see, it's night, & this guy is looking under a lamp post for his lost car keys, and a cop walks up and asks him what he's doing. "i am looking for my car keys, which i dropped when i got out of my car, parked back there in the dark."
"well, why are you looking here," the cop asks.
"because," the guy says, "the light is better here."
well, as it turns out, something similar may have happened in the search for mh370. it seems, according to the article at the above link, that certain "theorists" have surmised that the airplane may have been flying a bit faster than earlier assumed, and that its fuel consumption may have been a little greater than assumed, and that it may have crashed into the sea a little bit farther north than where they have been searching, because it ran out of fuel earlier than surmised.
so, they have moved the air search north. and, some of the people involved have noted that that the weather is better in the new search area, and that the planes doing the searching can loiter a little longer over the seas, and look a little longer in the new search area. (it being closer to perth, australia don't you see.) and, that the conditions for looking are better.
well, you know, the light is better.
it seems only a few days ago that the "authorities" had a pretty good fix on the distance the plane had flown before plunging into the sea from the hourly pings received from the plane by the satellite detecting them, which had allowed the "authorities" to make a fairly precise estimation of its southerly position, based on the wave length shift in the "pings," a fairly straight forward application of the doppler shift principle. or, so it was said.
well, that was supposed to be an estimation of the location of the crash area based upon discrete physical facts and findings. so, have those discrete physical findings somehow changed because of the "new" speed estimates?
and, it would appear from the content of the article above, that the satellite photos of the debris fields have not changed, so why would those search areas be abandoned for the "new" locale as established by the speed estimates? and, from what i could glean of the stuff i've been reading, no satellite scans have been done of the "new" areas, because the satellites have not had their positions altered yet so they can look at the new place.
in a very macabre way, it appears that the "authorities" involved in this search have simply decided to look at a location where the light is better. in spite of the previous "evidence" which prompted them to look initially somewhere else. where the weather is stormy, and unpredictable, and it is cloudy and very cold.
and, where the light is not very good.
even though that is where the "pings" and the "debris fields" told them to look.
i don't know about you, but, i find none of this terribly reassuring.
it would seem as if "facts", even those established by "science & technological application," are becoming as malleable as opinion. kind of like "telling" the weather.
update, this date: wash the breakfast dishes. a second cup of coffee, at 11.42 a.m. old grounds, a fresh spoon of coffee grounds on top, boiling water. ahh!!, that's good. laughing. i wonder what the peasants are doing. oh, that's right. i am one. laughing.
it is cold, rainy, snotty, nasty outside. i sense a nap coming on, as soon as i am done drinking my coffee. and, oh, a complete lower receiver parts kit order from brownells just now, for the "plywood gun." a lot of oatmeal for breakfast coming up to pay for it, ... , but, oh, well. that's progress. end update.
eggs, the way i like them. stirred, not shaken. golden. yellow summer squash, w/ hash browns. fresh brewed coffee, ground, steaming hot water poured over the grounds through a filter.
caption: in the pan. a cast iron pan, the implement god conferred upon us, because he loves us.
caption: on the plate, on the "table." computer key board to the right, dial calipers and reloaded cartridges to the top. coffee at the reach.
it's about 10.30 a.m. i've bathed, (and, i have not shaved), have my breakfast, scanned the news for information on mh370, and made and eaten breakfast. i am wearing heavy wool socks, wool slippers, and a heavy cotton sweat shirt. i will go for a walk today, bundled up. maybe do the laundry, though i have at least 10 days of underwear on hand.
need i say, i do what i want when i damn well please.
i sleep alone.
there are trade offs in life, are there not? you make your bed, you lie in it.
john jay @ 03.27.2014
p.s. and, yes, i will brush my teeth in about 15 minutes. no rush, however, after coffee.
update, 03.27.2014. a thai satellite has also come across a slightly larger debris field in the southern indian ocean. searchers have not reached it yet, nor has positive confirmation that these debris are wreckage from mh370 been forthcoming. perhaps something important? or, just the stuff that the terms "flotsam" & "jetsam" were derived? we won't know until a ship floats among it, and divers and swimmers retrieve it for examination.
