March 02, 2015


I have contracted a case of the Martian Death Flu which has kneecapped my creativity. In the interests of content here are a few random links. 

First some good news: A Boko Haram force, while attempting to move into southern Chad encountered a Chadian Army unit which curb-stomped them. Boko Haram's losses were 207 killed against Chad's one dead and nine wounded. Chad also seized large quantities of small arms and ammunition left behind by the murderous, feral nutbars.

A US Military satellite has exploded in orbit. The 20 year old DMSP-F13 reported a temperature spike before breaking into 43 pieces. The loss occurred on February 3rd but was only reported Saturday.

The U.S. Korea Institute has issued a projection of how many nuclear weapons North Korea will have in 2020. The estimate is between 20 and more than 100. That's a rather....large spread.  There is an interview with the researchers over at The Diplomat. It can be heard here

We've mentioned before that America's B-61 nuclear bombs are being reduced in yield from 340KT to 50KT (while at the same same time massively increasing the accuracy). There is much more on this here. Note the buried lede 29 paragraphs down:
As part of this plan, the U.S. would eliminate the megaton-class B83 gravity bomb.

With a yield variable from a few kilotons to 1.2 megatons B-83 is by far the most powerful weapon remaining in the arsenal. The B-83 is also a much more modern nuclear bomb than the B-61. Yet this weapon is being removed from the arsenal, to be replaced with two downgraded versions of the old B-61 with 50 and 100 kiloton maximum yields. While lower yields and greater accuracy do reduce collateral damage, nuclear deterrence involves having the potential to maximize damage to the infrastructure of the country being deterred.  Also, ones accuracy is only as good as one's targeting, and while missile silos and military bases might well be eliminated with 50 kiloton blasts, the great SCUD hunt reminds us that hunting for the mobile land based missiles is not at all easy and could well involve a lot of imprecise targeting in a general area, where the greater 'earthquake effect' of the earth penetrating B-83 might be valuable. Finally, there is the possibility that a nation with a different values set than ours might conclude that even 1000 or more 50-100kt  weapons hitting their strategic targets would be survivable as a nation, whereas a similar number of megaton class weapons would allow no recovery for us, thus in their twisted logic, victory. This is more likely if one has 4 times our population and a Maoist outlook that might consider one's large population to represent...spares. Increasing the accuracy of the arsenal is surely a good idea, as it makes the deterrent more credible, but getting rid of our most powerful bomb (which is variable yield in any event) seems rather ill considered.

As we have again mentioned "nukes", here is a picture of 21 kilotons of 'splody. 

Pete Zaitcev takes a break from aviation blogging to express his thoughts on the Ukrainian situation

What is being described as "vandalism" resulted in internet, phone, and cell service being disrupted across a wide swath of Arizona on Wednesday

Something is quite rotten at UCLA

Carly Fiorina asks a reasonable question

Ebola has not been in the news lately as it has not been spreading as fast as feared, but it has managed to kill 10,000 thus far and get into the vice Presidential offices of Sierra Leone...oh and it is now believed that airborne transmission is very likely in certain circumstances. ISTR those who suggested this earlier were called bad names. Additonally, it has recently been revealed via a freedom of information request that Ebola does, in fact seem to be a serious concern to the military with regard to its weaponization by terrorists

The first scenario outlined is completely redacted, illustrating the acute sensitivity about the issue. The second scenario is heavily blacked out but, according to the memo, "would be both logistically and technically challenging for a non-state group to undertake".

Well...that's reassuring. And I mean that with the same level of sarcasm that I say this is reassuring as well. 

Finally, some Taiwanese news outfit has thoughts on Net Neutrality.

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