South Korea on Alert

While everyone else is awaiting the inauguration, Information Dissemination points out some troubling developments in the vicinity of the 38th parallel.

In From the Cold has more here.

 The Korea Herald reports that there have been Naval engagements...

Naval ships from the two Koreas have engaged in a number of bloody clashes in the West Sea on North Korean provocation.

 ...though is unclear if this is referring to recent events. There have been several clashes at sea between the two countries over the last few years.

Coming as it does during the potential disruption of the Presidential transition this is an even more worrisome development than it would normally be. This is most likely bluster by the Hermit Kingdom, but it certainly bears watching.

 Note that the US and South Korea are still technically at war with the North. The armistice is still in effect but no peace treaty has ever been signed.
 

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The Reason for the 3 Day Weekend

In 15 or so hours Barak Obama will be sworn in as the 44th President of this republic. I did not vote for the guy and although he has pleasantly surprised me with some of his appointments as well as many of his statements I am very concerned about the direction he will take this nation.

That being said, he is going to be the president...our president...and it is our job as citizens to give him a chance and to give him support as he faces the crushing set of challenges and dreadful options that our chief executives are confronted with.

There will no doubt be all sorts of things to bang ones head against ones keyboard over and policies that those of us on the right will oppose on principle. However, whatever misgivings many of us may have, the fact that a person of color has achieved the highest elected office is surely a cause for celebration.

Today is more than an extra day off. It is a day to reflect upon how far we have come as a nation. Because today is not only the day before this inaguration. It is the day we celebrate one of the great civil rights leaders of this country.

more...

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The Home Stretch

Apologies, my first post in a week and it focuses on my Walter Mitty lifestyle...so here is an unrelated picture of a Vespa as compensation.....

Vespa study is by Haku

Banality blogging is tastefully below the fold....
more...

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Mexico

Fabius Maximus has a bleak series of posts on the deteriorating situation in Mexico.
http://threatswatch.org/rapidrecon/2008/06/mexico-failed-statefailed-poli/

The prospect of a failed state on our southern border is a grim one and is going to require considerable attention as this is a huge potential security as well as humanitarian problem.

Worse, there is little proactive we can do...The incoming administration is going to be faced with a series of choices that are  pretty much all varying degrees of bad. 

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I Cannot Unsee

....what I just saw, nor can I unlearn today's vocabulary lesson.

You know, I really could have lived a full and happy life without ever being aware of the word "Vore" or what it meant.

Now that path is closed to me.

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Tekali-li

Heretofore, I had been under the erroneous impression that squaemous and cyclopean were not synonyms for Kawaii.

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Note to Self....

...Clean house
Good lord.

Via: Rambling Gamer

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Compare and Contrast

The US Airforce has a comprehensive plan for commenting on blogs. (via)

This is in stark contrast to the Brickmuppets policy...

Cruse Internet
-Observe Windmill?
-YES-TILT
-NO- Continue looking for images of catgirls

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Do Not Be Alarmed By The Noise

I am trying something.

Picture unrelated.

Update: OK I think its working....the blog, for now at least has music.
If the music annoys you, the playlist is at the bottom of the sidebar and comes equipped with a shut-up button. You can also scroll through the list if you so desire. The current 13 song list will, of course, expand and change a bit over time.
Update2:By popular demand the default has been set to "off" (I think). The playlist is moved up the sidebar as well.

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A Cryptic Message From the Interwebs

I have been told to "Remember the name Matt Smith."

I have no idea.

UPDATE: Oh...

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Costumed Crimefighting on the Rise

The London Times reports that the US is crawling with superheroes.

There are, according to the recently launched World Superhero Registry, more than 200 men and a few women who are willing to dress up as comic book heroes and patrol the urban streets in search of, if not super-villains, then pickpockets and bullies.

LOL Whut?

Civic mindedness is all well and good but something is wrong with this picture...

“This is a more serious business than it looks,” said Citizen Prime, whose $4,000 (£2,700) costume disguises an Arizona businessman and father of a toddler who thinks his cape, mask and stun-gun are cool.

