It's actually based on an Air Force missile, the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile-Extended Range (JASSM-ER), which has a range of at least 500 miles. It also packs a 1,000 warhead, more than twice that of the Harpoon.
LRASM is first guided by the ship that launched it, then by satellite. The missile is jam-resistant and can carry on even if it loses contact with the Global Positioning System. As part of the targeting system, the missile can be set to fly to a series of waypoints, flying around static threats, land features, and commercial shipping. LRASM can detect threats between waypoints and navigate around them. If it decides it would be entering the engagement range of an enemy ship not on the target list, LRASM will fly around the ship, even skipping waypoints that might lie within enemy range and going on to the next one.
After locating the enemy fleet, it dives to sea-skimming altitude to avoid close-in defenses. LRASM then sizes up the enemy fleet, locates its target, and calculates the desired "mean point of impact"--the exact spot the missile should aim for, taking into account the accuracy of the missile--to ensure the missile does not miss. In most instances that is the exact center of the ship, with the angle of the ship in relation to the missile taken into consideration.
What really makes LRASM stand out is that all of this is completely autonomous. Human beings tell the missile where the enemy fleet is, which ship to strike, and a provide it with a continuous stream of data--the missile takes care of everything else. Using artificial intelligence, the missile takes data and makes decisions all on its own. Using AI and datalinks, multiple LRASMs can launch a coordinated attack on an enemy fleet.
Chinese and Russian missiles use raw speed in an attempt to shorten the defender's reaction time. The 3M54 Klub anti-ship missile, for example, accelerates to Mach 2.9 in the seconds before impact. By comparison, LRASM pokes along at below Mach 1. Its attitude: You don't have to outrun what you are smart enough to avoid.
LRASM will arm destroyers and cruisers of the US Navy, where they will fight for space in the vertical launch silos alongside ESSM, SM-2 and SM-6 surface-to-air missiles, SM-3 ballistic missile interceptors, Tomahawk land attack missiles, and ASROC anti-ship rockets. While that makes fielding the right mix of weapons a little more complicated, it does offer more flexibility in offensive missions, meaning that a destroyer could carry anywhere between 0 and 96 LRASMs.
LRASM will also arm the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, which will be able to carry two missiles, and the F-35C Joint Strike Fighter, which will also be able to carry two missiles. The Air Force's B-1 should be able to carry up to 24 LRASMs. JASSM-ER can also be carried on the B-2, B-52, F-15E Strike Eagle and F-16, so it's possible the LRASM could migrate to those platforms also.
The Navy plans to buy the first 24 LRASMs in 2017 towards a total of 464 by 2021, at a cost of roughly half a million dollar apiece. While Navy watchers have bemoaned the lack of a new anti-ship missile for years, it's finally here, and it appears to have been worth the wait. Now all it needs is a good name.
[Dhaka Tribune] When Mahfuz Anam, editor of one of Bangladesh's most respected newspapers, admitted recently to a lapse in editorial judgment several years ago, he could not have predicted the legal backlash that would ensue. Anam's admission that he published unsubstantiated information accusing Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina of corruption has led to a barrage of defamation and sedition cases against him, along with an arrest warrant and calls for his paper, The Daily Star, to be shuttered.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/26/2016 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
Made in China? Don't count on it. Maybe this is part of why China is slapping sanctions on them. It can't help.
Australian sportswear brand Rip Curl made a public apology this week after it emerged that some of its ski gear had been made in one of North Korea's state-owned factories -- some of the world's worst places to work, whose profits help prop up one of its most abusive regimes.
The leisurewear, destined to insulate snowboarding Westerners for $300-plus a pop, was labeled "Made in China" before it made its way to retailers.
The ruse came to light when North Korean tour guides showed a group of tourists around the factory in question, Taedonggang Clothing Factory near Pyongyang. One visitor covertly photographed the faked labels and passed the evidence on to Australia's Fairfax Media. Somebody's going to be in trouble.
Rip Curl -- which blamed a rogue supplier for outsourcing to "an unauthorized subcontractor" -- says that 4,000 items of clothing stitched by North Koreans, all from its Winter 2015 collection, made it to market before the company took action to tighten up its supply chain. The supplier has since been disciplined and inspections of all factories making Rip Curl garments will be increased, the company said.