people should keep something in mind. every years, or so i am told, thousands of shipping containers, and their contents, are lost overboard from the container vessels that ply the oceans day & night, 24/7, every day of the year.
we just won't know what is in these debris fields until they are examined by human eyes. simple as that. end update.
update, 03.26.2014. perhaps something important? new satellite photos apparently have spotted something that may be likened to a "debris field" in the southern indian ocean, i.e., scattered remains of various sizes, that might very well be consistent with the pattern of an airplane crashing into the sea at some speed. we'll see, but, this seems to be the most convincing evidence yet. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/latest-news/new-debris-found-in-hunt-for-mh370/story-fn3dxiwe-1226865719098 . if this turns out to be the remains of mh370 it will provide some closure to the families of the victims, and some relief for those of us concerned about issues of terrorism. end update.
the general consensus is that mh370 headed "southwest" into the nether regions of the indian ocean before finally crashing into the seas, not too far from antarctica. if that is true, then the plane flew a long ways to oblivion. not a terribly reassuring thing for the families of those on board to have to bear.
i say "general consensus," because as of yet there is no proof. and, oddly enough, what "proof" there is leaves open a very real possibility that rather than heading southwesterly, the plane may very well have headed northwest, instead.
i doubt that you will hear this stated directly, but, it remains an open possibility until positive evidence of crashing into the indian ocean is verified.
i premise my remarks on this very interesting article in "the telegraph," entitled, "mh370: britain finds itself at centre of blame game over crucial delays," by gordon rayner and nick collins, 24 march 2014, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/malaysia/10720009/MH370-Britain-finds-itself-at-centre-of-blame-game-over-crucial-delays.html .
the article itself deals in the main with the difficulties the various nations involved in the search for mh370 experienced in sharing the various sources of intelligence and in coordinating that information to formulate a coherent search for the plane. compounding the problems of sharing satellite images were analysis by intelligence branches of service, government owned and operated satellites, and the information garnered from privately owned satellites. and, it was a prodigious undertaking to analyse all of this stuff, given the volume of information that had to be pieced together.
interesting, indeed.
but, not the information that struck me. what struck me was the information that was being sent from the plane, even though the systems designed to broadcast the planes location had been shut down.
the planes "transponders," giving for purposes of this discussion what we might label "gps" information, were shut down just after the last verbal communications from the pilots. notes the article:
ACARS, as we now know, can be turned off manually, via a switch on the ceiling of the cockpit or behind the throttles between the pilot and co-pilot. MH370’s ACARS system was switched off at 1.21am on March 8, two minutes after the pilots’ last verbal communication with the ground. It is this deliberate act that has convinced investigators the pilots were on some form of suicide mission.
the authors apparently join in the conclusion that the pilots were on a suicide mission. to comport with my doubts that the direction of the plane is known with absolute certainty, i would propose that instead of labeling the pilots's action as a "suicide mission," that we instead substitute the phrase, "deliberate mission," or that they sought to avoid being located as purposeful.
i say this because of a very key fact in the analysis set forth in the article, and that is, those signals being received from the plane even after ACARS was shut off. and, that is, the trackers and intelligence people cannot tell, from the signals they did receive, whether the plane was heading north or south. in other words, from the electronic signals being received, it is just as likely that the plane went north, as it may have headed south.
that is extraordinary. save for the "debris" spotted by satellite photography and x-ray, it is no less likely that the plane went north. note raynor & collins:
But Classic Aero also has a second terminal that operates independently of ACARS and cannot be switched off while the aircraft still has power.
Once every hour the system sends out a “ping” to satellites operated by Inmarsat. The pings play no part in ACARS, and merely serve to synchronise timing information and keep the connection to the satellite network alive.
Inmarsat, which owns 11 telecommunications satellites, supports the Global Maritime Distress and Safety System free of charge, as a public service, to help locate stricken ships and aircraft.
The day after MH370 disappeared, Inmarsat began calculating the aircraft’s movements based on the hourly pings, which carried on until 8.11am on March 8, meaning the 777 had flown for around six hours after it was last tracked by military radar off the west coast of Thailand.