Prime patrols some of the most dangerous streets in Phoenix but, like most Reals, is reluctant to speak about the villains he has dispatched with a blow from his martial arts-honed forearm. He does admit helping a motorist change a flat tyre.

“Kids love the costume, so I seek to keep them out of the gangs today rather than take them on tomorrow,” said Prime who, at 41, regards himself as on the mature wing of the Real community.

What is wrong you ask? OK fine let me spell it out...

$4000.00 for a costume?

In these tough economic times one who is trying to set a good example for the youth of today must be frugal.
So...go basic...
All you need is a mask, some sort of costume...say a ninja suit with a logo, a stun gun, some twist-cuffs and maybe night vision goggles. You can get the basic kit for a hundred fifty bucks and look damned snazzy if you're friends with a cosplayer who is inclined to enable your wacky civic minded shenanigans.

Assuming you get decent body armor add 2-500 dollars and if you have decent first aid training a hunters first aid kit with trauma pads (in case you happen upon an injured person) is going to be around 60 or 70 dollars.

One should be able to put something pretty impressive for under a thousand bucks.

What, exactly, did 4 grand buy?

Citizen Prime may have overspent, or he may have gimmicks we don't know about...like a defibrillator a bat winch or a Vespa-Prime or something. Also gortex is expensive and he may have body armor more comprehensively distributed which would add up quick.  Regardless, Phoenix may be a teensy bit safer tonight...It is certainly more colorful.

For those of you concerned about whether there is a costumed crimefighter deficit in your area, there is the World Superhero Registery.

Note that despite the Times articles implication that this is a strictly American thing, there seem to be several in the UK at least.

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Not Just Decietful...Risky

Over at Information Dissemination, Galrahn is tilting at the windmill of misleading nomenclature. It seems that some in the USN are determined to have everyone believe hat the Littoral Combat Ship...that 3,000 ton speedboat with the armament of a Coast Guard cutter...the one that is intended to act as a tender in time of war...is a Frigate.

Take it away Galrhan...

Words like warship and frigate matter, when the LCS is sold as a frigate or as a warship, it carries with the name an expectation the ship is best used as a warship or frigate. The LCS is neither best used or even well used as either. A modern warship that does not carry a single kill weapon of any kind is not a warship, and if the ship is intended to be used in theaters of war then it does so only as a support ship when it brings no offensive tactical capabilities during wartime. The function of the LCS is support, the tactical principles are exclusive to roles of scouting and C2, by every tactical metric as constructed and in CONOP when explained, the LCS is a support ship, not a warship. The intent to explain, describe, or sell the LCS as a warship is dangerous, dishonest, and deceitful.

The last sentence might seem an over the top reaction to what seems to a layman a simple bureaucratic nomenclature fight. However it is entirely correct when one is aware of the history and implications of misrating warships.
^{HMS Invincible...the first battle cruiser.}

Although not entirely applicable to this problem the story of the UK's battlecruisers is illustrative. In the early 1900's the UK built a series of big, very fast cruisers with battleship caliber guns intended to scout ahead of the battleline and overwhelm more conventional cruisers and commerce raiders. They were armored like the preceding armored cruiser classes and had cruiser strength scantlings. The big guns were intended to outrange other cruisers and provide a means to fire back on scouting duties while they hightailed it from the sort of close combat they were not intended to meet. For domestic political reasons, they were, around 1911, designated BATTLE cruisers and the term "capital ship" was coined to give the impression that they were part of the battle fleet...thereby giving the impression to the public that the Royal Navy had more battleships than it really did. During WW1 they were thrown into the battle line at Jutland so their heavy cannons would not "go to waste"...with the result that 3 were sunk in quick succession with the loss of all but 30 of 3300 crew between them.
^{HMS Invincible...a double tombstone for over a thousand men.}

Like the battlecruisers, the Littoral Combat ship is built to less stringent structural standards than other frontline ships, and like them it seems to be a very expensive solution to the problem it is intended to tackle.