But the problem looks to be bigger than a few thousand ski jackets.
[Daily Caller] Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban believes refugees are a severe threat to Europe’s cultural and religious existence.
Hungary and Orban have been upfront with their reluctancy to accept any European Union deals of mandatory refugee quotas. Several European leaders have called out Orban for his lack of cooperation, but he feels he has his people’s backing.
"They would hang me in the nearest light pole here in Budapest if I agreed to something like that," Orban said in an interview Wednesday with German newspaper Bild-Zeitung. "A refugee quota would change Hungary and Europe ethnically, culturally and religiously."
#2
...when you live in a self imposed bubble of beliefs, no. No more than the 'Free Stuff' brigade in America understands where all that free stuff comes from - just another form of the cargo cult.
[ABC] Bulgarian authorities are investigating the unexplained death on Friday of a Palestinian, wanted by Israel for a 1986 killing, at the Palestinian Authority's embassy in Sofia.
The embassy identified the dead man as Omar Nayef Zayed, who took refuge in the embassy late last year fearing extradition to Israel.
The Bulgarian prosecutor's office said it was told by the embassy Friday morning of a death resulting from violence on the territory of the embassy. The Palestinian ambassador granted access to the investigators, it said, adding that the cause of death has not been established yet.
Bulgarian Prosecutor General Sotir Tsatsarov said the body was found outside the embassy by a Palestinian embassy staffer as he parked his car. Zayed was still alive when an ambulance arrived, and there were no gunshot wounds. He died at the scene before paramedics were able to take him to a hospital.
Tsatsarov suggested a possible cause of death was that he had fallen from the embassy building. The Palestinian militant group PFLP, however, reported that Zayed was shot in the head.
Zayed, 52, escaped from Israeli custody 25 years ago and has lived in Sofia since 1994. He was convicted of the murder of an Israeli man in Jerusalem's Old City and given a life sentence.
The official Palestinian news agency WAFA said Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has ordered an investigation committee to go to Bulgaria immediately and probe the circumstances of the killing. Abbas was quoted as condemning the killing.
PFLP said Zayed was a member of their organization, who together with his brother and another Palestinian had stabbed an Israeli in 1986 and had received life sentence.
In 1990, Zayed was hospitalized in Bethlehem following a hunger strike, and later escaped from the hospital, moving to several Arab countries before settling in Bulgaria.
Israel asked the Bulgarian justice minister in 2015 to extradite him and Bulgarian authorities called on him to surrender. He refused and sought refuge in the Palestinian Authority's embassy in Sofia.
His brother, Ahmed Zayed, and the other Palestinian were among those released in a 2011 swap for an Israeli soldier, Gilad Schalit, who had been held by Hamas-allied militants in Gaza for five years.
[The Telegraph] Two US groups take out full-page newspaper advert denouncing junket being offered in nominees' gift bag at this year's award ceremony.
The bitterness of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict threatened to mar this year’s Oscars on Wednesday after nominees were urged to reject a £40,000 trip to Israel offered in a gift bag to be handed out at this year’s Academy Awards ceremony.
The free trips - part-funded by the Israeli government - were propelled to centre-stage after the US Campaign to End Israeli Occupation and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) sponsored a full-page advert in the Los Angeles Times headlined "Free Trip to Israel at the expense of Palestinians". The advert declared: "#SkipTheTrip. endorse Israeli apartheid."
You find the darnedest things in world news sometimes...
A SYERS-2 intelligence gathering sensor has been successfully flown on a Global Hawk high-altitude long-endurance drone, US defense contractor Northrop Grumman announced in a press release, according to Sputnik.
"With the success of the SYERS-2 flight, Northrop Grumman plans to fly an Optical Bar Camera (OBC) sensor and an MS-177 multi-spectral sensor later in the year," the release stated on Thursday.
The test marked the first time that the long-used US Air Force sensor has been demonstrated on a high-altitude unmanned aircraft, Northrop Grumman pointed out.
"We firmly believe that with the addition of the UPA, Global Hawk is capable of flying any mission the U.S. Air Force requires," Northrop Grumman Vice President Mick Jaggers said in the release.