The pings contain no information about location, heading or speed, meaning the only information Inmarsat had to go on was the wavelength of the pings when they reached its satellite orbiting 22,245 miles above the earth.
Variations in the wavelengths proved that the aircraft was still moving until at least 8.11am. But they did not provide any clues about direction, meaning Inmarsat could only predict that it flew either north or south along two curved “corridors”.
By adding in the aircraft’s expected speed, Inmarsat worked out that the 777 was likely to have come down somewhere at the end of the two arcs.
in short, unless and until some information or physical facts are established that put the plane into the indian ocean, it is just as likely based upon the electronic signals, and the same extrapolations on the speed of the airplane over its flight path, that the plane sits somewhere in kazakhstan, as it does in the indian ocean.
the satellite receiving the "pings" could detect only a shifting wavelength of the signals to tell that the plane was moving farther away from it, to the north or the south. it would seem that the only thing the satellite could tell as to the changing position of the airplane was as a result of analyzing the doppler effect upon the electronic signals.
these signals established a "path" or "corridor" of a certain dimension, that the searchers deemed likely to suggestion the location of the airplane. least you think that this might have allowed the searchers to look in small areas with certainty regarding the location of the airplane, it did not. the area of search suggested by this data still resulted in the task of looking over a vast area:
The firm’s calculations were based on inexact science, but they quickly predicted the Texas-sized area of the southern Indian Ocean where it is now accepted that the aircraft crashed.
texas is a pretty good sized area to be finding bits of wreckage of the size detected by the satellite photos and radar images involved in mh370. the whole thing remains just as the proverbial phrase of searching for a needle in a haystack.
and, the article leaves open the possibility that the plane was spirited northward, into the vast region of the various -stans, to the precise sort of high mountain plateaus and deserts that i postulated in my first articles.
to my mind, the chance of a well planned theft of the airplane by terrorists remains a distinct possibility, and will only be absolutely ruled out in my thinking by the discovery of artifacts and remnants of the plane and/or its contents, in and on the surface of the indian ocean.
now, to be fair about it, the authors of the report in "the telegraph" very strongly posit that the researchers and intelligence people have ruled out a flight path to the north, for various reasons technological in nature:
On March 19, Malaysia Airlines told SITA to use the AAIB as the main analyst of the Inmarsat data. The AAIB, part of the Department for Transport, passed on its own interpretation to Malaysia, but it was not until Sunday, March 23 that a further calculation by Inmarsat convinced the Malaysians of the aircraft’s whereabouts.
Analysts realised that their calculations had not taken into account the geostationary satellite’s very slight movements in relation to the earth. Once that was factored in, the northern corridor was ruled out completely. The calculations were sent off to be checked over the weekend before being passed to Malaysia on Sunday.
i am not so sure that i find this conclusion compelling. to my mind, the northern route remains possible.
it must be admitted, that a considerable portion of the calculated "norther route" occurs over the chinese borders, north of the himalayas, and in the southwest portion of china. for the chinese not to have detected the flight of the plane traveling over its land mass and through its air space seems unlikely. but, on the other hand, we really don't know the chinese intelligence and radar watching capability in these far reaches of their country. if the plane were flying low, it may have avoided detection.
it seems unlikely.
but, then again, there is a whole lot about all of this which remains "unlikely" at best, and many questions that are unresolved. and, left open until otherwise ruled out, the complicity of china in the disappearance of this airplane cannot be eliminated. this factor alone, could be one of the reasons why western analysts have "ruled out" the northern route: you go positing that, if your a government intel type, you better have some rocks, and you better have some proof. but, i bet the satellite photos of the -stans are still being gone over with a fine-toothed comb.
i admit it seems likely that mh370 went into the indian ocean, as a lot of good people have come to believe after prolonged, diligent and valiant effort to locate the plane, or some part of it. but, it is still possible that it went north. that scenario remains open, no matter how strained, until it is known with absolute certainty where the plane went down.
