Archive for January, 2006
The Hawaii Stryker brigade, the 2nd Brigade of the 25th Infantry Division at Schofield Barracks, will begin receiving the 8-wheeled light armored vehicles in February. It will be an ambulance variant.
During a recent interview, Maj. Gen. Benjamin Mixon, 25th Division commander, said his 2nd Brigade Combat Team, which spent a year in Iraq, received 810 additional soldiers last fall. “We’re just about 100 percent strength as far as soldiers are concerned. They are now undergoing systems training, and they will begin their detailed training with their vehicles this summer.”Borne added that by the time the Stryker combat brigade is operational in May 2007, it will be have nearly 3,900 soldiers. It will include three infantry battalions, a cavalry squadron, an artillery battalion, a support battalion, a military intelligence company, an engineer company, a signal company and an anti-tank company.
A reader sent in these photos nearly two weeks ago. I’ve wanted to do some research and put together a major post like I did with some aerial post-Katrina photos in September, but I can see that I’m just plain not going to get to it.
The photos are great and deserve to be seen, so I’m simply going to post them without commentary. Click each for a better look.
They were taken on January 16th. That’s two weeks ago. And it still looks like this.
USS Ronald Reagan FA/18-C Aircraft Mishap
Landing problem Down Under. The pilot ejected and is okay. The Reagan is on her first operational deployment.
1st Lt. Eric Robinson, from the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, searches a field of rubble in Baghdad for weapons and items used for making improvised explosives devices.
Click for better look. Bigger version on Army.mil.
Dean Esamy notes a point of contention between the new Conservative government in Canada in the United States. In the comments he notes
My guess is that the US doesn’t want to recognize Canada’s territorial claim here because they want their nuclear subs and aircraft carriers to move at will through it.
That is it exactly.
This post on Dean Esmay led me to this post on The Forest For The Trees. Duane’s got a screen shot of the Google Help Center page on “Does Google Censor Search Results”. It says (er, said):
Google does not censor results for any search term. The order and content of our results are completely automated; we do not manipulate our search results by hand. We believe strongly in allowing the democracy of the web to determine the inclusion and ranking of sites in our search results.
Let me call out one phrase again: We believe strongly in allowing the democracy of the web. Just to be sure that you didn’t miss it.
Duane shows a screen shot of the cache, because apparently the page had been removed. He also shows a shot of a “did not match any answers” page of a Help Center search results page for ‘Does Google censor search results?’ and not the page. At first glance this made Murdoc think Duane was showing two different things, but it turns out that searching for that now takes you to the ‘Priciples’ page noted earlier. With slight differences:
They REMOVED the “We believe strongly in allowing the democracy of the web” as apparent sentimental nonsense which is out of place and out of fashion. They KNOW that this flies in the face of the “democracy of the web” and they’re doing it anyway.
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STS 51-L was destroyed 73 seconds after lift-off on the morning of January 28th, 1986.
I was in my high school library’s “resource room” (playing chess, I think) when someone said that the space shuttle had exploded. After determining that he wasn’t joking, I asked if he meant “exploded”, as in “a fireball and everything”. He said “yes”, and that he had seen the replay on television. I told my chess opponent and friend that the external tank must have blown up for some reason.
“Some reason.”
Being a bit of a space program fan, I was more than familiar with all the criticism that the Space Shuttle Main Engines had received, and figured that a space shuttle disaster was most-likely to involve either the SSME’s during lift-off or the heat tiles during re-entry. Since the shuttle had proven that the tiles worked just fine, the glaring weak point was, obviously, the engines. One of them must have malfunctioned in a major way and taken the entire vehicle and crew with it.
Instead, the “some reason” (when you cut through all the politics, bureaucracy, and finger-pointing) is really something pretty simple and pretty stupid.
Just like the majority of the other technological disasters that so often end up costing people their lives. Millions of disaster like this are averted every day. But sometimes, for “some reason”, one slips through. And it usually changes the world when it does.
I’ve come to realize that the destruction of the Challenger is one of my “I remember exactly where I was when I heard” moments.
Besides the interrupted chess game in the school library, another thing that sticks with me about that day is the address that President Reagan gave. It’s worth watching again.
Here is an old (not updated since 1997) but extensive link-filled page on the disaster at FAS.
Sent to MO by STUDENTS FOR A FREE TIBET.
Also, Michelle Malkin is collecting Google logos. The initial post is here, and more here. Plus links to even more.
My handcuff logo got a prominent mention, and seems to be spreading:
UPDATE: Here’s Nicholas’ take:
Murdoc loves it!
Keel Laying Ceremony Held for 2nd Littoral Combat Ship
LCS 2, to be built by General Dynamics, is scheduled to be commissioned in 2008. Lockheed Martin built LCS 1 USS Freedom and will build LCS 3.
Kurdistan: The Other Iraq
“The Kurdistan Region in Iraq is a good news story that seldom gets told.”
Born French, Died an American Hero
Capt. Patrick M. Rapicault of 2nd Bn. 5th Marines.
New super-gun to be tested in Feb
The long-awaited Metal Storm.
Supply route to Iraq’s Command Outpost North will cut commute by 16 hours
Organizing The Air Force Out of Existence
More on the dispute between the USAF and the Army over control of UAVs.
WWII chemical weapons jeopardise Baltic pipeline
Mustard gas, lewisite, and tabun from Nazi Germany and dumped by the Rooskies is in the way 100 meters down 60 years later.
Jarhead Red – The Cab that makes you say “Ooh-Rah!”
“Jarhead Red is a wine made by Marines, for Marines.” (see also: Strategy Page)
Bin Laden Starts Book Club, Vows to Crush Oprah
Scrappleface strikes again.
More Linkzookery “below the fold”:
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Russian Inventor Patents Invisibility Cloak
Harry Potter got one for Christmas. Murdoc wants one this year:
A professor from chair of quantum and optical electronics of the Ulyanovsk State University in western Russia has patented a method of making things invisible, Interfax news agency reported.The so-called invisibility cloak, created by Oleg Gadomsky, is called “The method of conversion of optical radiation” in the patent.
Gadomsky had been long experimenting on nanoparticles of gold. Thus, he invented a sub-micron stratum of microscopical colloid golden particles that makes an object placed behind it invisible for an observer.
“Only static objects can be made invisible for the time present, as during motion a radiation frequency changes. But soon it will be possible to create a cap of darkness and a magic cloak of Harry Potter, the scientist believes.
I want either this or the cold fusion device, I guess. (via a reader)
