Right on cue, and and absolutely spontaneous, of course.
Several thousand students have held violent anti-French protests in Chad. Police dispersed demonstrators with tear gas in the capital, N'Djamena, after cars belonging to white foreigners and diplomats were attacked.
The protesters are demanding that six French aid workers charged with child kidnapping be tried in Chad. If found guilty, the charity workers face several years with hard labour in a Chadian prison.
Not an unreasonable demand.
They said they believed they were rescuing Darfur war orphans, but parents of many of the 103 children almost flown to France told the BBC they were promised they would be educated locally, and never gave permission for them to leave the country.
Crowds of students began gathering in the centre of N'Djamena shortly after 0730 hours local time. Most of the demonstrators were high school students, wearing their school uniforms and chanting anti-French slogans.
Before long, what was designed to be a peaceful protest, got out of hand, the BBC's Stephanie Hancock in the capital says. The demonstrators began attacking white foreigners in their cars, hurling stones and shouting, "Whites - child kidnappers". Yet an another african countries join the trend.
Except in this case an argument can be made that they're right.
For several hours the young demonstrators took over the capital, running riot along N'Djamena's main streets and eventually converging at the French embassy. The police used tear gas to disperse the protestors who were intent on finding French citizens to attack.
The students, who were holding banners saying "Sarkozy, out of Chad" eventually returned to the city's main square in front of the presidential palace where several thousand of them converged for a mass protest. Riot police and soldiers are still trying to calm the situation down, although the protestors are finally beginning to wrap up their demonstration.
France's President Nicolas Sarkozy had said he wanted to go to Chad to bring the aid workers from Zoe's Ark back to France angering many Chadians.
I'm with the Chadians on this one. The crime (and it was a crime, specifically, kidnapping) was committed in Chad and should be adjudicated there.
#1
From protecting the murderers of Rwanda, to destabilizing the Ivory Coast, to stealing the children of Chad, the French are really getting a reputation for evil, leavened with incompetence. Why, they're almost Belgian.
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
11/14/2007 21:41 Comments ||
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Proving once again that the last thing a fish discovers is water. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Tuesday said Spain's King Juan Carlos showed a streak of "arrogance" when he told him to "shut up" during a presidential summit last week, as both governments strove to put the spat behind them. "I don't want to harm relations with Spain, but we don't like to be pointed at and bite our tongue. Venezuela and its head of state must be respected," Chavez told a news conference.
At the Ibero-American summit in Santiago, Chile, Chavez on Friday branded Spain's former prime minister Jose Maria Aznar a "fascist" for allegedly having backed a 2002 coup attempt against him. Current Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, 47, called on Chavez to show more respect, but the next day the Venezuelan leader repeated the attack, prompting an irate King Juan Carlos to step in and demand of Chavez: "Why don't you just shut up?"
Chavez, 53, on Tuesday lambasted the monarch, saying he personified Spain's former centuries-long colonial rule in Latin America. "Irate? The king was lucky I didn't hear him ... it's been more than 500 years of arrogance."
The Venezuelan president also criticized Zapatero for defending Aznar and demanding that he be shown respect as a former elected prime minister of Spain (1996-2000). "Hitler was elected by the Germans, does that mean that nobody can attack Hitler? That's so absurd, and that's the absurdity Zapatero came up with," Chavez said.
Aznar, 54, said on Tuesday that Chavez had attacked him merely to draw attention away from Venezuela's internal problems. "I'm old enough to know some people need foreign enemies when things start going wrong back home ... Therefore, I'm not going to fan all that nonsense and lies. I will simply ignore them," said Aznar on Colombian television without mentioning Chavez by name.
Chavez meanwhile portrayed himself as the victim in the incident. "Now they're saying I was the one who attacked the king. For the love of God, I didn't even see the king," Chavez said. And he tried to explain the king's rebuke as a result of fatigue. "I think the day before he had a long and intense workday," adding that he may have got tired "of hearing things, not only from me, but from Evo (Bolivian President Evo Morales) and Daniel (Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega) and other revolutionary comrades."
"The king blew up hearing all these things," Chavez said referring to the leftist rhetoric he, Morales and Ortega are becoming known for in Latin America. "When he said 'why don't you just shut up,' he was telling it to other people: 'Why don't you all just shut up,'" Chavez said.
In Spain, Zapatero said on Tuesday that King Juan Carlos, 69, had given a "spontaneous" reaction to Chavez' remarks on Saturday, and expressed hope that relations with Caracas would recover. "Spain has given an appropriate response to an inappropriate attitude," he remarked to reporters.
Spain's Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos told Spain's Senate that he hoped the whole incident would not damage relations between the two countries.
"The interests of the state, defence and our economic interests and those of Spaniards living in Latin America demand a swift return to diplomatic normality and of dialogue with all countries in the region," he said.
Separately, Chavez on Tuesday defended his proposed controversial constitutional reforms that will be voted on in a December 2 referendum, saying that they aim to "give more power to the people." The reforms, passed by November 2 by a Congress stacked with Chavez followers, would let Chavez stand for reelection indefinitely and curtail the media. Critics say the proposals are an attempt by Chavez to grab power and stifle dissent.
Another in a series of stories about this dam. It's going to blow.
The slopes of Chenjialing Village have shuddered and groaned lately, cracking and warping homes and fields, and making residents fear the banks of China's swelling Three Gorges Dam may hold deadly perils. The vast hydro scheme is meant to subdue the Yangtze River, but as the water levels rise, parts of its shores have strained and cracked, dismaying scientists and officials and alarming villages such as Chenjialing in Badong County.
Xiang Chuncai, who has lived much of her 84 years on this hillside of orange groves above the Yangtze, recalled waking in fright last year to rattling windows and rumbling noises from the earth. The tremors returned several times in past months, residents of this village in Hubei province said. "It's all been splitting since the Three Gorges Dam was filled," Xiang said, poking a wide crack snaking up a wall in her earth-brick home. "We don't have the money to move ... I'm scared what will happen if we stay," Xiang added.
Along the 660-km (410-mile) reservoir, residents pointed to erosion, slides and deformed terrain they said have seriously worsened since last year, when the water level was raised a second time.