all quoted passages are taken from "the telegraph" article by gordon raynor and nick collins.
now do you see, you fucking idiots, why obama is such a god damned disaster?
is it beginning to dawn on you? or, would you rather just have putin annex the united states, or made the next president? the russian parliament just had an official flag ceremony, and they installed the flag of the crimea, and the flag of sevastopol, with the flags of the other constituent parts of the resurgent soviet union.
you lefties, you fucking idiots. you will see no connection in this, and in the presence of that limp dicked idiot in the white house. nor will you, until the polish flag goes up.
some of you may have noticed that russia has taken over the crimea, and is knocking on the door of ukraine with inducements to rejoin the soviet sphere, said inducement to include infantry and light armor.
why is this?
well, because mr. putin has made the quite astute assessment that you are all pussies, and that he can do anything he wants, up to and including raping babies in the streets, and you dickless wonders would not have it in you to do a thing about it.
i think mr. putin is spot on.
you have the finest military assets in the whole world, far better in aggregation that anything putin has at his disposal, and you are scared shitless to use it. between all of you, you could not muster a full set of balls.
orianna fallaci was just very right. mollusks.
so, accept that you will do nothing. hell, i expect all of eastern europe including the new nato members are at "risk." no biggie, just get in touch with your inner chickenshit selves, and let it go. see how good it feels. just like a paid mistress's touch.
o.k., the basic premise is established. you are powerless, not because you do not have the assets associated with power, but because you lack courage. or, put another way, you are cowards collectively and individually, and the biggest coward of all is the dick head obama.
so, the secret is, to take the moral high ground. how do you do that?
shriek like little girls. try it. just emote. let it all out. just scream at the top of your lungs. it makes no difference what you say, so just have yourselves a couple little hissy fits, and get the fuck out of putin's way.
how do you spell neville chamberlain, btw? just askin', it just came to me.
caption: i think that i will operate the safety with the trigger finger. to me, it is more natural than using the thumb. i suppose it is from having grown up w/ the remington 1100 shotgun.
off safe.
caption: push the roll pin in with the trigger finger, and the gun is ready to fire. just a very simply movement.
you can see that the roll pin has been "polished", by going over it with file, dremel drum and sand paper. but, for the time being, i've left it a very tight friction fit, because i haven't figured any other mechanical means, e.g., spring & detent, to secure it. if you've any ideas, let me know
the other day i told you about breakfast at a wee bit o' heather's restaurant, and the wisdom imparted to me by several people saying, why don't you use roll pins instead of riveting pins in place, followed by a chorus of assents.
well, i was convinced, as evidenced by live link below, to the first "the further adventures ... " of the plywood gun. i'll just give you another shot from that post, to show how nice the roll pins look in my little gun, and how sleek it will be when the trigger group gets installed. (you can go to another live link below, "the holes are trued ... " to see how much better a smooth sided receiver appears.)
caption: the roll pins installed in the trigger pin hole & the hammer pin hole. it makes for a very clean installation, and much nicer than what i had originally conceived. although, as noted, i do miss the frankenstein's monster appearance of all the bolts and nuts i had slung on the side of the receiver at first.
ah, progress!!
well, now that these issues are seemingly taken care of, it is full speed ahead on installation of the trigger group, and of the lug which will have the buffer tube/upper receiver extension screwed into it, at the rear end of the bottom receiver. guess how i am now going to secure it? for sure, not with bolts, but w/ 5/32's roll pins, two of them, from side to side.
nope, it is not going anywhere.
so, really, all i've got left to do is build an upper, most of the parts which i've had laying around for a couple years now, and designing a new cartridge for it. more on that, when the ncaa basketball tourney is over.
saturday morning, just back from breakfast at a wee bit o' heather's, and a visit to the hardware section of p.g.g., (which is the pendleton grain growers outlet in milton freewater to the rest of you.)
baan wanted me to bring in the plywood gun to have a look at it.
i proudly showed him some reinforcing pins i'd epoxied in the past couple days, and then allowed as how i was probably gonna do the same thing for the trigger and hammer pins, except that instead of seating them flush i'd simply whack em pretty good with a hole punch, and "rivet" them in place a bit.