However, it gets worse than that, because there is a major difference between the two types of ship.
Battlecruisers carried big guns and could (and did) damage the enemy. Invincibles career was quite distinguished right  up to her loss. HMS Renown and Japans (British designed) BC's gave a good account of themselves in the second world war. Although vulnerable to fire, they packed a punch (Churchill called them "...eggshells armed with hammers"). The LCS has a 57mm gun, some machine guns and, if the NLOS missile is not cancelled, some light guided artilery rockets (NLOS is basically a long range Hellfire). The remote vehicles it is supposed to carry have no ship killing weapon. Its most powerful ordinance will be carried by its 2 helicopters.  It is potentially a very useful support vessel and can complement the capabilities of frontline ships, but it is fragile and can't fight. In a hot war LCS is an eggshell armed with toothpicks and a multi-tool, fighting a bowling ball.

Galrhan is right, the vessel is certainly not a frigate. And this is an important distinction for reasons beyond it's vulnerability. Unlike the Battlecruisers, which brought battleship guns to the table, the LCS brings basically nothing to the frontline at all save an additional target (and a fragile one at that) Because of its lack of any serious weapons, no admiral is going to be inclined to use it as a combat asset because it can't add anything except perhaps electronic warfare capability. No, the danger for the navy is that CONGRESS decides that these vessels represent actual warships and orders them IN LIEU of more warships....which might leave an admiral with nothing else to send.

To a congresscritter, especially the sort of congresscritters we have in the majority now, calling the LCS a "frigate" is the same as saying its a destroyer escort. To them this makes requests for actual warships redundant. They would rather spend money on almost anything else and this nomenclature gambit gives them an out.

This is not to say the vessel is worthless necessarily....
It's capabilities are indeed useful and are well in line with a gunboat or "peace cruiser".
It has a modest armament geared to policing duties and the capacity to carry additional equipment. In the 19th century the additional equipment consisted mainly of marines and perhaps relief supplies, this ship can carry those and more.

While the USN's naming scheme for capital ships is haywire at the moment, it is clear from the naming convention announced for the the LCS (they are named after small towns...just like most of the old PGs and peace cruisers) that the Navy considers them basically Patrol Gunboats in function.

With their huge flex decks an impressive helicopter decks, these vessels can do the soft power activities like disaster relief and possibly even low end hospital ship missions and such. Like the old gunboats these could be useful auxiliaries in a hot war, being used as ROV support and mine countermeasures ships much as the old gunboats tended to be used as tenders and minesweepers....the big difference is that that capability is built into them from the start.

If there is a gripe about the LCS aside from those trying to classify it as a frigate, it is that they seem to be a very expensive solution to the problem. Better, more robust and versatile results might be obtained with an actual frigate but with a flex deck, something superficially along the lines of Denmarks Absalon class but with 4 rather than 2 diesels, a modest number of missile tubes and a full fire-control system. Such a vessel would be more expensive than  HDMSAbsalon, but not much more expensive than a regular frigate would be because all that would be added would be steel....which is cheap in comparison to electronics.
Note that HDMSAbsalon, while very austere, has, with her 5" gun, 36 ESSMs, 16 harpoons and 6 TTs, a somewhat greater punch than the Perry class frigates as built, and is in a whole different league from the LCS.

Such a vessel would broach some criticism as it would draw more water, but Absalon for instance carries 2 CB90s which can carry the fight into far shallower water than LCS (and with, say 2 NLOS packs could have almost the same armament).

For a variety of reasons put forth here I feel that most of the peacetime things that can be done adequately by a warship armed like the LCS can be more efficiently done by the US Coast Guard..however the cutters aren't going to have the support capability for minesweeping and such that the LCS designs do.

Now, it may be that the 50 kts speed and other less visible characteristics mean that one of the Litorral Combat ship designs is better suited to the subsidiary duties it is intended to do, but these duties don't include going into harms way and these vessels are not frigates by any measure. Referring to these interesting vessels as such officially threatens to displace real warships which the navy needs in addition to auxiliaries.