While authorities have vowed to contain geological aftershocks from the dam, poor farmers worry about being swallowed up by landslides. The resulting tensions threaten to rekindle the bitter clashes that long dogged the project.
"Sometimes the ground rumbles and shakes, dogs bark, babies cry. It frightens us too," said Xiang's neighbour, Su Gongxiang, showing his front door that will no longer shut.
These days, China stands almost alone among nations in wielding the wealth and will to conjure up vast engineering efforts to alter the flow of rivers and lives of millions. The Three Gorges Dam is the world's biggest, an engineering feat that seeks to tame the world's third longest river while displacing 1.4 million people.
#7
Yeah. All the water behind the dam is causing the local countryside to shift as it adjusts. I'm sure it's nothing from Mother Nature's perspective, but it's a big deal to those who happen to be living on said resettling land.
#8
gorb, possible, but in all likelihood, it would not make much difference, actully probably make things worse than if the dam gave right from the start. Once the banks are eroded, the heavy mixture of water, silt and debree would flow around the obstruction, denting dam's edges, and erase anything in its path.
More than usual snowfall in winter or heavy rains, and you can stick a fork in it.
#10
Bah! As a civil engineer, I say all of our structures (properly designed) will last forever.
More or less.
I find it hard to believe the designers did not consider the overtopping of the dam, in which case, the spring floods may overtop it, but should not damage it. Happens all the time. During a period of heavy rain in (about) 1990, White Rock Lake dam in Dallas (TX) overtopped by eight feet for several days, and some of the dam lake (oooh, pretty punny!) was only eight feet deep! Other Corps of Engineers dams in the area experienced a similar fate, IIRC.
Posted by: Bobby ||
11/14/2007 7:42 Comments ||
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#11
The Granite Geology underlying the Three Gorges Damn was all reviewed by Yourpeon, Asian and US engineering firms...So it's not likely that a total catastrophic failure is looming, course Damns have failed before...
We'll have to wait for the fly-ash expert here at Rantburg for the FINAL WOID!!
Posted by: Red Dawg ||
11/14/2007 7:57 Comments ||
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#12
this makes me think of the show I saw about the mega-tsunami in Alaska caused by a landslide into a narrow bay. That wiped out everything to the 300 ft level if I recall.
If all of this "settling" happens at once how is that dam going to react?
#13
These days, China stands almost alone among nations in wielding the wealth and will to conjure up vast engineering efforts to alter the flow of rivers and lives of millions.
Nice for some UK leftoid to have a country with industrial might he can masturbate to. Anywhere else this monstrosity would be condemned as a social and environmental catastrophe.
#16
Large bodies of water behind dams, with their increased mass on the underlying terra firma can cause earthquakes. Also, numerous landslides are reported at the new waterside.
I hope that their dam is way overbuilt, because larger amounts of flyash were reported added to save money on cement.
I doubt that 3 gorges will catastrophically fail, but it would be a hell of a show if it did. Somebody will have a video of the whole shebang.
Posted by: Alaska Paul in Fairbanks ||
11/14/2007 23:00 Comments ||
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#17
big projects have inertia - "we've spent all this money, we can't quit noq" - and in teh Commie land - it could mean eating teh peanut to oppose a central committee project. I predict great fun, catastrophic failure, execution of low-level commie management and a vow to return to Maoist principles. After all, if anyone knew how to do design and build massive projects, it was Mao...
or Kim Jong Il, ....I forget
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/14/2007 23:20 Comments ||
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#18
SPACEWAR > TERRADAILY - ACTIVISTS: WORLD MUST HELP TO SAVE VITAL MEKONG RIVER. Local 4-Nation Mekong River Commission [MRC]isn't doing enuff nor working together.
(Xinhua) -- The number of males in China at marriage age is 18 million more than that of females due to a long period of high sex birth ratio since the 1980s, according to the country's family planning authorities.
Nobody noticed, of course...
... it was illegal to have an opinion about such things at the time ...
The sex ratio at birth in rural areas is 122.85:100, higher than the national average of 119.58:100, as compared with the normal sex ratio of 103 to 107:100, according to Zhang Weiqing, National Population and Family Planning Commission director.
Time to have a war to kill off the excess males. But with the "one child" policy they're all sole surviving sons.
By 2020, males aged between 20 and 45 are forecast to be 30 million more than females in the country, he said at a rural population and family planning conference in the Henan Province capital.
Simply brilliant. Try North Korea. Or try some of those Filipina mail order brides.
Rural families still have a preference for boys as agricultural production currently relies mainly on laborers, according to Zhang.
In that case the fellows should be perfectly happy pitching woo at each other.
China will continue to crack down on illegal prenatal sex selection and will try to help people discard traditional ideas of a preference for boys, the official said.
Good idea. Start today and you see results in 16-18 years.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/14/2007 00:00 ||
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Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Time to have a war to kill off the excess males
Sibiria, ~ 6-12 years. They are already sending out excess males as illegal migrants over there. Once they have there a substantial minority, they can manufacture a plausible casus belli.
#3
According to that article yesterday, 11% of them should be gay and perfectly happy to stay that way. I assume that the women still won't have much of a choice in the matter. If you discount for the gay population, it might help, but even if the number is 11% and not more like 3%, it's still not going to fix the problem. Prostitution may turn out to be a huge business.
#6
It should also be noted that the vast majority of these unmarried young men are also unemployable. This means the likely result will be either a bloody civil war, or a bloody war. Unless a major epidemic wipes out a huge number of them.
This is why I suggested that China and India may tacitly find themselves fighting a low-level, low tech border war in unpopulated mountainous desert.
Both sides keep their professional, modern armies as a 2nd echelon reserve, and send enormous numbers of draftee peasants, armed with only AK-47s and artillery against each other. Artillery because it is responsible for most combat casualties in this type of war.
In short, a repeat of World War I, but at two to five times the number killed. That is, from 40 Million to 100 Million between the two nations.