ron said, why do that, you won't be able to get them out.
bob said, why not use roll pins. you can take those little bastards out, if you want, and they are not going anywhere, they fit tight.
caption: this is a picture of the roll pins in place, put in place by that most precise of instruments if wielded correctly, the picture framing hammer. as luck would have it, the 5/32's inch by 1.5 inches pins fit perfectly, just flush with the surface of the stainless steel clads on the side of the lower receiver.
look just above the wooden handle of the hammer i set the receiver on, and you'll see the end of an epoxied pin i set at the bottom of the magazine well to give some support to the wood there. look carefully, it is just 1/8" in diameter, and filed flush with a fine tooth bastard cut file. i was gonna do the same w/ the trigger and hammer pins, and "rivet" the ends just a bit, but, i think the roll pins will be a better solution for that.
well, ahem. i didn't think of roll pins, that's why not. but, the general consensus of the table was that i had chosen an inferior method to roll pins, and by the end of the discussion i had concluded that the table was right, and that i was wrong.
so, i stopped by the bolt rack at p.g.g., and such enough they had a drawer full of "tension pins." 5/32's of an inch by one and one-half inches. i bought a package, i brought them hole, and i fitted them to "the plywood gun," and i must say, that they just went in perfectly.
caption: the roll pins in place. the top/rear pin will be for the trigger, the bottom/front pin will be for the hammer. you are looking down into the trigger well, the interior sides and bottoms made of walnut plies.
the pins were "fitted" all right, ... , "fitted" by a small hammer. i will have to get a proper roll pin punch to remove them, but they will hammer out as easiy as the hammered in. i don't know why i didn't think of using roll pins a lot earlier than this, but, i didn't.
good thing i decided to eat breakfast at heather's.
so, i am not going to use the soft steel pins that i showed you earlier, that were threaded on the ends and held in place with a nut and set nut. and, i like the idea so well, that i am going back to p.g.g. to see if they have any 3/8's inch roll pins, and i will figure a way to used one of them for a safety pin, instead of a 3/8's inch cap screw or bolt.
it does make for a slicker appearing receiver. i have to admit, however, that i am gonna miss the frankenstein appearance that all the bolts and nuts and cap screws gave things. oh, well. something lost, something gained.
caption: off to the store to get a 3/8's inch roll pin for the safety lever. i'll solder a little lever on it, a little cap on the other end to hold it in. it's gonna be a lot nicer than a 3/8's inch bolt and nut, as i had thought of first.
i'll bring you up to date on my other revisions for the project, when the ncaa basketball tourney is over. my oregon ducks are still in the running, and that's more important right now. and, a live link at the bottom to leonard cohen, he of the song "suzanne." a lovely song. the link is because of the word "plywood" in this little piece. odd, the connections to things.
putin's adventure at the board game "risk" is simply the ebb and flow of russian history. russia wishes to acquire "the sea," wishes to become a "seafaring nation," but has never been able to, and likely never will be able to.
hers is the mentality of the steppes, and ever will be. (as for that matter, is the mentality of the poles and the germans tied to the land. not even german technological mastery could make her a naval power, which she aspired to ... naval warfare apparently requires a special psyche. for lack of a better way to put it.)
but, the world wants to see this as a super-power conflict, and wants to view this as a russian assertion of power, and a resurgence of her power during the cold war. and, putin is put center stage, his theatrical qualifications on the world stage compared to the impotence of the idiot obama.
well, very well, if you insist. and, obama and kerry are a piss poor match up against putin and the real politik line up of the krelim schemers and plotters on the geopolitical table. be that as it may, you really don't want to make too much of this. the washington post has itself worked up into a minor lather over the whole thing, but, they step forward as might be expected to offer an apology for obama that attempts to minimize his personal failings. (let us squarely face the matter, ... , obama is a puny little wimpy sissy compared to the manly qualities of political conquest as exemplified by putin. putin is a man, obama is a fucking wimp, is about the best way to put it.) but, i digress. look was the post says about it: no "biggee" says the post.
