Advice first: Your day -- your life! -- will go much more smoothly if you assume everyone you see (including that suspicious character lurking in the mirror) is a loony. Mad as a March Hare. See, that way the flashes of sanity come as a delightful extra instead of a frustrating glimpse of what should be.
Weird News: which is more strange, that Congress is posturing about siting an anti-Iran missile defense on the East ("give them what they want and you might survive") Coast when Iran hasn't got an ICBM with the reach and may not, ever (saboteurs, remember what you did for their nuke program? More of that, please), or that a Hoosier woman who is making a remarkable recovery from a traumatic brain injury in last year's State Fair Stage collapse was named "Patient of the Year" at the hospital where she is receiving treatment?
Doctors, nurses, I admire your drive (and hers, even more), but it's not a competition; they're all "Patient of the Year," dammit. You mustn't play favorites. Even though we're sure you have them.
Either way, I believe my opening statement is well-supported by the evidence.
BUILDING A 1:1 BALUN
4 years ago
5 comments:
Two phrases come to mind:
- "Pessimist" is the name that an optimist gives to a realist.
- It is impossible for an optimist to be pleasantly surprised.
Have a good morning, and I hope you're constantly pleasantly surprised!
Re: Advice First: I like what John Cleese once said: Let's face it: about twenty percent of the population is quite disturbed, in any country. Some of them only slightly, but by the time you get to the bottom seven or eight percent, I mean really getting quite disturbed. And of course they tend to latch onto religion or things like that for comfort, rather than extrapolating theories as to how the eye works or something.
East Coast Missile Defense? Uh, hello. You HAD it a few decades ago. It was called "Nike", remember? But we got rid of them when the Soviet Subs carrying SLBMs started to cruise up and down the coast. Turns out the response time would allow Mushroom Clouds to grow over Times Square before the Launch orders could be given. Think of using a Brown Bess in Fallujah.
Notice also that this would only provide "Protection" to the East Coast Elites. Hoosiers and Buckeyes would be allowed to Glow in the Dark.
"Your Federal Tax Dollars at Work."
Assume everyone you meet is a loony? That's just silly.
I make my day go much more smoothly if I assume everyone I meet wants to put me back in Atascadero.
Weren't Nike-Ajax and Nike-Hercules actually SAM's?
Mike James
Les and Mike, check Wikipedia. Nike was a rocket developed in 1945, before we even had the German rocket scientists settled in. Nike-Ajax and Nike-Hercules were SAM's, deployed against Russian bombers - never mind that Russian long-range bomber development ended with the Tu-95, basically a scaled-up B-29.
Nike-Zeus was the first ABM design, but was never deployed. Considering that this project started in 1959, when EE's were still designing most circuitry with tubes while trying to decide whether germanium or silicon made better transistors, I doubt it would have been at all effective. Further development work continued through the 60's, but nothing ever went past the prototype stage. Finally, the SALT treaty banned ABM deployment.
IMHO, at the time that was a better idea than going ahead with Nike-based ABM's. I spent six years in the Air Force trying to maintain electronics from this era. If the targeting circuitry was complex enough to stand a chance of getting near an ICBM in flight, it would have broken down faster than anyone could fix it.
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