Ironically, it may benefit both sides to have *both* a war and an induced epidemic. That is, have a massive build up to war, place a vast number of draftees at the front, in the middle of nowhere, then intentionally introduce a plague that wipes out a huge number before they can fight, yet is limited to the wasteland.
This could reduce the intensity of the conflict to a minor, unresolved border skirmish, while solving their mutual problem. It eliminates the threat of some ambitious idiot trying to use nuclear weapons, and by selecting the disease, you can prevent it from being spread to the general population.
Both sides get to retire from the war with their precious machismo, and their professional militaries intact, and they don't even need to have any lingering animosity with each other.
#7
our youngest daughter observed that,in addition to this particular mess, the One Child Policy has created families with no uncles, aunts, cousins, nieces and nephews. No extended family to help each other.
#9
Why do you think p0rn0graphy, massage parlors and online video-gaming are so popular in China? The Chinese government officially frowns on these pursuits, but probably sees them as a useful outlet for pent-up energy.
France is suffering travel chaos after transport unions broadened a strike in protest against President Nicolas Sarkozy's pension reforms. Train, subway and bus workers joined an open-ended walk-out. Hundreds of kilometres of traffic jams were reported on roads into the capital. State-run gas and electricity sectors workers are also protesting.
The government and the unions have resumed talks but the transport stoppage could last for several days.
The BBC's Alasdair Sandford in Paris says that with students, teachers, civil servants and even magistrates threatening strike action over separate issues, the fear for the government is that this becomes a general wave of protest against economic hardship.
Labour Minister Xavier Bertrand warned that Wednesday would be "a hellish day for travellers and perhaps for many days beyond that". That view was echoed by Prime Minister Francois Fillon who told parliament: "Millions of French people will be deprived of their fundamental freedom, the freedom of movement and even perhaps to work."
'SPECIAL' PENSIONS
Benefits 1.6m workers, including 1.1m retirees
Applies in 16 sectors, of which rail and utilities employees make up 360,000 people
Account for 6% of total state pension payments
Shortfall costs state 5bn euros (ÂŁ3.5bn; $6.9bn) a year
Some workers can retire on full pensions aged 50
Awarded to Paris Opera House workers in 1698 by Louis XIV
Early on Wednesday, more than 300km (190 miles) of traffic jams were reported on roads heading into Paris, twice the daily average.
Our correspondent says Parisians have been improvising in their battle to get to work - driving in earlier than usual, car sharing or taking to bikes and roller blades.
Rail employees stopped work at 2000 (1900 GMT) on Tuesday. Only 90 of the country's 700 high-speed TGV trains are said to be running. Commuter train services are also severely reduced. The metro service in Paris is running at 20% capacity, metro operator RATP said. Bus services are also affected.
Eurostar has said the first train services from London's new St Pancras terminal will be unaffected by the industrial action.
Gas and electricity workers joined their striking rail colleagues on Wednesday threatening targeted blackouts, as their pension schemes are also facing reform.
Mr Sarkozy wants to cut pensions that allow some public employees to retire on a full pension as early as 50 and says he is determined to stay the course, despite the strike threat. "I will carry out these reforms right to the end. Nothing will put me off my goal," he told the European Parliament during a visit to Strasbourg, reminding everyone that he was elected on a reform mandate. "The French people approved these reforms. I told them all about it before the elections so that I would be able to do what was necessary afterwards," AFP quoted him as saying.
But a spokesman for the CGT trade union disagreed with Mr Sarkozy's logic. "If reforms for the French citizen means that they are going to be working more and getting less pension at the end of the deal, I'm not quite sure all the French are agreeing with this approach," Oliver Sekai told the BBC.
Analysts say that Mr Sarkozy's resolve to stand up to France's powerful unions now faces a real test and his reputation rides on his success. And though he has promised he will stand firm against the strikes, they say, at the same time he will be anxious to avoid the kind of street protests which occurred in 1995 when the French government last tried to reform the pension system.
Steel imports from China are flooding the European market at cut-rate prices, putting thousands of jobs in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and the rest of Europe at risk.
ThatÂ’s the contention of the European Confederation of Iron and Steel Industries, known as Eurofer, which filed a formal complaint with the European Union last week. The European Commission, the EUÂ’s executive branch, now has until mid-December to decide whether to launch a formal investigation into EuroferÂ’s allegations.
Steel imports from China to the EU grew 137 percent to 8.9 million metric tons from January to September this year, compared with the same period last year, according to EU statistics. Meanwhile, imports of metallurgic products from China to the Czech Republic have quadrupled within the past year, whereas exports from the Czech Republic to EU countries have stagnated at 3 million tons. The worldwide price for a ton of steel ranges between $600 ($32) and $850, and Czech prices mirror those. Chinese prices sit well below that, according to the HÂŽ.
The Chinese prices have been fueled by generous state subsidies, Eurofer said. In response, it is seeking anti-dumping duties on stainless steel cold-rolled flat products from China (along with South Korea and Taiwan) as well as hot-dipped sheet and strip originating in China.
Not all European companies agree with EuroferÂ’s complaint. Trade association Orgalime, which represents engineering industries in Brussels, defended its membersÂ’ rights to choose suppliers as they saw fit.
Eurofer’s complaint is a bit of an about-face for the European steel industry, which for years has criticized the United States for abusing anti-dumping legislation to protect its steel industry. But such redress is necessary for truly fair competition, said U.S. Steel Košice, a Slovak subsidiary of the multinational. “We strongly believe that the Eurofer action goes toward fair competition in Europe,” said Ján Baèa, spokesman for the steelworks. “The economically irrational growth of Chinese steel capacities driven by state intervention is problematic.”
While the Eurofer complaint is only the first act in what promises to be a protracted epic, the EUÂ’s trade commissioner, Peter Mandelson, has already expressed sympathy for the industryÂ’s plight.
That's not how he saw it when the US did something similar.
New figures have shown that immigration to Sweden remains high despite the disappearance of last year's temporary asylum law. The rate of immigration for the first three quarters of 2007 has so far kept pace with last year, when a record-breaking total of 95,750 people moved to Sweden.
As in previous years, the largest group is made up of Swedes coming back from abroad. But the number of Iraqis is fast approaching that of returning Swedes, according to Statistics Sweden.