in a military confrontation between the united states and the soviet-union-remnant contemporary russia over the ukraine, the russians get their asses kicked.
it has to do with the projection and application of power. the simple irreducible fact of the matter is, the united states can project power into the region through its naval (and u.s. marine corp) assets in the mediterranean sea, and via the suez canal and the indian ocean, in ways the russians can only dream about.
they can only dream to match it, because they cannot even approach matching it at this point. (don't forget, they ran out of fuel and munitions for their tanks when they invaded georgia. couldn't even put matching uniforms on their troops. had no fuel for their planes.)
hells bells, as pointed out in the washington post article, the russians cannot even reach the crimea via highway and roads, in any way that allows them either robust offensive maneuver or stiff defense to american intervention. and, the russians simply do not have the ability to marshall air assets in the region capable of dealing with the air power that navy and marine fleet & amphibious carriers could muster.
i doubt that russia could even easily get the number of foot soldiers into the area that the u.s. can (in a twinkling), in order to mobilize a defense against possible american intervention, and that without a shooting war going. with a shooting war going, and u.s. air assets controlling russia's movement of troop assets toward the crimea, i have serious doubts that they could get troops there at all. period.
a couple of fleet air craft task forces, 3 or 4 marine amphibious landing groups, and air power from europe, afghanistan and iraq could easily deal with any russian force that they could muster in the next year or so. and, they could not easily approach the constrictions that geography presents to getting into the crimea, and i don't think that they could push their way through.
the u.s. military knows this. the russians know this, most certainly the military, and most certainly putin. i know this, and with any thought on your own, and a little research, and some study and reflection upon the simple realities that maps bring, and you should know it, too.
on his best day, removed from the hall of mirrors that is his psyche, obama might even understand what i am talking about. kerry? he is too fucking stupid. he's got his own absorbing issues, principally how he is going to look "diplomatic" & "prestigious" for his presidential run against hilary. the man is an ass.
does any of what i am saying make any difference?
no, it does not.
putin will scare obama under the table. john bolton's observation that sending kerry to deal with putin is much like sending a cup cake to deal with a kitchen knife. or, something to that effect.
the u.s. will back down. the mollusks in the euro union will back down. and, the country that used to be england will slink off into the corner. and, putin will have his way.
and, in the end, it will avail the russians nothing.
for, when it comes to the oceans of the world, the russians are to sailors what the midwestern farmer is to a surfing bum. huh, you say? (the guy at the "sig arms" chat room would be beside himself w/ frustration and fury at this point, assuming that he could get this far.)
well, i will explain.
many a midwestern farmer has spent his entire life outside, in the brutal winters, and in the scorching hot summers. with his long sleeved shirts rolled down and buttoned, and with his shirt button at the top button under his chin. and, with his sturdy sun blocking hat pulled down over his ears.
his face is seamy and leathery, and his hands are brutally burnt and sun spotted, and worn like old leather gloves never once oiled.
and, when they undress him to make him ready for burial, in the old days on the kitchen table and now at the mortuary, they will find the rest of his body as white as the belly of a beached whale, and his skin as smooth, soft and tender as a baby's butt. all his life in the weather, and the only thing the weather has ever touched will be his face, his hands, and the tips of his ears, permanently covered with dead skin flaking from the perpetual sun burn.
this is the russian "sailor" on the high seas. his face and hands may be exposed to the salt air, but, the rest of his body is not the body of a sailor. his soul is not the soul of a sailor. his sould is not the soul of the man who is comfortable on the water.
and, as russia has proved conclusively for the past 7 or 800 years, control of the black sea does not make a world sea power, and is not sufficient a "coast line" to make a merchant marine, or to build and equip a global navy. the limiting factor has always been that without more, the russians cannot even push their way into the mediterranean from the black sea.
they call them "straits." they are little narrow places, with little narrow patches of water, controlled on either sides by land. to get by them, naval forces have to be able to control those straits, and make themselves invulnerable from air, land and sea attack while they travel through them, and while they spread into battle array once on the open water. and, for that matter, while they gather to approach them.
