A satellite missed its orbit. The problem can be fixed but, believe it or not, Boeing has a patent on using the moon, i.e. gravity, to change a satellite’s orbit! The patent probably wouldn’t hold up in court but because of a different lawsuit Boeing is threatening to sue anyway if the firm uses the procedure. Since the costs of a lawsuit are high and the satellite is insured, down it may come.
As cities are going to have a harder and harder time raising revenue, I think you will see more of this…
Six U.S. cities have been found guilty of shortening the amber cycles below what is allowed by law on intersections equipped with cameras meant to catch red-light runners. The local governments in question have ignored the safety benefit of increasing the yellow light time and decided to install red-light cameras, shorten the yellow light duration, and collect the profits instead.
We have put videos in the poem of the week section. But never before have we put a clip in the rant of the week section. But this week we are making the very controversial Fitna the rant of the week.
We are of mixed minds in posting this. Fitna is nothing more than propaganda. By that we mean that it is designed to shut your brain down and let your emotions take over. On the other hand though, it is interesting to see a well done piece of propaganda. More to point, you should see for yourself what all the fuss is about.
Last week we featured an essay that introduced the term post heroic warfare. But last week’s essay was too academic for most of our readers. So this week we thought we would highlight a well written first person narrative that perfectly captures what post heroic warfare is all about.
Jeff Matthews Is Not Making This Up points us to the most important news story that you did not read this week.
From National Review comes a story of a Coptic priest who is rumored to have a 5 million dollar bounty on his head.
And from Washington Post comes the story of how a big chain decided to try to buy pig meat from Joel Salatin and all the work they had to go through to make that work.
A pair of hoax ads on Craigslist cost an Oregon man much of what he owned.
The ads popped up Saturday afternoon, saying the owner of a Jacksonville home was forced to leave the area suddenly and his belongings, including a horse, were free for the taking, said Jackson County sheriff’s Detective Sgt. Colin Fagan.
But Robert Salisbury had no plans to leave. The independent contractor was at Emigrant Lake when he got a call from a woman who had stopped by his house to claim his horse.
On his way home he stopped a truck loaded down with his work ladders, lawn mower and weed eater.
“I informed them I was the owner, but they refused to give the stuff back,” Salisbury said. “They showed me the Craigslist printout and told me they had the right to do what they did.”
The driver sped away after rebuking Salisbury. On his way home he spotted other cars filled with his belongings.
Once home he was greeted by close to 30 people rummaging through his barn and front porch.
The trespassers, armed with printouts of the ad, tried to brush him off. “They honestly thought that because it appeared on the Internet it was true,” Salisbury said. “It boggles the mind.”
History is grinding forward if this news report is correct…..
But the food situation, which has mostly been felt in rural areas where rations have been suspended since November, has now spread to the city, according to the South Korean aid agency.
“Even ranking officials have run out of their (rationed) food supply, while a ban on (private) trade is strictly maintained,” said an unidentified city official quoted by Good Friends.
“It is nothing but a death sentence.”
The agency also said farm labourers were staying away from work because they were not getting any food. This was said to be affecting the planting of new crops.
Thats right. Don’t feed the people who are supposed to plant your crops.
It will be a struggle for most people to get through this week’s essay of the week. The essay entitled “The Israel defense forces in the Second Lebanon War: Why the poor performance?” is a seriously academic essay. In practice this means that it is poorly written and full of hard to understand jargon.
Nonetheless, it is worth reading. It is worth reading if you are an admirer of Israel and you think that their military is endlessly capable for it explains the difference between what Israel military is today and what it was in the past. It is worth reading if you have a sick fascination with the MBA culture and its conception of leadership because the essay explains how modern business theory has infected Israeli military thinking.
But most importantly, it is a reminder that technology alone is not enough to ensure the superiority of western cultures. Western cultures must also retain their culture superiority. Failing that, the barbarians will be knocking down the gates.
It is a sad fact of life that it is better to be feared then loved. It is hard to find anyone in the developed world who has a bad word to say about the Tibetans. From far left liberals to hard right conservatives, everyone feels sorry for the poor put upon Tibetans. But as EU Referendum points out, that does not stop anyone from selling them up the river to appease China.
From the Economist….
Your correspondent, the only foreign journalist with official permission to be in Lhasa when the violence erupted, saw crowds hurling chunks of concrete at the numerous small shops run by ethnic Chinese lining the streets of the city’s old Tibetan quarter. They threw them too at those Chinese caught on the streets—a boy on a bicycle, taxis (whose drivers are often Chinese) and even a bus. Most Chinese fled the area as quickly as they could, leaving their shops shuttered.
The mobs, ranging from small groups of youths (some armed with traditional Tibetan swords) to crowds of many dozens, including women and children, rampaged through the narrow alleys of the Tibetan quarter. They battered the shutters of shops, broke in and seized whatever they could, from hunks of meat to gas canisters and clothing. Some goods they carried away—little children could be seen looting a toyshop—but most they heaped in the streets and set alight.
Within a couple of hours, fires were blazing in the streets across much of the city. Some buildings caught fire too. A pall of smoke blanketed Lhasa, obscuring the ancient Potala—the city’s most famous monument, which covers a hillside overlooking the city. It is the traditional winter palace of the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s spiritual leader, who fled into exile in India after an abortive uprising in 1959. Some of the demonstrators shouted slogans like “long live Tibet” and “long live the Dalai Lama”. One group trampled on a Chinese flag in the middle of a main road.
For the curious, this is what a traditional Tibetan sword looks like.
I don’t think swords will do much against an AK-47 myself, but this story does remind us that there are lots of ethnic groups in China that are just waiting for the power of the central government to wain.