By the end of September, 12,821 Swedish citizens had returned to the country, while 9,203 Iraqis had immigrated to the Scandinavian country.
What kind of Iraqis? Chaldeans? Catholics? Lutherans?
Last year's bumper immigration figures were primarily attributed to temporary asylum legislation put in place at the end of 2005 and the beginning of 2006. But while that law is no longer in effect, the flow of migrants has remained high.
Sweden is also proving popular among citizens of the new EU countries. Immigration from Romania (1,957) and Bulgaria (927) increased tenfold over the first three quarters of 2007.
Wonder if the Roma are allowed in ...
Poles are also coming to Sweden in record numbers. This year's tally of 5,777 represents a 22 percent increase on last year's figures.
Emigration is also on the up, with 34,365 people leaving Swedish shores during the first nine months of the year. Half of these were Swedes, who moved primarily to Nordic countries and English-speaking lands. The other half was made up of non-nationals returning to their home countries.
The birth-rate too is higher than it has been for years. Not since 1994 have so many children (82,661) been born in Sweden during the first three quarters of the year. In all, births exceeded deaths by 14,266. On September 30th, Sweden had a total population of 9,166,827 inhabitants.
#1
A familiar refrain. Replacement workers tax payers must be found in order for the buggering bureaucrats and socialist schemes to be sustained. A population redistribution technique Lenin and Stalin would have adored.
#2
Throughout Western Civilization family values are being devalued. That has to change. And when it does we might learn to cease importing the excess populations from countries where parents create large families, in consideration of their own care at retirement.
#4
Or we could just invade and occupy the oil fields, remove the economic basis for all our enemies (and have a strangle-hold on China) then simultaneously cut oil prices and keep all the profits for our retirement schemes (eligible to non-muslims only).
The Pentagon is spending billions of dollars on new forms of space warfare to counter the growing risk of missile attack from rogue states and the "satellite killer" capabilities of China.
Congress has allocated funds to develop futuristic weapons and intelligence systems that operate beyond the Earth's atmosphere as America looks past Iraq and Afghanistan to the wars of the future.
The most ambitious project in a new $459 billion (ÂŁ221.5 billion) defence spending Bill is the Falcon, a reusable "hypersonic vehicle" that could fly at six times the speed of sound and deliver 12,000lb of bombs anywhere in the world within minutes.
The bombs' destructive power would be multiplied by the Earth's gravitational pull as they travelled at up to 25 times the speed of sound towards their target.
The cost of the vehicle has not been revealed, but a spokesman for the Pentagon's Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) said a first test flight was scheduled for next year.
Loren Thompson, a leading defence analyst in Washington, said the focus of the project was attacking "time sensitive targets" in states such as North Korea and Iran, which have either developed nuclear weapons without international approval or are suspected of doing so.
"If we received intelligence that a strike was about to happen on South Korea, or on Israel, we would want to destroy that within minutes and not hours. But from most current US bases that is not feasible.
"With a hyper-sonic vehicle launching from the Middle East or Asia you could be over hostile territory within minutes," he said. "It's not just a question of can we destroy North Korean weapons, but can we get there quickly enough in the event of an imminent launch?"
Darpa is also developing a small unmanned launch vehicle that would provide "responsive and affordable" access to space, for less than $5 million per launch. The first test flight was made in March.
It would be capable of re-launching satellites that had been attacked, or acting as a fast-moving replacement for a damaged satellite with intelligence sensors of its own that could identify enemy installations.
In its 621-page report on the Defence Appropriations Bill, Congressmen from both Republican and Democratic parties said: "Enhancing these capabilities is crucial, particularly following the Chinese anti-satellite weapons demonstration last January."
In China's first successful test of an anti-satellite system, a ground-based missile fired into space shattered a weather satellite in low earth orbit. The Pentagon has also given warning that China is making greater efforts to hack into its defence computers.
Congress awarded $150 million for the Falcon project and its associated "prompt global strike" programme. A defence industry source said it was likely that hundreds of millions more were being spent on space warfare "away from the public view".
The "global strike" platform would give America the "forward presence" it requires around the world without the need for bases outside the US.
Attempts to base missile defence shields in Poland and Czechoslovakia have provoked a fierce row with Russia, while Uzbekistan, which neighbours Afghanistan, evicted the US from an air base two years ago.
• The economic cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are estimated at $1.6 trillion (£772 billion) - roughly double what the White House has requested thus far, according to a report by Congress' Joint Economic Committee.
For the Iraq war only, total economic costs were estimated at $1.3 trillion (ÂŁ627 billion) from 2002 to 2008. The first flight is next year? More specifics on the Falcon are at the link.
#2
Must mean GLOBAL PROMPT STRIKE + SPACE STRIKE. ION, RUSSIA [RIAN] > MISSLES MUST STAY INSIDE NATIONAL BORDERS [INF/START/SORT treaties]; + WILL RUSSIA BUILD THE WORLD'S SECOND-LARGEST SURFACE NAVY? Russ Carrier ambitions + plans for six carrier strike groups by Year 2020 + basing/construx probs for Russ industry, Northern/Pacific Fleets; + RUSSIA IS NOT OBLIGED TO SAVE WORLD FROM USA. Not that they won't, only that they're not obliged to. Russ = Byzantium wants to feel the love from Amerikan Rome/Roma, AGAIN???
*SPACEWAR > A PASSION FOR SUBMARINES.
As for FALCON, in the near term my recomm back in the late 1980's was for the US to contruct a combination/hybrid "land catapult" including wid long, high-energy cascading launch tubes similar in concept to [Saddam's]LR super-artillery.
#3
In non-mil space news, PHYSICSORG.com > starting in 2008, some [but not all] scientists believe new SOLAR MAXIMUM may result in up to 40% new solar activity = SOLAR BRIGHTENING/IRRADIANCE.
