In Afghanistan, a U.S. Air Force strike wiped out about 40 people in a wedding party. This represented at least the sixth wedding party eradicated by American air power in Afghanistan and Iraq since December 2001.tomdispatch
American planes have, in fact, taken out two brides in the last seven months.
Reaper / Predator robot bombers: These fly quite low and in daylight
michaelyoncaution red-neck war-glory site
Seems to me that some rather cheap rockets could take them out.
If they have a characteristic sound, human or electronic ears might detect them.
I recall pictures from WWI of a man with two giant ear trumpets on a rotating platform. With modern electronics a static array of microphones could get a bearing. A vertical array might use rotation to get a vertical bearing.
Optical bearings could work in daylight, these would require humans as IR/visible pattern/object recognition is not reliable yet (when it is ,warfare will change profoundly)
A simple inertial locator in a small rocket could take out the lightweight robot planes, or at least disable the laser detectors on the bombs, assuming they are not all now gps guided.
These are slow low unarmoured planes. They may have low radar returns, but they cant fly for more than half a minute on silent batteries, so use sound to locate them.
There is something ghastly about robots wiping out weddings. Doonsbury joked about predators early in the BushJnr years.
Mitch Mitchell
mudvillegazette
drummerworld
Mitch Mitchell
The last of the Experience is gone
I recall the party I was at when I heard Jimi was dead. Do You??
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Trolling red-neck anti-Obama sites, I have learned about several Lefty writers I should pay more attention to...
"In 2000, The Khalidis Held A Fund-Raiser For Mr. Obama During His Congressional Campaign. Both Mr. Khalidi And Mr. Abunimah, Of The Electronic Intifada, Said Mr. Obama Had Spoken At The Fund-Raiser And Had Called For The United States To Adopt A More ‘Evenhanded Approach’ To The Palestinian-Israel Conflict." NYT
billayers
BHO or OHB as the red-necks (correctly?) have it has made his first appointment
Rahm Israel Emanuel ...His father, the Jerusalem-born Benjamin M. Emanuel, is a pediatrician and former member of the Irgun
Fungii
Diesel Fuel From a Tree Fungus? given that modern termites have abandoned gut- protocticts/bacteria soup for external fungi digestion
Fungi may be the best wood digestors - they do sprout on dead trees.
sciencemag
Sunda colugo, a type of flying lemur (above), carries its baby as it soars through a Singapore rain forest
(Im pleased that Singapore has enough jungle for new a species to be identified )
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Inflamation involved in Cancer and atherosclerosis
Keep taking the baby aspirin
I was disturbed by one report that taking a biopsy of a prostate caused inflammation, which may have lead to tumour development...
sciam
For most of human history, inflammation’s ability to ward off infection outweighed its drawbacks. Today, as we live longer, exercise less, eat too much and smoke, many of us suffer from inflammation’s dark side—including its ability to contribute to atherosclerosis and other chronic disorders.
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Is Chronic Inflammation the Key to Unlocking the Mysteries of Cancer?
sciam
n recent years a body of evidence has accumulated to show that chronic inflammation can play an important role in the progression of some types of tumors from a premalignant state to full-blown disease. macrophages are “reeducated” by cancer cells to do their bidding. They become factories for cytokines and growth factors that nurture tumor development.between cancer and inflammation has long been suspected.
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Rosuvastatin was given to 17,802 seemingly healthy people, and their chance of developing heart problems plummeted.
...
The one thing the subjects all had in common was increased levels of high-sensitivity C-reactive protein, which is used as a marker for inflammation,
nature
P.J. O'Rourke glum for the Reagan days
We Blew It
by P.J. O'Rourke
...Or, put another way, Wall Street was pulling the "room full of horse s--" trick. Brokerages were saying, "We're going to sell you a room full of horse s--. And with that much horse s--, you just know there's a pony in there somewhere."
Anyway, it's no use blaming Wall Street. Blaming Wall Street for being greedy is like scolding defensive linemen for being big and aggressive. The people on Wall Street never claimed to be public servants. They took no oath of office. They're in it for the money. We pay them to be in it for the money. We don't want our retirement accounts to get a 2 percent return. (Although that sounds pretty good at the moment.)
.... We've had the rule of law largely in our hands since 1980. Where is the transparency? It's one more job we botched.
weeklystandard
The last Empire that proposed Glastnost collapsed in a single evening...