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Yin-Yang

Villanous Company and Amy Alkon are quite coincidentally blogging on two sides of the same coin, namely, the obvious fact that a healthy relationship requires accommodation, compromise and sacrifice.

I've no dog in the fight mind you, at this stage in my life,  I'm unlikely to ever date again for a variety of reasons, but I frequently find myself astonished that so many people can't seem to grok this simple ...obvious...fact.

^{Alkon post via Ace.}

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Mod Neko? Perhaps.

Perhaps not...

It looks like the guys who did Funky Cat Maybe have done another one, though I'm not sure if it is them or just a "homage".

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HAPPY NEW YEAR!

It's 2009!

While 2008 did indeed suck for many people in many ways, Tigerhawk has put it into some proper perspective.

For my part, since January 1 is my birthday, I went to my folks house and was presented with the best birthday cake evah!

A steak with a candle in it.

Traditionally this is the time to set goals, and I once again have a few.
Continue loosing the weight.
Get my TESOL certificate.
Graduate college (this is more dependent on the proper courses being offered in the summer or fall than anything).
Stay within budget.
Keep my hurricane kit stocked and...umm... a dust mask in the glove compartment at all times.


A pretty short list.
In addition, if, by the summer, I'm actually on track for a December graduation, I plan to return to Japan in August and hunt for a teaching job (to begin next April). In that event I resolve to not rent an apartment that combusts, not to break my heel, and, having not broken my heel, to climb Mt. Fuji.

I hope everyone has safe a wonderful year!
Here, for your amusement, is a gratuitous hyperactive chibit.

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Random Bits of Wrong

Christmas kept me away from most entertainment so this week I determined to  had been considering seeing The Day the Earth Stood Still, however the reviews were not good and amongst my messages from an Email list I'm on were these lucid comments on the film by those less fortunate than I.

Save your money for the cheap show, or PPV.

 

"Just saw a movie that happened to have a title card that read "Day the Earth Stood Still""...

...been lurking around for many years, but  I felt  I had to say
something ...and this new disaster makes me feel like somebody threw  a
ton of raw, fresh excrement onto me, in IMAX format, yet...what kind of
Hollywood dumbass wrote this thing?

I decided to go with Bob^tm and see The Spirit instead.

Now I liked both Sin City and 300, the latter more than the former and this is the Spirit after all so I went i with high hopes.


I must confess that it was welcome to see that after all the fan service for the girls in 300 that this provided lots of fan service for the my demographic.
It was also nice to see Samuel L. Jackson having a completely batshit bonkers good time as the Octopus...or perhaps he simply went batshit bonkers during filming and the directors ran with it.
On the other hand...
What in the HELL!?
That was an ODD film....
I didn't exactly hate it but it was really strange and more than a bit unsatisfying...

Anyway this evening I went on the internet and started doing some work on some upcoming posts, in the process I did an image search....
...and encountered a picture where someone had perpetrated "Rule 34" on a
Cadbury..
cream...
egg....

Shudder....not that Cadburry cream egg tan wasn't sort of..cute...but damn....that ain't right.

I need a soda....wait...what??? HOLY HELL!!!

Yes kids....It's the grape soda who's flavor really grabs you....at $2.67 a bottle, it had damn well better.

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Paper Airplaines...FROM SPAAAACE!!!

How on Earth did I miss this?
The Pink Tentacle brings us this neat story from March on what is the ultimate egg drop ( but with no egg involved).

Japanese scientists and origami masters hope to launch a paper airplane from space and learn from its trip back to Earth.

This seems like it could be doable. The fact that these are made of paper should give them light enough wing loading. OTOH they will still be traveling at suborbital velocity when they begin to hit the sensible atmosphere, the light loading might not be enough.

Of course we won't know till we try! 

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A Quick Link Roundup Regards Todays Just Reciprocity

Breaking a "ceasefire" that involved around 3000 rockets landing in their towns and killing all manner of civilians ( the Palestinians particularly seemed to target schools)over the last year, Israel has hit back and hit back hard.