IOW, GONNA GET HOTTER - THE SUN SHE IS GONNA BLOW-W-W [DARE AT SAME TIME AS THREE GORGES DAM?]. *DIGG > Austrian scientist claims EARTH'S MAGNETIC FIELD IS GETTING WEAKER. "Tis 10% weaker than 150 yarns ago and getting weaker - in 100 years, no need for rocket ships or starcrafts to get to the Moon becuz humans will be able to naturally float there widout any external assistance/mechanology. IOW, "THE RAPTURE" IS IN 100 YEARS.
#4
What we need is a cloud of cheap, replacable reconnaisance satellites. But, we won't get this because the agencies are in love with the hi-res capabilities of the big sats.
Big sat : Chinese ASAT = Biplane bomber : Battleship
#5
a first test flight was scheduled for next year.
? Somethings fishy here. That would be a epochal aircraft and it's testing next year?
Posted by: Thomas Woof ||
11/14/2007 7:34 Comments ||
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#6
Ah, test shells start soon, FAS sez:
The DARPA/Air Force vision for FALCON is to develop, by 2025, a reusable hypersonic cruise vehicle that could take off from a conventional military runway and strike targets 9,000 nautical miles away in less than two hours. Flying at speeds up to eight times the speed of sound (Mach 8), the hypersonic cruise vehicle would carry a 12,000-pound payload comprising several unpowered, maneuverable, hypersonic glide vehicles called common aero vehicles; cruise missiles; small diameter bombs or other munitions. Each common aero vehicle would carry approximately 1,000 pounds in munitions.
Posted by: Thomas Woof ||
11/14/2007 7:38 Comments ||
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#7
Austrian scientist claims EARTH'S MAGNETIC FIELD IS GETTING WEAKER. "Tis 10% weaker than 150 yarns ago and getting weaker - in 100 years, no need for rocket ships or starcrafts to get to the Moon becuz humans will be able to naturally float there widout any external assistance/mechanology. IOW, "THE RAPTURE" IS IN 100 YEARS.
Posted by: JosephMendiola 2007-11-14 01:24
that settles it JOE, ima gonna be leaving this commie planet..for good!
it floats my boat ..by gawd!
Posted by: Red Dawg ||
11/14/2007 8:04 Comments ||
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#8
Sounds like a scale model materials and aerodynamics flight test. It will be many years before one is operational. I think the X-43 Scramjet tests launched from a B-52 and accelerated to Scramjet ignition speed on a Pegasus rocket booster.
Posted by: ed ||
11/14/2007 8:36 Comments ||
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#9
Our plans to build High Altitude, High Mach Aircraft have been in the works for a long time..
sure the extra hype about China's killer Sat test will pry more $$$ out of Congress but the Tail in this instance is not wagging the dog IMO.
Does anyone think that China has been poking us to get us to "invest" money on unneeded Military Projects?
Posted by: Red Dawg ||
11/14/2007 9:02 Comments ||
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#10
Joe et al.
This article is from a NYT story from 2004 that covers the effects of a magnetic field reversal. It has happened before playing havoc with the earths magnetic field, animals internal compasses, crops, satellites, earth's radiation level and ozone layer; but not neccessarily catastrophic. Will Compasses Point South?
#11
gromky hit the nail on the head. We don't need 4-5 $3 billion dollar satellites. We need an array of 3000 1 million dollar satellites that provide a single capacity (Comm/Relay, ELINT, SIGINT, IR, Radar Imaging, and Electroptical) and work in a mesh. Keep the processing on the ground, network them up there via a mesh with comm and relay satellites, and transmit the data realtime via the mesh to the ground stations for processing, and then back up to a set of geostationary distribution comm sats. Launch them from cheaper commercial boosters instead of the big-assed lifters we need now. If you limit the weight and size, you could even put them in low earth orbit from a B-52 on short notice (works for eliminating the effectiveness for any asat effort).
And the orbits? Use the 66 low earth orbits that Iridium uses. thats roughtly 45 satellites per orbital slot. Call it 36, with one of each type in an orbital slot as a "cool" spare on-orbit. Mandate a common vehicle for the sensor in terms of power, bus and basic satellite C&C configuration as a const savings - and to increase the ability to automate flying the birtsd, as well as tasking them coherently.
The capacity of such a constellation would be amazing. Given the iridium orbits, this woudl mean at any given time for any target, we woudl ahve at least 3 infrared sensors, 3 satellites taking picuters, 3 radars imaging a target area, 3 ELINT birds picking up emissions, and 3 SIGINT birds intercepting communications, with 3 different birds for them to talk to, in order to relay the data back to a ground station in the US in real-time. No need to wait until we have a satellite over the target, no need to wait for a good pass angle. Its all there, all the time, always looking. Heck, up the satellite cost (including launch) to 10 million. THats 30 billion for a complete overhaul of our orbital assets.
And one other thing this offers that the traditional big satellites do not: upgradability. Just start plugging in new less expensive satellites, and eventually you can replace the constellation as technology advances. The current methodology only gets us new satellites every 10 years or so. The "swarm-sat" methodology that I propose would allow us to upgrade as soon as the new tech is applicable. Plus the risk is lower - we are talking about at most a $10 million mistake, versus a $3 billion mistake if you screw up a satellite from the current methodology.
Lots smarter, lots better. Only problem is that its not the One Big Bird model that the contractors and space/intel agencies still want due to bureacratic inertia.
And yes I have proposed this but nobody was listening because Lockheed/Northrop/Boing/Raytheon make money off the cuirrent system and would have to retool. So would certain other government agencies.
Shame of it is we have the technology to start this now, with little delay. Just put the inital 66 up there, thats 11 of each type. THat alone woudl jump our ability to provide continuous global coverage of any place we want with at least a pair of sensors directly observing any point on earth at any time.
What sucks is nobody is willing to even consider it, yet it could solve a whole host of problems that are present in our aging and increasingly condensed (and thus vulnerable) satellite fleet now.