while the u.s. controls the mediterranean, this remains irreducible truth to the russians.
putin cannot change this fact.
and, not even obama's feminine groveling before putin's masculinity can alter this fact.
the cold hard facts are, that the most putin get out of this is a "black sea" fleet, and the fact is, that is nothing at all.
so, let the russians have the crimea. it means nothing. and, hitler was an idiot to waste the flower of his military upon his attempts in wwii to take it.
and, if you are all worked up about the russians becoming open water sailors pushing their way around the world's oceans, with the same bluster that they occupy the eastern steppes, don't worry about it very much.
better to spend your time wondering how a great nation like the united states fell so low that it could twice elect a sissy like barack obama president. it makes me cringe to type that.
update, 03.21.2013: wreckage off the coast of australia? australia announces satellite images of possible wreckage about 1,000 miles southwest of/from perth, australia in a very deep portion of the indian ocean. it may be up to 48 hours before confirmation or denial of the floating objects being part of mh370 is made.
in an odd sort of way, i hope it is the plane. that end, as bad as it would be, is better than having the plane running around loose in the hands of terrorists. end update.
just a week ago, it seemed a long time since i wrote a piece called "war and logic," which examined the impetus to war presented israel by iran's drive to a nuclear weapon. after the hijacking of the malaysian boeing 777er, it seems only yesterday, so fresh are the conclusions from my previous essay to me. and, so compelling the logic that dictates war.
please see, http://wintersoldier2008.typepad.com/summer_patriot_winter_sol/2008/05/war-and-logic.html .
while being previously interviewed by pamela geller, caroline glick said this:
caroline glick, interviewed at atasshrugs by pamela geller on may 28, 2008 forecast the outcome of this logic in a sort of offhand summation yet did not, unfortunately, expand upon the premises driving her conclusion. [link.] ms. glick said of the iranian nuclear weapons program and its goal to build a nuclear bomb, to the effect, “yeah, and when they test it, it will be on tel aviv.” this communicated, perhaps, a mere fatalistic resignation given the tenor of violence, vitriol and hatred directed at israel and spewed by arab regimes, led, of course, by iran and supported in chorus by the region over.
in an instant after reading that, i adopted ms. glick's conclusion. the article linked above, "war and logic," was an exploration of the compelling logic behind ms. glick's observations. the closer israel thinks iran to the bomb, the more pressure on israel to strike preemptively.
the observations of ms. glick pointed then, therefore, and they point now, to the tremendous pressures placed on israel to strike iran in self defense as the israeli conclusion that iran possesses nuclear capability become stronger. at some point, and we are very very near that point if israel concludes that iran has the malaysian jet, israel is compelled to strike in order to prevent being bombed by a nuclear device. the logic is absolutely compelling, and absolutely inescapable.
and, i would point out to you the observation of reader "david y" to the previous post, that the first test of the nuclear weapon in new mexico, so many years ago, was not of a weapon but, in essence, a very loud and bright science project. it is my memory that the u.s. had never tested the atom bomb in an airplane drop, before dropping "the fat boy" from the enola gay.
if iran has what it thinks is bomb that will go bang, it is placed in the position of having to first drop it on jerusalem or tel aviv, to see whether in fact it will go bang. or, as "david y" so succinctly pointed out, to fly it there in a large jet, and explode the whole contraption. sort of a flying version of the control tower used in the first u.s. explosion of a nuclear weapon.
i think we are in a very dangerous situation right now, in that israel has now been placed in the precise situation of iran having exploded a test weapon, if her intelligence and intelligence assessments lead her to believe that iran has, if not a weapon capable of being delivered by a missile, then a contraption, a "control tower" if you will, that is capable of being flown to israel in a captured boeing 777er.
if israel comes to that conclusion, she can do naught but strike iran the first blow, and try to take out her ability to load such a contraption on a captured plane, if she believes iran has the plane.
what else can she do? sit back and see her society, her nation, destroyed?
mark donohue was a gifted race car driver, and driving for roger penske won several trans am racing campaigns, driving chevrolet camaro's.
