The Tragedy of the American Military
Not your usual left-wing rant. The blame is thoroughly bipartisan. Even Bernie Sanders takes a hit.
The American public and its political leadership will do anything for the military except take it seriously. The result is a chickenhawk nation in which careless spending and strategic folly combine to lure America into endless wars it can’t win.
The article originally identified the bomber as a Sukhoi T-4, an aircraft that did not fly until 1972. The mistake was obvious to me from the picture, which has not (as of today) been replaced. That is not a bomber from the early 1950’s. The bomb was dropped from a Tupolev Tu-4, the Soviet copy of of the U.S. B-29 bomber, which was used in the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
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Thought WWI was history? In the Middle East, think again
What brought Turkey into World War I was the Escape of the German warships Goeben and Breslau , especially the Goeben, which was the most powerful ship in the Mediterranean at the start of the War. She was The Ship That Changed the World.
According to Winston Churchill the Goeben brought “more slaughter, more misery, and more ruin than has ever before been borne within the compass of a ship.”. He wrote that in 1931.
Of course, they will be officially denied by the Kremlin.
http://io9.com/what-europe-will-look-like-in-2035-if-russian-tabloids-1587988556
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Fur flies over 16th century ‘rocket cats’ warfare manual
Researcher baffled by document written by artillery master Franz Helm featuring pictures of jetpacks strapped to cats and doves
Physicists, like the ancient Greeks, like to gossip about the gods. A few days ago, three physicists* were talking on Twitter** about a review by a fourth physicist, Freeman Dyson, of a biography of one of these gods, J. Robert Oppenheimer, and about his war with another one, John Archibald Wheeler.
… the final moments of Richard III’s life…
On a related note, Richard III’s body becomes subject of rival claims from Leicester and York
In case you were wondering: Why the princes in the tower are staying six feet under.
“The recent discovery of Richard III does not change the abbey’s position, which is that the mortal remains of two young children, widely believed since the 17th century to be the princes in tower, should not be disturbed.”
Another year has past, and thanks to our midwestern summer humidity, I again faced the challenges of Maintaining Gaffneyis Gear. However, I managed to improve my process somewhat. Continue reading
UFO widely seen in Middle East skies, linked to Russian missile test has an update from James Oberg, explaining that the spiral does not indicate a failed launch, but is a deliberate feature needed for the trajectory the Russians wanted.
“My Observations During the Explosion at Trinity on July 16, 1945”, by Enrico Fermi
From Hilbert Space to Dilbert Space, and beyond 