#12
Upcoming optical improvements may make this possible in a few years. I remember an article a year or so back in which some guy figured out how to store the image data in such a way that most of the data was unnecessary in much the same way a soduku puzzle works. If I remember right, a side-effect of the technology was that you could use a crappy lens and get killer images because of the ability of the math to reverse-engineer the light's path through the lens. This would be great for cell phones obviously. And you could get real-time imagery streamed from the satellite to wherever because the volume of data would be much lower. That would help with the bandwidth problems the military is having. It would be more likely that the military would just want more images though, and would push things right back to the bandwidths we are having to deal with today! :-)
#5
Now that we know the Democrat trick of adding in 'total economic impact' to the out of pocket costs (as they did recently for the Iraq war), we can show that most of the programs they propose -we can't afford them!
What's good for the Bombay Stock Exchange is good for India.
NEW DELHI - Indian shares rose Tuesday in response to news that the governmentÂ’s leftist allies had softened their opposition to a civilian nuclear energy deal with the United States. Opposition from the communist parties has kept Prime Minister Manmohan Singh from starting negotiations with the International Atomic Energy Agency to implement the deal, which seeks to give India access to the global market for nuclear fuel and technologies.
Several television channels reported Tuesday that the communist parties have reached an agreement with the government allowing it to start negotiations with the UN nuclear watchdog. Earlier, the leftist parties had threatened to withdraw support if the government moved forward with the deal.
The leftÂ’s climbdown on the nuclear deal was a shot in the arm for the markets, as it hinted at renewed political stability and raised hopes of certain domestic sectors gaining orders if the deal comes through,Â’ said Prakash Rajdev, chief dealer at Mumbai-based Khandwala Securities.
The Bombay Stock ExchangeÂ’s benchmark index _ the 30-share Sensex _ rose 298 points, or 1.6 percent, to 19,035 points. On the broader National Stock Exchange, the 50-company S&P CNX Nifty climbed 1.4 percent to 5,695 points.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/14/2007 00:00 ||
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An impoverished surfer has drawn up a new theory of the universe, seen by some as the Holy Grail of physics, which as received rave reviews from scientists. Garrett Lisi, 39, has a doctorate but no university affiliation and spends most of the year surfing in Hawaii, where he has also been a hiking guide and bridge builder (when he slept in a jungle yurt).
In winter, he heads to the mountains near Lake Tahoe, Nevada, where he snowboards. "Being poor sucks," Lisi says. "It's hard to figure out the secrets of the universe when you're trying to figure out where you and your girlfriend are going to sleep next month."
Despite this unusual career path, his proposal is remarkable because, by the arcane standards of particle physics, it does not require highly complex mathematics. Even better, it does not require more than one dimension of time and three of space, when some rival theories need ten or even more spatial dimensions and other bizarre concepts. And it may even be possible to test his theory, which predicts a host of new particles, perhaps even using the new Large Hadron Collider atom smasher that will go into action near Geneva next year. Continued on Page 49
Can anyone explain how this construct models the universe so well in layman's terms? It seems to be a construct with 8 degrees of freedom each with 32 sub-dimensions/contours somehow to come up with 248 "dimensions". Do I understand this correctly?
#4
Short answer to gorb: No. His paper is available at the arxiv site. I skimmed it, but I'd need to work through it in detail before I could say yea or nay or maybe.
Posted by: James ||
11/14/2007 18:44 Comments ||
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#5
On the one hand, these spiffy new theories of the Universe which are true no absolutely really this time fer sher come along about once per decade.
On the other hand, this has something to do with something called a bifurcating Coxeter-Dynkin diagram (per gorb's second link), so I hope this one pans out, just so we can go around talking about our bifurcating Coxeter-Dynkins.
#6
In his own words (lots of amusing give and take):
This is an "all or nothing" kind of theory -- meaning it's going to end up agreeing with and predicting damn near everything, or it's wrong. At this stage of development, it could go either way.
Needless to say, the visually intriguing and colorful paper is a huge joke. The first place where I exploded in laughter was the equation (1.1). It says, using words, the following:
"My connection of everything = connection for gravity + weak force + strong force + electromagnetism + electron + neutrino + up-quark + down-quark + other-generations"
That's pretty cute! :-) The author is not constrained by any old "conventions" and simply adds Grassmann fields together with ordinary numbers i.e. bosons with fermions, one-forms with spinors and scalars. He is just so skillful that he can add up not only apples and oranges but also fields of all kinds you could ever think of. Every high school senior excited about physics should be able to see that the paper is just pure junk. I understood these things when I was 14.
John Baez does some finger exercises and provides an exective summary:
Each point in the complexified octonionic projective plane gives a different way of splitting the Lie algebra of E6 into a bosonic part and a fermionic part. The fermionic part is just what we need to describe one generation of left-handed Standard Model fermions. The bosonic part is just what we need for the gauge bosons of the Spin(10) grand unified theory, together with a copy of u(1), which describes the complex structure of the left-handed Standard Model fermions.
The theory proposed in this paper represents a comprehensive unification program, describing all fields of the standard model and gravity as parts of a uniquely beautiful mathematical structure. The principal bundle connection and its curvature describe how the E8 manifold twists and turns over spacetime, reproducing all known fields and dynamics through pure geometry. Some aspects of this theory are not yet completely understood, and until they are it should be treated with appropriate skepticism. However, the current match to the standard model and gravity is very good. Future work will either strengthen the correlation to known physics and produce successful predictions for the LHC, or the theory will encounter a fatal contradiction with nature. The lack of extraneous structures and free parameters ensures testable predictions, so it will either succeed or fail spectacularly. If E8 theory is fully successful as a theory of everything, our universe is an exceptionally beautiful shape.
Seems like he's doing good science: he can be proved wrong. And as others have noted, the colored geometrical pictures in the paper are very pretty.
If true, then the creation of our universe was a remarkably beautiful and economical event.
#9
All of these conversations sound like watching "Numbers" on Friday night and not having Charlie giving us a comparison using a pizza, or some such thing.
#10
Centriary forces? I mostly admire physics from a safe distance, but I haven't heard of that one, JosephM. I think Dr. Lisi would prefer the beer, based on his surfing/snow boarding lifestyle.