the race team were also notorious cheaters. and, the amazing thing about it, they did their cheating right out in plain sight, for the world to see, but not recognize.
the method of cheating was "acid dipping." that is, they took the steal body of the camaro, and dipped it in a strong acid solution to thin the metal and take weight from the car. they would use one car for "weigh in," and then race an identically painted car weighing some 250 lbs less to race, giving them what penske would later call the "unfair" advantage. this is all pretty well known, now. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Donohue
what in god's name has this to do w/ mh370?
in my own little way, i will tell you.--
i don't think that hijackers put the boeing 777 into the ocean, at least not on purpose.
i believe that it resides somewhere on land. but, i am absolutely perplexed about how one would go about hiding a plane the size of the boeing 777. it's kind of big, and distinctive looking. it would stand out like a sore thumb parked in the middle of the gobi, as would a hangar big enough to house it. and, this particular plane is not something you could just drive up unnoticed at a major international airport.
or, would it?
i thought of penske, and donohue and the twin camaro's, one of normal weight, one "acid dipped" and 250 lbs. lighter, and the fact that penske flaunted his cheating by doing it right out in broad daylight.
if you can not hide a stolen boeing 777 in an isolated and obscure place where it would stand out like a sore thumb, is there some way that you could hide it in plain view, by simply disguising it as just another boeing 777, and putting it openly where you might expect the other plane to be.
there have been nearly 1200 boeing 777's, of one type of another, built and delivered since the plane begain production. there are another 400 to 450 of them on order. some are people haulers, some are freight haulers.
what if you took the purloined 777, and simply painted it to be identical to another 777 of its type. and, hid it in plain view. parked right in plain sight, say at a facility where it is to be for a while for scheduled maintenance.
this would not be easy. it might even be impossible to do. and, it would require the connivance most likely of a participating nation state, and the authorities of a major airport. it would also require the quite improbable silence of many persons participating in the scheme to steal and then hide the plane.
but, consider the following scenario.--
the air craft heads westerly, but past sri lanka, it heads northwest to tehran, iran. let's call total flight time about 9 to 9 1/2 hours. i use tehran as a destination inside of iran, because i do not know of any other air ports of sufficient size in iran to handle a boeing 777.
it lands. into a maintenance shop. it is painted. the bodies of the deceased passengers are removed from the plane. it is reconfigured. whatever has to be done to make it identical to another "legal" 777 is done, including conforming the electronics. (if this can be done, and i am assuming that it can.)
and, then, it is parked on the tarmac, scheduled for maintenance. right out in the open. perhaps even identified.
all of this, would of course, involve the cooperation of the iranian government, and the ruling council of mullahs and ayatollahs and grand poobah's of all sorts. it would have to have been scripted and choreographed far in advance of the actual operation.
fantastical? well, yes. speculative? most certainly. implausible? arguably.
impossible? not hardly.
consider the likely use of such an airplane in the hands of international terror, if you will. it most certainly would be intended for another attack on new york city, or more likely jerusalem or tel aviv.
consider the iranian & muslim hatred for israel. consider the ideal delivery system such an airplane would make for a nuclear weapon over israel. and, finally, consider how such a delivery system might be a fall back position for the mullahs, in case israel takes out the iranian missile systems before the iranians can figure out how to sufficient harden enough launch sights for their missiles.
if you will tolerate the continuation of the metaphor, consider the advantages to a rogue state like iran having "an acid dipped" boeing 777 at its disposal, to stand in the stead of a legitimately owned, operated, and marked and identified boeing 777.
fantastical. speculative. implausible. even far fetched. yes, concededly.
impossible? think about it. a rogue state that has defied international sanction and opprobrium to build a nuclear weapon. a rogue state that contemplates its own destruction in retaliation for destroying israel as a state. a rogue statue with the stated purpose of driving the jews into the sea.
do you think such a state would let the lives of 239 people stand in the way of its objectives? it did not mind sacrificing the lives of tens of thousands of its youth in idiotic wars with iraq. why, then, would it let the sacrifice of 239 strangers stand in its way?