Existing models of the US Air Force Global Hawk are capable of carrying an enhanced integrated sensor suite, airborne signals intelligence payload and multi-platform radar technology insertion program, the release added.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/26/2016 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
an "intelligence sensor"? Don't fly it over DC
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/26/2016 10:30 Comments ||
Top||
#2
You have to calibrate the null somehow.
Posted by: james ||
02/26/2016 14:30 Comments ||
Top||
OK, I admit it; I am a nerd. I have been interested in Sterile neutrinos since MiniBooNE hinted at their existence. But enough of that. The last paragraph got me thinking about Iran and nonproliferation. Directional detectors might be useful for remote detection of banned materials in the proportions necessary for a bomb. Neutrinos travel easily through the entire earth and cannot be shielded.
Scientists see another, more practical, benefit for studying neutrinos. By recording the antineutrino output of nuclear reactors, detectors can discern the relative amounts of plutonium and uranium, the raw materials for making nuclear weapons. Gram for gram, fissioned plutonium and uranium have distinctive fingerprints in both the energy and rate of antineutrinos they produce, says physicist Adam Bernstein of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. Closeup monitoring of reactors, from a distance of 10 to 500 meters, has already been demonstrated; detectors capable of monitoring weapons activity from several hundred kilometers away is possible but will require additional research and funding, Bernstein says.
Posted by: Sven the pelter ||
02/26/2016 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
1/R^2 bites pretty hard, though. And if you want directional answers, the resolution needs to be very good and the interaction medium density low--which makes the instrumentation more costly and the detectors even bigger.
Posted by: james ||
02/26/2016 14:40 Comments ||
Top||
#2
There could be multiple detectors to allow triangulation. The more detector fluid the greater the chance of detection via a weak force interaction so a cylinder which can be rotated to point in a given direction. Low detection odds except down the length.
Just speculating.
Posted by: Sven the pelter ||
02/26/2016 15:21 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Sh*t. I hope nobody has already built one.
Posted by: Sven the pelter ||
02/26/2016 16:20 Comments ||
Top||
#4
To first order, orientation won't matter.
Posted by: james ||
02/26/2016 18:36 Comments ||
Top||
#5
Why do you say that? Given a cylinder the path along the length would traverse the most fluid and would have the highest probability of triggering a detection event. If the cylinder's width was small when compared to its length a transverse path perpendicular to the length would encounter far less fluid and hence would have a much smaller chance of triggering a detection event. Since you would be getting many events from a pile of refined uranium/plutonium you could orient the cylinder to maximize the number of hits per unit time. The research instruments are spherical/cubist, i.e. symmetrical so they wouldn't have a preferred direction.
Posted by: Sven the pelter ||
02/26/2016 19:10 Comments ||
Top||
#6
The cross section sideways is greater, though. The integral of the area by depth is the volume.
You'd be too far away for the difference in flux between the near and far sides to matter.
You _can_ get instrumentation effects. The readout might not be so good evaluating paths on tracks that come sideways, for example.
Posted by: james ||
02/26/2016 19:26 Comments ||
Top||
#7
More flux perpendicular to the length but lower detection probability per particle. I wonder if there is a minimum fluid thickness required to get a detection event?
Posted by: Sven the pelter ||
02/26/2016 19:57 Comments ||
Top||
#8
Daya Bay uses 20 ton detectors, about 2km from the reactors. If you're 200km away, make that 200,000 ton to get the same rate they do, which http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/The_Daya_Bay_Experiment says is of order 100,000/year. I don't have a good handle on how to use the spectrum to tell banned from OK materials, but I'd hope (WAG) that would be more than enough to distinguish.
FWIW, have a look a this: http://arxiv.org/abs/1510.00666
Posted by: james ||
02/26/2016 21:23 Comments ||
Top||
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[ABC] Three university students who claimed they were victims of a racially-motivated attack on a bus in Albany, New York, will now face charges for assault and misleading police about the alleged incident.
Made in China? Don't count on it.
[ABC] Bulgarian authorities are investigating the unexplained death on Friday of a Palestinian, wanted by Israel for a 1986 killing, at the Palestinian Authority's embassy in Sofia.
[The Telegraph] Two US groups take out full-page newspaper advert denouncing junket being offered in nominees' gift bag at this year's award ceremony.