#11
"Secrets of the universe" > COMET HOLMES - something = unknown force, action, or factor "jostled" = diverted Holmes into its present orbit. DREAM/VISION > 'Twas GOD + MOTHER MARY. RUMORMILLNEWS > IS COMET HOLMES THE BLUE KACHINA/STAR OF HOPI [Indian]PROPHECY? The Hopi "Twin Brothers" to be followed by the awesome, Earth-and Man-humbling "Red Purifier". IOW, SOMETHING BIG MAY COME OUT OF THE GALACTIC CENTER/MASSIVE BLACK HOLE(S). HOPI "TWIN BROTHERS" > ARTHURIAN-MERLINIAN "FLYING DRAGONS"???
#1
A useful explanation to those not familiar with flu types.
HPAI A(H5N1) is the technical name for Avian flu. It means "highly pathogenic avian influenza virus of type A of subtype H5N1". However, from there it is described to include its sub-sub type, for example:
A/chicken/Nakorn-Patom/Thailand/CU-K2/04(H5N1):
* A stands for the species of influenza (A, B or C).
* chicken is the species the isolate was found in.
* Nakorn-Patom/Thailand is the place this specific virus was isolated.
* CU-K2 identifies it from other influenza viruses isolated at the same place.
* 04 represents the year 2004
* H5 stands for the fifth of several known types of the protein hemagglutinin.
* N1 stands for the first of several known types of the protein neuraminidase.
The reason it is typically called "H5N1", is because that is the most distinguishing difference between it and other kinds of influenza. For example, the Spanish Flu was "H1N1".
"H", for hemagglutinin, put simply, is the way the influenza binds to a cell to infect it. If it cannot bind to a cell, it cannot gain entry to it and will die. There are 16 different *known* kinds of "H", from "H1" to "H16". But up until recently, only "H1", "H2" and "H3" were known to be able to infect human cells.
This is what makes "H5N1" so dangerous, because it is a completely new technique for the influenza to attack human cells, for which there is no acquired immune defense. It is what makes it a "new" disease, and extra deadly.
The "N", for neuraminidase, again put simply, is the technique the replicated virus uses to bust out of a cell it has used to reproduce itself, so it can attack other cells and spread to other animals. There are 137 types of "N", but only type "N1" and "N2" have been identified with human epidemics, though "N3" and "N7" have been associated with some isolated deaths.
H5N1 is very novel in nature, as well. This is demonstrated by its unique ability to infect a large number of very different host species, including cats, which share no other influenzas with humans. It has even been found in some fish, though whether it injures them has not been determined.
On top of everything else, there are a very large number of strains of H5N1 and other flus. These sub-sub-sub types are because influenza has a great number of "flexible" or unstable genes in its RNA, making them very prone to both mutation and gene transference between both other viruses and host cells.
This is why each year there are different strains of the flu needing different vaccinations. The vaccines are actually blends that attempt to cover a wide range of different strains, based on the best guesses of the most dominant strains being spread in the public. But an influenza outbreak can and does mutate enroute, either to less or more virulent strains, which can make a vaccine more or less effective.
But acquired resistance is not the only protection or defense we have against influenza. A large percentage of the population of North America, and many in Europe, have a genetic inhibitor to viral cell adhesion, which has been traced to the bubonic plague of the 15th and 17th Centuries. It is not yet known if it affords protection to the "H5" factor.
Some ionic metals may help protect against the flu by inhibiting viral reproduction in some way. This may give some people enough time for their immune system to adjust to the invader, by reducing the speed in which it attacks the body.
The immunological response to the Avian flu may turn out to be as deadly as the disease, because an overreaction of the immune system, known as the "Cytokine Storm" effect, can destroy the lungs. Unfortunately, immune system inhibitors tend to be extraordinarily toxic, as a rule, often associated with chemotherapy.
#2
Very good summary Moose, but I'd take issue with one statement,
This is demonstrated by its (H5N1's) unique ability to infect a large number of very different host species,
The species jumping is a characteristic of influenza viruses. It's surprising the ease with which all variants jump species, particularly between birds and mammals. I'd say influenza has evolved to do this and hence cause cross species epidemics.
This is the National Science Version of the AFP article from yesterday.
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By adding a few modifications to their successful wastewater fuel cell, researchers have coaxed common bacteria to produce hydrogen in a new, efficient way...By tweaking their design, improving conditions for the bacteria, and adding a small jolt of electricity, they increased the hydrogen yield to a new record for this type of system.
"We achieved the highest hydrogen yields ever obtained with this approach from different sources of organic matter, such as yields [I think this means: Hydrogen atoms in the free product stream divided by hydrogen atoms in the solution] of 91 percent using vinegar (acetic acid) and 68 percent using cellulose," said Logan.
--------
Assuming this scales up well, a number of municipal sewage systems should be able to use it within a few years for at least some of their treatment. Also, for the environmentalists, the CO2 emitted seems fairly easy to concentrate although sequestration is a whole different matter.
#1
There is a lot going on in the world of hydrogen production. All of these efforts, often from completely different vectors, are a testament to mankind's ingenuity and creativity.
May the best solution / set of solutions win.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
11/14/2007 9:59 Comments ||
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#2
Hydrogen production is great an all that, but what will truly be a breakthrough is hydrogen STORAGE.
#3
DRUDGEREPORT > UNO GROUP WARNS GLOBAL TEMPS WILL RISE SIX DEGRESS IN NEXT 25 YEARS - IFF NO CHANGE! SSSSSHHHHHHH, IOW the Earth[Gaia] = Sun[Sol] is gonna blow, as nuthin can explain an effective/de facto six degree rise except the Sun.
Scientists said Wednesday they had created the world's first cloned embryo from a monkey, in work that could spur cloning of human cells for use in medical research.
In work published online by the journal Nature, a US-led team said they had created dozens of cloned embryos from a 10-year-old macaque monkey, using the same method that created Dolly the Sheep and other animals.
It is the first time that this technique has been successfully used to create cloned primate embryos.
Blames in part, weak U.S. dollar. Without sufficient U.S. product and refinery capacity and if the U.S. economy starts tanking, perhaps this will be the clarion call to change U.S. policy on oil dependency and improve domestic production and maybe start looking at alternative sources of electrical and transporation fuels.