Very Surprising...Egypt condemned Hamas!,,and opened fire on them! _{(both via)}

Meryl has had superb coverage all day...see here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Israellycool is liveblogging.

Richard Fernandez has more...and provides this helpful graph of the rocket attacks on Israel during the "ceasefire".

Jules Crittenden has some thoughts and analysis.

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Questions Answered

Some questions  recently appeared in the comments of these two posts, regarding energy policy.

"Fortunately" after a tragic lab mishap involving Mentos, one member of the Brickmuppet's crack team of science babes is now ideally equipped to deal with comment threads that have returned from the dead! She now shambles up to answer these questions.

First up, 'Alternate Energy' asks about the relative energy yields of sugar beets and switch grass.

That's a hard one to figure as there are several factors involved, but some ballpark assumptions can be made.

Here sugar beets are credited with providing even better yield than sugar cane at an experimental French farm.

For ethanol, the top yields per acre are 714 gallons from sugar beets in France and 662 gallons per acre for sugarcane in Brazil

This might well be misleading as sugar beets are hard on the soil and need to be rotated rather more than other crops. That site mentions that one sugar beet crop per field every 4 years is a good rule of thumb with one per 3 being rather risky, so the number probably would realistically be 1/4th of that given.

By comparison, according to this report, switchgrass yields a theoretical maximum of 1,150 gallons of ethanol per acer.

These numbers are also somewhat as the celulosic process mentioned in the post is not fully operational (though it is very promising). The big advantage of switchgrass is that it is a weed, a native species and can be grown very well on marginal land that isn't really suitable for other crops. This is not the case with sugar beets and is important because we don't want to be displacing food crops for fuel. That is a very bad thing!

I personally think that algael oil, about which more here, here and here is a better option in general with a yield of kerosene type hydrocarbons 50 times that of the best ethanol producing crops. However,  switchgrass certainly has potential to supplement that. (Ethanol also works fairly well in suitable Otto cycle engines, whereas algae produces what is fairly close to diesel fuel.)

A comparison of various crop yields can be found here. Note that most displace food and that Congressional favorite corn is by far the worst of the lot.

Alternate Energy also asks in this post why there has been so little buzz surrounding Thorium Cycle Reactors _{(first mentioned here, or rather at the old blog, in '06).}

The reasons for that stem from in part from the anti nuclear hysteria found in so much of the green movement, but also from a policy decision made by the Carter administration in 1977 when we got out of the fuel reprocessing business. The idea was that plutonium should not become a commodity to be traded and that this would ease proliferation risks...In practice this meant the US ceded an entire industry to the Europeans, the Russians and the Japanese.

Additionally, the media has been very hostile to nuclear power in general over the years. It should be rembered too that this is a technology that was abandoned. This gives, to a casual observer, the mistaken impression that it failed....which can cause it to be further dismissed.

The most promising thorium reactors are liquid fluoride reactors which burn up the vast majority of their fuel, far more efficiently and with less ultimate waste than other types. However this cycle is a breeder cycle and that got it nixed from consideration. Other types of thorium plants  have the advantage of using thorium fuel instead of uranium of course. This vastly increases global fuel reserves but these other thorium reactors don't really minimize waste as far as I know.

A previous post on this blog regards nuclear power in general can be found here, and nuclear  scientist Kirk Soronsen...who actually KNOWS what he's talking about...has a blog as well as a very informative discussion forum where thorium fueled reactor related issues are discussed in great detail by a variety of people far more experienced in them than an undergraduate oceanography major.

^{Undead science babe has been identified as "Franken Fran" and is a creation of Manga artist Kigetsu Katsuhisa.}

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The Coast Guard in 2008

The US Coast Guard has compiled a list of what they consider their top ten video clips of Coasties in action. My favorite is the first one...

Since the removal of the ASW equipment from cutters in the early '90s, Coasties new method for dealing with pesky submarines is, apparently...
...to tackle them.

Hat tip: EagleSpeak

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