I read somewhere that Cuba can drill for oil off of it's north coast in the Gulf of Mexico to it's hearts content, but the U.S. is limited due to environmental concerns. Has anyone recall seeing the same story?
OPEC sees no need to increase oil production at the moment, Secretary-General Abdullah al-Badri said on Wednesday, rejecting a U.S. appeal to boost output sooner than the producer group's meeting next month.
U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said on Tuesday he had asked the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to agree as early as this week to increase oil production to tackle falling inventory levels and high crude prices.
But OPEC officials have said they will not act on policy at this week's heads of state summit in Riyadh, reserving discussion until they meet formally in Abu Dhabi on December 5. "I would like to say to the Energy Secretary... that we don't want to see any shortage in supply, that this question will be raised in our meeting in Abu Dhabi," Badri told a news conference ahead of an OPEC heads of state summit in the Saudi capital. "At this time, frankly, we don't see that we should add more oil, but this is up to the ministers to decide."
Badri said there was no reason for oil to reach $100, as it almost did last week, and continued to blame refinery bottlenecks, geopolitical issues and the weak U.S. dollar for oil's ascent from below $70 a barrel in mid-August. "As far as we are concerned, as far as fundamentals are concerned, there is really no reason for prices to go to $100."
"We don't want to interfere with consumer countries' policy. If there is a shortage we want to see if we can supply that shortage," he said. "We are frustrated with the idea that we have something to do with this (high oil prices)."
#1
Delphi, your recollection regarding Cuban oil drilling is correct. The countries bordering the Gulf of Mexico each have exclusionary economic zones extending hundreds of miles offshore or until they reach a point equidistant from another country (IIRC there is a small donut hole in the middle of the Gulf that is not clearly subject to anyone.) So Cuba can drill for oil, subject to Cuban state and federal laws, to within about 45 miles of Florida (in places) but on the American side of that line, subject to Florida and US rules (mostly environmental - and mostly bogus) nobody can drill even 500 miles offshore of Florida (in a different direction).
Interesting rhetoric out of Kalifornia today with similarly contorted logic. Because some ship ran into a bridge pier and leaked a bunch of oil into San Francisco Bay they want to ban tankers from bringing oil into the Bay. 1. I think it was fuel oil for powering the ship, not crude, that spilled - are they asking that all ship traffic be banned? 2. Several critical oil refineries are located on the Bay - and cannot be supplied fully except via ships through the Bay: If they think gas prices there are high now, just watch what happens when they cut half their supply. 3) I think a bunch of that oil comes from Alaska and is not legally allowed to be diverted to other markets, so those ships would have to go all the way around the continent to unload for refining in Texas or Louisiana - adding a substantial shipping cost increase, which of course is passed on to the user. All demagoguery for the ignorant masses.
#2
Glenmore, you are correct that it was bunker oil from a container ship...about 2 - 3 swimming pool's worth. Nasty but not a catastrophe.
Every tanker that comes into the Bay has a tug escorting it. While there may be enviro-crazies that say we should have no tanker traffic, that just is not going to happen, for the reasons you state.
#3
(IIRC there is a small donut hole in the middle of the Gulf that is not clearly subject to anyone.)
Subject to the whims of the USN. There's also one in the Gulf of Alaska.
Posted by: Thomas Woof ||
11/14/2007 16:48 Comments ||
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#4
I thought the Saudis, at least, had been pumping at maximum capacity for a while? And Venzuelan production, due to the neglected state of their equipment, has been falling for a while, Iranian ditto... While Iraqi production has been increasing, it's not as quickly as planned because of vandalism, and it will take a while for the newly discovered oil fields around the world to come on line, as I understand it.
It may be that OPEC cannot provide more oil. What say you, O Rantburg Experts?
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. consumers could pay record gasoline prices for the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday with pump costs expected to climb another 20 cents over the next two to three weeks, the government's top energy forecaster warned on Monday.
Guy Caruso, who heads the U.S. Energy Information Administration, said not all of the recent jump in crude oil prices has been reflected in motor fuel costs which now top $3 a gallon in many parts of the country, about 80 cents more than a year ago. "We haven't seen the full pass-through (of high oil prices) yet," Caruso told reporters at a briefing on oil market conditions held at Energy Department headquarters. "I would say what's in the pipe right now (for gasoline) is about another 20 cents."
If the projected gasoline price materializes it would be the most consumers have ever paid to fill up at Thanksgiving and could break the all-time high of $3.22 a gallon set last May. The national average retail pump price has already jumped by 25 cents since mid-October, reflecting soaring crude oil costs, which for U.S. oil hit a record $98.62 a barrel last week.
The price of crude accounts for about half the cost of making gasoline.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/14/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
Its $3.63 or $3.67 a gal. here on Guam as of yesterday and today.
#2
Yesterday evening on the radio, it was reported that the big jump in the stock market was due to the revision downward of oil demand estimates.
That doesn't mean this guy's wrong, but it does suggest the longer-term trend will be down. I suppose that's why we had to get the bad news out, first...
Posted by: Bobby ||
11/14/2007 6:30 Comments ||
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#3
This is great news to the various retailers that have already said the sales have been the worst since 1995 ( according to one recent news story)
this should cause folke to rethink holiday spending and further depress sales.
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.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Tuesday said Spain's King Juan Carlos showed a streak of "arrogance" when he told him to "shut up" during a presidential summit last week, as both governments strove to put the spat behind them. "I don't want to harm relations with Spain, but we don't like to be pointed at and bite our tongue. Venezuela and its head of state must be respected," Chavez told a news conference. 
France is suffering travel chaos after transport unions broadened a strike in protest against President Nicolas Sarkozy's pension reforms. Train, subway and bus workers joined an open-ended walk-out. Hundreds of kilometres of traffic jams were reported on roads into the capital. State-run gas and electricity sectors workers are also protesting. 
Scientists said Wednesday they had created the world's first cloned embryo from a monkey, in work that could spur cloning of human cells for use in medical research. 
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. consumers could pay record gasoline prices for the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday with pump costs expected to climb another 20 cents over the next two to three weeks, the government's top energy forecaster warned on Monday.
